John Richards

Good morning, happy Friday, and welcome to an all-request edition of The Morning Show with John Richards! Test us (206-903-5397) or email us (dj@kexp.org) with your requests! Thanks for bein here! -- This first request comes from inside the booth. -- "I am Brimheim. My given name is Helena and I’m a half Danish, half Faroese singer/songwriter currently residing in Malmö, Sweden." Read an interview with this rising star: nordicwatchlist.com

Watch a live 2023 performance of this 1990 tune: www.youtube.com

That's band member Kirk Pengilly on saxophone on this classic track, written by Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss.

Bowie once called “Blue Jean” “a piece of sexist rock ‘n roll. It’s about picking up birds. It’s not very cerebral, that piece.” It's based on an Eddie Cochran riff which was played perfectly by guitarist Carlos Alomar.

Fans may already know that Sioux wrote this song as a tribute to Jayne Mansfield, the late actress and pin-up girl, who starred opposite Cary Grant in the 1957 film “Kiss Them for Me.” Mansfield died tragically in a car accident at the age 34. In the chorus, Siouxsie references her death: “Nothing or no one/ will ever make me let you down’ Kiss them for me/ I may be delayed Kiss them for me/ if I am delayed…”

I have never heard Cut Copy on the radio. Can we make this happen in the Bay Area? - Shawn in SF -- It's not the Bay Area, Shawn, but here's Cut Copy performing "Lights and Music" in Pasadena in 2022: www.youtube.com

The band wrote this song with their producer, Steven Hague. It was the first time they collaborated with Hague, who joined them again to produce New Order's 1993 album "Republic." Bernard Sumner recalled: " It was a time when I set out to write a hit single. I think we got a rather large tax bill, and we sat down with Stephen Hague to write a Top 40 hit." "I had an idea for the bassline, Gillian (Gilbert, keyboards) had some string ideas, Stephen got some drums down. When we got the track going, I was sent off to the flat we had in London with a bottle of Pernod and told not to show my face again until I'd written the lyrics."

Yard Act is touring and will be at The Independent in San Francisco on June 4th, Mississippi Studios in Portland on June 6th, and at The Crocodile in Seattle on Saturday, June 8th. They will be at Irving Plaza in NUC on October 12th.

Sampa Tembo's great live performance in the KEXP studio in 2022 included "Final Form": www.youtube.com

"My sons, Simon 11 months, and Theo, 5 years old, love this new song. What harmonies! --Avery -- Waxahatchee (Katie Crutchfield) is part of ZooTunes at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle and will be performing on Sunday, August 18th! She'll be at Oakland's Fox Theater on Saturday, May 18th. -- Watch Waxahatchee and collaborator MJ Lenderman perform this beautiful song live on The Late Show: www.youtube.com

This great song was written by San Francisco's Danny Pearson. You can purchase "Red's Recovery Room" here: dannypearson.bandcamp.com

"At once incisive and joyful, this 1970 single covers a lot of ground in just over two minutes, moving seamlessly from social critique to personal lament. Its observations about industrialization and environmental degradation are still piercingly relevant 54 years later." Three days ago, The New York Times published a list of "10 essential Joni Mitchell songs" (This, of course, is one.): www.nytimes.com

The Jayhawks are playing three sold-out shows at The Tractor, March 29th -31st. Alt-country stalwarts The Jayhawks were in our studio in 2016 for a live performance. Watch that performance and their interview with our own Kevin Cole: www.youtube.com

R.I.P., beloved singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Karl Wallinger, who died earlier this month at age 66: www.theguardian.com

Ahhh....the Friday song. This is a request from Matt, Pam, Meredith, Jane and Andrew (and countless others!) -- Did you know that KEXP's 50 Years of Hip-Hop podcast won an Ambie Award for Best Entertainment Podcast?: www.kexp.org

IDLES will bring their World Tour 2024 to The Paramount Theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 7th and 8th! They'll be at Portland's Roseland Theatre on May 4th, at the Fox Theater in Oakland on May 10th, and in San Francisco at The Warfield on May 11th. -- Here's the official video for "Dancer": www.youtube.com

This song, inspired by Kurt Cobain’s observations of the mistreatment of both Native Americans and of women, begins with an off-key version of The Youngbloods" "Everybody Get Together."

Here's a live version of this song from 1983, with the bass solo by Cliff Burton: www.youtube.com -- R.I.P., Cliff Burton. The Metallica bassist was just 24 years old when he died from a freak tour bus accident in 1986: americansongwriter.com

Mannequin Pussy will play August Hall in San Francisco on Saturday, April 27th, the Wonder Ballroom in Portland on May 29th, and The Crocodile in Seattle on Tuesday, may 30th.

Enjoy that first date in a very long time, Erin! -- PJ Harvey will be at Terminal 5 in NYC on September 15th and 16th, at Seattle's Paramount Theatre on October 6th, at the Theater of the Clouds in Portland on October 7th, and at The Masonic in San Francisco on October 10th and 11th.

Bay Area hip-hop luminary Tsutomu "Tom" Shimura is a Japanese-American rapper and producer, recording as Lyrics Born. He was originally known as Asia Born, but changed his name to ensure that he won fans based on his merits as a rapper. -- When you go to his Facebook page, you can watch the official video for "Callin' Out": www.facebook.com

Dolly Parton previously addressed speculation that Bey may be taking on her classic track. ““Well, I think she has!” she said. “I think she’s recorded ‘Jolene’ and I think it’s probably gonna be on her country album, which I’m very excited about that.” “I love her!” Parton added of the 32-time Grammy winner. “She’s a beautiful girl and a great singer.”

In the podcast "Dolly Parton’s America," Dolly says she wrote this song after leaving the Porter Wagoner show: "As I left his office and began to drive toward my home out in Brentwood, it began to rain. So did I. I cried. Not so much out of a sense of loss, but from the pain that almost always comes with change. It has a sad kind of freedom. Then, I began to sing a song to myself: ‘it’s been a long dark night and I’ve been a-waiting for the morning. It’s been a long hard fight, but I see a brand new day dawning. I’ve been looking for the sunshine; you know I ain’t seen it in so long. But everything’s gonna work out just fine. And everything’s gonna be all right that’s been all wrong. I can see the light of a clear blue morning.’ And, I swear to you on my life as I said that the sky cleared up, it stopped raining, the sun came out. And before I got home, I had completely written the song called ‘Light of a Clear Blue Morning.'"

This song was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and was a big hit for Dionne Warwick in 1967. However, Aretha transformed it. -- In a candid 2010 interview with NPR, David and Bacharach both laughed trying to describe how good Franklin’s version was. “It’s a better record than the record we made,” Bacharach said. “Mmhmm. We did, yeah. And we did a great record, but she topped it,” David added. They told their host to listen to it, that you can just hear it in the effortless way Franklin sings and how the arrangement is crafted to enhance that. That Franklin sings the song as if it were a dress designed just for her.: www.vox.com

Did you know that this title track from "Ray of Light' was based on an obscure folk oldie, the song "Sepheryn" from English singer Christine Leach? She is credited as a co-writer on the song. -- The video for "Ray of Light" was nominated for a Grammy.: www.youtube.com

Don't stop! -- Jessie Ware performed this banger live at The Fashion Awards in 2022: www.youtube.com

"I'm in the corner, watching you kiss her, oh I'm right over here, why can't you see me? Oh..." --- Here's an NPR tribute to this incredible anthem: www.npr.org

Go way back to 2010 to see The English Beat play this classic in our Bumbershoot Music Lounge: www.youtube.com -- Pearl Jam regularly covers this song in a medley with "Better Man": www.youtube.com

“Nuthin' But a ‘G’ Thang” was the lead single to Dr. Dre’s debut solo album, "The Chronic," It's neat to hear this hip-hop classic played by steel drums.

Thomas on Vashon, requesting this song, said, "“Thanks for the continuous words of kindness to the world, That is just as important as all the music.” -- Kermit the Frog and pals performed this song live in Brighton, England: coloradosound.org (Psst, it wasn't Kermit's first experience with LCD Soundsystem. Kermit actually stars in the official band video for “New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down.”): www.youtube.com

Supertramp singer/guitarist Roger Hodgson wrote this song when he was a teenager, but didn't record it until much later. It was about five years between when he wrote the song and when he brought it to the band. He explained: "I think it's a great song. I didn't realize it was when I first wrote it. It actually took me six years before I even brought it to the band. But I wrote it I think around 1970. That time, the late '60s, early '70s, was a very idealistic time, one of hope, a lot of peace and love and the dream of the '60s was still very alive and maturing, if you like. The Beatles had put out 'All You Need Is Love' a year prior to that. I believed in love - it was always for love - and just felt that was the most important thing in life.

Thanks, Cory, for this request! -- Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz and bass player Tina Weymouth are big fans of funk. When they went to a P-Funk show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the crowd started chanting, "Burn down the house, burn down the house," which gave Frantz the idea for the title. As he explained in a 1984 interview with National Public Radio (NPR), he and Weymouth created the original track in a jam, then took it to the band where they refined the groove. To form the lyrics, they picked words that fit the rhythms, which is why the words don't seem to make a lot of sense.

Bowie’s iconic character Major Tom was based on director Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. David Bowman, who was played by Keir Dullea in the film "2001: A Space Odyssey." Bowie began writing “Space Oddity” six months after seeing the movie, which came out in UK cinemas in May 1968. “I found [the film] amazing,” Bowie said in 2003. “I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.”

"You can see all the rest of the blue and green globe twisting and turning below you... You can see the sun lighting up the moon.... You can feel the stars shining down upon your back..." Here are the lyrics to this incredible song: genius.com -- Want to see the Edinburgh band perform this song live?: www.youtube.com

This song includes audio clips from Mission Control in Houston when Apollo 8 becomes the first manned voyage to orbit the moon and they are on “the other side” and lose radio contact. The tension midway through the track is palpable bringing to life this historic moment in space travel and then erupting back into a solid composition of electronic driven beats in celebration of Apollo 8’s success. -- They're wearing ties! Watch Public Service Broadcasting in a live performance in the KEXP studio in 2017: www.youtube.com

"The Race for Space" is the second studio album by British alternative group Public Service Broadcasting. Working with sound samples from the British Film Institute, the album relives the story of the American and Soviet space race from 1957–1972. This track features the speech by John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1962 at Rice University. -- Here's the full text of President Kennedy's speech: www.rice.edu

"Space Walk" is set to a recording of Ed White's 1965 space walk on the Gemini 4 mission. Nick Franglen and Fred Deakin chose to use the sample after listening to a 1969 album called "Flight to the Moon"; the two were struck by how moving and emotive many of the tracks were. Deakin later said, "'One small step' leaves me cold, because it was so obviously scripted. But the spacewalk… even after hearing it so many times, it's so vivid."

Bowie's label, RCA Records, released a promotional single in 1980 titled "The Continuing Story of Major Tom." On it, "Space Oddity" was mixed smoothly into "Ashes to Ashes," creating a nine-minute epic. The end of the first song meshed uncannily with the start of the second: The lonely beeping at the conclusion of "Space Oddity" bled into the high-pitched, pizzicato-like melody at the beginning of "Ashes to Ashes." It was as if that had been Bowie's intention all along. Read a fascinating NPR feature on how "Ashes to Ashes" marked the end of stage one of Bowie's career: www.npr.org

Bassist David J wrote the lyrics for this song. Daniel Ash is the saxophonist.