Song of the Day #6,136: ‘Main Title’ – Toto

After the avant garde Eraserhead and the Oscar-nominated drama The Elephant Man, the next logical step for David Lynch was obviously… a space opera?

Lynch was offered the reins of The Return of the Jedi but instead opted to adapt Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune, a famously dense book that previous directors David Lean, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Ridley Scott had failed to get off the ground.

Lynch initially conceived of a story spanning two films but eventually delivered a rough cut of a single film running more than four hours. He planned to pare it down to three, but producer Dino De Laurentiis insisted on a final cut closer to two.

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Song of the Day #3,344: ‘Rosanna’ – Toto

Our next yacht rock staple comes from Toto’s classic 1982 album Toto IV. This record won multiple Grammys, including Album of the Year and Producer of the Year. Today’s SOTD, ‘Rosanna,’ won ‘Record of the Year’ as well.

The album’s other hit single, ‘Africa,’ is as well-known and well-loved as this one, but I’ve featured it on the blog before, so today is ‘Rosanna’s moment in the spotlight.

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Song of the Day #1,572: ‘Africa’ – Toto

It’s taken me a long time to realize that there is no shame in liking something you really have no good reason to like.

I guess you can call that embracing a guilty pleasure, but I don’t see it that way exactly. It’s more a matter of deciding once and for all that taste is subjective and if some cheesy soft-rock ballad works for you — against all logic — well, then it works for you. No need to second guess it.

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