Take the "A' Train was composed in 1939, after Ellington offered composer Billy Strayhorn a job and gave him money to travel from Pittsburgh to New York. Ellington wrote directions for Strayhorn to get to his house by subway. The directions began with the words "Take the A Train", referring to the then new A subway service in New York City.
Happy 2025 Bulletinies
Model railway obsessive Rod Stewart has gone through many guises in his career from the blues to that dodgy disco phase to the inevitable music royalty status of today.
But when he was good, he was very good.
Chill time.
O Sapientia (O Wisdom) is one of the seven Great Advent Antiphons sung in Christian churches dating back to the sixth century. In fact we are a little early as O Sapientia, the first of the seven, is usually sung on 17th December.
You know how it is, everything you do and see and hear puts a song in your head. Or maybe it's just a few of us. Maybe it needs a name. Maybe it already has one. Anyway, your Song of the Week Editor does a lot of running.
Keep on running Tami.
The Mills Brothers were four brothers from Piqua, Ohio who were hugely successful in the pre and post Second World War years. They were also the first black artists to have their own show on national network radio in the USA.
This song (they performed the original) has their distinctive crooner vocals and then their trademark guitar sound and vocal harmonies as it speeds up. And eternal lyrics. Enjoy.
One of the last things Buddy recorded with just him and his guitar, Peggy Sue Got Married and its predecessor Peggy Sue were written about Peggy Sue Gerron who Holly had known for many years and who had married his band's drummer Jerry Allison. The marriage was unhappy and this song, so wistful yet written by a 22 year old Holly, was about that marriage.
Brazil's Queen of Samba, a pioneer for female Samba singers and composers, danced to the age of 96. She also spent a long and influential career in occupational therapy and psychiatry in her homeland.
Sea Song is the first track on the album Rock Bottom which Robert Wyatt released after becoming paraplegic following an accidental fall from a window. He has said that the accident saved him because he had become an alcoholic and was heading for disaster.
The Cure are back, looking much as they did in 1979 when they produced this post-punk masterpiece. Lyrics and song meshing to perfection. It's what music is about.
Known as the 'James Bond one' by aficionados, this is one of hundreds of obscure, small label soul tracks from sixties America that were adopted by the Northern Soul scene in the UK, many of them absolute bangers.
Yvonne's voice on the chorus...
Are you dancing?
Nicola Pedreschi was a postdoc in Oxford Mathematics until the summer. But like several Oxford Mathematicians he is a musician, in Nicola's case in the band Eveline's Dust. So here is the lead single from their new album. This is their website.
"If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break..."
This song was made famous by Led Zeppelin, but the original was written by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy in 1929, two years after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.
Who were the first boy band? Probably The Jackson 5 (R.I.P. Tito Jackson who died at the weekend), but The Osmonds were hot on their heals. In fact this song was intended for the Jacksons. The genre became known as bubblegum and much of it was. But this is class.
This song starts as if they are making up as they go along. Which in Big Star's case probably wasn't a million miles from the truth. But wait for the chorus.
Big Star did it all. Made unfashionable music at the wrong time, sold no records, self-destructed and influenced generations of subsequent bands. As they sing: "Love me, we can work out the rest".
The Herbs was a children's show featuring puppets named after, yes you guessed it, different herbs. So Lady Rosemary, Sir Basil, Dill the Dog, Sage the Owl etc., and Parsley himself who introduced each episode. It was written by Michael Bond who also wrote Paddington Bear (statue on platform 1 of Paddington Station, of Paddington that is, not Michael). The rhyming of Parsley with harshly is genius.
I will leave it to you to imagine how this would work for different areas of maths.
Some songs' greatest moment comes in the opening bars or words. When Charles Trenet starts to sing, with those first two words you know you are on to a good thing.
La Mer is also one of those songs expropriated by other languages (and lyrics). There are English, German and even Soviet Russian versions amongst others.
The vibraphone consists of tuned metal bars which the player hits with mallets. It is common in classical music, but especially prevalent in jazz and there is no-one better on 'vibes' than Milt Jackson. Here he is with Modern Jazz Quartet, the group founded and led by pianist John Lewis and in which Milt spent much of his career.
So shut down the laptop, kick off your shoes and let John and Milt sink you in to summer. They start slow. Then get a little less slow. But never get too fast.
What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?
A drummer.
Okay, drummers get stick (sic). John Lennon, when asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, said he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles (actually that is probably apocryphal). But drummers are important and even cool, and none cooler than Honey Lantree. This is 1964 and women are not drummers.
The song itself is a piece of classic pre-lapsarian sixties pop produced by legend Joe Meek. Go Honey (especially from 1.27).
If you had wandered in to Hyde Park in the summer of 1966 you might have seen a bunch of barely twenty somethings making a cheap promo film and launching a mod anthem. The mods (from 'modernist'), sharply dressed, riding their Lambrettas (mopeds), had evolved in London in the 50s, listening to jazz and blues and ska, but by the following decade were also listening to the likes of The Who.
The kids were alright.
Some pieces of music, especially classical music, are often familiar, but you can't name the composer...
Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg wrote this short piano piece in 1896 in memory of his and his wife Nina's recent 25th wedding anniversary celebration. It is played here by Alice Sara Ott.
And today sees the start of the BBC Proms, eight weeks of largely, but not exclusively, classical music from all eras in the Royal Albert Hall in London.
A familiar story: album released, ignored for years, then slowly hailed as a masterpiece.
This is the title track. Enjoy the weekend. Linda is determined to enjoy hers.
This song, St Etienne's first single, was literally recorded in a member of the band's bedroom studio. It's a cover of a Neil Young song.
The band were named after the French football team that lost the 1976 European Cup final to Bayern Munich. Apparently the band really liked their kit.
70s disco from Tina. Her voice gets higher and higher as the song goes on. It's kind of a relief when she stops.
There used to be a radio feature called 'Bigger than the Beatles' which was a light-hearted way of featuring bands who should have perhaps have done a lot better than they did. These guys fit the bill.