February

 

He’s obviously been reading this stuff! Hopefully he is in the minority, though. As today is 1st March, it is time to wish Welsh readers a Happy St David’s Day – be careful where you put those leeks, guys. Fingers crossed that the daffodils are out for you after the recent inclement weather, too. It is also time for me to do my usual thing and remind you of what I posted here last month, in case you missed any of them or are possessed of an inexplicable urge to read some again.

The fact that February was the elongated version this year made absolutely no difference to me: I posted twelve times and would have done so even If I had only had twenty eight days for them. As usual, the majority of them were music-related, but a few others crept in there too. I got the month off to the usual start with my review of January’s posts, which I rather imaginatively entitled January. That was rather like this one: a resume of the posts, all with clickable links to aid you in refreshing your memory, with the titular song provided by Reg Dwight – one of his lesser known ones.

Nine of February’s posts were about music, including four each for the regulars – Tuesday Tunes and Song Lyric Sunday. Let’s start with Tuesdays, shall we? I began the month with Tuesday Tunes 185: The Five Ws And H, which was the start of a six part mini-series based on a concept which has been taught to journalists for more than a century – making things up and telling lies probably came later. In case you need reminding, these letters stand for who, what, when, where, why, and how, and I began with who songs provided by Men At Work, The Who (of course), Kate Rusby, Bo Diddley with Ron Wood, and Heart.

Not surprisingly, I continued this pattern for the rest of the month, following that first one with Tuesday Tunes 186: What? with music from The Levellers, George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, Ian Dury & The Blockhead, and Tina Turner.

Then came the turn of Tuesday Tunes 187: When?, which included music by Oysterband, Richard Thompson, Nickel Creek, Carolina Story, and World Party. I steered away from the mainstream with that one!

The final one for the month was Tuesday Tunes 188: Where?, in which I mixed mainstream with the less well-known, ending with a trip down memory lane. The tunes came from Yusuf/Cat Stevens, U2, The Calling, Sarah Darling, and Peter Sarstedt.

As you know, I choose my own themes for Tuesdays, but for Song Lyric Sunday I play music for the topic prompted by Jim Adams, who runs the show. For the first of the month he gave us the task of playing a song that mentions a dance craze or style, and I went back to the very early Sixties for Song Lyric Sunday: Wanna Dance? with songs by Chubby Checker, for the Twist, and Little Eva for the Loco-Motion. Another trip down memory lane!

That was followed by the task of playing something by a band that wore uniforms. I decided to go for the obscure, from the lunatic fringe of music, with Song Lyric Sunday: Finland’s Finest, which gave you three songs by the remarkable Leningrad Cowboys, who of course came from Finland. Where else, with a name like that! Two were covers and the third was a band original. They are very talented, underneath all the trappings, and I enjoy them a lot.

Next up was playing a song by a duo. there were many I could have chosen for this but my first thought was the one I went with, in Song Lyric Sunday: Unledded with two songs originally written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant for Led Zeppelin, which they then reprised in the 1990s for a project with MTV. A couple of all time greats there, I think.

For the final February outing we were invited to play a song which should have been a single but wasn’t. I bent the rules a little with this one, in Song Lyric Sunday: I’m A Fool in which I played a song each by Steely Dan and the Boomtown Rats. For some reason, as sometimes happens, this post has really taken off and is by far the most ‘liked’ of the month: it is already at #8 in my all time top ten posts, and has only been up for five days!

I also gave you music as one of my midweek offerings. I couldn’t resist the temptation to play a reprised version of last year’s 14th February post, in A Valentine’s Day Revisit, which was nothing to do with soppy love songs! An alternative theme saw songs by CSN&Y, Rod Stewart, The Dead South, Steve Earle, and Warren Zevon. A fun time for all!

That just leaves two posts to mention. One of these was a return to one of my occasional series, in Friday Funnies 5. For this I took the theme of things which were said at awards ceremonies, either by the presenters or the recipients. I tend to avoid these events like the plague, but there are some great clips on YouTube, and I had a lot of laughs with this one.

I tried something different with my final midweek piece for the month. I expect you have seen the many ‘linky’ prompts which are available to us as bloggers. I see many such posts by others that I follow, and decided to try one myself. This was for the weekly Writer’s Workshop, hosted by John Holton. John gives several prompts for this, and last week one of those was to write about a wrong telephone number call we had either received or made. This reminded me of something which happened back in the Seventies, and I covered it in Wrong Number. The response to this has been great, so I may try it again sometime: with this one I even managed to post something with no music or other videos, which is a rarity for me these days!

So that was my February. I hope you enjoyed it – I sure did! All that remains, having just said that I posted something without a video in it, is to play you a titular song for this piece. There are quite a lot of songs with February in their title, but to be honest I don’t like many of them! This one, however, is an exception:

Isn’t that beautiful? Dorothy Snowden “Dar” Williams is an American pop folk singer-songwriter from Mount Kisco, New York. She is a frequent performer at folk festivals and has toured with such artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Joan Baez. You can see a couple of my favourites in there, which explains why I like Dar too. Her nickname came from a mispronouncing of her name by one of her sisters when they were little: it just kind of stuck. After a couple of early self-released records she has made a further thirteen albums, the most recent in 2021. As the video shows, this song is from her second album, Mortal City, which was released in January 1996. The cello is played by Erik Friedlander, also from New York City. Joan Baez covered the song on her September 1997 album Gone From Danger, but I prefer the original. 

That’s all for today, and for last month. See you again for Song Lyric Sunday, I trust? 😊