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Friday, Aug 16 2019, 6AM
Good morning and happy Friday. It's an All-Request Show! Let us know what you want to hear. Do you like Thom Yorke's voice?: indie88.com Mr. Yorke will be here in Seattle at The Paramount Theatre on Sunday, October 20th, 2019.
In May of 2018, Nada Surf performed this wonderful song live in the KEXP studio: www.youtube.com
"Everybody Wants To Rule The World" is a line from the 1980 Clash song "Charlie Don't Surf." Did Tears for Fears lift it? Joe Strummer of The Clash thought so. He recounted a story to Musician magazine about confronting Roland Orzabal in a restaurant, informing Orzabal that "you owe me a fiver." Strummer said that Roland reached in his pocket and produced a five pound note, ostensibly as compensation for poaching the line for his hit title.
"People have got married to the song, people have conceived children to the song, and have been buried to the song." Here's a terrific interview with The The's Matt Johnson about the classic "This Is the Day": www.dazeddigital.com
Watch a live performance of this song in Austin in 2009: www.youtube.com
This was one of the first songs lead singer Michael Stipe wrote after the death of friend and actor River Phoenix on Halloween 1993. Stipe sunk into depression and didn't write anything for five months.
This features backing vocals from Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore. The two bands had been friends for over a decade, and this was Stipe's way of acknowledging their influence.
"But when I am alone...
When I've thrown off the weight of this crazy stone...
When I've lost all care for the things I own...
That's when I miss you...You who are my home now..." Here are the lyrics: genius.com
The literal meaning of “pitseleh” (a Yiddish word) is “little one” or “dear.” Elliott Smith rarely played Pitseleh in concert, often dismissing it as too much of a “lyrics based song” when it was requested, though some have speculated that it was a rare example of a song too special or personal for him to be performed like his others.: www.youtube.com
Matthew Houck and Phosphorescent performed this great song and others in a live performance in the kEXP studio in 2013: www.kexp.org
Inspired by a bleak moment gazing out at the Aegean Sea, the song was singer Yannis Philippakis' attempt to capture the intensity of Greek myth. He explained: "I came up with the lyrics while visiting my dad in Greece. I went for a walk on this really remote beach. It's the deepest point ion the Aegean, and locals think it's an evil place. The beach was littered with refuse and I saw a dead dog floating in the waves. It was a twisted, hallucinogenic scene, but it had a weird beauty to it. I wanted to capture that sense of malignancy.": www.youtube.com
Nice segue, John. (That's not just MY opinion--it's yours, too!) Simple Minds were working in America when they came up with the music for this song. The jaunty tune inspired a similarly upbeat lyric from Jim Kerr, who told us: "We were in New York, it was summer, Manhattan. We could feel the band was really on the verge of something, and I think that positivity and that idea of hope formed the lyrics."
John Richards welcomed Quivers to the KEXP studio in March for a live session that included this terrific song: www.youtube.com
"Miss Sarajevo" is the only single from the 1995 album "Original Soundtracks 1" by U2 and Brian Eno, under the pseudonym "Passengers". Luciano Pavarotti makes a guest vocal appearance, singing the opera solo.According to Bono, Pavarotti was very fond of the idea of collaboration. Even before "Miss Sarajevo" was thought of, "He had been asking for a song. In fact, asking is an understatement. He had been crank-calling the house. He told me if I didn't write him a song, God would be very cross."
"I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet..
Marks of weakness, marks of woe"
.Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft wrote this epic string-soaked ballad after his long-standing girlfriend, Sarah, ran off with his childhood friend. The opening lyrics are based on the first two stanzas of William Blake's 1794 poem, "London.": bit.ly
This started as a song for Keith Richards' newborn son Marlon. It was 1969 and Keith regretted that he had to leave his son to go on tour. Mick Jagger rewrote Keith's lyrics, keeping only the line "Wild horses couldn't drag me away." His rewrite was based on his relationship with Marianne Faithfull, which was disintegrating.
Bowie came up with this after he was asked to put English lyrics to a French song called "Comme d'habitude." Paul Anka ultimately bought the rights to the original French song and rewrote it in English as "My Way," later made famous by Frank Sinatra. "Life On Mars?" uses practically the same chords as "My Way" and the Hunky Dory liner notes state that the song is "inspired by Frankie."
Sharon Van Etten and Bon Iver will be at the Gorge Amphitheatre on Friday, September 6th, 2019. Watch her in an urban landscape (Albany, New York) in the video for No One's Easy to Love": www.spin.com
Watch The Kills rip through "Sour Cherry" on its 10th anniversary last year.: www.billboard.com
Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein talks to KEXP's Sound and Vision tomorrow morning, Saturday, August 17th, 2019, from 7:00--9:00 a.m.
"Justine Frischmann's cool sexuality is earthier, yet more detached, than Debbie Harry's." Read a biography of Elastica here: www.allmusic.com
Wire came to the KEXP studio for a live performance in 2017: www.youtube.com
John was the host for this sterling live performance by IDLES in the kEXP studio lat year: www.youtube.com
Drummer Rob Ellis said about "Rid of Me." "It’s ugly music, but ugly in a good way. It makes me squirm in places but the reason it makes me squirm is because it is quite close to the bone. Some of the vocals are literally hysterical, mad, crazy. It’s a difficult listen because you’re not sure whether it’s embarrassing or funny or scary or what. But you can’t ignore it. It’s a pretty un-ignorable record. I’m proud of that.": www.spin.com
"100%" was the first single from Sonic Youth's 1992 album Dirty. It was released in 1992 on DGC. The song was dedicated to the band's friend Joe Cole, who was killed by a gunman in 1991.
"I am un chien andalusia." Here's one of many live versions of this song: www.youtube.com
"Woo hoo!" "Song 2" lasts exactly 2 minutes and 2 seconds. More facts about this powerful tune: www.radiox.co.uk
Learn more about this seminal Seattle band: www.amoeba.com
This one's for you, Molly! "“Don’t Waste My Time” is a rolling, retro-tinged jam with a radioactive core, salted with handclaps, vocal chants, an impossibly funky bassline, and, my favorite part, a battery acid guitar lick that perfectly mirrors the melody of the song’s sung title during the chorus." Learn a little more about the song and the artist here: bit.ly
"Magic" is a song performed by New Zealand recording artist Ladyhawke, released as the fifth and final single from her debut album "Ladyhawke" (2008). Ladyhawke wrote the song when she first went to London and she didn't know anyone. She describes it as a fantasy epic where she has someone and she is trying to coax them over to talk to her, where in reality she felt alone.: www.youtube.com
"Would?" was written by guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell as a tribute to his friend Andrew Wood, lead vocalist of Mother Love Bone, who died of a heroin overdose in 1990. Cantrell sings the verses of the song, while Layne Staley sings the chorus.
Disillusioned with the Washington grunge scene, Cobain compares its cliques to his time at Aberdeen High School as a teenager ("You're in high school again," he sings).
Read the story of "every Nirvana track" here: www.nme.com
See the official music video for "Ocean Size": www.youtube.com
Thank you, Owen Murphy, for this request. Next month, Death Cab For Cutie will follow up their 2018 album "Thank You For Today" with a new extended-play record called "The Blue EP." "To the Ground" is a new single from that EP. “To The Ground" lyrically addresses the aftermath of a tragedy. In this case, it’s a car crash, and Gibbard is meditating on the circle-of-life stuff that happens when a natural environment grows around the husk of a crashed car.
Built to Spill will be here in Seattle, playing the Showbox SoDo on Friday, October 25th, and Saturday, October 26th, 2019.
Enjoy a loving review of "There's Nothing Wrong With Love": www.treblezine.com
One reviewer talks about what makes this a beautiful song.: www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com
Part Three used to be an old song entitled “Up and Over We Go”, from the 7" EP "The Amazing Phantom Third Channel." Jeff Mangum said of this song, "A lot of us were really lost at that point in our lives and we were all pretty scared. So I wrote that song for everybody to sort of say, you know, everything’s going to be alright, don’t be afraid. Most of my songs were recorded for friends, a friend would be depressed or having a hard time and I’d write a pop song for them to make them feel better."
Head Head David Byrne shed some light on his lyrical inspiration when he said: "Most of the words in 'Once in a Lifetime' come from evangelists I recorded off the radio while taking notes and picking up phrases I thought were interesting directions." Some of these evangelist recordings also made their way to a 1981 album called "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" by David Byrne and Brian Eno.
Watch Metallica honor The Stone Roses by covering this song in Manchester earlier this year: www.nme.com
The video did a great deal to frame the image of Duran Duran as international superstars. Shot off the coast of Antigua while the band were vacationing there (they got along so well at the time they even vacationed together), they appeared wearing expensive suits while riding a yacht. The character Rio appears as an exotic-looking woman (sometimes wearing body paint) that is the object of their affections. The colorful video stood out on MTV, which didn't have many videos at the time and played it often.: www.youtube.com
Watch this very talented poet, novelist, and musician performing "Perfect Coffee" live in the KEXP studio in 2017: www.youtube.com
"Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were." Memorize the lyrics: www.azlyrics.com
James Murphy explained the inspiration for the song: "When I was DJing, playing Can, Liquid Liquid, ESG, all that kind of stuff, I became kind of cool for a moment, which was a total anomaly....And to be honest I was afraid that this new found coolness was going to go away and that's where 'Losing My Edge' comes from. It is about being horrified by my own silliness. And then it became a wider thing about people who grip onto other people's creations like they are their own. There is a lot of pathos in that character though because it's born out of inadequacy and love."
Pop Will Eat Itself will be at El Corazon (with Severed Heads) on Wednesday, September 11th, 2019.: www.elcorazonseattle.com
See Renegade Soundwave in Morocco in the video for this song: www.youtube.com
Neil Tennant's lyrics were written as a satire of Thatcherism (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) and its embodiment in conspicuous consumption in the United Kingdom during the 1980s. Tennant said, ""It's a simple message isn't it? 'I've got the brains, you've got the looks, let's make lots of money.' A very insensitive thing that was meant to be a satire of Thatcherism. Actually, we'd written the Thatcherite anthem": www.youtube.com
Ahhh...the (extended remix) Friday song. The KEXP Fall Fundraising Drive is right around the corner, and we're asking you to vote for your favorite KEXP albums of all time! We'll count down the top... oh, maybe Six Hundred and Sixty-Six, from September 20th through the 27th. (Voting ends on Friday, September 13th at 6 PM PST.) Vote now: www.kexp.org
Too bad there's not video of John and Owen dancing to this song here in the booth. You'll have to make do with this video of George Michael: www.youtube.com
Learn the Biblical Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego story and how it plays into the most important song on "Paul's Boutique": www.adioslounge.com
"Let’s take a look at how both of these guys kill it on lyrics and production." This essay deconstructs the duo's second studio album, "Follow the Leader": hiphopgoldenage.com
At 109 Beats Per Minute (BPM), this was one of the fastest rap songs of its era. Chuck D told Keyboard magazine how it came about: "Rap comes from the idea of a deejay working a party. A lot of our decisions are still based on that structure. We figure the thing that makes people really respond is changes in beats-per-minute. At one time, most of the rap music coming out was around 99 to 102 beats per minute, and that's what made us do 'Bring the Noise' , where we jetted it up to 109. We changed the whole approach to rap by putting a different rhyme style over it. We tried to make that album like Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" in a fast, hectic rhythm. Then once we'd established that pattern, everybody followed. Young MC and all those guys started getting up there."
LL Cool J said in his autobiography that the idea for the song came from a discussion with his grandmother. He had said to his grandmother that he felt that he couldn't survive as a rapper now that gangsta rap was popular and he was being dissed by several up-and-coming rappers. She responded, "Oh baby, just knock them out!" She is featured in the closing scene of the music video, saying: "Todd! Todd! Get upstairs and take out that garbage.": www.youtube.com
Maybe you would like to know more about these guys from Queens.: bit.ly
