Music Friday: "Owner of Lonely Heart"

One of the people I follow on TikTok does videos on how a band's song is put together and produced. 

He did an outstanding video on "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears. 

Last night as I walking the dog I watched a video of him breaking down how "Owner of Lonely Heart" was arranged. Really interesting stuff. 

I never bought any CDs from Yes, but I did enjoy this song that was in heavy rotation on MTV back when they actually played music videos. 

And like the fellow said on the video, now I cannot unhear the cow bell in this song. 

Music Friday: "Don't Stand So Close to Me"

Here's a classic tune from The Police. 

I cannot fathom how high school teachers hit on and sometimes sleep with their students. Disgusting. 

And yes, I know the song is based on Lolita by Nabokov. But still. 

Music Friday: "Bring on the Night/When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's (Still Around)"

Sting's Bring on the Night live album is one of the albums I listened to this week. 

Back when I had this album on cassette, I played the hell out of this opus. I have always been a huge fan of the Police and Sting. And this album is great. 

Random Notes from a Crank

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that Congressional Republicans are going to reduce funding to or simply eliminate Medicaid to help try to offset their tax breaks for the rich. 

A repost on Bluesky the other day shared a great article shared by Charles Gaba shows by congressional district how many and what numbers and percentages of people are enrolled in such government programs. 

In my district, House District 15 of Illinois, 25.6% of the population depends on them. I would venture to guess that a number of those folks voted for President Adolf. 

If you're interested, it's "How Many People Have Medicaid/CHIP Coverage in YOUR Congressional District?"

I'm not much a gaming kind of guy. I had an Atari back in the day, and Mrs. Nasty and I got a Playstation as one of our wedding gifts, but other than that, there's only two games I've really played in the past five years. The first was Stars Wars Commander, which was a lot of fun and went defunct years ago. 

The past month I've gone back to the 80s. I'm playing Tetris. 

I find the game kind of calming for whatever reason. 

It seems pretty clear to me that President Adolf and his dumb-ass Secretary of Defense are going to "negotiate" in favor of Putin acquiring Ukrainian territories unless NATO gets involved, which they should. 

Read about it in the New York Times: "Warming Trend in U.S.-Russia Relations Leaves Ukraine in a Tough Spot." 

Musing of the Moment: Missing Howard Cosell

I watch a lot of sports on TV, and the other day I was thinking about the legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell. 

When I was a kid, my parents let me have a small TV in my room, and one of few times they let me stay up after my bedtime was to watch Monday Night Football. 

If Peanuts comics and Marvel comic books (Daredevil, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Power-Man and Iron Fist) are part of my literacy narrative, then I think I should also include Cosell also because I was fascinated by his language use, the big words and interesting turns of phrase. 

He was a legend. 

Unfortunately, most people today would not recognize what is going on in these scenes in Better Off Dead, a great 80s comedy. 

Music Friday: "Radio Free Europe" & "So. Central Rain"

For the holidays, I received a couple of books, one of which is The Name of This Band is R.E.M. by Peter Ames Carlin.

I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm enjoying it so far. 

In the Introduction, the author talks about the band's TV debut on Late Night with David Letterman, and they played these songs during their appearance. 

Music Friday: "Dear God"

I was doing errands this afternoon, and this tune came on the Sirius 1st Wave channel. The song that preceded it was "Kiss Me on the Bus" by The Replacements, a band I rarely hear played on any of the SiriusXM stations. 

But I've always liked this tune even though the band XTC is not a group I followed back in the day. Great tune though...

Music Friday: "Pop Song 89"

I was talking with a friend yesterday about the few times I've been on the U of Iowa's campus. 

The last time I was on that campus was the Green tour of R.E.M. They played at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. 

My high school girlfriend and I went to the rock show. 

Here's the opening track on the Green album.

Music Friday: "Suspots" & "Compositions for the Young and Old"

One of the finest albums of the late 80s is Bob Mould's Workbook. 

As the kids say these days, every song on that album "slaps." 

The first tune is the opening instrumental, and the second song is the eighth song on the 11-song opus. 

Music Friday: "Gutbucket Steepy"

I've been revisiting some great albums by Brandford Marsalis from the 80s lately. This week I've been listening to a lot of jazz. 

"Gutbucket Steepy" comes from his 1989 album Trio Jeepy. 

Music Friday: "Exhuming McCarthy"

I was listening to Document this morning, and this song reminds me of the various dog whistling movements that the right wing has undertaken over the years. 

What I'm talking about is recounted in David Corn's American Psychosis: A Historical Investigations of How the Republican Party Went Crazy. 

Music Friday: "Here Comes the Rain Again"

It's been one hell of a long day. I got up at 5:05 this morning because we had to drive to Galesburg for a baseball tournament with our team set to play at 11am. 

Well, that plan didn't work out at all. Rain. Lots of damn rain. 

So the game we were supposed to play today got moved to tomorrow at 1pm. 

I never bought a cassette or CD of the Eurythmics, but I always enjoyed their music. Here's a song that's appropriate. 

Music Friday: "Too Much Information"

Talk about a song connecting to the fancy word called "prescient." 

The Police were on it way before we got too disinformation at our fingertips all the damn time. This tune is from my favorite album by the band, Ghost in the Machine.

Music Friday: "Electric Avenue"

I can't remember which car manufacturer used this song in one of their ads, but with the gas prices skyrocketing I think more and more people might be considering going electric for their vehicles. 

I know I'm glad I don't have a long commute to work, but I'm fearful of all the gas travel I'll be doing for this travel baseball season. 

So here's a video that was played constantly on MTV when it came out in the 80s. 

Music Friday: "Under the Milky Way"

An album I had way back when on cassette was The Church's Starfish. 

It's a classic album from late-80s-era alternative rock. I bought the digital album this week because I missed the dreamy wondrousness of the album's songs.

Here's one of the more popular songs from that opus. 

Music Friday: "The Frayed Ends of Sanity"

I've been listening to ...And Justice for All this morning. What a great album that was released in 1988. 

Enjoy. 

Music Friday: "Can't Get There from Here"

 As I was driving back to work just now, SiriusXM's Spectrum played "Man on the Moon," and I thought about how often I've listened to R.E.M. over the years. 

I tend to like their earlier work better, so here's a classic cut from the 80s. 

Music Friday: "Answering Machine"

 I'm in the midst of reading Ander Monson's I Will Take the Answer. One of my favorite essays so far is "The Sadnesses of March," which recounts he and his wife's 64-song tournament of sad songs, which went viral. 

As he relates, for some of us we really dig sad songs for a number of various reasons. I won't give away the details of the essay, but it's a fine piece of non-fiction. 

Mr. Monson is also an alumnus, like me, of The Capstone, the University of Alabama. Roll Tide, sir, Roll Tide. 

The purveyors of the tournament picked songs from a certain time period, and you can look forward to my own post that informs folks of some sad songs everyone should enjoy. I also like sad songs although I do not share Mr. Monson's love of Morrissey. 

But to get to this post, they picked "Here Comes a Regular" from The Replacements. I get why they chose that tune, but I think it has stiff competition from this song from Let It Be. 

Unfortunately, kids these days won't get the reference.

Music Friday: "Burning Down the House"

 Talking Heads is a band that I always enjoyed, but I never bought any of their albums (CDs) when they were together as a band. They had this quirky nature that was inspiring. 

I bought their greatest hits album maybe a year ago, but now I'm contemplating how much I had missed by not going full album on them. If I remember right, over the space of 11 years they produced 8 albums. That's some mighty productivity. 

Last night instead of watching the final presidential debate, I watched David Byrne's American Utopia, which is a quite stunning film produced by Spike Lee. The film and performance is quite stunning. There are parts of it that are downright inspiring. 

Here's a live performance of the show doing this famous song. 

Music Friday: "Istanbul (not Constantinople)" & "Minimum Wage"

The other day one of my FB friends opined that Flood by They Might Be Giants is one of the best albums ever. I'm not going that far, but it is a fun album. 

Here's a couple of songs from the album that I haven't featured before.