So, yesterday it was Counting Crows, why not follow up with Sheryl Crow, especially because this is one of those rare songs that got a lot of airplay through the early 2000’s and I just never got tired of it. She’s on tour, by the way, and she’ll be in Harrisburg, just an hour to my south, in October, for those of you in Pennsylvania.
1996 was the year, and this was the second single from her self-titled first album. The first single was “If It Makes You Happy.” My youngest, Micah, was born in ’96 and just recently celebrated his birthday, so while he’s pondering over a birthday request, we’ll at least give him this one in his honor. There were lots of car rides over winding roads, up hills and mountains in his growing up years, riding between his mom’s place and his dad’s, so I won’t be surprised if this is in the soundtrack of his childhood.
Pardon me, as one of my nerdy hobbies becomes today’s story.
I took a five-day hiatus from JSOD as part of a couple days vacation to prevent burnout. After a few weeks of no weekends (or only one-day weekends), I badly needed some me time. That included a four-day weekend, in which World Migratory Bird Day was sandwiched between two days of some time with my sons and my hubby, but mostly of rest and down time. God, I’m glad I did that.
And I’m extremely happy that I did the birding big day on Saturday. I was up before 5:00 am and birded all over the county with my buddy Bryce until almost 6:00 pm. Nearby county birding groups, as part of Cornel Lab’s Global Big Day, were having a bit of a friendly competition to see which county teams counted the most birds on May 11.
We started with two Snyder County teams that I knew of, but anyone entering their data on eBird counted toward the total, and it turned out a good number of birders were out in the County that day. Thanks to everyone, we officially counted a total of 135 species in Snyder County in one day. Out of the sixty seven counties in Pennsylvania, we landed solidly in the top ten at number eight! So much fun. Including some surprises like this adult and baby Barred Owl (in two different places):
Now, on a big day, every species counts, not just rarities like the owls or the wood warblers migrating through, but the robins in your yard, the cardinals, grackles, and starlings as well. Did you know there are two species of crows in Pennsylvania? Fish Crow and American Crow. Most of us can only tell the difference when we hear them call. The fish crow is more nasal in its sound, and often can be heard telling you no with a sort of two note “uh uh.”
So, to bring a long story to a quick close and a bad punch line, you could say that Saturday, I wasn’t here because I was literally out counting crows.
And so, of course, today’s song of the day has to be by them. Now, I know that Mr. Jones was out birding on Saturday. Maybe not in Snyder County, but statistically speaking, a small percentage of the nearly 60,000 people birding on Global Big Day just had to be named Jones. Right?
When I was waiting tables at a (slightly upscale) restaurant back in 2013, I had a shift supervisor who was older and super classy in her appearance at all times. She made sure the dining rooms were decorated exquisitely, and she never showed a wrinkle on her clothing. You could cut yourself on the creases of her pant legs. Her name was Candy, and she could be sweet, but she could also be tough as nails. Lucky for me, I was one of her favorites.
You may recall, dear reader and listener of JSOD, that I said I used to speak song lyrics to my coworkers. I also was known for singing and maybe slightly changing the lyrics when it suited me, mostly in an attempt to make my fellow servers laugh, but also to keep me smiling during a stressful lunch hour. When Barry Manilow was singing over the restaurant speakers, I’d be singing my own version of the song. “Ready to Take a Chance Again” became “Ready to change my pants again,” and so on.
I also enjoyed sort of “voguing” to this song, even in front of Candy herself:
Sweet like candy Yeah I can be Fake your beauty Smiling sweetly Yours completely Fake your beauty Baby, baby bubblegum Tell me are we havin’ fun
And with that image in your head, I give you, for your dancing and dining pleasure, Norwegian born pop star Bertine Zetlitz and her fabulous song from her 2004 album, Rollerskating: “Fake Your Beauty.” If it’s new to you, you are very welcome. As a two-for-Tuesday bonus, I’m adding an even more sarcastic song called “Apples and Diamonds” from 1998, a single from the album Morbid Latenight Show. Had you asked her to run away with you back then, she might have said no because she had:
. . . apples and diamonds To last me a year So frankly I’m quite comfortable here But if you whisper my name and promise you won’t cling Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad With a fling.
Sometimes you just fall in love with a song and you can’t explain why. Something about the lyrics and the music meld together in a perfect union. That’s how I feel about today’s song. I don’t even know where I first came across this, so if you shared it with me, thank you. All I Know is that it was written in my notes for Jeff’s Song of the Day.
My sister Brenda said she spoke to Jeff this weekend and had a wonderful conversation. Despite his failing memories, his physical health is good. This was the longest conversation she’d had with him in a while. I know what she means. Usually, when he’d done with you on a phone call, he just said, “Okay, bye,” or sometimes he just hangs up or hands the phone back to one of his nurses. She’d asked if he had a message for anyone and he said, “Yeah, tell Dad that I love him.”
I hadn’t even planned on this, but maybe the song title “Lost in the Light” is appropriate after all. The nurses have described Jeff’s usual state of mind to me as “happily confused.” So, we can be grateful for the days he wants to have a long conversation. Grateful that he’s eating and gained healthy weight. And if he’s feeling a bit lost, perhaps he’s lost in the light. At least he knows he’s loved and cared for.
Bahamas is the band name for Afie Jurvanen, singer, guitarist and songwriter. His music is classified as folk, but there’s definitely some soul to this tune, some gospel, and the harmonies with the backup singers are amazing.
Okay, maybe not literally, but we’re setting up a 19-hole, indoor golf course in the library, so our lips, if not sealed, are at least attached to bodies that are way too busy to say much here today.
This song from 1981 is absolutely impossible for me to hear without seeing scenes from this music video in my head. The two are inseparable for me.
And the lyrics are a damn sight more clever than you might remember. Why are their lips sealed? According to the Go-Go’s, silence is not apathy or evasion. Oh no, silence is a weapon:
There’s a weapon That we must use In our defense Silence
When you look at them Look right through them That’s when they’ll disappear That’s when we’ll be feared
It doesn’t matter what they say In the jealous games people play Hey, hey, hey Our lips are sealed
Man, that’s a weapon that I wish we used more often these days.
In August of 1995, Shannon Hoon, lead singer of Blind Melon, died of a drug overdose. Just one month previously, his wife had given birth to a baby girl. The band then played and produced work in his memory and to support his family, but ultimately disbanded in 1999, reuniting in 2006 with new lead singer Travis Warren.
Bummer of a way to start a song of the day post, I know. Sorry about that. But sometimes you gotta get the bad stuff out first, so you can look at the beauty of what’s there.
The band has been nominated for several Grammys and has had a deep influence on indie music since. Heather DeLoach, the girl who played the bespectacled, tap-dancing bee in the official video for the song “No Rain” has grown up to act in several other projects and become a mother of three. Blind Melon is still playing gigs and has released new music as recently as 2021.
As much as I like the song, it’s hard for me to imagine it without this video. I think maybe we can all relate to this girl sometimes. And thankfully, it turns out to be a beautiful little story.
I’ve had relationships, well at least one relationship in which I had to convince myself that the reason we “worked” so well together was that we were opposites, and we balanced each other out. I think that’s only true as far as it goes. At some point you have to have similar values, something that you solidly connect on. In the end, that relationship, ultimately ended because we were just too different.
I worked with a guy who had done some marriage counselling in his time and he had a phrase he often used: Opposites attract; and then they attack. I don’t know if that’s the case for Paula Abdul and her cool cat in this video from 1988. It hit number one in Canada, the United States, and Australia and was nominated for a Grammy.
Hey! It’s Wednesday and we are all super busy here getting ready for mini-golf at the library this weekend. I need some pep in my step to keep me going, especially since some moments here it’s like “two steps forward” and “two steps back.” Some days it takes some precises choreography to check all the boxes.
We’re focusing on, not just the music this week, but particularly the videos, videos that really make the song an experience well beyond the music alone. And this video, besides reminding us that Paula could really dance, is such a fun memory from the 80’s. Enjoy!
When I waited tables nearly a decade ago, I used to have fun toying with my fellow servers by speaking out song lyrics conversationally. The fun part was the look of confusion on their faces before they realized what I just said was from a song. Sometimes it backfired, usually when the person was too young to know the lyrics. But it was also fun when they were nearer my age and sharp and played along.
Me, in a grumpy voice: “What’s love got to do with it!”
Bartender Mary, not missing a beat: “What’s love but a second hand emotion?”
As I came out of the kitchen once with a tray of hot appetizers, another server passed in front of me from the wait station with drinks for her table. From behind her I said, “You didn’t have to cut me off,” which turned her bright smile into concern as she glanced back at me. My voice became sadder as I said, “You didn’t have to stoop so low.” Utter confusion on her face at that point. Then I outright faked crying, “You treat me like a stranger, and it feels so rough.” There, she got it and burst out laughing when she recognized I was quoting Gotye’s “Somebody that I Used to Know.”
If you got a kick out of yesterday’s video, you may like the rest of this week. I swear, I don’t usually go looking for themes, but it hit me that usually we focus on the music here, but it would be fun to highlight some of my very favorite music videos in which watching adds significantly to the experience of the song.
You’ve likely seen the original video from Gotye that came out in 2011 and there’s also a really cool live recording featuring Kimbra. You probably know by now that I just love live versions. But today’s is a video released by a dance team just two months ago that’s been going viral. It’s an experience just watching how they interpret the song in choreography by Sergio Reis.
Here’s CDK Company’s take on “Somebody that I Used to Know.”
Mondays are hard. Even if, like me, you went into work for a few hours yesterday, it’s still not as bad as Monday. Even if, like me, your two Sunday hours consisted of lugging into a hallway storage area an entire deconstructed 19-hole mini-golf course, which is bigger than it the word “mini” makes that sound, today is still the official Monday. And there is so much to do, so many moving parts to the week ahead.
That brings us to today’s song and video from 2014. While the lyrics to OK Go’s “I Won’t Let You Down” are not exactly many or complex, the tune is peppy and fun, and the video itself is frankly astonishing. Recorded in Japan before it was illegal to fly a drone half a mile into the sky, this video has a lot going on. The whole thing took something like 50 or 60 takes to record it all in one cut, so says The Independent.
The band is known for their complex video releases and has been in the public eye since their appearance on the MTV Music Awards in 2006. They are also known for dropping their label and going independent (with corporate sponsors) and for a recent battle with Post, the company that makes cereal. Yup, seriously.
Take five minutes of your Monday to get this song in your head. Watch the video so you can be wowed, and smile. The documentary video about the making of the video is fun to watch too, so I’ll add that for you to watch if you have time later. We’ll get to Tuesday soon enough. Hang in there!
Maybe all you need is someone to trust Maybe all you need is someone
Well, look at that, will ya? You made it to Friday. Now, please accept my sincerest apologies if you happen to work in hospitality or service of some form that means you have to work the weekend.
The origins of this song are a bit cloudy, but the lyrics were written by Ted Koehler and music by pianist Harold Arlen. It apparently started as a vamp to get a dance rehearsal group tapping their feet, when Arlen asked Koehler if they could team up to flesh out a song with it. That was in 1929 and when the first show it was in floundered, it was then recorded by Nat Shilkret & the Victor Orchestra which took it to #6 on the charts in 1930.
Judy Garland’s version revived the song in her last film for MGM after being fired from two previous films as a result of her struggles with addiction. At first I doubted the claim from some sources that the term “Get Happy” was a popular phrase in black churches of the time and described a sort of religious ecstasy when church goers were moved upon by the holy spirit. It just seemed like one of those too-perfect explanations that were made up after the fact, but after more digging, I am increasingly convinced. This song from 1930 is a great example:
You could spend your Christmas Just like it was nobody’s business. You could pray and sing And get mighty happy. But how Can a man pray and sing And get happy When he’s broke and hungry?
Now when this song was performed by Garland, it was presented as irony. This approach was not unfamiliar to Garland fans who have watched shows like Meet Me in St. Louis, in which the popular Christmas tune “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” first appeared. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that the scene for that song was heartbreaking, and not at all the happily nostalgic thing it seems to have evolved into.
Judy’s character in the movie Summer Stock is out to save her farm, and somehow dancing in her barn with Gene Kelly’s character is just the ticket. It’s remembered as one of Garland’s all time best performances, despite her personal troubles during the filming of most of the show.
Jeff's Song of the Day 