I’ve posted three Jack Johnson songs over the past 11 years. Two were from his 2001 debut album Brushfire Fairytales and the third was ‘Upside Down,’ the great song he wrote for the Curious George movie.
The last Brushfire Fairytales song appeared seven years ago and, like today’s song, showed up on a Random iTunes Weekend. This is the only album I own of his so I guess his odds aren’t great of popping up randomly.
Happy Birthday to my father, who turns 76 today! Last year I posted a Frank Sinatra video to honor my dad’s 75th birthday, so I have little confidence that this year’s Random Weekend selection will live up to that.
But let’s spin the wheel and see what the Random iTunes Fairy has in mind for my father.
OK… a cover of Elton John’s classic ‘Your Song’ by English pop singer Ellie Goulding. He could have done far worse.
The last — and only — time I featured a song from Arcade Fire’s 2007 album Neon Bible was on April Fool’s Day in 2013.
I had just spent three weeks writing a song-by-song dissection of the band’s celebrated 2010 album The Suburbs (a surprise Album of the Year winner at the Grammys) and my regular readers were not happy. So I mischievously suggested I was about to launch into another couple of weeks analyzing Neon Bible. Good one, me!
Here’s a beautiful song from Rufus Wainwright’s 2010 collecton All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, an album of piano ballads written in the months leading up to his mother’s death.
This very personal and classically-influenced album followed five baroque pop albums and hinted at Wainwright’s future direction. Though he did release another pop album, Out of the Game, in 2012, he then shifted his focus to recording and releasing an opera, 2015’s Prima Donna.
1970’s Tea For the Tillerman was the first of two back-to-back albums that made Cat Stevens a worldwide star. Its follow-up, Teaser and the Firecat, joined this album in going triple platinum in the U.S. while also charting in Europe and beyond.
Those are also the only two Cat Stevens albums I own, and for a minor fan, probably the only two you need.
Meet Me In Montauk 