I don’t really have much to say about today’s Random Weekend selection except that a) this is one of the last tracks I would choose to highlight from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack if it were up to me; and b) John Travolta was such a sexy and dynamic presence back in the day and boy has he turned into a freakshow over the past several years.
Category Archives: random weekends
Song of the Day #1,703: ‘Either Way’ – Wilco
I lost track of Wilco after 2002’s excellent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That album, with its eerily prescient 9/11 echoes (it was recorded before September 11, but released afterward), is compelling and emotional in ways I usually associate more with film than music.
Its follow-up, 2004’s A Ghost is Born, had all of the sonic experimentation but none of the soul. It sounded like the band trying to repeat itself.
Song of the Day #1,702: ‘Day O’ – Raffi
When I first started the Random Weekend series over a year ago (on January 21, 2012, to be exact), I had one fear: What if I wound up with a bunch of Raffi songs?
I have nothing against Raffi, whose live album got a fair amount of attention from my daughters in their early childhood. He and fellow child entertainer Laurie Berkner are admirable talents. But I didn’t want the blog to turn into an episode of Sprout every weekend.
Song of the Day #1,696: ‘Questions For the Angels’ – Paul Simon
Today’s random SOTD comes from Paul Simon’s wonderful 2011 album So Beautiful Or So What.
‘Questions For the Angels’ is the quietest and probably the least ambitious song on the album, and it’s a safe bet that it’s the first song to feature both Jay-Z and a crying zebra.
Actually, Kanye West probably got there first.
Song of the Day #1,695: ‘Action Hero’ – Fountains of Wayne
One of the things I love about Fountains of Wayne is their eclectic subject matter.
It seems 85% of songs I hear these days are about finding love or losing love. Worthy topics, no doubt, and topics that have resonated since a caveman wrote the first song and will resonate when we’re writing songs in space.
But I like character sketch songs just as much, the kind Ben Folds, Randy Newman and, yes, Fountains of Wayne write so well.
Meet Me In Montauk 