Taking the pledge
January 5, 2011 1 Comment
It’s hopeful, heartfelt, plaintive and sad. It’s late at night, and he’s all alone, and the late, great Johnny Ace is down on his knees, pleading and praying…and pledging his love.
Falling to pieces
January 5, 2011 1 Comment
Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” is probably her greatest song…but this one comes pretty damn close….
If you bend it, you can’t mend it…
January 5, 2011 Leave a comment
Forgot about the overwrought rendition by Linda Ronstadt. Here it is from the source — Kate and Anna McGarrigle sing their song “Heart Like a Wheel” at the legendary Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Her love is like a sinking ship and her broken heart’s aboard….
Sleepless nights
January 5, 2011 Leave a comment
Ray Davies wrote “I Go to Sleep” for the Kinks, years before he fell in love with the lead singer of The Pretenders. Here’s the version by Chrissie Hynde…They haven’t been together for a long time…Are they able to sleep at night now? Or do they still hear this song in their heads, in the darkness, in the night?
Gerry Rafferty, R.I.P.
January 4, 2011 Leave a comment
“Right Down the Line,” of course, such a beautiful and heartfelt love song…”Stuck in the Middle With You,” featured in Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”…and then there’s “Baker Street” — one of his best lyrics…great mood music…beautiful evocative saxophone…rest in peace, Gerry Rafferty, founder of Stealers Wheel, dead at 63.
And a special treat…”Star” by Scotland’s own Stealers Wheel:
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
December 25, 2010 Leave a comment
The greatest, saddest, truest, most hopeful Christmas song ever…
Quoth The Ravens….
December 21, 2010 Leave a comment
I have reason to believe that Christmas Eve will find me in the company of my own long deep winter thoughts and a tall glass of Bailey’s Irish Creme. As I sit in an apartment somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, as all out-of-doors looks darkly in at me through the thin frost, 
I will be listening to the greatest-ever rendition of “Silent Night,” recorded by R&B legends The Ravens more than sixty Christmas Eves ago in 1948:
A silent night…
December 21, 2010 Leave a comment
What do the lonely do at Christmas? They listen to Philadelphia’s own angelic choir, The Emotions….
It was Christmas Eve, babe…
December 17, 2010 Leave a comment
This song by the Irish band The Pogues is spinning on my inner turntable today…
It just so moving..so very human…a take-your-breath-away beautiful Christmas song for the ages — and a great sad love song, too, I think:
