Archive for the ‘Lyrics Undercover’ Category
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
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The subject of this week’s Lyrics Undercover is a woman who has followed her own unconventional path, and a song that is one of the few that grew from a collaboration with Bruce Springsteen. Patti Smith is ambitious, unconventional and challenging, her music a singular fusion of rock and poetry. Springsteen wrote the music and the chorus, but it was Smith who wrote the rest of the lyrics to “Because the Night,” which, despite a large cult following, became her only hit. |
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Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
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She was only 17 when she wrote her first hit, but she was an apple that didn’t fall far from the tree. Today on Lyrics Undercover we’ll explore “They Don’t Know,” and the songwriter behind it, Kirsty MacColl. |
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Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
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Today’s Lyrics Undercover comes at you from the political left. Billy Bragg has been a musician for 30 years, and writes from both punk rock anger and the socially conscious tradition of folk music. Today’s song, “A New England,” was one of Bragg’s early ones as a solo musician and has become so firmly entrenched in the consciousness of his audiences that what started as an angry rant is now a concert sing-along.
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(Note: this is a Premium episode. To get this show and subscribe to the premium feed, click here!) |
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Tuesday, August 10th, 2010
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This week on Lyrics Undercover we consider a catchy little tune written in 1981, that went on to spawn a full album’s worth of parodies, cover versions and spin-offs. “Tom’s Diner” was written to be accompanied by a piano, but that’s an instrument its creator — Suzanne Vega — didn’t know how to play. So she did the only other sensical thing, she recorded the song as an a cappella track. |
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(Note: this is a Premium episode. To get this show and subscribe to the premium feed, click here!) |
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Monday, August 2nd, 2010
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For 40 years, Leonard Cohen has been a cult darling, a songwriter’s writer and a primal musical influence. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, his way of telling a story has influenced several generations of musicians. He’s a poet, a Zen master, and social critic. The current generation is probably most familiar with his much-covered “Hallelujah;” today, on Lyrics Undercover, we look at his ironic, iconic “Chelsea Hotel #2.” |
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Monday, July 26th, 2010
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This week on lyrics undercover we’ll explore one of the biggest singles of the late 1960’s, inextricably linked to the iconic movie, “The Graduate.” The 1967 film features a young Dustin Hoffman, a luminous Katherine Ross and Anne Bancroft, playing one of Hollywood’s most memorable cougars. The song, of course, is Mrs. Robinson.
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(Note: this is a Premium episode. To get this show and subscribe to the premium feed, click here!) |
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Tuesday, July 20th, 2010
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This week on Lyrics Undercover we’ll examine a song that is stuffed full of pop culture references. This punstra rap from the Great White North is “One Week,” by the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies. |
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Saturday, July 10th, 2010
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This week on Lyrics Undercover, we look way back to consider “Lush Life”, a much-loved jazz standard by a composer who, if alive, would be 95 this year. Billy Strayhorn is best known for his collaboration with Duke Ellington, but his compositions are his legacy. And in a Lyrics Undercover first, you’ll hear segments of many of these different versions as you learn about the history of the song. |
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(Note: this is a Premium episode. To get this show and subscribe to the premium feed, click here!) |
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Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
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his week on Lyrics Undercover and, at the request of Tom in Texas, we are going to look at a song about girlfriend angst. The song’s been around for almost 30 years, but it’s current enough to show up on the television show Glee: “Jesse’s Girl,” by Rick Springfield. |
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Friday, July 2nd, 2010
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Today on Lyrics Undercover, we explore the work of a 1980’s New Wave band, and their catchy, loopy hit. Yes, where else would Tijuana rhyme with iguana but in “Mexican Radio,” by Wall of Voodoo. |
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(Note: this is a Premium episode. To get this show and subscribe to the premium feed, click here!) |
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