SOMETHING OLD
John Cale - Macbeth
1973
John Cale - Macbeth
1973
William Shakespeare's date of birth, while not precisely known, is widely celebrated on April 23rd. In honor of the Bard's 462nd birthday yesterday, here's the middle track from one of my all-time favorite albums, John Cale's Paris 1919.
I look toward my adolescent self for this crossover, who scored highly on my AP English exam in the eleventh grade thanks to an argumentative essay defending my bitter thesis of why "Shakespeare is overrated." Oh the teenage habit of hating what you are too lazy to understand. Clearly, I am repenting by celebrating him here. That same teenage literary critic was often sporting a bright yellow Warhol banana on her shirt at school as a big fan of The Velvet Underground, one particularly fond of founding member John Cale.
Today, Shakespeare is still as revered as ever, and Cale has made a surprising resurgence among the youth thanks to TikTok-trending songs like House with Charli xcx. Meanwhile, my high school self, who dreaded reading Macbeth, is venerated by no one.
Anyway, Macbeth is an electrifying song that stands out on an otherwise fairly mild-mannered record. Cale tells parts of the story of the 1623 play backed by an energetic rock shuffle. The electric guitar is truly alive and wailing, and it's played by Lowell George, one of my musical heroes. Cale paints a portrait of Lady Macbeth's manipulation which leads to her titular husband's tragic fate, but he at least credits Macbeth's decapitation as better than a painful death and quicker than his dying breath.
SOMETHING NEW
John Andrews & The Yawns - Olivia
April 3rd, 2026
John Andrews & The Yawns - Olivia
April 3rd, 2026
Here's a real sweet, mellow tune from John Andrews and the Yawns' latest album STREETSWEEPER. Andrews lives near the harbor in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and is not the first artist to seek and occupy the vastness of the neighborhood's shipping yards and pre-Civil War warehouses. According to his bandcamp, STREETSWEEPER hopes to "reflect that vantage point: tranquil, self-contained, and curious about the movements most people overlook," which I think is a beautiful way to go about writing music.
Olivia tells the story of a budding romance (or infatuation?), with the lyrics opening with the admission that the narrator and Olivia have only met once. But, he later says they've met twice, suggesting that their connection is mutual and growing. I like that we get to experience it bloom with him through the duration of the song.
After listening to the full album, though, I chose this song because of the following verse:
I remember when she said to “always watch the credits of a movie”
I said “so do I”
That’s a lie
But I’m gonna start now
Yes I am
I said “so do I”
That’s a lie
But I’m gonna start now
Yes I am
I write today's feature with a fair amount of heartache for my mother, as she fights a battle on... a cellular level. When I first heard those lyrics, I smiled as I visualized the lights of a movie theatre slowly brightening as the credits roll, and my mother and I remaining seated until we're the last ones out of the room, because she has always insisted on watching the credits to completion. I'm moved by that steadfast willingness to be bored just so she can pay respect every single name who worked to bring the movie to the screen. It is her intrinsic spirit of generosity and patience that has made me who I am. It is also her commitment to seeing everything through to its end that will grant her strength in any war she's thrusted into, no matter how unjust the fight is.
SOMETHING BORROWED
Hem - South Central Rain (R.E.M.)
2006
Hem - South Central Rain (R.E.M.)
2006
So. Central Rain, off R.E.M.'s second album, is one of my all-time favorite songs from the group. It was always peculiar, though, that a chorus that solely pleads "I'm sorry" four times in a row should belong to such an upbeat song. Don't get me wrong, I think that conflicting sound and lyrics is a really compelling style of songwriting, as I noted in a previous feature about The Flirtations' danceable Nothing But A Heartache. However, I'm not at all opposed to seeing where we can sonically take a song about calls that never came, unknowingly due to floods taking down phone lines.
That's what Brooklyn-based band Hem did twenty years ago. This acoustic pedal steel-painted rendition takes the energy down a ton, letting the tragedy of the song wash over our ears the way the rain washed away a relationship. The novel and film The Notebook comes to mind for its plot of Noah writing letters every day to Allie for a year, who assumes he hasn't bothered to write because her mother has been intercepting and hiding each letter. Here, the narrator has no idea that floods are keeping their lover from calling, and that misunderstanding breaks everything. These rivers of suggestion are driving me away.
Sally Ellyson's gorgeous voice gives a new life to this song's already pristine storytelling.
SOMETHING... HUNGARIAN
Muzsikás - Azt gondoltam eso esik
1986
Muzsikás - Azt gondoltam eso esik
1986
In a time of tyranny, we recently saw a big win for democracy in Hungary by finally voting out its prime minister after sixteen years of unchecked authoritarianism and systematic dismantlement of the rule of law.
I never knew my ancestors who lived in Hungary, but their place in my family has always planted an affection in my heart for the country. There's something about it that calls to me, and exploring its music has played no small part in advancing that call. It's hard to imagine anything like a folk music group charting in the mid-80s US or UK, but this is a different land completely. This song, translated in English to I Thought It Was Raining, has some sort of all-consuming charm for me, and feels somewhat ancient and sacred.
Unlike the R.E.M. song above, Muzsikás create a sound that matches the emotion of the lyrics, which are about tears mistaken for raindrops during an intense heartbreak. It opens with strumming that is distinctly different from the acoustic guitar we're used to, but I can't identify it with certainty. There are a few European stringed contenders such as the zongora, koboz, and bouzoukis, which really makes me mourn the the wealth of instruments that most people will never hear. Soon comes in the heavenly, controlled voice of Márta Sebestyén, who also plays the flute all over this recording. The song ends decisively with a powerful, deep strum and final flute note.