Of all the songs I’m writing about over the next couple of weeks, this throwaway pop hit by Hootie & The Blowfish is the one that I most felt was written with me in mind.
In 1994, I was a couple of years into my relationship with the woman who would become my wife, and this song became our unofficial anthem because it so eerily described us.
Often on YouTube, I’ll see comments on song clips that read something like “This song was written about my life!” or “This describes exactly how I feel about [fill in the blank].”
Plenty of people out there, it seems, see their own feelings and experiences in the lyrics of songs they love.
I almost never do.
I’ve featured only one David Bowie song on this blog, and that was nearly four years ago. There is definitely a Bowie-sized hole in my music collection.
I never got around to exploring Bowie’s discography the way I’ve dug back into, say, The Rolling Stones‘. He remains a mystery, floating just outside of my sphere of familiarity though I’m very much aware of how beloved he is by critics and fans alike.
When this song came up in the random rotation, I was certain I’d featured it before. But apart from a cover version by a hot chick on a ukulele, I have not.
‘Most of the Time’ is Exhibit A (or maybe Exhibit B, with ‘Man in the Long Black Coat’ as Exhibit A) of the wonders Danial Lanois worked for Bob Dylan on the 1989 album Oh Mercy.
I’ll finish off the week with another cover I didn’t know was a cover.
I certainly knew Sinead O’Connor’s smash ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was written by Prince (the number ‘2’ and the letter ‘U’ are kind of a giveaway). But I didn’t realize that it had been previously recorded by The Family, a band formed by His Purple Highness in 1985.
