Though its breezy cousin “Every Morning” is the slightly better Sugar Ray ska/skiffle hit of 1999, the loping acoustic guitar hook on this sweet track is one I always return to with pleasure—it’s like a latter-day “Ventura Highway.” #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/6zeDYm...
Sugar Ray · 14:59 · Song · 1900
Among the many wonders of ALL THINGS MUST PASS is George Harrison’s harmonic ambition. The chords on this bonkers stomper are *wild*, not only in the verse but in the vertiginous downward whirlpool of the chorus. Down indeed. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/2PGHwn...
George Harrison · All Things Must Pass (2014 Remaster) · Song · 1970
One of my fave singer/songwriters on the L.A. circuit back in the late '90s was the crafty Janet Robin. None of the CDs I bought from her then seem to be streaming, but she can still shred on acoustic like nobody's business, as on this 2012 cut. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/0pdVgk...
Janet Robin · Everything Has Changed · Song · 2012
This breathtaking Café Tacvba track starts out grooving like Spoon, lays on some 1980s synths, then winds through sections both slow and fast à la prog rock—a fitting musical program for a lyric about looking for the best way to start over. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/70LC9m...
Café Tacvba · SINO · Song · 2007
I don’t just love this prickly, groovy Margo Guryan tune for its adventurous meters and snaky melody—it’s that those elements are in ideal service of the lyric’s unsettling lament for a friend’s sellout to conformity. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/5dnXjT...
Margo Guryan · 27 Demos · Song · 2014
Somehow Leon Russell’s cover of this haunting, slippery George Harrison song about the spiritual dangers of modern life manages to be both trippy and bluesy, ecstatic and forbidding. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/0Qu3jT...
Leon Russell · Leon Russell And The Shelter People (Expanded Edition) · Song · 1971
On this rousing country-soul banger, Audra Mae sounds a bit like a Southern-fried KT Tunstall, and her band, The Almighty Sound, delivers just the right smoky support. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/1j0S5i...
Audra Mae · Audra Mae & The Almighty Sound · Song · 2012
One point of a lifetime of music listening/playing, for me at least, is the storehouse of tunes in my head. One that pops up there frequently, unbidden and entirely welcome, is this 1926 Satchmo classic (which he wrote, note for note, in 1924). #dailysongwww.youtube.com/watch?v=Tud8...
YouTube video by Louis Armstrong - Topic
No shade on any of the other ex-Beatles, but which one but McCartney could have taken a stab at disco-adjacent funk without embarrassment? Instead he created one of his best, most melodically surprising songs since “Got to Get You Into My Life.” #dailysongyoutu.be/_zcYw3f2k44
YouTube video by Paul McCartney - Topic
Just in case the snooping, jealous lover Etta James is telling off in this juicy deep cut doesn’t get that she means business, Jimmy Ray Johnson’s guitar comes in snarling at 1:24 and she lets out a disarming caterwaul. #dailysongopen.spotify.com/track/7zRCm7...
Song · Etta James · 1968