SOMETHING OLD
(LIKE... SERIOUSLY OLD)
Thomas Crecquillon - Andreas Christi famulus
Performed by Stile Antico (2014)
c. 1546
(LIKE... SERIOUSLY OLD)
Thomas Crecquillon - Andreas Christi famulus
Performed by Stile Antico (2014)
c. 1546
I bet you weren’t expecting a Christian Latin choral piece commissioned for a meeting of The Order of the Golden Fleece, a 1500s knighthood founded to celebrate the marriage between Philip the Good and Isabella of Portugal. I wasn’t either.
But I heard this one day at work and was really struck by it. I’m not well-versed in any religious music, and I tend to lean toward something like Baptist gospel when I try. But there is no doubt something truly beautiful in these harmonies. A beauty that does not require a proficiency in Latin or knowledge of the Bible to appreciate. It is actually so incredibly rich with deep layers of harmony and canons that it’s difficult for me to keep in mind that these vocalists are actually singing lyrics.
Not much is known about Thomas Crecquillon, the composer. But much is known about the House of Habsburg dynasty in Austria, and their inbreeding that produced the infamous “Habsburg jaw” and was so intense that it eventually rendered the last ones infertile by 1700, thus ending the dynasty.
Well, Crecquillon was either the choir master or a singer at his chapel under the ruling of Habsburg emperor Charles V, not a royal. And hopefully not deformed by inbreeding. Anyway... beautiful song, right?
SOMETHING NEW
Madison Cunningham - My Full Name
August 15th, 2025
Madison Cunningham - My Full Name
August 15th, 2025
When lovely California-based Madison Cunningham announced a new single would be out today earlier in the week, my spirits perked up.
The day came. And while I did not expect to cry upon my very first listen, it wasn’t the first time that happened with Miss Cunningham.
I have compared the fresh, delicate sound of her ballads to those of Rufus Wainwright before, and I feel compelled to again. I think her last record's In From Japan pairs beautifully with Wainwright's Greek Song, while this one evokes him in no specific way. I make these comparisons for not other reason than to highlight two songwriters with musical sensibilities that reach right into the softest parts of my heart. Plus, Cunningham absolutely rocks in other songs and bears comparison to nobody else but a true rockstar. Her range is what makes her so great.
My Full Name is the first single to come in anticipation of Cunningham’s upcoming album, Ace. I’m so looking forward to this record, where I will be surely reminded of standing close to the stage in Central Park last summer where I watched her in a white dress, looking like an angel and sounding like a siren.
This song is simple, but lush. The cellos and flute add so much to her smooth voice and piano playing, so much that I somehow feel transported back to childhood.
Nostalgic and sweet, with a beautiful sadness. That’s this.
In 1966, The Beatles teased their future of experimental psychedelia with the Lennon-led finale of Revolver: Tomorrow Never Knows. Based on The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary and his progressive psychologist contemporaries, any listener of this song could consider themself psychedelicized! And thoroughly weirded out when they put Revolver on their turntable for the first time and heard the abrupt transition from the poppy Got To Get You Into My Life into a brand new avant-garde sound of reversed instrumentation, Indian musical elements, strange effects evoking Tibetan monk chants, and more. There’s a chaos to it. Meditative chaos, but chaos nonetheless.
So when honey-voiced Junior Parker stripped it down to the utmost basics in 1970, how did he keep it sort of... kaleidoscopic?
In fact, that may be the perfect word. Let’s go to our girl with kaleidoscope eyes, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. The first verse of Lucy has no more than a Lowrey organ, bass quarter notes, and Lennon’s voice. The bass controls the rhythm, which comes across as lethargic, or simply stoned. It’s slow and lazing about, like a head nodding off to sleep. Similar to Lucy, this is just Parker, a little bass and guitar, and softly brushed drums when it feels like it. Slow moving and calm, unlike The Beatles' original. So calm and constant, in fact, that it ends exactly as it began. It’s more meditation than chaos.
In fact, that may be the perfect word. Let’s go to our girl with kaleidoscope eyes, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. The first verse of Lucy has no more than a Lowrey organ, bass quarter notes, and Lennon’s voice. The bass controls the rhythm, which comes across as lethargic, or simply stoned. It’s slow and lazing about, like a head nodding off to sleep. Similar to Lucy, this is just Parker, a little bass and guitar, and softly brushed drums when it feels like it. Slow moving and calm, unlike The Beatles' original. So calm and constant, in fact, that it ends exactly as it began. It’s more meditation than chaos.
Be sure to also check out Parker’s version of Taxman, a brilliantly funky reinvention of another Revolver classic!
SOMETHING... WITH GREAT STORYTELLING
Rilo Kiley - Does He Love You?
2004
Rilo Kiley - Does He Love You?
2004
Even modern storytelling songs often take after their folk forefathers in providing a consistent backing track to accompany the lyrical story, which is the star. Some all-time favorites of mine like this are Bob Dylan's Fourth Time Around and Joni Mitchell's Song for Sharon. These have lyrics with such vivid imagery and complex characters. The instrumentation and melodies are beautiful, but rather plainly structured and remain constant through the song. They are not taking you on a sonic journey, rather wanting you to focus on the story.
Well, another favorite of mine is Rosalita by Springsteen. I love the story itself, but I also love the varying inflections in his voice, the way the structure abruptly changes to a capella with clapping during the your papa says he knows that I don’t have any money part, the way the sax gets intense and builds just after we find out the narrator just come into some cash, the way the sax then embodies the feeling of confetti exploding in celebration...
Or another favorite, Judy Collins' rendition of Pretty Polly, a traditional folk song that tells the haunting story of a man murdering his wife to-be. Hear the extraordinary ways her voice cries out alongside the building and waning instrumentation. Then listen to a more traditional, simple take on the song like that of Dock Boggs. It’s night and day.
So... can you possibly guess what I have to say about this Rilo Kiley song?
This one's a little haunting too. Jenny Lewis' voice starts barely above a whisper. Our Californian narrator is giving advice to her pregnant friend, who is feeling unloved by her husband. Things musically pick up a little bit as we find out that the narrator has her own troubled love life: a married man she’s been writing to is going to visit her once he leaves his wife.
Well, the narrator is having an affair with her pregnant friend’s husband.
This one's a little haunting too. Jenny Lewis' voice starts barely above a whisper. Our Californian narrator is giving advice to her pregnant friend, who is feeling unloved by her husband. Things musically pick up a little bit as we find out that the narrator has her own troubled love life: a married man she’s been writing to is going to visit her once he leaves his wife.
Well, the narrator is having an affair with her pregnant friend’s husband.
And it becomes clear the husband is going to choose the wife. This twist unravels itself in the last act alongside distorted guitar and voice effects, passionate vocals, vibrant strings, and powerful drums. I find it to be very affecting, and simply brilliant storytelling.