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Song of the Day #1,539: ‘Lovable’ – Elvis Costello

I’ve been simultaneously dreading and eagerly anticipating the chance to discuss Elvis Costello as part of the genome project.

Costello is basically a genome all to himself. It’s hard to think of a genre he hasn’t at least dabbled in, a musical inspiration he hasn’t explored on record.

Chamber music fans can claim him thanks to his work with the Brodsky Quartet. He’s a hero to the adult contemporary set thanks to his collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Sofie Van Otter, not to mention his marriage to Diana Krall.

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Song of the Day #1,538: ‘My Love Has Gone’ – Josh Rouse

Josh Rouse is a great example of a genome artist. He didn’t open my eyes to something new or expand my musical horizons. He just landed right in the sweet spot of my established preferences.

He’s a little bit ‘Pure Pop,’ a little bit ‘Folk Rock Derivative,’ with a dash of ‘Melancholy’ for flavor. He’s Paul Simon (both pre- and post-Graceland) crossed with a more upbeat Elliott Smith and a less glam The Smiths.

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Song of the Day #1,537: ‘Not a Second Time’ – The Beatles

Yesterday I looked at how Bob Dylan shaped my musical tastes for decades. Today I’m paying tribute to the other important formative band of my adolescence — The Beatles.

I got into The Beatles a year or two after I discovered Dylan, when I was around 17. I spent a ridiculous amount of time that summer typing out the lyrics to all of the band’s songs on an electric typewriter (the sort of story I can tell my kids to explain how unplugged we were “back in the day”).

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Song of the Day #1,536: ‘One Too Many Mornings’ – Bob Dylan

Arriving at an artist like Bob Dylan during this musical genome project, I find the script has flipped.

It suddenly doesn’t make much sense to talk about my appreciation for Dylan’s music in terms of how he fits into my five categories. Rather, it becomes pretty clear that Bob Dylan’s music is likely the reason I’m drawn to those categories in the first place.

Bob Dylan is without question the most important musical influence of my life. I discovered him in my mid-teens, when the reptilian centers of my brain were still evolving, when I was quickly becoming the person I would forever be.

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Song of the Day #1,535: ‘Valentine’ – Fiona Apple

I’m approaching all of the artists in this musical genome series from the perspective of the categories I’ve defined, so in those terms it’s pretty clear that I’m a huge Fiona Apple fan because she’s a) a ‘Piano (Wo)man’ and b) ‘Melancholy.’

But if you were to ask me why I love Apple’s work apart from the context of this project, I wouldn’t mention either of those things. I would say I’m a Fiona Apple fan because of her voice, and because of the passion she pours into every lyric and melody she writes, every word and note she performs.

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