As mother nature decided not to limit its downpouring to April this year here in the U.S. Northeast, I sneaked one more “rain” song into the mix this month, and it is nothing less than my favorite Beatles song of all. To counterbalance I’ve got a “summer” song in here too, perhaps jumping the gun a bit. The Tammi Terrell I just recently learned about, and in so doing discovered that this terrific Stevie Wonder tune, which appeared on 1980’s Hotter Than July (titled simply “All I Do” at that point), was actually written and recorded in the mid-’60s; the arrangement is both shockingly different and equally effective. Other mainstream performers float in and out of this mix in unusual guises, from Carly Simon’s poignant rumination on adolescence to Joni Mitchell’s Mingus experiment to the Police’s brief, offbeat return to light-hearted, rhythmically engaging pop even as they were otherwise veering towards the maudlin, not to mention their own demise. And most importantly of all there’s Prince, and because all of the tributes we’ve all watched have mostly involved the big hits, I felt good about offering up something lesser-known, from one of his somewhat-overlooked later albums, Planet Earth. This song (how was this not even a single?) has an effortless, timeless vibrancy to it, as did all of his best work, in retrospect.
“The Queen of Eyes” – The Soft Boys (Underwater Moonlight, 1980)
“The One U Wanna C” – Prince (Planet Earth, 2008)
“Summertime” – The Sundays (Static & Silence, 1997)
“All I Do Is Think About You” – Tammi Terrell (single, 1966)
“I Don’t Want To Be Here” – Andy Partridge (Fuzzy Warbles, Vol. 2, 2002)
“Not Harmless” – Laura Gibson (Empire Builder, 2016)
“The Man in the Moon” – Adrian Belew (Lone Rhino, 1982)
“The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” – Joni Mitchell (Mingus, 1979)
“Sunflower” – Paul Weller (Wild Wood, 1993)
“That’s When the Tears Start” – The Blossoms (single, 1965)
“Boys in the Trees” – Carly Simon (Boys in the Trees, 1978)
“Sandie” – Devin Davis (Lonely People of the World, Unite!, 2005)
“Martian Saints” – Mary Lou Lord (Martian Saints! EP, 1997)
“Miss Gradenko” – The Police (Synchronicity, 1983)
“Prelude #3” – David Sancious & Tone (True Stories, 1978)
“Ophelia” – Marika Hackman (We Slept At Last, 2015)
“Rain” – The Beatles (B-side, 1966)
“Belleville Rendez-Vous” – Ben Charest, w/ Beatrice Bonafassi (Triplets of Belleville soundtrack, 2003)
“Too Much Time” – Captain Beefheart (Clear Spot, 1972)
“All or Nothing” – Eddi Reader (Mirmama, 1991)
Fingertips 