[Ludwig von Beethoven and Friedrich Schiller] Today’s prompt in the 30 Day Song Challenge presents a very tall order. A song that has a new meaning every time you hear it? The way I figure it, this selection had better be either (1) a song you don’t hear very often, (2) a song that is written in…
Read MoreI may be interpreting the 30 Day Song Challenge prompt (“a song that reminds you of something sad”) a bit liberally with my pick today. As much as I tried, I couldn’t think of a song that reminded me of any particular sad thing. There aren’t any songs that I associate with my grandparents’ funerals, or the…
Read MoreThere’s a world of difference between something that’s funny and something that makes you laugh. Over the past decade or so, the real magnitude of that difference has been lost, what with all the ubiquitous lol‘s (and “lol”-variants) showing up in our texts, Facebook feeds and Twitter pages. The truth is, it’s really not that easy…
Read MoreMy head often needs “clearing” and, as far as I’ve been able to tell, music is the only thing that can do that. For others, the cure for a muddled mind is exercise, or meditation, or visit to church, or a good cry, or a long conversation with a dear friend… but none of those…
Read MoreThere are about two dozen songs that every single R&B band in Memphis plays every time they perform. Whether you’re on Beale Street, or in a local juke joint, or rolling down the river on the Memphis Queen or just down South at the casinos, you’re going to hear all two dozen. Songs like “Proud…
Read MoreOnce again, I’ll be participating in the 30 Day Song Challenge on this blog for the entire month of June. I did the Challenge for the first time in 2011 (read my picks here) and then I did it again last summer (read those picks here), though I used a different prompt-list the second time. The Challenge works…
Read MoreToday marks the end of the 30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel) and, although I’ve complained about the prompts several times this month, I think this prompt for the final day is an especially good one. I also realized over the past week that it’s going to be difficult to drop many of the habits…
Read MoreSince we’re now on the penultimate day of the 30 Day Song Challenge (The Sequel), I wanted to take a moment to say a few things about this whole venture. First, I have to confess that, in my view, The Sequel’s prompts weren’t nearly as satisfying as the original 30 Day Song Challenge’s prompts. (Today’s…
Read MoreIt’s funny how the process of “discovering” an artist or band happens sometimes. Nowadays, when almost every venue for purchasing or pirating music auto-recommends artists/bands to you, it’s very easy to get caught in a self-reinforcing loop of your own tastes and, correspondingly, it’s very difficult to just stumble upon something genuinely “new” to you. …
Read MoreI’m playing catch-up right now because my dearest friend, Adriel Trott (featured in the post for Day 15 of this 30 Day Song Challenge), has been visiting me here in Memphis for the last several days. I had every intention of trying to keep up with the Challenge while she and her husband Jeff were…
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