Still Hot

In fact, they're hotter than ever. Here's the latest from Duran Duran, All You Need Is Now:

The Day the Music Died

But February made me shiver,
With every paper I'd deliver,
Bad news on the doorstep...
I couldn't take one more step.
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside,
The day the music died.
— American Pie by Don McLean

When I first heard that song as a kid, the words seemed like a dark puzzle to me. I had no idea what it all meant, and yet I was compelled to memorize it. A decade or so later, I came across the famous Usenet annotation and I was finally enlightened.

Recently, that song, out of nowhere, got locked in my head again. Like anything that pops into my brain, I Googled it, and then I was reminded that today, February 3rd, marks the 51st anniversary of The Day the Music Died.

On this day in 1959, a small-plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, killed three legendary American rock and roll musicians: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson.

And that's where those mysterious lyrics come in. "American Pie" was recorded in 1971 by Don McClean as a tribute to Buddy Holly and a commentary on how rock and roll changed and became less danceable in the years after the deaths of the three young idols. Here is a live performance of the song:


(YouTube video)

Totally Swing

Forgive me, but I'm going to show you something truly awful, and if you have any respect for 80's pop music, this video is not only insufferable but also blasphemous:



The announcer asks us "Ever wondered what would happen if you blended the cool sophistication of a Big Band sound with the familiar and well-loved hit songs of that most flamboyant of decades, the 1980's?" Well no, I never did... and um... wait. Is this a joke??? Doesn't every SNL fake commercial start out with"Ever wonder what would happen if...."? Come on. This is as bad as thong baby diapers.

Oh, I know. Maybe he's being ironic?

I never thought I'd see Limahl fall to this lowly state. Actually, I haven't thought about him in years, but my brain is suddenly cranking out every odd factoid I ever read in Smash Hits. His stage name is an anagram of his real last name -- Hamill. He was the lead singer of Kajagoogoo whose hit "Too Shy" was produced by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran and Colin Thurston. Limahl also had one solo hit called "Never Ending Story."

But right now I'm wishing he'd just follow that one famous lyric -- "hush hush."

Stand by Me

Last night Bill Moyers interviewed Mark Johnson, the co-director of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music: Playing for Change: Peace Through Music.

MARK JOHNSON: Well I think music is the one thing that opens the door to bringing people to a place where they are all connected. It is easy to connect to the world through music, you know. Religion, politics, a lot of those things they seem to divide everybody…

I've posted the music video here, but you can watch the entire interview on the PBS.org site.