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The bit that you skip #236: Loretta Lynn – Portland Oregon
2004 was a year of unexpected comebacks. William Shatner and Ben Folds joined forces and created Has Been, a stupendous, funny, and heartbreaking effort by a man who had been ridiculed by an unfortunate performance of Rocket Man. Has Been was redemption for Captain Kirk and another hit for Ben Folds. Jack White, red hot…
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The bit that you skip #235: Don Henley – The Boys of Summer
My writing is cyclical. There are years where I can write daily, and quite a bit too. Other years, the well runs dry. Sometimes I go back and edit all the dross I create, others, I simply can’t muster enough courage to read what I write. Once I finished a second novel for a Nanowrimo,…
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The bit that you skip #234: Glenn Frey – You Belong to the City
When I was a kid and heard on TV shows about “nights out”, I always imagined something like the video for Glenn Frey’s You Belong to the City. Busy streets, marquees with incandescent bulbs following patterns, arcades, and stores ready to close and crawl back home, backs broken from working all day. So when I…
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The bit that you skip #233: Christopher Cross – Ride like the wind
For a brief period of time, Christopher Cross was as ubiquitous as Phil Collins was in the 80s. Specifically, the period between Sailing and All Right, with a quick shove by Arthur’s theme (best that you can do), feels like he had a Midas Touch. Revisiting those first two albums shows why: Cross has an…
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The bit that you skip #232: Blue Öyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
This is a song that feels eternal. Not because of the running time but because it feels it’s always been there, besides you, just like its subject matter. Inescapable and same for all but through different means. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper is a song of two audiences: the ones whose memory is attached to a…
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The bit that you skip #230: Kenny Rogers – The Gambler
I always correlate Kenny Rogers with family gatherings. As the youngest kid in my family, I was used to getting squished in the family car, whether precariously placed between my parents and keeping a yoga like position to avoid getting hit by the shift stick, sandwiched between my brothers on the back, or on the…
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The bit that you skip #229: Marc Cohn – Walking in Memphis
You might not believe it, but my first interaction with Cohn’s music wasn’t this bonafide classic, but the heart tugging Silver Thunderbird. That’s a song that hits harder once you reach that stage when you’ve lost your father. Ghost trains was the next track of his I heard. It was on a music channel available…
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The bit that you skip #228: Starsailor – Four to the floor
Ask most Britpop fans and they’ll say the scene died in ’97, with Oasis’ charliefest Be Here Now and Blur’s course-correcting selftitled. Some might even say Princess Di’s death marked the end of Cool Britannia and that took Britpop out as collateral damage. Whatever expiration date you assign to the scene, it’s clear that by…
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The bit that you skip #227: Pulp – This is hardcore
Not everything from Cool Britannia was charlie, pints of lager, WKDs, and dancing. Sometimes, the tale of the consequences of an all night bender is as important as the partying itself. When you’re Pulp, you focus more on that side, as their kitchen sink sensibilities have always been their major strength. From my perspective, it…
