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Song of the Day #934: ‘Tomorrow Gone’ – Stew

In 2003, Stew released his third “solo” album, Something Deeper Than These Changes. This was the album that introduced me to him, just in time for him to not release another studio record for the next eight years. Fortunately I had the back catalog I’ve just finished exploring to occupy my time.

After this album, Stew turned his attention to writing and performing in an off-Broadway show titled Passing Strange, which received excellent reviews and was eventually filmed by Spike Lee. The soundtrack to the play culls from several of his previous albums and includes new material as well.

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Song of the Day #933: ‘All the Rage’ – Elvis Costello

During the course of these Costello Weekends, I’ve made a lot of references to the inscrutability of Elvis Costello’s lyrics. Often I’ll love a song of his despite having no idea what it means.

I do consider Costello a master lyricist despite that difficulty, usually because of a masterpiece of a line that he’ll drop into a song here or there, some play on words that works on three different levels. He might be a bit too cerebral for his own good sometimes, but you can’t deny that the man has tamed his mother tongue.

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Song of the Day #932: ‘Clown Strike’ – Elvis Costello

In 1994, a year after The Juliet Letters, Elvis Costello released his most rocking album since 1986’s Blood & Chocolate. Not coincidentally, it was also his first album since Blood & Chocolate recorded with The Attractions.

That album, Brutal Youth, is the best thing Costello recorded in the 90s, a decade that saw him jumping all over the map artistically. I rank Brutal Youth in the second tier of great Costello albums, below my holy trinity but in the mix with great records such as Trust and This Year’s Model.

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Song of the Day #931: ‘Lime Green Sweater’ – The Negro Problem

In 2002, following two straight releases under his own name, Stew put out his third Negro Problem album, titled Welcome Black. Like Joys and Concerns, Welcome Black is an avant garde mashup of pop, R&B and funk, filtered through Stew’s cerebral worldview.

The album’s closing song (not including hidden tracks) is a great example of Stew’s talent for absurdist comic tales (the title song of The Naked Dutch Painter is another). In ‘Bermuda Love Triangle (The Waterbed),’ a woman answers a personal ad from a couple seeking a threesome and gets to the hotel to discover her ex-boyfriend and best friend. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

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Song of the Day #930: ‘North Bronx French Marie’ – Stew

Two years after Guest Host, Stew released his second album under his own name, 2002’s The Naked Dutch Painter and Other Songs. This was his second straight album to top Entertainment Weekly‘s year-end best-of list, and again, I don’t know how I missed that. It would be another year-plus before I discovered him.

Naked Dutch Painter was mostly recorded live, though a few songs have studio parts blended in. It’s not a concert album but rather an album he chose to record in front of an audience. You don’t hear the crowd except for some polite applause at the end of some songs.

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