12 May 2023 - Mckenna Grace - Self Dysmorphia

We were watching The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu the other day and we noticed that there was a young actress who was playing a character that was mature beyond her years.   The character was Esther Keyes, and the actress was 16-year-old Emmy nomineee Mckenna Grace - and she is the youngest-ever Emmy nominee in any of the Best Guest Actor categories (and 10th youngest nominee in ANY category).  We know that 2nd part because we had to do a little research on this young actress.

Turns out she's an actress who sings - and has released several singles.  According to her website, she started this as a creative outlet during the pandemic, which, of course, did limit acting opportunities.  Music allowed her to get her emotions out.  

This single was released in November 2022 and was co-written by Grace.   The song itself was in the pop-rock genre that she's gravitated towards at this point in her young career.  The video was filmed after the actress's surgery to correct a scoliosis-casued 45 degree curvature to her spine (which she SHOWS you at the 2:00 minute mark of the video - yeah, that's her back).  It was directed, written, and edited by her, as she was pretty much confined to a chair in the weeks following her surgery (a doctor's directive she ignores at the 0:48 mark of the video).  

I exprect great things in the future, both in acting and music.  

Very soon after this video was performed, she seemed to be walking just fine - and she shows off the scar as she performed the song live.  

11 May 2023 - The Lemonheads - Confetti

The Lemonheads is really one guy - Evan Dando - pretending he's a band with a bunch of whatever friends happen to be available at the time.  That included people from other Boston bands, session musicians, and at two different times, a couple of Blake Babies (another band he was a member of).  

This was a single from their 1992 breakout album, It's A Shame About Ray.  Written by Dando, the cheery-sounding song is about a guy who wanted to love someone but just couldn't, and instead decides to be alone.   The fourth and final single from that album, it was a minor hit in the UK.

It also happens to be one of my favorite songs by the band. 

The Lemonheads are still together, and still performing this song live, thirty years later.

10 May 2023 - Huey Lewis & The News - Hip To Be Square

There was a time when Huey Lewis & The News were my favorite band.  I loved Sports.  Their early work was a little too new wave for my tastes, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, commercially and artistically.

Then Fore! came out and exploded, and I remember finding the first single off the album to be rather bland, so I moved on.   

Then they released their second single, which was all about how not actually cool they were - and I remembered why I liked them again.  The song is not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself.  That's not an original thought by me.  It's a quote from American Psycho, a film in which this song was featuted.  It's also not the first American Psycho quote I peppered in here, so start hunting.  

This song was a #3 hit for the band in 1986, and featured background vocals from Football Hall of Famers Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana, who at the time were playing for Huey's hometown San Francisco 49ers.  

9 May 2023 - 10,000 Maniacs - My Mother the War

This song appears on both the band's 1983 debut album The Secrets of The I Ching and their 1985 major label debut, The Wishing Chair.  It is a song that longtime fans clamor to hear live (and in my times seeing them live, I did hear it a couple of times).

"My Mother The War" is the rare song with lyrics not solely written by Natalie Merchant from the early days of 10,000 Maniacs - it was co-written with Michael Walsh, with John Lombardo writing the music in the style that was so distinctive for the early days of the band.  

I don't know what else to say about this except, go Jamestown!

The band is still around, although Natalie left the band in the mid-90's (despite what you may have heard, it was amicable).  Here is not-usual-vocalist John Lombardo singing the song during a sound check in 2022. 

Here he is singing it in 2015 - you can see usual vocalist Mary Ramsey walk off stage as they play the song that defined the early band she wasn't part of (although she comes back).

8 May 2023 - Charlene - I've Never Been To Me

In 1976, Motown artist Charlene released a single that was widely considered to be a flop.  It reached a whopping #97 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.  

She was subsequently dropped from her label, married an Englishman, and moved to the United Kingdom to work in a sweetshop.  

The single would have been forgotten if not for a little-known DJ named Scott Shannon, at the time on the radio in Tampa, Florida.  His girlfriend loved this song, and in 1982 urged her boyfriend to play it - which he did.  Listeners loved the song, and so Shannon, who used to work for Motown Records, made a few phone calls to his old bosses about the hit potential of the song.  

So, imagie that you've left the music industry, largely feeling like you've failed, only to get a call from the president of Motown Records telling you that you weren't a failure and, indeed, he wanted to resign you to his label.  Charlene doesn't have to imagine, that, because that's what happened to her.  

The second time around, the song was a worldwide hit, hitting #3 in the US and #1 elsewhere.  It was also a crossover hit, with country radio picking up the song as well.   

The song revived her career, and although her time on Motown would only last a few more years. leaving her a one hit wonder in the US (she did have more hits in Europe), she has built a career that still continues to this day, including recording new music as of 2022.  

The song recieved something of a resurgence in 1994, with the release of the Australian movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which you should go watch right now.  This song was performed by Hugo Weaving as a female impersonator - an audience that truly embraced this song in real life.  

Unusually, Charlene did re-record the song - but only in Spanish.  This ended up being a B-side of a follow-up single, which didn't nearly match the runaway success of "I've Never Benn To Me".

6 May 2023 - The Darling Buds - You've Got To Choose

You had to expect this today.  It's Darling Buds Day.  

Long time readers of this blog will know that this happened accidentally - when we posted Darling Buds songs on two May 6ths in a row.  I hope you, as a new long-time reader, will enjoy this for years to come.   

This song, the FIFTH single from their debut album Pop Said..., is a power-pop masterpiece, with Andrea Lewis (who co-wrote every song on the album with Harley Farr) exercising her vocal chops and eschewing any comparisons to Debbie Harry, Tracy Tracy, and Wendy James.  

5 May 2023 - Ke$ha - We R Who We R

I would have sworn up and down that I did this one already.  I cannot find it.  So, if this is a repeat song, let me know.  

I can tell you we've talked about Kesha Sebert a LOT before, so I won't dive into her background too much.  I can tell you that she was surprisingly amazing when I saw her live.  She's got quite a stage presence and a stunningly strong musical range.  

This song doesn't exactly stretch her range.  It is a synth-heavy dance number about clubbing.  

Except it isn't. Kesha was inspired to write this song in the wake of an uptick in the number of gay teens killing themselves.  In her words to Entertainment Weekly:

I wanted to inspire people to be themselves. It’s a celebration of any sort of quirks or eccentricities.

In a separate interview with Rolling Stone, she elaborated.

I was really affected by the suicides that have been happening, having been subject to very public hatred [myself]. I have absolutely no idea how these kids felt. What I'm going through is nothing compared to what they had to go through. Just know things do get better and you need to celebrate who you are. Every weird thing about you is beautiful and makes life interesting. Hopefully the song really captures that emotion of celebrating who you are ... I just felt like people hate because they don't understand or they're jealous, It's all coming from a very negative place and I really feel like people don't need to pay attention to that.

She wrote a pride anthem and cleverly disguised it as a club banger.   And this song is an absolute banger.  It was also a huge woldwide hit, debuting at #1 in the US and topping charts around the world.  It is arguably her biggest hit and best known song.  

Of course, in the decade since this song came out, Kesha dropped the dollar sign and took a decidedly more rocking turn.  In this live performance from 2021, she's got a full band backing her - and it absolutely rocks.

And she makes it clear that it's still a pride anthem.

I wanted to include this older performance - one that rocks even harder - but also, pay attention to what she says starting at around 3:10 of this video.

I'm sick and tired of bully motherfuckers trying to make us feel like we shouldn't be ourselves all the fucking time. I won't stand and we can't stand for discrimination of any kind - not tonight, not now, not fucking ever. I'm talking about what country you're from, what your skin color is, what your sexual preference is, what your gender identity is, or any other kind of discrimination.  There's no room for that shit here.  There's no room for any more hate in this world.  That's what this song is about.  It's about us celebrating who the fuck we are. And now it's kind of turned into my personal life mission to spread as much love, equality, glitter and rock and roll until the day I die - until I'm six fucking feet underground.  I love you just as you fucking are.  Fuck what anyone else thinks. 

Amen, Kesha.