by

Song of the Day #981: ‘The River in Reverse’ – Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint

Elvis Costello’s next two releases after The Delivery Man were Il Sogno, a symphonic ballet score, and a live recording of a piano jazz session first heard on a radio show. You have to love the man’s versatility.

I’m not featuring either of those albums this weekend because a) I don’t own them, and b) neither features much of Costello as a performer. So I’m skipping ahead to another unorthodox recording, a 2008 collaboration with New Orleans piano man Allen Toussaint called The River in Reverse.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #980: ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ – Bob Dylan

I started the week with Sea Change, Beck’s haunting breakup album, and I’m ending it with the greatest breakup album of all-time.

Released in 1975, Bob Dylan’s Blood On the Tracks is the high point of an unparalleled career (one I’ve explored exhaustively over nearly a year’s worth of Bob Dylan weekends).

On tracks such as ‘Tangled Up in Blue,’ ‘You’re a Big Girl Now,’ ‘If You See Her, Say Hello’ and ‘Idiot Wind,’ Dylan explored the disintegration of his marriage through raw poetry and aching performances. Even the lighter, more romantic, songs — ‘Shelter from the Storm’ and ‘Buckets of Rain’ — are run through with sadness.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #979: ‘Thirty One Today’ – Aimee Mann

I never expect a favorite artist’s most recent album to be her best. When I count somebody among my favorites, it’s because something he released years ago made a huge impact on me. Maybe a band put out a string of excellent work in the early 90s, enough to cement them as legends, but after their heyday they settle into groove of sustained quality that falls just short of that peak.

I don’t think Elvis Costello will release a new album that I rank higher than the two or three I consider his finest. I’m sure R.E.M.’s best work is behind them, even though I’m excited as hell about their newest release. It’s reasonable to accept that musicians hit a high point and then spend the rest of their careers trying but never quite approaching it again.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #978: ‘Crazy Love’ – Van Morrison

I have two albums on this list of favorites that represent the only music I own by the given artist. The first is Van Morrison’s Moondance. Can you guess the other one?

I’m not sure when I first discovered this album. I don’t recall it playing a major role in my childhood so it could well be that I didn’t hear it in its entirety until high school or college. I knew the title song prior to that, I’m sure, and I was familiar with ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ (which doesn’t appear on this album) but if I had to guess I’d say I picked it up during my late teens when I was on a quest to hear the classics.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #977: ‘Good Enough’ – Sarah McLachlan

1993’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy was Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan’s third album. Sitting on the line between the more ethereal, goth, vampire-novel sound of her first two releases and the radio-friendly Lilith Fair pop of its smash follow-up Surfacing, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is gorgeous and sad and the best example of its genre I’ve ever heard.

This is an album-album. Scanning some of the titles — ‘Wait,’ ‘Plenty,’ ‘Mary,’ ‘Elsewhere,’ ‘Circle’ — I’m hard pressed to call any of them to mind. But when I play the opening seconds of any of them, they flood into my headphones with total familiarity. I’m just not used to hearing them individually, or referring to them by title, because they’re all a part of the greater suite.

Continue reading →