Music
-
I’m referring to the song alone, not the album. And although I don’t think the answer is an absolute “yes,” if only because you can’t reasonably pick one, if I did have to pick one, this might be it. I have trouble coming up with something that I would definitely place above it, or alongside…
-
I didn't know until I looked for information about this group that there is a genre–okay, subgenre–of music called "dark jazz." And I bet you didn't know how many subgenres of jazz there are: see this Wikipedia page for a list and brief descriptions. I often suspect that some of the many, many subgenres of…
-
Kyle Smith of National Review thinks so. I half-agree. I don't think I've heard it more than half a dozen times, and always on a car radio. But I do remember the first time, because "Ain't that America" jumped out at me as a perfect expression of amused and unillusioned affection: "Yeah, it's a crazy…
-
I went to hear the Mobile Symphony Saturday night. It was a peculiar concert, and I'm not sure I would have gone if I'd realized how peculiar it would be. But they've had a very difficult year-plus, of course, and I wanted to support them. And although it was not the most exciting program conceivable,…
-
Coming home tonight just before dark and seeing into the living rooms and kitchens of houses where the lights had just been turned on but the curtains were open, I started thinking about this song. I never heard any of The Hollies' music apart from their hit singles, but those from the mid-'60s still sound…
-
Blacklisted, the album from which this song is taken, is on a CD full of miscellaneous MP3 files (117 of them, to be exact) that's been in my car player for a week or so. I'd forgotten how good it is. To tell you the truth, I'd pretty much forgotten about it, period, though I…
-
And in the course of reading various tributes to him I've been reminded that I may be the only person in the world, or at least the only Dylan fan in the world, who doesn't think Blood on the Tracks is a masterpiece, possibly the best of his many albums. Not that I don't think it's…
-
I listened to this a couple of times back in January, and didn't quite know what to make of it. The note I made as a start to this post said "starts off with a noble, English-elegiac melody, and then a fight breaks out." The agitation of the first movement gives way to much quieter…
-
Not really. But it is a pastime that usually appeals to Dylan fans. Here, at The American Conservative, is a somewhat defiant, probably none-too-popular, assertion about Dylan's best work, with proper reservations about the basic silliness of the effort: The problem with picking a favorite Dylan is that there are so many strong contenders. You…
-
The responsorial reading is from Jeremiah. But here is some penitential music, from Arvo Pärt's Kanon Pokajanen, which I wrote about here several years ago.
Light On Dark Water 