"Against the Dying of the Light " by José González

A new song from José González from a new album to be released March 27th, 2026, both titled "Against the Dying of the Light!" José says of the narrative:

"Against the Dying of the Light is a song reflecting on humanity in 2025; about accepting who we are and what led us here, since the past can’t be changed. Then about refocusing our attention on the challenges ahead, like pervert incentives and algorithms that aren't in line with human flourishing.

And even though we have enormous opportunities with new technology that can eventually design and copy itself, we don’t have to build it right away if it has the potential to make us obsolete. We can rebel against these replicators, rebel against the dying of the light."
- José González

Accept who you have become
Where you're from
All things set,
all things gone

Relax your judging mind
Let what's been just be
There's no reset, no rewind

Embrace who we could be
the future you
The future me

Disconnect from every algorithm
Every perverse incentive
That drags you down

Let's rebel against the replicators
Against the dying of the light
Kill the codes that feed the hate
Keep the codes that make you thrive
Celebrate the fu**ing fact that we're alive

https://jose-gonzalez.com/

"Mad World" x 3

The original is absolutely sublime...

...but there have been some lovely covers.

https://tearsforfears.com/
https://www.garyjules.com/
https://linktr.ee/flosomusic

"Time" by EELS

Well, this must be the season for profound songs...with Guster's lovely "Keep Going," and yesterday's new song "Boys" by Amen Dunes...here is "Time" by EELS. Oh, where do I start... where we come from, who we love, who we must leave behind, how we miss them, our own journey, the limitation of our presence...you'll need a tissue for this.

Time, it's all about time now
Tick-tock I rock, but then I look at the clock
Knock-knock, who's there?
Well, I don't dare...
Open the door

Time, there was nothing but time there
Click-clack riding down the tracks
Never worried about coming back
Anyplace looked good to me
Why not stop and see...
What's there?

Time, there isn't much time now
What's the fear, well, I like it here
With the ones I love so near
Maybe there's just somе way
Dear god...
I can stay

https://www.eelstheband.com/

R.I.P. Melanie

Singer-songwriter Melanie has died at 76. She performed at Woodstock and sang some of the most memorable songs of the period. Songs from my youth...

R.I. P. Melanie and thanks for your music. 

https://www.melaniesafka.com/

Currently listening to...

...the absolutely haunting "Hints" by José González (previously here), in honor of the 20th anniversary of the release of his debut album "Veneer."

While the crowd is waiting for the final kiss
The one which allows them to sleep well
We'll walk along our own path
The one which will lead us to our own bliss

But we need hints
Before we get tired
But we need hints
Before we get tired

Now we need hints
Before we lose pace
We need a hint
To know we're on the right track

We need hints
Before we get tired
But we need hints
Before we get tired

Now we need speed
Before we lose pace

We need a hint
To know we're on the right track

http://jose-gonzalez.com/

Currently listening to...

...this utterly simple but profoundly moving song written by English singer-songwriter Lesley Duncan. She sings it here with Elton John on his album "Tumbleweed Connection" from 1971. While the lyrics represent something positive and uplifting, the melody and chord progression give this piece a weight and a plaintive sadness, as though Duncan and John are pleading for this world to have a perspective that probably won't happen...underlined by the addition of the sound of waves and people enjoying themselves but far away, out of reach...

https://www.eltonjohn.com/

Bono and The Edge At The Tiny Desk

On the heels of St. Patrick's Day, let's check in with a pair of very famous Irishmen: Bono and The Edge (if you have been living under a rock, they are part of a little band called U2 who have a had a few hit songs here and there) dropped in to the Tiny Desk at NPR--yesterday, on St. Pat's Day--to perform a low-key, charming set.

Tiny Desk says: "The performance was a preview of U2's new album, Songs Of Surrender, featuring stripped-down versions of songs from across the band's catalog. To help pull off several reimagined songs from the 2000 album All That You Can't Leave Behind, Bono and The Edge invited a teen choir from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., to join them. During rehearsals, Bono told the students to think of 'Beautiful Day' as the kind of 'post-drinking' singalong you'd bellow with friends after leaving a bar. He then quickly realized none of them are old enough to drink, before feigning a heart attack."

"Songs of Surrender," 40 U2 songs reimagined and re-recorded is out now.
https://www.u2.com/

"Veneer" by Merrick Winter

Gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

"Veneer" by new artist Merrick Winter. I want to hear more...

Some of them are gone
And some will remain
Far beyond the edges
Of your dreams

And do you understand
That living
is not what it seems
Don’t hold out much hope
When you’re in the thick
Of it all

For once it’s not me
That can feel it
Nothing at all
Lean on my shoulder
And say nothing at all

I’m looking backwards
Flicking though myself
Like I’m someone else

And you in that great divide
Sparring with your pride
No one can decide for you

If he was the final straw
You said you wanted more
Than money ever gave to you

Where do you go from here
The climb, or a thin veneer
A thin veneer
A thin veneer

https://www.merrickwinter.com/

"Swing" by José González

Here is "Swing," a fun, bouncy new song from José González (previously here), taken from the upcoming album "Local Valley" out September 17, 2021.

Video director Mikel Cee Karlsson about  "Swing":
"I was thinking of ideas for ‘Swing’ when I stumbled upon a scientific paper that focused on the behavioral patterns of birds and their movements in the sky. I found the natural choreography of the birds really beautiful. Like a form of dance, shaped for survival.

"That gave me the idea to for an alternative kind of dance video, using everyday scenes and set in a common place, like an average Swedish beach. I wanted to see what natural choreography I could find there. In the basic interaction between people, animals and objects. Trying to highlight specific movements and patterns in order to find some banal, but beautiful and iconic little snapshots from everyday life, and make them dance."

Swing your belly, baby
Move your body, buddy

https://jose-gonzalez.com/

"Head On" by José González

"Head On' by José González (previously here).

 
Yes.

González says, "I'm thrilled to share with you 'Head On'. I wrote it as a combat song or a list of instructions...a manual. I mean both ‘straight ahead’ and head ON - as in switching on your mind. It was inspired by Fela Kuti’s 'Zombie' and the way I used to write lyrics for my hardcore band.

Video director Cee Karlsson says: 'The animations for ‘Head On’ are based on a cellular automaton called ‘Game of Life’ created by mathematician John Horton Conway. ’Game of Life’ has emergent properties, meaning that complex forms can arise, or evolve, through simple individual parts. Without any designer, plan or intent. In the video, we used visuals from ‘Game of Life’ as an analogy for the flow of information; bits of information forming patterns. Adapting. Evolving. Mutating. Like memes, or mind viruses; positive, neutral or negative. Traveling from mind to mind in a never-ending war of ideas that we all participate in and are influenced by.'"

 

Action
Reaction
Stay with it
Hang on
Engage
Disengage
Deal with it head on

Head on

Inhale
Exhale
Wave coming
Undertow
Speed up
Go slow
Put on your new boots and deal with it
While marching on

Head on

Speak up
Stand down
Pick your battles
Look around
Reflect
Update
Pause your intuitions and deal with it head on

Head on

Rent seekers
Value extractors
Corrupt oligarchs
Power snatchers
Pervert incentives
Ludic loops
Nepotism
Tribal troops

Deflate
Escalate
Hit the sweet spot
Ignore the hate
Forget your miracles
Forget your god
Join forces and deal with it head on

Head on

http://jose-gonzalez.com/

"Evaporation" by Josin

Lyrics.

"Evaporation" by Josin (previousloy here).   

I cry over my loss
'Cause it's been all winter's fault
I count on to 3 or 2 or 4
Ain't no fake picture I'm looking at 

Maybe all is made
To evaporate 

How d'you feel, love, when this life's too short?
How we live, love, when this life's too short?

We're just stupid fools
Who want it all back
Maybe all is made
To evaporate

How d'you feel, love, when this life's too short?
How we love, love, when this life's too short?

Ain't no fake picture we're looking at
Ain't no fake picture we're looking at

http://josinmusic.com/

"Career Day" by Keaton Henson

Brand new trembling beauty from Keaton Henson (previously here), just released day before yesterday.

"Career Day."

I am devastated by this. Slain.

I'm an astronaut, baby
I work in the night
I'm a certain kinda crazy
I live in my mind

I'm a deep sea diver
I find ways to breathe
I'm deep undercover
I don't look like me

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

I'm a part time mortician
I cannot shake death
And I'm an aging physician
Ain't got much healin' left

I'm a character actor
I feed myself wine
But it leaves me pretty good at
Pretending I'm fine

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

I'm a struggling comedian
I can't find the laughs
I'm a poor mathematician
I do things by halves

I'm a weekday dancer
Can't kick the movement from my shoes
I'm a heartless casino
I win when you lose

I'm paper-thin
Just break me in

http://keatonhenson.com/

Coming Tonight: The Pink Moon!

Tonight marks a very special full moon. The Pink Moon is the first full moon in the month of April, so called not because it turns pink but because it appears during the early springtime blooms of a certain wildflower native to eastern North America: Phlox subulata—commonly called creeping phlox or moss phlox—which also went by the name “moss pink.” This full Moon--which is also a supermoon, as well as the first full Moon of spring, and the Paschal Full Moon (the full Moon that determines the date of Easter)--will be visible after sunset and reach peak illumination at 10:35 P.M. EDT. It will take on a golden hue near the horizon and fade to bright white (so see it early)...and it will be the biggest and brightest moon of the year!

To celebrate, let's listen to Nick Drake's lovely, wistful "Pink Moon"...

http://www.brytermusic.com/

"Alda" by Thylacine

What a glorious song and video filmed in the breathtakingly gorgeous Faroe Islands... "Alda" by Thylacine (the nom de musique of French saxophonist William Rezé). The song was recorded in his mobile studio and live in a sea cave on the Islands.

https://www.facebook.com/thylacine.w/
https://www.instagram.com/thylacine_music/

"Don't Interrupt The Sorrow"

I have been a lifelong fan of The Smiths and Morrissey, and despite the fact that some of Morrissey's recent controversial--and ill-conceived--statements and beliefs (including aligning himself with For Britain, England's far-right party) have made it very hard to continue to like him, I can't help but be excited about his most current release. "California Son" is an album of covers, something I never would have expected from Morrissey but now that it exists, it makes perfect sense, especially looking at the songs he has chosen to cover. You can't go wrong covering songs from one of the greatest living singer/songwriters, Joni Mitchell (of whom I have also been a lifelong fan). And here he is singing the exquisite "Don't Interrupt The Sorrow" from the phenomenal 1975 Joni Mitchell album "The Hissing of Summer Lawns."

Don't interrupt the sorrow
Darn right
In flames our prophet witches
Be polite
A room full of glasses
He says "Your notches liberation doll"
And he chains me with that serpent
To that Ethiopian wall

Anima rising
Queen of Queens
Wash my guilt of Eden
Wash and balance me
Anima rising
Uprising in me tonight
She's a vengeful little goddess
With an ancient crown to fight

Truth goes up in vapors
The steeples lean
Winds of change patriarchs
Snug in your bible belt dreams
God goes up the chimney
Like childhood Santa Claus
The good slaves love the good book
A rebel loves a cause

I'm leaving on the 1:15
You're darn right
Since I was seventeen
I've had no one over me
He says "Anima rising-
So what-
Petrified wood process
Tall timber down to rock!"

Don't interrupt the sorrow
Darn right
He says "We walked on the moon
You be polite."
Don't let up the sorrow
Death and birth and death and birth and death and birth
He says "Bring that bottle kindly
And I'll pad your purse-
I've got a head full of quandary
And a mighty, mighty, thirst."

Seventeen glasses
Rhine wine
Milk of the Madonna
Clandestine
He don't let up the sorrow
He lies and he cheats
It takes a heart like Mary's these days
When your man gets weak

For comparison, here is Joni's original version. Morrissey may have changed a few words here and there and amped up the texture but he kept the sense.

Morrissey actually interviewed Joni Mitchell in 1996. The fascinating, two-part conversation can be heard below.

https://www.morrisseyofficial.com/
https://jonimitchell.com/

"The Water" by RY X

New from RY X (previously here and here): "The Water" from his soon-to-be released album "Unfurl" available February 15, 2019.

The New York Times said of RY X, "His voice is a pearly, androgynous tenor, a vessel for liquid melancholy that blurs words at the edges. He stretches pop structures with repetition that grows devotional, obsessive, hypnotic".
Yes.

https://www.ry-x.com/

R.I.P. Pete Shelley

Punk rock and bisexual icon Pete Shelley has died at the too-young age of 63. After the success of his punk band Buzzcocks (contemporaries of The Sex Pistols), he went solo and in 1981, he recorded a genre-defying song that mixed both acoustic guitar and synthesizers (which were being heavily explored in music at this time) in a propulsive, effervescent gay anthem called "Homosapien." The mix of acoustic and electronic instruments sounds amazingly fresh and sparkling even today. I used to hear this song played while waiting to see bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Ultravox at The Kabuki Nightclub in San Francisco in the early 80s!

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And I think of your eyes in the dark
And I see the star
And I look to the light
And I might wonder right where you are
All the Gods in the sky, way up high
See the earth spinning 'round
But the sun and the moon
And the stars are so far from the ground

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And the world's built of age are a stage
Where we act out our lives
And the words in the script seem to fit
'Cept we have some surprise
I just want this to last
Or my future is past and all gone
And if this is the case
Then I'll lose in life's race from now on

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too
And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And I just hope and pray
That the day of our love is at hand
You and I, me and you
We will be one from two, understand?
And the world is so wrong
That I hope that we'll be strong enough
For we are on our own
And the only thing known is our love

I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too
I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too

R.I.P. Pete and thanks for the music.

"Lonely Man of Winter" by Sufjan Stevens

In time for winter: "Lonely Man of Winter" by Sufjan Stevens.

In the world that you would make up
With unicorns and buffalo packs
I know that you would wake up
With the sunny side touching your back

Is it the lonely man of Christmas?
Coming up with theories on him
Is it the lonely man of Christmas?
He's riding in the devil's abyss

Oh, I would rate the future
If I could put a finger on it
But I have no idea
If what I want is better than this

Is it the lonely man of winter?
I could put my finger on that
Is it the lonely drive to Denver?
The loneliness of Hoppington's hat

Is it the time we spent in silence?
The silence of a winter he had
Is it the lonely man of winter?
I could put my finger on that

And even if it's Christmas
Could we just pretend for a bit
That everything we went through
Was someone else's carpenter kiss

https://sufjan.com/

"Untold" by RY X

"Untold."
A new song by RY X (previously here, here, and here).

He writes to us:
"Dearest community. I come for you again, heart open.

To bare new makings and pour what i have made for you out on stages .

And to share what i caught onto tape and vinyl for your ears and hearts to hear.

The sounds have grown, the shows and its world have grown, in concept and beauty both, and i can’t wait to share each opening of it all with you.

On tour, in music, in visuals, in heart.

A new song for you."

https://www.ry-x.com/

"Damned Eye See" by Chelou

Chelou (previously here and here) continues to create gentle, melancholy music, accompanied by touching, animated videos. Here is "Damned Eye See."

I have my own ideas about the lyrics, but I will resist editorializing and let you, reader, feel what you will:

Damned eye see
Reading about how it's all falling apart
Am I yours to own
Feed me a biscuit and I will fetch you a bone
When we're out of fuel
With nothing left to lose

And they say it's a matter of fact
But I'm not naive enough
To take it as a matter fact
Is everything they needed

Sure you've been having fun
At my expense
Time is a loaded gun and I'm on the fence
Warm it up enough for me
And I'll be your tool
Paint me like a pedigree
And I'll be your fool

Kill your friend
Sadly I find I'm still alive at the end
Did you taste their pain
Spare me the crime untill it's time to pretend
Feeling out of sort
You pushed me over board

They say it's a matter of fact
But I'm not naive enough
To take it as a matter fact
Is everything they needed

Sure you've been having fun
At my expense
Time is a loaded gun and I'm on the fence
Warm it up enough for me
And I'll be your tool
Paint me like a pedigree
And I'll be your fool

http://chelouworld.com/