Last year, my 40th birthday fell on a Random Weekend and I took advantage of the occasion to spin the wheel and dial up a song that would have special meaning for the day.
I wound up with Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nail’s ‘Hurt,’ a powerful and moving song sung by an old man near the end of his life.
It felt like an appropriately weighty selection, if a little morose.
After several weeks of predictable Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan selections, it’s nice to see another Random Weekend selection that actually feels random.
This is probably just the second time I’ve heard the opening track from Jude’s self-released 2004 album, Sarah. I downloaded the album from CDBaby.com (where it apparently holds the title of the site’s most downloaded album ever — a fact that says more about CDBaby.com than Sarah) but I was unimpressed after my initial listen.
I have a decidedly negative opinion of Madonna that has only worsened over the past decade or so as she’s picked up a British accent and added “pretentious ass” to her long line of image makeovers.
But I have to admit, she had a string of hits in the 80s and early 90s that still hold up to this day. Songs such as ‘Borderline,’ ‘Like a Prayer,’ ‘Open Your Heart’ and this one, ‘Papa Don’t Preach.’ This was back when Madonna was sexy without desperately trying to be sexy and, if you ask me, she’s still coasting today on the extraordinary success she had in those years.
