Monday music: “I Won’t Back Down”

Three days after Tom Petty died in 2017, Rhiannon Giddens did this stellar performance of “I Won’t Back Down” from Petty’s 1989 classic Full Moon Fever album in tribute to him. Check it out…

Monday music: “Running on Empty”

One of the songs that definitely made up a big part of the soundtrack of my youth is Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty.” Released in 1978 when I was nine years old, it’s probably Browne’s most popular song, and it’s one I associate with being a kid in the best way. Here’s both the original studio version and a nifty live version from 1979.

Monday music: “Bulletproof”

Listening to this song, you would be forgiven for thinking it was released in 1984 when, in fact, it was released in 2009. But it’s so totally a throwback to 1980s synth-pop, and it makes me smile every time I hear it. With thanks to ToniAnn for introducing me to the song, here’s “Bulletproof” by La Roux.

Monday music: “Hey Jude”

From the 1997 Music for Montserrat concert, we’ve got “Hey Jude” performed by Paul McCartney and Elton John both on vocals and piano, Sting on vocals, Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton on guitar, Phil Collins on drums, Ray Cooper on percussion, and many more besides, including a gospel choir and an orchestra. Pretty dang fabulous…

Monday music: “The Boxer”

Another one from the Newport Folk Festival late last month, here’s Paul Simon joined by a cast of dozens to do “The Boxer.”

Monday music: “In the Air Tonight”

Here’s another from the 1986 Prince’s Trust concert: Phil Collins alone on stage with the piano, doing his hit, and even after all these years (and all the songs he’s composed) arguably his best song, “In the Air Tonight.”

Monday music: “Weeping in the Promised Land”

A song John Fogerty wrote and released in early 2021, discussing the sad state of America in the Trump years, and it’s a song that’s still irritatingly appropriate given the shenanigans performed by the Supreme Court in recent times.

Happy fucking Fourth…..

Monday music: “Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida”

Ronnie Gilbert was one of the Weavers, the great folk quartet from the 1940s and 1950s, who were blacklisted during the 1950s, but enjoyed a renaissance in the 1960s when Peter, Paul, and Mary covered their song “If I Had a Hammer.”

Holly Near is a folksinger and activist who dedicated an album to Gilbert and then later met her. The pair of them did a lot of touring together, and one of their best songs is one that they sang on a Weavers documentary from 1980, Wasn’t That a Time? and would regularly perform live: a song about women missing and killed by fascist regimes in Chile: “Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida.”

Monday music: “Fast Car”

Back in 1988, I attended one of the concerts in the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! tour featuring Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Youssou N’Dour, and Tracy Chapman. Where the former four acts all came out with bands, Chapman was just herself and an acoustic guitar. She held Giants Stadium in the palm of her hand all by herself, doing some killer renditions of her songs, including her first big hit, “Fast Car.” A phenomenal singer/songwriter, here’s her studio original and a live version that gives you an idea how gripping her performance in 1988 was.

Monday music: “I’m Still Standing”

In 1983, we spent a month in California, travelling to Los Angeles, Anaheim, Big Sur, San Luis Obispo, the Redwood Forest, and San Francisco. It was a great trip. The two songs that comprise the soundtrack of that trip were two songs that were big hits in the summer of ’83: “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant and this great song by Elton John. Here’s the original, as well as a nifty live version from the Prince’s Trust concert in 1986, where he was accompanied by a band including Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler on guitar, Howard Jones on keyboards, Phil Collins on drums, Ray Cooper on percussion, and more…..