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Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanAug 24, 2012

Spurred on by Dave Weigel's epic series on the history of progressive rock, for this week's Music Break we have Asia, with "Don't Cry." Although I'd contend that Asia wasn't really prog rock; instead, it was a supergroup made up of prog rock royalty (members came from Yes, ELP, and King Crimson) who then made what was basically pop-rock with just the slightest prog hints. In any case, I thought of going with "Heat of the Moment," but this video, with its Raiders of the Lost Ark theme that has absolutely nothing to do with the song, is just too hilariously awful to pass up. Throughout, lead singer John Wetton has an expression on his face that says, "How the hell did I let them talk me into this?"

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanAug 17, 2012

For today's music break, we're slowing down the pace a little. This is Peter Gabriel looking oh so young as he does "Here Comes the Flood." YouTube tells me this is from a 1979 Kate Bush Christmas special, which sounds like it must have been both wonderful and profoundly weird.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanAug 10, 2012

For today's Music Break, we're going down to New Orleans for the Neville Brothers, joined by John Hiatt, doing "Yellow Moon." Do you know something that I don't know?

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanJul 27, 2012

For today's edition of Gentle Yet Strangely Uplifting Songs About Truck Driving, we have Little Feat, led by the late Lowell George, with "Willin'." Extra points for any reader who has been to Tucumcari, Tehachapi, or Tonopah. No points for having been to Tuscon.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanJul 20, 2012

Today we're continuing with the '80s nostalgia, for no particular reason. So for this edition of Songs By Scottish Bands With Titles That Include the Band's Name, we have Big Country, with "In a Big Country." As they say in the song, "Ha!"

Woody, Harry, and Irving

Harold MeyersonJul 17, 2012
(Flickr / mathnerd)

 

This past weekend, American journalism commemorated the 100th birthday of one the nation’s greatest songwriters, Woody Guthrie. Many of the articles noted that Guthrie’s universally known national counter-anthem, “This Land is Your Land,” was written as a rebuttal of sorts to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America.” America had too much squalor, too much disparity of wealth, Guthrie believed, to be thought of as blessed, and his song includes a seldom-sung verse identifying “private property” as the culprit.

What’s far less known is that Guthrie was the second songwriter to have a critical take on “God Bless America.” The first, Harry Ruby, actually delayed its release for 20 years.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanJul 06, 2012

In honor of today's poor job numbers, we've got Janis Joplin, with "Mercedez Benz." For you kids out there, Joplin was a singer who was popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. She performed at a concert called "Woodstock," which was kind of a big deal. Ask your parents about it. This song was recorded three days before she died at age 27.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanJun 29, 2012

For today's edition of Slow, Mournful Songs About Superheroes, we have Crash Test Dummies with "Superman Song." And here's a bonus link to Quentin Tarantino's weird yet insightful monologue from "Kill Bill Vol. 2," in which David Carradine argues that "Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race." To be honest, I always found Superman to be the least interesting of superheroes. He's just too...super. But I like the song.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanJun 08, 2012

The Friday Music Break is coming a bit early in the day today, and the reason is that I got this in the old Twitter feed and wanted to pass it along before it spreads across the Internet. Astute readers may know that I'm a huge fan of Symphony of Science, which is one of those rare needles of awesomeness in the haystack of awful autotune videos. Well the creator of Symphony of Science, John Boswell, has worked his magic on Mr. Rogers for PBS, and the result should make your day. Enjoy:

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanJun 01, 2012

In the wake of today's exceedingly poor jobs report, I thought about giving you something melancholy for the Friday Music Break, and I was leaning toward folk guitar hero Richard Thompson's Beeswing, an achingly beautiful tale of love and loss. But then I decided to mix things up. So here's Thompson doing Britney Spears' "Oops I Did It Again." Seriously. The crowd, quite appropriately, starts out laughing and ends up cheering.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanMay 04, 2012

Since Tuesday was May Day, I thought I'd give you a little Billy Bragg, with "World Turned Upside Down" from 1985. It sounds like he's singing about Occupy Wall Street, but the song is actually about a seventeenth-century agrarian socialist movement in England, which I'm guessing wasn't embraced by the economic leaders of that day, either.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanApr 27, 2012

For today's edition of Gentle Flowing Tunes Layering Multiple Time Signatures, we have Poi Dog Pondering, with "Thanksgiving." Mmmm...

Levon Helm's Last Waltz

Where does rock and roll stand after the death of the great Band drummer?

Tom CarsonApr 23, 2012
(AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Except, possibly, to his onetime musical cohort Robbie Robertson—who may be glumly realizing that people will be unlikely to get this choked up when he passes—the outpouring of online love for ex-Band drummer Levon Helm, who died last Thursday after a 14-year battle with cancer, was no surprise. Even so, I'd have bet anything my own mourning would stay on the remote side. Live and learn. 

Calling myself only a very occasional fan of the Band would be an understatement. True, they were one of the first acts I saw live back in the Pleistocene era—with Aerosmith opening for them, in hindsight the night's most piquant joke. But they were never renowned for fireworks in concert, and their show was pretty dull.

Friday Music Break

Paul WaldmanApr 20, 2012

I realize I posted a couple of Levon Helm clips yesterday on the occasion of his passing, but for this week's Friday Music Break I have to give you one more song from The Last Waltz. Here's Van Morrison with The Band, doing "Caravan" in an outfit that in no way screams '70s. Turn on your electric light!

Levon Helm, 1940-2012

Paul WaldmanApr 19, 2012

When I was a junior in high school, somebody gave me a videotape of "The Last Waltz," Martin Scorsese's 1978 documentary about The Band. It was revelatory—not only hadn't I ever heard The Band before, it was the first time I heard many of the other artists who appeared in the film, like Van Morrison and the Staples Singers. It changed the way I looked at music forever. If you haven't seen it, you should. As soon as you can. Seriously.

Today, Levon Helm died at age 71. He was The Band's drummer and lead singer, a soulful musician and by all accounts a real nice guy. Here's a clip from "The Last Waltz" of Helm doing "Ophelia":

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