March March

Yes, I know the month only has one word, but that is just the title of the song I’m closing with! It is, of course, time for my recap on what I have given you recently, in case you missed anything or have an inexplicable desire to see some of them again.

This is my thirteenth post for March: of the previous twelve, only one wasn’t a music offering, and that was the first one I gave you – a two month recap of what you might have missed entitled January, February. As you may recall, personal circumstances reduced my blogging frequency in January so it seemed a good idea to roll the first two months of the year into a combined review. That resulted in a post of links to fourteen others, which should be more than enough for anyone! All the usual suspects were there, plus a titular song from Barbara Dickson’s beautiful voice.

Those regulars were, of course, Tuesday Tunes and Song Lyric Sunday (aka SLS), each of which appeared four times, plus there were three other midweek offerings. Let’s begin with Tuesday Tunes. The first of the month was Tuesday Tunes 139: Teachers And Schools, which took its theme from one of the groups of public sector workers here in the UK who have been in dispute with the government, attempting to get a pay award which better reflects their worth to society. The music came from Paul Simon, Elton John, Ry Cooder, Rockpile, Cat Stevens, Bowling For Soup, Steely Dan, and of course I couldn’t leave out Alice Cooper, could I?

I followed that up with a little homage to the American predilections for unhealthy food and putting the date in the wrong order, in Tuesday Tunes 140: Food – A Second Helping. As the title suggests this was the second time I had given you a set of food songs in the series, but it had been quite a while since the first. It also related back to several posts I have previously done for Pi(e) Day in the US. The music was by Don McLean, ‘Weird Al’ Jankovic, Def Leppard, 10,000 Maniacs, ZZ Top, Squeeze, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, and Kacey Musgraves. Hopefully no one got indigestion from those!

While I was choosing songs for that post I was struck by how many songs there were which contained either the word fruit in their title or the names of specific fruits, and this gave me an idea. The two remaining Tuesday posts in March saw the fruits of my labours in this respect, starting with Tuesday Tunes 141: Fruit, which included music by The Beatles (where else could I start?), George Harrison on his own, Stan Freberg, R.E.M, Fats Domino, The Stranglers, Prince, and the wonderful Russian folk band Otava Yo, who are always popular here.

The final one for the month was Tuesday Tunes 142: Some Fresh Fruit, which gave you a second helping. The tunes were by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Led Zeppelin, The Move, Crowded House, Chris Rea, Meat Loaf, Neil Diamond, and John Mellencamp. Several of my favourite regulars among that set, mixed in with two acts I hadn’t played before.

Turning now to Song Lyric Sunday, in which I took part for each of the Sundays in the month. The theme for the first of these was rockabilly music, for which I gave you Song Lyric Sunday: Hot Rod. The song I featured was by the fabulous Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen, and is well worth a look if you missed it – it’s fun! I also played you the original of the song by the man who wrote it, Charley Ryan, though I think I prefer the Commander’s more manic version.

The next week saw us playing some surf music. I didn’t know much about this, and ended up playing two songs by just about the only names I recognised in Wikipedia’s list of surf acts, The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean. You can hear them in Song Lyric Sunday: Surf’s Up.

I was much more comfortable the following week as we were into bluegrass, which is something that appeals very much to my folk music side. My offering was Song Lyric Sunday: The Grass is Blue, in which I played you a great song by Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band, and then gave you a bonus tune by Del’s own band with several assorted friends from bluegrass circles.

We then closed out the month with grunge music. This isn’t a style of which I have much knowledge or for which I have much of a liking, but one of the bands which fitted the bill is a favourite of mine, so it was a no-brainer for me to give you Song Lyric Sunday: Foos and to play two songs by the Foo Fighters. Two of their superb videos, too.

That just leaves the three standalone posts. The first of these was A Reprise For IWD which, as the title probably suggests, was related to International Women’s Day. Two years ago IWD had fallen on a Tuesday so it had seemed a natural fit for a post. This year’s piece reprised the earlier one, which contained music by The Eurythmics with Aretha Franklin, Cyndi Lauper, John Lennon, Shania Twain, Lady Gaga, and Aretha Franklin (solo this time). I then added in an extra song by the incredible Elles Bailey – that one alone makes the post worth seeing, in my rather biased view!

The following week brought us St Patrick’s Day, which is always a good excuse for me to play some Irish music – as if I needed one! This time I did a sort of highlights piece of tunes I have played in previous years, in the incredibly imaginatively titled ☘️St Patrick’s Day☘️. Sometimes I don’t know how I think them up! The music was great, as you might have expected from Van Morrison and The Chieftains, Thin Lizzy, The Dubliners, The Pogues with The Dubliners, Christy Moore, Sharon Shannon and Mundy with a cast of thousands on a Steve Earle song, and I closed with the first time we ever saw Riverdance, at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. A good mix for some fun, I think.

That just leaves one more. Last week saw the third anniversary of the first ever Tuesday Tunes post, and I marked the occasion with a reprise of the piece I wrote in 2021, in An Anniversary Revisited. It was interesting for me – and I hope for you, too – to see what had been exercising my mind in the earlier days of the pandemic, and to see that I didn’t miss a chance to bash Boris Johnson’s so-called government for its ineptitude. And that was even before the corruption of their awarding of contracts became known! The Anniversary tunes came from Status Quo (a two parter bookending the piece), Suzanne Vega, Al Stewart, Eva Cassidy and the standout for me: the Cowboy Junkies. It was a bit of a low key celebration, but if you cast your mind back to March 2021 you can probably see that it was fitting.

That ends the round up. As always, I’m closing my review with the song which gives this post its title. For anyone who thinks The Chicks are a twee country band, think again. The video is age-restricted, which I guess means that the likes of Ron DeSantis are taking over YouTube, but it is well worth clicking through to watch:

[I gather that the click-through doesn’t work for some. My apologies. Hopefully this direct link will take you to the video, or if that fails here is an alternative version recorded for the Stephen Colbert tv show. Fingers crossed!]

That is unashamedly political in nature, both the song and the video, and it shows a lot of what is wrong with the US today – and elsewhere too, like here. I’m not singling the US out, but I hope we don’t go down some of these roads – the signs are there, though. It is a track from the band’s most recent album, Gaslighter, which came out in July 2020 and got to #3 in the US and #5 here in the UK. It topped the country albums charts in both countries, though I think that is more to do with the box they have always been put into: both this and the title track are a long way from being country songs, in keeping with many others on the album. It was their first release in fourteen years, and was a heck of a way to say “we’re back!”

That, then, was my blogging month. As always, I hope you enjoyed them, as I’ve enjoyed many posts from you and hope to continue with that. After all, sharing is caring, right? See you again on Sunday – I have a couple of goodies lined up for you 😊🎶