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Lucinda Williams – Blessed

Befriending Lucinda Williams might be hazardous to your health. Her albums are littered with songs about loved ones lost to suicide and disease. She mourns beautifully.

Williams’ newest release, Blessed, features two such tracks. The first is the wistful, poetic ‘Copenhagen,’ describing the moment she learned, while traveling abroad, about her manager’s sudden death. The second is ‘Seeing Black,’ an angry response to the suicide of her friend Vic Chesnutt.

Elsewhere, in ‘Soldier’s Song,’ she contrasts the experiences of an enlisted man in a war zone with that of his wife and child back home. It doesn’t end well for the soldier.

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Song of the Day #1,022: ‘Don’t Give Up’ – Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush

With all of the great songs on Peter Gabriel’s So (‘Sledgehammer,’ ‘Red Rain,’ ‘In Your Eyes,’ ‘Mercy Street‘… wow!), it’s easy to forget this inspirational track.

Teaming up with Kate Bush, better known for her avant garde songwriting than this sort of lush balladry, Gabriel recorded a grand ode to perseverance, a precursor to ‘Everybody Hurts.’

Though ‘Don’t Give Up’ isn’t a love song in the traditional sense, I find it achingly romantic. That’s due in large part to the interplay of Gabriel’s and Bush’s vocals, not to mention the video of them hugging throughout the performance (must have been an interesting shoot).

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Song of the Day #1,021: ‘Whiskey Lullaby’ – Brad Paisley & Alison Krauss

Brad Paisley can do so many things so well.

He’s perhaps the best songwriter around at composing straight-forward love songs (quick, name a more effective recent love song than ‘Then’ or ‘She’s Everything’). He has a great sense of humor that shines through in his albums as well as onstage. He’s a peerless guitar player who surrounds himself with excellent session players to record albums that rock and swing like crazy.

But even given all that, Paisley can still surprise from time to time, and today’s SOTD is a fine example.

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Song of the Day #1,020: ‘Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John’ – Belle & Sebastian and Norah Jones

Belle & Sebastian sing duets as a matter of course, with three or four of their seven members sharing vocals on most of their albums. Lead singer Stuart Murdoch often trades lines with Sarah Martin or (previously) Isobel Campbell as well as Stevie Jackson.

But on a couple of occasions, Murdoch has teamed up with somebody outside the band. One was the EP track ‘Lazy Line Painter Jane,’ on which Scottish singer Monica Queen laid down a spirited vocal track that threatened to blow Murdoch’s thin whisper right off the tape.

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Song of the Day #1,019: ‘If I Never See Your Face Again’ – Maroon 5 & Rihanna

I started Duet Week with two gentlemen of advanced age sharing the mic, but the rest of the week will feature pairings between men and women. And the first of those is this very steamy match-up between Rihanna and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine.

I recently read a Rolling Stone interview with Rihanna in which the writer gushed about how impossibly gorgeous she is in person — unlike many celebrities who turn out to be a product of PhotoShop and packaging, Rihanna’s presence is amplified in the flesh. Where do you sign up for that guy’s job?

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