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Song of the Day #123: ‘That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be’ – Carly Simon

carlysimonFirst, an aside. My god, this woman has a large mouth! Christopher Nolan should look her way if he needs to recast The Joker in the next Batman film.

Carly Simon is one of those artists who make me wonder about the fleeting nature of talent. She put out a series of albums in the early 70s that include some of the finest songs ever written. Her No Secrets is a flawless piece of work, featuring such classics as ‘The Carter Family,’ ‘You’re So Vain’ and ‘The Right Thing to Do.’ That was in 1972.

Since then, she has put out 25 more albums (including collections of covers). And with the exception of Coming Around Again (a very strong album that contained, among other things, a version of ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’ that my dad just loves) there isn’t a winner among them. And even Coming Around Again was 21 years and 13 albums ago.

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Song of the Day #122: ‘Hopes Too High’ – Tift Merritt

tiftliveOK, so this blog is in danger of turning into a Tift Merritt Appreciation Web site, fine. Believe me, there are far worse things it could be.

I couldn’t resist going back to the well where I found the first of these record store clips and highlighting another great performance by Merritt from the same show as the last one.

Of all the videos I’m posting this week, this Tift Merritt show is the one I most wish I’d attended. And no, smart alecks, it’s not because she’s one of my Celebrity Girlfriends. I mean, I wouldn’t want to see Jennifer Garner or Connie Britton trying something like this.

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Twilight

twilightI just read that Twilight made $35 million on its opening day alone, on its way to god knows how much for the opening weekend. Wow. This really is another Harry Potter, with a more narrowly focused audience (namely, girls aged 12 to 99).

This is as good a movie as could be made from Stephenie Meyer’s novel. The source material is weak as literature and thin in plot but strong on personality and heavy with the dreamy innocence of teenage romance. And that describes the movie as well.

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Song of the Day #121: ‘Sanssouci’ – Rufus Wainwright

rufusliveAmong the many things I adore about Rufus Wainwright is how unabashedly gay his lyrics are.

It seems the openly gay artists in my collection usually write in the third person or make clever use of pronouns. I’ve been scanning Indigo Girls lyrics for awhile now and I’ve yet to find a love song of theirs that couldn’t be written for a man.

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Song of the Day #120: ‘Columbus Ave.’ – Aimee Mann

aimeeliveHere we are at the end of November and Aimee Mann’s @#%&*! Smilers remains comfortably atop my Best 2008 Albums list, where it has sat since its release in June. Nothing has really come close to toppling it, either. It’s not only the best album she’s ever put out but one of the best albums I’ve heard by anybody in years.

I don’t think many in the business can write sad songs as well as she can, and even fewer can sing them as sweetly. And while she has a demonstrated capacity to rock out, it’s her recent focus on acoustic guitar, piano and bass that has pushed her music to a new level.

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