Fingertips

While I am not alone concretely speaking–I have a devoted long-term partner as well as supportive friends and family members, near and far–I often feel pretty isolated. Some of that is the nature of being a writer, as well as someone who has always prized his solitude. That kind of aloneness I am used to and honestly don’t mind. The more troubling sense of isolation that gnaws at my psyche is cultural, and rooted, I’m pretty sure, in the technological “advances” that have been thrust upon us for the last 25 years or so. I feel so deeply removed from social media realities that I cannot comprehend the mindset that would have a person endlessly scrolling an Instagram feed (which–conveniently–has no end), hungry for whatever one goes there for. Neither can I fathom a daily consciousness that would priortize staring at a smartphone screen while, for instance, simultaneously walking down a sidewalk (or–I’ve seen this plenty of times–riding a bicycle). The seemingly simple solution is not to keep your phone quite so nearby at all time, but the device was purposefully designed to be grabbed and held and attended to, the physical world be damned.

As social media addiction has become the norm, with users mired in their own feeds, following an ever-striving, algorithmically-directed raft of micro-celebrities, my personal removal from social media’s trappings and machinations leaves me wondering what kind of overlooked and isolated world I am inhabiting. I understand that there are positive aspects to online activity but to me they don’t justify the widespread psychological and emotional devastation wreaked by unregulated tech companies sociopathically intent on maximizing user engagement. I don’t want to be a part of a world that has so widely abandoned thoughtfulness and nuance, not to mention kindness, compassion, and interpersonal bonhomie. But it’s kind of our world now so where does that leave me?

If you’re here perhaps you’re at least sometimes wondering the same thing. In any case, thanks for stopping by for another taste of this idiosyncratic world of mine, which is occasionally cute and always harmless.

Which this month sounds like this:

1. “Red Light Spells Danger” – Billy Ocean (single, 1977)
2. “Why Don’t You” – Squeeze (Trixies, 2026)
3. “Basement Apartment” – Sarah Harmer (You Were Here, 2000)
4. “Strait Old Line” – Split Enz (Conflicting Emotions, 1983)
5. “Come Tomorrow” – Patti Scialfa (Rumble Doll, 1993)
6. “Beggin'” – The Four Seasons (single, 1967)
7. “Joy” – Dry Cleaning (Secret Love, 2026)
8. “Echo” – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (Wrong Creatures, 2018)
9. “It Makes No Difference” – The Darling Buds (Crawdaddy, 1990)
10. “The Windjammer” – Grant Green (Green is Beautiful, 1970)
11. “Golden Lights” – The Smiths (b-side, 1986; Louder Than Bombs compilation, 1987)
12. “You Don’t Know Me” – Ben Folds (feat. Regina Spektor) (Way to Normal, 2008)
13. “All Cried Out” – Dusty Springfield (Dusty, 1964)
14. “Think About the People” – Osibisa (Osibisa, 1971)
15. “Flood” – Stella Donnelly (Flood, 2022)
16. “Walking in the Sun” – The Zombies (unreleased single, 1965)
17. “Cleopatra” – The Lumineers (Cleopatra, 2016)
18. “It’s Love” – Jill Scott (Who is Jill Scott? – Words and Sounds, Vol. 1, 2000)
19. “Chain Letter” – Todd Rundgren (Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, 1971)
20. “Roam” – The B-52’s (Cosmic Thing, 1989)

Random notes:

* The semi-legendary British band Squeeze had their heyday from the late ’70s to the mid-’80s, even as their releases into the ’90s remained pretty darn good. After laying low for a couple of decades, the band’s songwriting core of Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford have cranked things up again over the last 10 years or so, releasing albums in 2015 and 2017 that largely flew under the radar. They return this year with a full concept album, about a fictional night club called Trixies, with an intriguing twist: Tilbrook and Difford wrote the entire thing when they were teenagers. They never recorded it in part because they didn’t think they were good enough musicians at the time to play what they had written. The whole album is a fun listen; “Why Don’t You” in particular has the sort of irresistible hook characteristic of their best creations.

* Osibisa was founded in London in the late ’60s by four musicians from West Africa and three from the Caribbean. “Think About the People” was the closing track on the 1971 self-titled debut album, which went to #11 on the UK chart. The album was produced by Tony Visconti and engineered by Roy Thomas Baker. Although many of the original members have died, the band lives on; its most recent album is 2021’s New Dawn. According to Wikipedia, “osibisa” means “criss-cross rhythms that explode with happiness,” and who am I to argue. (Thanks to James from “James Writes Stuff” for leading me to this one.)

* The lovely backing vocals heard on “Golden Lights” came from none other than the late great Kirsty MacColl. Kirsty also sang backup on “Ask,” and recorded a cover of “You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby” on her 1989 album Kite. Interrelatedly, Johnny Marr co-wrote two songs with Kirsty on Kite, and later created the signature riff on her acclaimed single “Walking on Madison,” on 1991’s Electric Landlady.

* Flood (2022) is the second album from Australia’s Stella Donnelly, following her 2019 debut Beware of the Dogs. A third album, Love and Fortune, was released in November 2025.

* The Four Seasons’ “Beggin'” has had an extensive second life over the years, most likely propelled, initially, by the song’s inclusion in the popular Broadway jukebox musical Jersey Boys, in 2004. Next came a remix by a French DJ named Pilooski, which appeared on a Four Seasons compilation CD in 2007 and itself hit the charts in the UK. Later that same year, the Norwegian duo Madcon did their own version of the song, which became popular throughout Europe. Most recently, the Italian band Måneskin covered the song in 2017; when the band won the Eurovision contest in 2021, the song ended up going viral on TikTok and subsequently reached number one in nine countries and the top 10 in 15 others. The song has, furthermore, been covered in a variety of different languages. For all its permutations, I think there’s no topping the original, written by Four Seasons keyboardist Bob Gaudio and singer/songwriter Peggy Santiglia (under the pseudonym Peggy Farina).

* The Darling Buds released three albums during their original incarnation, dating from 1986 to 1993. Crawdaddy was the second. Their early history was that of yet another buzzy band that gained quick critical traction, signed to a major label, only to flame out due to commercial indifference. With a re-vamped lineup, but still featuring lead singer Andrea Lewis Jarvis, the band reactivated in the 2010s, and released an EP of new material in 2017. They appear to be actively playing gigs to this day.

January has come and gone, as it does. But talk about “bleak midwinter”: here in the Northeast US, Philadelphia specifically, we’ve been encrusted by great piles of snow that have refused, for weeks, to melt–unusual for a standard winter here, but logical enough given the ongoing Arctic cold, which may finally be relenting. Without conscious effort, this latest mix reflects a bit of the hunkering down we weather-bound folks have been doing–one part melancholy introspection, one part bittersweet determination. Don’t miss a magically effective segue from Blue Rodeo into Sinéad O’Connor, as they blend together on the exact same note. I’d like to say I planned that but it’s actually more fun to have stumbled into it. I actually do a fair amount of stumbling to craft these mixes; it’s all good.

On an unrelated note, pondering current events more generally, I can’t help remarking that I’ve been writing this blog for 22-plus years and barely put my name on it. Then again I’m neither an extravert nor a narcissist nor a monumentally insecure kleptocrat so what do I know? The mentality of requiring things to have one’s name on them, in any case, is entirely foreign to me. The man should be pitied for being such a faulty specimen of human being if he weren’t doing so much damage to our worthy institutions, stabilizing norms, and collective spirit. And yet I can’t arrive at pity at this point; despair and anger seem easier to land on.

Back to the music, here’s what you’re in for:

1. “None of This Will Matter When You Are Dead” – Club 8 (Seasonal Echoes, 2025)
2. “Til I Am Myself Again” – Blue Rodeo (Casino, 1990)
3. “It’s All Good” – Sinéad O’Connor (single, 2003)
4. “Throwing Stones” – Grateful Dead (In the Dark, 1987)
5. “I Saw You Blink” – Stornoway (Beachcomber’s Windowsill, 2010)
6. “Backlash” – Freddie Hubbard (Backlash, 1967)
7. “Quiet Eyes” – Sharon Van Etten (Past Lives soundtrack, 2023)
8. “Breakaway” – Gallagher and Lyle (Breakaway, 1976)
9. “TV Reality (The New Plague)” – Contramano (Unsatisfecho, 2007)
10. “Do You Wanna Hold Me” – Bow Wow Wow (When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going, 1983)
11. “I Can’t Hold On” – Lorraine Chandler (single, 1966)
12. “Just Two Girls” – Wolf Alice (The Clearing, 2025)
13. “I Looked Away” – Derek & the Dominos (Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, 1970)
14. “Oh Oh” – Shout Out Louds (Ease My Mind, 2017)
15. “In Indiana” – Brenda Kahn (Epiphany in Brooklyn, 1992)
16. “Europe After the Rain” – John Foxx (The Garden, 1981)
17. “Sidestepping” – Doris Henson (Give Me All Your Money, 2005)
18. “There’s No Way Out of Here” – David Gilmour (David Gilmour, 1978)
19. “Lights Out (Read My Lips)” – Katydids (Katydids, 1990)
20. “Walking Past the Graveyard, Not Breathing” – Hem (Departure and Farewell, 2013)

Random notes:

* The recent Wolf Alice record, The Clearing, is a winner all the way through. Give it a listen; I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

* I am miles away from being a Deadhead but I did want to honor the memory of Bob Weir, who died in January. “Throwing Stones,” a late-history Grateful Dead composition, is at once expansive and resolute, with Weir’s distinctive, breathy vocals front and center. The album it’s on, 1987’s In the Dark, was “unexpectedly popular,” according to Wikipedia, going double platinum in the U.S. It was their second-to-last studio album.

* Founded by singer Susie Hug and guitarist Adam Seymour, Katydids were a short-lived British band with an appealing vibe. They released two major-label albums and were dropped, splitting up shortly thereafter. The first album, represented here, was produced by none other than Nick Lowe. After a few solo efforts in the first decade of the 21st century, Hug got back together with the band for two EPs in 2014.

* Sinéad O’Connor had sung with Damien Dempsey, who wrote “It’s All Good,” on his version of the song, released in 2003 on his album Seize the Day. O’Connor’s indelible rendition was initially available that same year as a promotional single–and a free and legal MP3 at the time, as I recall; it then appeared among the rarities and one-offs collected on a compilation album entitled She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty, a two-disc set also released in 2003. The album is not available on Spotify so you won’t see it on the EPS master playlist. (But there are 2,094 other songs there you might want to spend some time with.)

* Speaking of a song not on Spotify, the original studio recording of Gallagher and Lyle’s “Breakaway” is also missing in action–as are all of the Scottish duo’s eight albums from their 1970s heyday. On the aforementioned Spotify master list I’ve subbed in a fairly similar live recording from 1977. The song, meanwhile, was much more well known at the time via Art Garfunkel–it was the title track to his 1975 album and a top-40 US hit. Sticklers may note that Garfunkel, whose version predated Gallagher and Lyle’s by a year, broke the title into two words for the song while retaining the one-word title for the album, for reasons lost to history.

* Sharon Van Etten was specifically approached by director Celine Song to write a song for the end credits to her movie Past Lives–a charming film if you haven’t seen. She collaborated with composer/engineer Zachary Dawes. The accompanying video evokes the movie’s warm wistfulness.

* John Foxx’s long and winding career, in and out of the music industry, began as a college student in the late ’60s. In 1974, as lead singer, he formed a band initially called Tiger Lily. After a few aborted name changes, they settled in 1976 on the name Ultravox and began to gain some renown, if not record sales, for their pioneering synth-rock sound. Foxx left the band in 1979, and while his former band went on to mainstream new wave success, he took a left turn into a variety of electronic-oriented projects both as a solo artist and in many different collaborations. He’s one of those musicians as beloved by a cult following as he is overlooked by the casual music fan. “Europe After the Rain” comes from his second solo album, in which you can still feel the connection to his Ultravox output.

* Contramano was a Brookln-based indie band in the 2000s who released two albums and more or less disappeared. But front man Pablo Cubarle, a multi-instrumentalist whose spiky cello lines are heard here in “TV Reality (A New Plague),” is still out there on the edge of the music world, posting the occasional demo. (Try his latest, posted this month: “Thom Yorke Says.”) He otherwise identifies himself these days as a freelance photo retoucher. “TV Reality” was originally featured here in 2007. In case you’re curious, the Spanish word contramano has no direct translation in English, but can be thought to mean “the wrong way” or “against traffic.”

It’s December and here’s a last playlist for what has been pretty much of a wreck of a year; I speak both personally and collectively. So there is no overt display of holiday cheer– you can grab that elsewhere if that’s your thing. And yet here’s the magic of music: even songs offering up protestations of various sorts end up somehow fueling an optimistic flame, however fragile and windblown. Some of that is due to the connectiveness of song, which inherently represents an effort by a human being, or a group of human beings, to reach out to other humans, consciousness to consciousness. Some of the subtle optimism comes simply from one person’s saying “I see it too”–whether it’s the dirty world or the hit of a new love. Songs can travel up or travel down and they still move us.

As usual the playlist is enlivened with synchronicities. There’s the unplanned adjacency of the Radiohead song containing the lyric “The sky turns green” with the Peter Green song “In the Skies.” There is the unpremeditated gathering of outtakes, perhaps an unconscious cri de coeur, a seeking of a better place to be than here. And there are the inadvertent appearances, cloaked and uncloaked, of two previous Republican presidents whose questionable moral compasses look benign compared to the sociopathic narcissism of the current office holder, adrift in his self-created sea of grift and cruelty. It’s a damnable ride but one day he’ll be drowning in his own wreckage and, with each of us using our own system of survival, we will arrive, blinking, in the light of a better day.

Here are the specifics:

1. “Private Number” – William Bell and Judy Clay (single, 1968)
2. “News” – Bruce Woolley & the Camera Club (English Garden outtake, 1979)
3. “Lose It Again” – Hatchie (Liquorice, 2025)
4. “Can’t Let Go” – Lucinda Williams (Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, 1998)
5. “Mykynos” – Fleet Foxes (Sun Giant, 2008)
6. “Dirty World” – Meshell Ndegeocello (Weather, 2011)
7. “Forgive Her Anything” – Elvis Costello & the Attractions (Blood & Chocolate outtake, 1986)
8. “Popafangout” – Sharp Pins (Balloon Balloon Balloon, 2025)
9. “Bring Down the Birds (Outtake)” – Herbie Hancock (Blow-Up Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, 1967)
10. “Salvation” – Scanners (Submarine, 2010)
11. “Where I End and You Begin” – Radiohead (Hail to the Thief, 2003)
12. “In the Skies” – Peter Green (In the Skies, 1979)
13. “Boy” – Book of Love (Book of Love, 1986)
14. “Lightnin’ Strikes” – Lou Christie (single, 1966)
15. “Hit” – The Sugarcubes (Stick Around For Joy, 1992)
16. “Loaded” – The Idle Hands (The Hearts We Broke on the Way to the Show, 2009)
17. “Just Blue” – Space (Just Blue, 1978)
18. “Severed” – The Decemberists (I’ll Be Your Girl, 2018)
19. “Wreck” – Neko Case (Neon Grey Midnight Green, 2025)
20. “System of Survival” – Earth, Wind & Fire (Touch the World, 1987)

Random notes:

* I only recently learned of the existence of a smattering of extra recordings made by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club, a top-notch but short-lived new wave outfit, who had released one dynamite LP in 1979 and disbanded. The easy to love “News” appears to have been recorded at the same time, and the internet tells me that there was actually a second album at least partially recorded that was never released. I may need to spring for the 2024 box set to finally hear it.

* Speaking of something that’s somewhat difficult to locate, the Elvis Costello and the Attractions song “Forgive Her Anything” emerged on a 1990s Rhino Records expanded version of Blood & Chocolate but can’t be found on Spotify. For Elvis fans it’s a terrific find.

* And then for something easy to locate but difficult to understand, give “Popafangout” by Sharp Pins a spin or two. I’m staring at the lyrics and haven’t a clue what Kai Slater is singing about. But you know what? That doesn’t matter. The song connects via vibe and sound, and what a sound it is from a 21-year-old. I’m going to spend some time with this new album of theirs.

* “Lightnin’ Strikes” is an odd, memorable song, Lou Christie’s one claim to U.S. chart-topping fame. Once upon a time this was all we needed to know. But scratch the surface of any so-called “one-hit wonder” (thanks, internet!) and be introduced to innumerable complications and piles of forlorn facts. Let’s just say that Christie was a Pittsburgh area singer and songwriter with a longer-than-anticipated Wikipedia page that is, truth be told, more detailed than interesting. Without any more notable commercial successes to speak of, Christie nevertheless stayed active in the music industry into the 2020s; he died this past June.

* I have long felt that Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief never fully got its due. After the experimental electronics of Kid A, they were expected, somehow, both to continue avant-garde-ishly and yet also to go back to their guitar-based roots. And in sort of doing both many seemed to think they did neither. The album is dark and occasionally dour but there are many excellent songs to be had along the way, including this one.

* Herbie Hancock was just 26 when he recorded the music he composed for the now-classic Antonioni film Blow-Up. The music evokes the so-called “Swinging London” scene depicted in the movie, which came out in 1966. The album was released in 1967. That’s Phil Woods on the alto sax. This was Hancock’s first film score but not his last. He would go on to win an Oscar for his score to the 1986 movie Round Midnight.