Music

This is the last day of the #30DaySong Challenge, and I’m very glad I decided to revive it again. I had forgotten how therapeutic regular blogging could be, especially when writing about music. I want to thank all of you, readers, who came to the blog for the first time (or returned after a long…

In previous iterations of the #30DaySongChallenge, I’ve answered this prompt about “a song you want played at your funeral” before– see here for my 2015 answer, and here for my 2011 answer– but, to be honest, that was before I really started thinking seriously about my own funeral. For the last few years, I’ve been teaching…

It’s a little bit hard to complain about the break-up of Outkast, since André 3000 (André Benjamin) and Big Boi (Antwan Patton) have both gone on to be stellar solo artists, but still… they were soooooo gooooood together. Back in 1996, a friend gave me Outkast’s ATLiens album as a birthday present. The “Dirty South”…

Today’s #30DaySongChallenge pick is a two-fer! And I can’t think of any artist who deserves this kind of double-dipping more than The King of Soul, Otis Redding, an absolutely inimitable performer who always makes you want to go back for seconds. Last year, the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts published a study hypothesizing that there…

The lyrics to my #30DaySongChallenge pick today are not “utterly mysterious” in a strict sense. As a whole, I know what the song is about. It’s stated right there in the title. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson don’t want you, mamas, to let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Also, don’t let your babies…