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Songs of the Day, Sept. 21 — Oct. 18
A whirlwind tour of my taste in music, or part of it
On September 21 I started a series of Facebook postings titled "Song of the Day" to share music that I like
(and show the world what kinds of music I like). In many cases I added commentary that people have
found useful. I want to preserve these in the Daily Notebook too, and I'll do it in batches like this
one. Hang on to your hat — this is a long entry!
There may come a day when the YouTube links do not work. If that happens,
you can still search for the
music elsewhere by name.
Sept. 21: Pierre Bensusan, "Près de Paris"
A beautiful piece of French folk music.
Sept. 21 (again): John Rutter, "Beatles Concerto"
This is what happens when the greatest living English composer takes on the challenge
of doing Beatles instrumentals.
Sept. 22: Sons and Daughters, "Let the River Run"
Startlingly good performance of a Carly Simon classic.
Sept. 23: ABBA, "Arrival"
I'm going to start a series of instrumentals by groups normally known for vocals. This is one by ABBA.
(Strictly speaking there are voices in this one, but not words.)
Melody taught me to look for instrumentals on vocal albums. They are often quite good (because the musicians are doing what they like to do) and not at all well known (because they're not promoted and don't make the hit parade).
As I continue this series, you're going to hear some surprises.
Sept. 24: Allman Brothers, "Jessica"
Quite different from yesterday's ABBA number, this is another example of an instrumental by a group that normally does vocals. These people can really play guitars...
Sept. 25: The Doobie Brothers, "Steamer Lane Breakdown"
Yet another instrumental on an album by a vocal group. There are many good bluegrass instrumentals out there —
but this isn't who normally performs them. You can see that the musicians enjoy what they're doing.
(Note added: In bluegrass music, a "breakdown" is an instrumental piece in which
different instruments have solo parts at different times. But songs with "breakdown" in their name need
not actually be performed that way.)
While a series of instrumentals by vocal groups could go on forever, I think I'll move on to something a bit different tomorrow.
Sept. 26: Mocedades, "Pange Lingua Gloriosi"
It's Sunday, so we'll have a piece of sacred music.
But that doesn't mean it's not unusual.
Here is what the Spanish group Mocedades did with a well-known Gregorian chant. I rather like it.
You remember them for "Eres Tú," which made the charts in 1974. Here they take on one of the top hits of the 13th Century.
(No song for Sept. 27.)
Sept. 28: L.A. Express (album)
Song of the day... or rather album... of jazz fusion instrumentals.
This was the warmup band for a Joni Mitchell concert that I went to with a group of friends in early 1976.
I liked the music but thought I'd never hear them again, and of course our minds were on Joni Mitchell.
Actually, the L.A. Express released an album soon afterward, of more or less exactly what they had
played before the concert. (I remember the song "Stairs," which sounds like a train slowing down,
and I remember quipping to someone, "The L.A. Express has come to a station.")
Sept. 29: Donna Summer, "Nether Lands"
Getting back to the theme of better-than-original performances:
the late Dan Fogelberg's "Nether Lands" is one of Melody's and my most favorite songs (hers first).
We think this performance by Donna Summer is better than the original —
Dan composed a song that was almost beyond his singing ability!
This is from the tribute album, and we think it has the same instrumental track as the original.
"Nether lands" refers to the lower (nether) lands seen from the top of a mountain. This is not about the land of the Dutch.
Sept. 30: Händel, "Water Music"
Some people only hear this kind of music at Christmas and think of it as holiday music.
Actually, there's plenty of baroque music to enjoy year-round.
And this is a better-than-original performance too, I'm fairly sure;
I wasn't actually around to hear the original in 1717, and they didn't record it.
On one of our very first visits, Melody displayed her keen awareness of my musical taste and her wry sense of
humor by playing a record of this for us after we had gone swimming. Right — swimming and then Water Music.
I had never heard this particular piece but instantly liked it.
Actually, it was composed for a procession of boats, not swimmers, but good enough!
Oct. 1: Loggins and Messina, "Be Free"
This is a good example of what Loggins & Messina are good at: elaborate guitar work (especially the long instrumental passage in the middle of this song) and reflective lyrics.
They had several big hits that don't sound like this at all, nor like each other. Who would guess that "House at Pooh Corner," "Danny's Song," and "Your Mama Don't Dance" were all from the same pair of musicians?
Unlike those big hits, this song is an example of what I like about their work. In my opinion, the quality of their other songs is somewhat variable, and especially the quality of Kenny Loggins' singing. But this is a good one.
You may notice an offensive word near the end (a couple of lines after "life is but a dream"). It's amusing to see how lyrics web sites garble that part. But the song isn't trying to be offensive; it's expressing contempt for something very contemptible (drug dealers on the street, one of the barbarous things the narrator wants to get away from). So I'll grant it to them.
Oct. 2: Sky, "Toccata"
This music bridges the gap between classical and rock. Melody heard it on the radio in Atlanta while I was off in graduate school, bought the album, and sent me a tape of it. It is not a pop arrangement of a classical piece; those have been around forever. No; here the rock musicians are adding their own creativity in a worthwhile way.
This kind of music is one of several things called "progressive rock." We had sampled music of this kind before (Emerson, Lake & Palmer; "Yes;" Rick Wakeman), but "Sky" was the first band that we felt had really found their style. We like every track on every album they made.
The piece is derived from Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
Oct. 3: Bach, "Lobe den Herren"
Sacred music for Sunday. You have probably sung a simpler version of this song out of a hymnal. Listen to Bach's full arrangement. (Give it a minute or two if you don't recognize it.)
Oct. 4: Fernando Sor, "Variations on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 9"
THIS is the music that Melody heard playing in a bookstore a couple of years before we got married. It was part of a vinyl record set, and she didn't point it out to me at the time because she didn't want to hint for an expensive present. But we talked about it recently, and I tracked down the records and gave them to her just 2 days ago. (Not the record set whose cover you see on YouTube, but another containing the same recording of this piece.)
Oct. 5: Mannheim Steamroller, "Embers" ("Fresh Aire IV")
As newlyweds, Melody and I were walking by a record player in a Radio Shack in California when we heard this.
Mannheim Steamroller was giving the world a new kind of music, derived from jazz and progressive rock,
and 100% pleasant to listen to (Chip Davis stated that as one of his goals,
and it told me that maybe the 1970s were finally over).
This is a small sample of their music, which covers a wide range of styles and tempos, but we like all of it.
Oct. 6: Harry James, "Ciribiribin"
As a child, I often listened to my father's jazz records, especially an album titled "Great Band
Themes and Songs that Made Them Famous." On it was, among other things, this.
Oct. 7: Glenn Miller Orchestra, "Battle Hymn of the Republic"
Even more out-of-the-way than yesterday's. Can you imagine dancing to the Battle Hymn of the Republic? Yes, it's possible. If it's 1943 and your day job is saving the United States, you might even want to.
Here is Glenn Miller's dance arrangement of it. This, too, was on my father's jazz records that I listened to as a child. The arrangement I heard (from Bobby Krane's "Tribute to Glenn Miller") was, as I recall, a little tamer, without any clapping.
Oct. 8: Paul Mauriat, "Love Is Blue"
Paul Mauriat's "Love is Blue" topped the US charts in early 1968 (the spring of sixth grade for me). It caught my ear then, and I've liked it ever since.
Rarely is an instrumental performance of a song better than the original. The 1960s were full of instrumental covers of songs, and most were much duller than the original songs. Paul Mauriat, however, regularly took song tunes and made them into better music, elaborating them in such a way as to extend, not just decorate, what was already there.
Oct. 9: Herb Alpert, "A Taste of Honey"
I said yesterday that not many musicians can be relied on to improve a song when making it into an instrumental.
One who can is Paul Mauriat (yesterday's Song of the Day). Another in my opinion, is Herb Alpert.
His trumpet isn't just singing the lead vocal — he made this song into something original.
A correction: This one was actually an instrumental first, but not Herb Alpert's.
Lyrics were put to it (and sung by the Beatles in 1962).
I still think Mr. Alpert deserves credit for improving the song.
Oct. 10: Regimental Brigade of Scotland, "Amazing Grace"
Sacred music for Sunday. This bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace" actually made the U.S. Top 40 in 1972, and we were bemused to hear it on the radio interspersed with much less dignified songs such as "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog." I bought the album; this may be the best bagpipe-playing I've ever heard. But I am told bagpipe purists object strongly to backing up a bagpipe with a military band.
The composer of the hymn was, in earlier life, a slave trader, but became an anti-slavery activist after he turned to Christ.
Oct. 11: Los Incas, "El Cóndor Pasa"
For Columbus Day or Indigenous Heritage Day, something with Native American roots.
You've heard this after Simon and Garfunkel put lyrics to it; here is the original.
South American folk and popular music carries on many Inca traditions without a clear boundary
between native and European-style music. This is not, as has been thought, an Inca folk song;
it was composed for a zarzuela (musical theater) in 1913.
It is closely based on traditional music of the Andes, of which there is still plenty being composed and performed.
Oct. 12: Neil Diamond, "America"
We haven't had a Neil Diamond song yet. Here is one of my favorites. If you're an American and this doesn't resonate with you, you've missed something important about what our country is.
Oct. 13: Herb Alpert, "America the Beautiful"
We usually hear "America the Beautiful" performed by a large choir, orchestra, or band. Here is Herb Alpert's lone wistful trumpet. And that's a lot like how it feels to be an American these days.
Oct. 14: Al Hirt, "Java"
A great opportunity was missed by not making this the theme song of a
certain programming language.
Oct. 15: Carpenters, "Only Yesterday"
If you don't remember the Carpenters, you've missed some of the best music of the 1970s.
But there's nothing that marks it as a product of the 1970s —
they could have sung it in any era, and it's not a bit old-fashioned today.
Back then, it was a welcome relief from music marketed to divide generation from generation.
Herb Alpert (recently featured here twice) had a hand in forming the record company (A&M) that published them.
Oct. 16: Mocedades, "Eres Tú"
My favorite 1970s love song is this one, which is in Spanish.
Below is my translation of the Spanish lyrics, which are not much like the English words that
were put to the same song. The Spanish band Mocedades ("Youth") is from Basque country and
has also sung the song in Basque. "Eres tú" means "you are" or "it's you."
"Hoguera" is anything from a fireplace to a bonfire. In a few places I'm translating less literally
in order to preserve elegance and head off misunderstandings.
Like a promise, you are, you are,
Like a morning in the summer.
Like a smile, you are, you are,
That's how you are.
All my hope, you are, you are,
Like fresh rain in my hands.
Like a strong wind, you are, you are,
That's how you are.
You are like the water in my fountain,
You are the fire on my hearth.
You are like the flame of my campfire,
You are the wheat in my bread.
Like my poem, you are, you are,
Like a guitar in the night.
All my horizon you are, you are,
That's how you are.
You are like the water in my fountain,
You are the fire on my hearth.
You are like the flame of my campfire,
You are the wheat in my bread.
This translation is of course dedicated to Melody,
who is all of these things, and more.
Oct. 17: Cat Stevens, "Morning Has Broken"
Sacred music for Sunday. The hymn "Morning Has Broken," which dates from 1931, became a pop music hit in 1971 when Cat Stevens sang it (with no less than Rick Wakeman as his accompanist; the instrumental parts and the key changes add a lot to it). Cat Stevens is a good singer but at the time had no explicit connection to Christianity and later converted to Islam. Nonetheless, he really put this beautiful hymn on the map, and it now appears in many hymnals.
Note also that Rick Wakeman has just released a
piano instrumental of this song
with an even more elaborate, though very similar, arrangement.
Oct. 18: Bach (attrib.), "Minuet in G"
I'm shifting toward classical music (broadly defined) this week. And with that in mind...
One of my favorite short pieces by Bach turns out not to be by Bach! Although included in a notebook Bach presented to his
wife Anna Magdalena, this was actually composed by Christian Petzold.
It is widely used by people learning the piano (I even played it myself during the brief
period that I took piano lessons), but here you hear it played by an orchestra.
You may have heard the tune in the popular song A Lover's Concerto (1965),
with an altered rhythm, or in a rather
flamboyantly ornate arrangement by Ferrante and Teicher.
There! That brings us up to today. I'll continue to post songs daily on Facebook
and round them up periodically here.
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