He is best remembered for helping to implement a style that he calls ‘horizontal music with a vertical connection’: songs that may be informed by a spiritual orientation but are not overtly about spiritual things.– Kenny Marks: Remembering the CCM…
Blog Archives
Be My Baby (1963) – The Ronettes
Be My Baby was written by Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, and Ellie Greenwich at Spector’s office in Los Angeles. Early in 1963, Spector auditioned a vocal group trio – composed of sisters Veronica (also known as “Ronnie“) and Estelle Bennett with their cousin Nedra Talley – who were performing under…
Santa Fé (1967) – Bob Dylan
Santa Fé is a playful, improvisational and rollicking song recorded by Bob Dylan and the Band in 1967 in the summer or fall of 1967 in West Saugerties, New York (at a home of some of the Band members, known as Big Pink…
Mayonaise (1993) – Smashing Pumpkins
In the advent of alternative rock’s mainstream breakthrough, Mayonaise was released on the Smashing Pumpkins‘ second studio album Siamese Dream (image inset) in 1993. There are a whole host of other pioneering grunge / alt-rock groups who have featured here…
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) – Scott McKenzie
San Francisco is the quintessential zeitgeist song for the Summer of Love movement in the 1960’s. It is so palpable upon listen you can almost smell the ‘flowers in their hair’. The song emerged in 1967, written by John Phillips…
5 Year Anniversary Edition of the Music Library Project
On July 25th, 2019 – 5 years ago to this day, I began my initiative called the Music Library Project. I wrote on that day the following: This project is literally all my life in the making; in the sense…
Samson (2001) – Regina Spektor
Samson is an enchanting indie ballad by the American singer-songwriter Regina Spektor. It was recorded in just one take on Christmas Day, 2001. Although Samson was never released as a single it is considered one of Spektor’s greatest songs. It…
Samson In New Orleans (2014) – Leonard Cohen
Samson In New Orleans is the third song to be presented here so far from Leonard Cohen’s 2014 album Popular Problems. It stands as a poignant, elegiac piece, embodying both personal and collective grief and is peppered with arcane religious…
Sailing By (1995) – Sinéad Lohan
I have no idea how I learn’t of this song, but it’s a nice, warm and breezy tune for this rather frigid Saturday morning here in Bogota. Sailing By is a sweet dreamscape lullaby that resonates like whispers of the…
Limón y Sal (2006) – Julieta Venegas
I love you with lemon and saltI love you just the way you areThere’s no need to change anything about youI love you whether you are coming or goingIf you’re up and down, and you’re notSure how you feel The…
