Category Archives: Musings on Music

A Switch Out of Holiday Music!

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So what music is everyone listening to on these fine January days?

Over the holidays, I was listening to a lot of sentimental holiday stuff (Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Michael Buble, et. al), but now the holidays are over and I feel like I should move on.

In Januaries past, I’d listen to my kids’ music, where I always got introduced to some fun stuff by Ricky: Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, The Tallest Man on Earth, etc. In fact, just typing those names right now makes me sort of miss some of those. … I just had to go find a video of my fave TMOE song. Here’s a video of one that I especially fell in love with. Although seriously, it took me forever to figure out what he was saying. …

Happy Friday!

November Music

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I know everyone knows “holiday music” — all the Christmas carols and holiday tunes we all know and love.

But I actually have “November music” too. … Do you?

For me, “November music” is almost anything by James Taylor, because we used to listen to “Carolina on My Mind,” “Sweet Baby James,” “Something in the Way She Moves,” “Walking Man,” etc. all through fall and especially when we’d go apple-picking in Oak Glen when the kids were small.

And “November music” is also anything from the “When Harry Met Sally” movie — “It Had to Be You,” “Love Is Here To Stay,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” “I Could Write A Book,” and more.

And “November music” is probably anything by Ray Charles.

So I went in to buy a new CD for my car for November and stumbled across that Tony Bennet Duets one. And I really like it! He does a cute one with John Mayer (“One More for the Road”), Lady Gaga (“The Lady Is a Tramp”), and others. All those old standards, and they all have that When-Harry-Met-Sally feel. …

I guess that’s what it is: I like to hear music in November that almost sounds like holiday music (because it’s by the same classic holiday performers — Dean Martin, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett), but isn’t quite holiday yet. …

Do you have “November music”?

Here’s Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga for this fine November day…

Whoa! That Banjo! — Mumford and Sons

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Ready for some fun music today?

Have you heard Mumford and Sons? My son told me about this band and gave me his CD to borrow, so I’ve been listening to it in my car. And I can’t get these songs out of my head. …

Apparently they came out of a recent English folk movement and have been popular in the UK since about 2007, but they just released their single in the U.S. in February. Since then, they’ve been on David Letterman and are getting some big-time radio play here. So different. So fun. Sort of a fusion of Irish folk/Bob Dillon/raging banjo. And check out the lead singer pounding that bass with his foot. …

 

If you want to hear one more, this is my favorite song:

Getting Song Lyrics Hopelessly Wrong

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We’ve all done it. Singing at the top of our lungs, belting out some line we thought we knew but then suddenly realizing all of our companions have turned to stare – or, sometimes, just flat out laugh – because we’ve completely butchered the line.

My own personal hopeless gaffe came up the other night. It is, and has always been, Blinded by the Light (Manfield Mann’s Earth Band). Since 1977, I think I’ve been singing “blinded by the light … ripped up like inducient, like a runner in the night …” It never mattered to me that “inducient” isn’t even a word. I didn’t care. In 1977, I thought maybe “inducient” was a word and — being  only 11 — I just hadn’t learned it yet. But the other night, my 16yo told me that the real words are “blinded by the light … revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night …”

Huh.

Well, gee, that does make more sense.

(But I think I need to coin the word “inducient.”)

Jon Carroll at the San Francisco Chronicle calls these gaffes “Mondegreens” (after writer Sylvia Wright’s misperception of “…and Lady Mondegreen” in the Scottish ballad Bonny Earl of Murray instead of “…and laid him on the green”). Carroll has been documenting Mondegreens for some time. (He explains that here.)

Superman’s “Mondegreen” has been Carry On (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young). Continue reading →

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