16 December 2020 - Edie Brickell - Good Times

This solo debut by Edie Brickell - because, let's not forget, she was in a BAND called New Bohemians - was included with each copy of Windows 95 when it was released.   

That's right.  If you have a Windows 95 CD, you have a copy of this video.

The song itself is a pleasant song about someone who doesn't want the good times with her lover to end - in that moment.  In Ms. Brickell's case, that would be Paul Simon.  This song is about Paul Simon.  And it's a very happy song as a result.

15 December 2020 - Sugarland - All I Want To Do

"Hey, let's skip work and just love each other."

That's pretty much a synopsis of this song.

That's all they needed to make a big hit song that was the feel-good song of 2008 and a huge country-pop crossover hit.  

That, and this video, which was really working hard to sell Jennifer Nettles as a sex symbol....  

14 December 2020 - Bill Withers - Lovely Day

I think it's pretty obvious why we're posting this song this month.  It's one of the happiest songs ever written.  A moderate hit in the late 1970's, it's fondly remembered as a classic today.  

It's also got a single note that Withers sustains for eighteen seconds.  This is one of the longest ever sustained in a pop song.  

The song has experienced something of a resurgence in 2020, largely due to its placement in this Allstate commercial. Admit it, you're smiling now, aren't you?

12 December 2020 - Charlie Pride - Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'

Country Music Hall of Fame member Charlie Pride, the first black country superstar and a favorite of my mother, has passed away at age 86 of complications from COVID-19.  

It's real, people.

Anyway, here he is performing one of his sweetest songs on Marty Stuart's show.

This song, released in 1971, was Pride's only Top 40 pop hit, but his 8th country #1, and endured as one of his signature songs.  

I grew up listening to Charlie Pride because my mother and father were fans of his.  He will be missed.  

11 December 2020 - KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See

OK, folks!  It's time for a history lesson.  Today, we're going to learn about Queen Boudica.

In short words, Boudica was a Celtic tribal queen in what is now eastern England in the early A.D. times.  Around 60 A.D., she led an uprising against the invading Roman Empire (who had killed her husband and raped her daughters), by uniting the warring Celtic tribes for the first time in history.  That's right.  A woman led that uprising.  It was an uprising that they eventually lost and ended in her death, but it was 1) enough to make the Romans consider withdrawing and 2) enough to make her a folk hero to this day.

She did not mess around.

10 December 2020 - Chuck Mangione - Feels So Good

In the words of Dr. Stephen Strange, in the Marvel movie Dr. Strange, Chuck Mangione "charted a top 10 hit with a flugelhorn."

This is an undeniably uplifting instrumental by a Rochester, NY native - the same place where I am writing this blog right now.   As I write this, it is cold and there is snow on the ground - but the most famous song for flugelhorn ever written is warming it up in here today.

Mangione rerecorded the song (albeit more guitar-heavy) in 1982, with a vocal by his longtime guitarist, Don Potter.  The song takes on a different meaning, but it's still a sweet song.  

9 December 2020 - Lizzo - Good As Hell

This very uplifting song was a huge hit in 2019.   

The weird part about that?  The song is from 2016.  It took three years and a performance at the MTV Video Music Award to make it a big hit.

 

That unexpected 2nd life for this great song meant that a new video was in order..... given that the first one was a movie tie-in for a movie that didn't enjoy the same resurgence.