Who needs a hug? (Eclectic Playlist Series 5.07 – Sept. 2018)

Fingertips is on hiatus for a little while longer but the Eclectic Playlist Series forges on, offering up a “Summer’s Over” playlist aimed to help you find a little bit of solace in a world gone wrong and wronger. We’ve got indie rock and classic rock, rocksteady and R&B, instrumentals and vocal duets, folk rock from the distant past and indie pop from the immediate present, and then some. Some random notes:

* Thanks to George from Between Two Islands for the opening track. I love the Bird and the Bee but had overlooked this song until hearing it in one of his inimitable playlists.

* Yet again illustrated here is the inscrutable difference between a hit and a miss from the classic Soul years—I mean, Diane Lewis, “Keep a Hold on Me”: shouldn’t this have been blasting out of car radios across the country?

* “The Devil Wears a Suit” sounds even more portentous now than when I featured it on Fingertips back in 2012. Kate Miller-Heidke is a force of nature, far more appreciated in her native Australia than here. (Answer to her musical question: We all do. We all need a hug.)

* “Anastasia” was a FM radio staple, at a certain sort of FM radio station, back in the day. You don’t hear much (i.e., anything) of Elliott Murphy these days but he’s been recording albums all these years, his latest in 2013. He’s had a career as a writer too, has been living in Paris for decades, and in 2015 had a documentary released about him. Lots of characters like Murphy have slipped through the cracks of our click-oriented culture, people you have to slow down to get into and appreciate.

* RIP Aretha. I sure hope she’s right, that we are, indeed, at long last, running out of fools. The country can’t survive much longer with so many of them in charge.

Full playlist below the widget.

“Witch” – The Bird and the Bee (Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future, 2009)
“Knocked Down, Made Small (Treated Like a Rubber Ball)” – Was (Not Was) (Born to Laugh at Tornadoes, 1983)
“Keep a Hold on Me” – Diane Lewis (single, 1968)
“Graffiti” – CHVRCHES (Love Is Dead, 2018)
“Island in the Sun” – The Paragons (single, 1967)
“Did You Miss Me” – Lindsay Buckingham (Gift of Screws, 2008)
“The Blacksmith” – Steeleye Span (Hark! The Village Wait, 1970)
“Orchids” – Monster Rally (Return to Paradise, 2013)
“I’ll Do Anything” – Doris Troy (single, 1966)
“Song Against Sex” – Neutral Milk Hotel (On Avery Island, 1996)
“Prime Time” – The Tubes (Remote Control, 1979)
“The Devil Wears a Suit” – Kate Miller-Heidke (Nightflight, 2012)
“Too Fast For You” – The Church (Too Fast For You EP, 1981)
“A Hard Day’s Night” – Sonny Curtis (Beatle Hits Flamenco Guitar Style, 1964)
“Frank Sinatra” – Cake (Fashion Nugget, 1996)
“Anastasia” – Elliott Murphy (Just a Story From America, 1977)
“Runnin’ Out of Fools” – Aretha Franklin (Runnin’ Out of Fools, 1964)
“Come Cryin’ to Me” – The Jayhawks (Back Roads and Abandoned Motels, 2018)
“No Guilt” – The Waitresses (Wasn’t Tomorrow Wonderful?, 1982)
“Walk Away” – James Gang (Thirds, 1971)