John Richards

Good morning and very happy Friday. "Electric word life it means forever and that's a mighty long time..." The beginning of this song is one of the most famous spoken intros in pop history. Prince takes the persona of a preacher and is joined by a church organ as he gives what amounts to a sermon, reminding us that we should enjoy this life, knowing that we can look forward to a world of never-ending happiness when we die. Credit this to George Clinton, who did many similar bits ("free your mind, and your ass will follow...") with P-Funk. :www.youtube.com

This song samples several songs including the keyboard component of The Who's song "Baba O'Riley", the organ from the introduction to the Deep Purple song "Child in Time", a drum break from Tommy Roe's "Sweet Pea", drums and guitars from a break in Pigmeat Markham's "Here Comes the Judge", a line from The Sugarhill Gang's song "Rapper's Delight" where Big Bank Hank raps "a time to laugh, a time to cry", and a vocal sample from Peter Sellers in Fred Flange's song "You Keep Me Swingin'", where Sellers talks about "rhythm and melody".

The "Baba O'Riley" title combines the names of Meher Baba and Terry Riley, two of Peter Townshend's philosophical and musical mentors. Townshend stated in an interview that the song "is about the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where audience members were strung out on acid and 20 people had brain damage. The irony was that some listeners took the song to be a teenage celebration: 'Teenage Wasteland, yes! We're all wasted!'"

"Funeral" has been alive for 14 years now. Read an evaluation of this fabulous album when it was a decade old: consequenceofsound.net

Watch the official trailer (No. 2) for "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," featuring this fine Jose Gonzalez (and St. Vincent) song: www.tribecafilm.com

There's water, water everywhere (and sand..and telescopes..and....) in the video for "I Woke Up Today.": www.youtube.com

Karen O wrote the music for the soundtrack of this Maurice Sendak adaptation: www.popmatters.com

"Stand by Me" is a song originally performed by American singer-songwriter Ben E. King and written by King, Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller.

Go back to 1971 to see the Queen of Soul in this live cover of Stephen Stills at the Fillmore West: www.youtube.com

The Detroit-born Wilson turned to R&B after stints as a gospel singer and amateur boxer. Read a biography of this energetic and magnetic performer: www.rockhall.com

Watch him dance in those gold pants.: www.youtube.com

Donna Summer died in 2012 at the age of 63. Last summer, she scored a posthumous No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart with a new remix of her 1979 US pop smash ‘Hot Stuff.’ The new achievement marks Summer’s 16th dance chart-topper, a sequence that now spans 43 years, since her breakthrough hit ‘Love To Love You Baby’ in 1975.

A 14-minute techno track by Daft Punk‘s Thomas Bangalter has been shared online in full. The song was originally composed for the soundtrack of Latvian film Riga (Take 1), which was released last year. The movie’s score was nominated for the Latvian Film Prize’s Best Score award. : www.nme.com

If you're in Brooklyn, Baby Dayliner will be at Sunnyvale on Friday, December 7th, 2018. In the meantime, watch the KEXP Video Premiere of "You Push I'll Go": blog.kexp.org

Thank you, 10-year-old Angus, for this fine request! "Move on up, and keep on wishing... Remember your dream is your only scheme... So keep on pushing..." genius.com

This was written by the husband and wife songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Mann had just signed a record deal and recorded this song himself, but his version was pulled when The Animals released the song. Mann and Weil were very productive in the mid-'60s, as they made the transition from writing fluffy pop songs like "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" to songs with more of a message, which appealed to rock bands like The Animals.

Posdnuos, De La Soul rapper: 'Our manager asked, "Stay in college – or be rap stars?" I was like, "Uh, I'll take rap star"' Read how De La Soul made "3 Feet High and Rising":www.theguardian.com

Ahhh.....the Friday song. KEXP's Yule Benefit features Moby and members of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra on Thursday, December 6th at McCaw Hall. Find out more and get tickets here: www.kexp.org

In September, Paul Simon (age 76) said "I'm finished" writing music.: ttps://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2018/09/05/644544793/paul-simon-says-im-finished-writing-music

John Richards welcomed IDLES to the KEXP studio for a sterling in-studio performance earlier this fall: www.kexp.org

This song is a cover (!) of The Equals' wonderful song. Learn about the original: www.mojo4music.com

Yes, I'm running down the railroad track ( in 1967) : www.youtube.com

Born in Plaisance, Guyana, on March 5, 1948, the young Edmond Grant grew up on the sound of his homeland, tan singing, an Indo-Caribbean vocal style whose roots lay in South Asia and are the backbone of modern chutney. Then in 1960, the Grant family emigrated to England, taking up residence in the working-class Stoke Newington area of London. The young teen's musical horizons swiftly expanded, embracing the R&B, blues, and rock that percolated across his new island home. Learn more about this musical polymath: www.allmusic.com

"Watch out. You might get what you're after." Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz is a fan of Funk, and it was a P-Funk show in New York City that inspired this track. When he heard the crowd imploring the band to "Burn Down The House" , he got the idea for the title. As he explained in a 1984 interview with NPR, he and Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth, who is also his wife, 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 make a lot of sense.

"Dreams" was one of the singles from Beck's 2017 release, "Colors." Vanity Fair says, "Herewith, some facts and insights gleaned from a sunny morning’s conversation with the artist usually mononymously known as Beck.:www.vanityfair.com

Ahem...John..."Sometimes the clothes do not make the man...":genius.com

Did you know that NAS tried to whisk Monie away for an exotic getaway?:dishnation.com

In 2015, (when "Go" was released), The Chemical Brothers said that they had been together for longer than lots of marriages: www.theguardian.com

The Justice duo are huge Michael Jackson fans, and this song includes a number of references to the King of Pop's songs. They include "Beat It," "Black Or White," "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)," and "Workin' Day and Night," along with the Jackson 5 hit "ABC," and Jackson's album Music and Me. Justice's Xavier De Rosnay told NME: "Everyone loved him. We love him too, but it was more of an excuse for us to have a topic to write lyrics about. We thought it would be something playful and fun."

Someone wrote about this video: "Sooo many fetishes fulfilled by this video; braces, schoolgirl, upskirt, shortskirt, curly hair, redhair(I know its not really red, but close enough); and white panties....I feel so good and dirty at the same time." :www.youtube.com

You can follow this Clapham, London dance group on their Facebook page.: www.facebook.com

Symmetry?..."You're telling me it's in the trees, in the trees... It's not, it's inside me now...": genius.com

"In a big country....I don't remember the rest, but you keep listening to John..." :www.youtube.com

The Alarm are a Welsh alternative rock/new wave band that formed in Rhyl, Wales, in 1981. Initially formed as a punk band, The Toilets, in 1977, under lead vocalist Mike Peters, the band soon embraced rock, displaying marked influences from Welsh language and culture. :thealarm.com

Thank you, Angus, for nagging us to death about this request. Jim Kerr of Simple Minds recently talked about "Don't You (Forget About Me)" and other music: www.forbes.com

The "whole of the moon" is the big picture, which takes a particular vision to see. In a Songfacts interview with Waterboys frontman Mike Scott, he said: "I wrote the song when I was 26 years old, and I was discovering that there was so much more than I had ever known. There was so much more to learn than I'd even been hinted at in the culture I'd grown up in. I had a strong sense of wonderment about that, and I realized there were people who had vastly more information in their imaginations and experiences than I had. And so that's what inspired that song."

Ray Davies wrote this nostalgic song about his older sisters, who loved to dance. The song describes how guys would take them out dancing, only to be frustrated at the end of the night when all they would get for their efforts (and money) was a kiss on the cheek.

Everybody Wang Chung tonight! The name Wang Chung means "yellow bell" in Chinese and is the first note in the Chinese classical music scale. Ooooh, these secretly horrifying lyrics: www.pastemagazine.com

Oh, Morgan, ELO will be in The Tacoma Dome on Friday, June 28th, 2019. As part of the Zoom Tour in 2001, ELO performed "Mr. Blue Sky" live: www.youtube.com

"That's how it starts..." Read a terrific essay that deconstructs "All My Friends": www.stereogum.com

In 1981, New Order played a 10-minute "wild rendition" of "Temptation" during a New York tour stop: www.rollingstone.com

You probably know that Martin Gore used to be in an acoustic duo called Norman & the Worms. You didn't? Here are some more facts about Depeche Mode.: diffuser.fm

Watch a live in-studio performance earlier this year from this fine Olympia band: www.youtube.com

The idea for the video came from a dream Robert Smith had where he was locked in a linen closet that fell off a cliff and into the ocean.: www.dailymotion.com

Donald Glover picked his rap moniker Childish Gambino by entering his real name in the Wu-Tang Clan name generator and was signed to Glassnote Records as Childish Gambino in August 2011. Here's a biography.: www.thoughtco.com

Dear Scott, this one's for you. That's Dre from Cool and Dre featured here: genius.com

The video for the song “Arrest the President” was released on Election Day, Nov. 6. The rapper shared the video on social media and urged his followers to get out and vote.:www.youtube.com