One of the great love songs that no one thinks of when they’re thinking of love songs. Perhaps because the original recording was in 1987, and the subsequent recording — this slightly countrified version, that adds on Georgia’s vocals — was buried in an album of mostly covers, Facebook, in 1990. Perhaps because there’s nothingcontinue reading

I never listened to Sleater-Kinney, was never a fan. I think their first albums came out during the years I was living abroad, and then I never caught up afterwards. But recently, prompted by my love of Portlandia, I decided to plumb the depths of the S-K catalogue and see what I liked. I camecontinue reading

It snowed all day here yesterday, and there’s been just as much snow, unusually, in Jerusalem. Which handily if somewhat clumsily gives me an opportunity to post about the Anglican hymn “Jerusalem,” which I only vaguely knew until I sang in an Anglican church choir in university. The poem by William Blake is beautiful, thoughcontinue reading

I am a magazine junkie. These days, that means I read voraciously both online and in paper form. When I was a teenager, I had the good fortune to work at a bookstore, where one of the many perks was the ability to take home “stripped” magazines, i.e., magazines with the title pages ripped offcontinue reading

Il fait froid. But not as cold as this.

Another song with a whistle break and the only Japanese-language song ever to top the Billboard pop chart, “Sukiyaki” always makes me happy. The title has nothing to do with the song; it’s just the name of a Japanese dish easily pronounceable in English. (It’s a delicious dish.) The title in Japanese is “Ue ocontinue reading

This will explain a lot: I don’t really know how to download. I’ve never figured out bittorrents either. In some early experimentation with it, though, I ended up with this live performance of Elliot Smith performing John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”. The original was released in 1971 and then, like all of the Lennon canon, wascontinue reading

Music and running. Some people can’t run without music, even when they’re with other people: they’re the ones you see with earplugs in even when there’s a cheering crowd to buoy them. Then there are those who are as pious about never running with music as those Luddites are about not owning a television. Icontinue reading