Today’s random SOTD is from The Weight of These Wings, Miranda Lambert’s splendid 2016 double album (which I recently named my favorite of the previous decade).
‘Keeper of the Flame’ is one of the album’s upbeat tracks, and one of the few that isn’t about going through or recovering from a breakup.
This song is about Lambert’s place in a long line of women in both country music and music industry generally.
Today’s random iTunes selection is a cut from Ron Sexsmith’s 1995 major-label debut, a self-titled collection of sweetly melodic soft rock songs.
The Canadian Sexsmith had never been to Lebanon, Tennessee, when he wrote this track. He was working as a delivery man and overheard a co-worker saying a package had come “all the way from Lebanon, Tennessee.” Liking the juxtaposition of the city and state name, he turned it into a song.
September of My Years is a 1966 concept album by Frank Sinatra, exploring the existential angst of middle age. Sinatra won one of his three Album of the Year Grammys for this record.
When I was a kid, hearing September of My Years along with so many other Sinatra classics, I always thought of this as an old man’s album. As in, the final thoughts of a man on his death bed, looking back on a long and eventful life.
Three Dylan songs in four days. The Random iTunes Fairy is really giving old Bobby a workout this month.
Here’s another of Dylan’s early classics, the title cut from his 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. This was Dylan’s first “rock” album, with only closer ‘Desolation Row’ recorded on acoustic instruments.
‘L.A. Arteest Cafe’ is the final song (not counting several hidden bonus tracks) on Stew’s 2003 album Something Deeper Than These Changes. It’s a quirky, playful tune about an ill-fated trip to Los Angeles.
After a trio of winning solo albums and another few with his project The Negro Problem, Stew kind of fell of the map, at least in terms of album releases. He focused on his theater work, and found success with Passing Strange, which hit Broadway in 2008 and was captured on film by Spike Lee a year later.
Meet Me In Montauk 