October 16, 2026
SOMETHING OLD
Kitty Wells - It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
1952
Kitty Wells - It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels
1952
At the start of 1952, country singer Hank Thompson released The Wild Side of Life, which told the story of a man whose woman has left him for a lifestyle led by night clubs, dancing, and liquor. He sings that he didn't know God made honky tonk angels, which is most unanimously defined as women who frequent honky tonk clubs, and it's sometimes implied that they can't commit to monogamy.
I think it's rather important to get to the bottom of what a "honky tonk angel" precisely is. Is Thompson saying that it is a god-given instinct for some women to cheat? That seems likely when he sings that she waits to be anybody's baby while at the club. At the same time, though, the other lyrics describe her being "lured" to the glamor of the gay nightlife, and that she gave up on him to instead enjoy the wild side of life. Is it possible that she is just looking to have a little fun? Is he truly that dumbfounded by such a desire?
After World War II, life in America was changing for women. Our mental image of the 50s is often characterized by housewives wearing fitted dresses and lipstick at home behind their picket white fences funded by their husbands' paychecks. In reality, more married women than ever were joining the workforce, and divorce rates hit a historic peak. If wives were starting to take on facets of traditional male responsibilities and seeing other women around them find independence, and this treacherous war was finally over, it isn't shocking that they might want to live a little at the honky tonk. And considering the complete lack of independence most wives had, it also isn't shocking that Thompson's song might have never had anything to do with infidelity, but rather a woman who isn't attached to his hip, on her knees, or at the stove at all times.
Regardless, let's suppose it is about infidelity since that's what it's most commonly associated with. I'm far from the first woman to challenge what's happening in this song. By the time summer started that same year, Nashville singer Kitty Wells released It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. Using the exact same melody, she responds to Thompson from the perspective of a betrayed wife who suggests that God had nothing to do with his woman straying. While Thompson is the newly lone bachelor, Wells reflects back on the time when she was a "trusting wife." Cheating was a deeply normal trait for husbands, with Wells citing that too many times married men think they're still single. Sixteen years later, Tammy Wynette described how women should "stand by your man" no matter what fun he's having on the side. She literally describes the struggle of trying to reserve her love only for him while knowing that he's pursuing other women, but vouches for forgiveness because after all, he's just a man. And Lord does she sound sad singing it.
It feels like a smack in the face to know that Kitty Wells was singing such a different tune nearly two decades before. This song simply puts husband and wife on the same level: neither should cheat. But if he does, why shouldn't she? She's only meeting him where he's at. It goes beyond "an eye for an eye," this is a deeply embedded societal pattern that puts women at a complete disadvantage, and would have never become taboo if not discussed. The most telling verse is this:
It's a shame that all the blame is on us women
It's not true that only you men feel the same
From the start most every heart that's ever broken
Was because there always was a man to blame
It's not true that only you men feel the same
From the start most every heart that's ever broken
Was because there always was a man to blame
This is one of the earliest mainstream songs to promote men and women as equals. It might have genuinely been surprising for some of both the male and female population to discover that women have the exact same capacity of feeling and action as their husbands. Naturally, it was banned from being aired on the NBC radio network and the BBC, and Wells was not permitted to perform it on any major live radio broadcast for its "suggestive" nature (but Thompson's was fine?). Despite it all, it has enjoyed tremendous success over these past 74 years and left a lasting impact.
SOMETHING NEW
The Paris Match - Tune Into Me!
October 15, 2026
The Paris Match - Tune Into Me!
October 15, 2026
The Paris Match came on my radar last spring with the Cameron Winter-produced Settle Down, which was featured on the blog. I wrote that I was looking forward to seeing what the English group would do next, and here it is!
Tune Into Me! is as good of a follow-up as I could have hoped for. As a radio girl, I love the unique title referencing the action of "tuning in," basically suggesting in this context to "give me a chance." This song is bursting with energy that I've been looking for in new music. Since it hasn't gotten much traction yet, I had to try to transcribe the lyrics myself. I'm not totally confident in my ability to decipher every word, but the narrator seems to be asking someone to try to take him seriously as a lover and stop hurting him. This culminates at my favorite part of the song at the bridge starting at 2:42, where the time signature and chords change around 2:48, and then it builds back up into the lively chorus. I'm also in love with the slithery bass scales in the pre-choruses. Plus, despite my imperfect lyrical transcription, I'm pretty sure one lyric is helter skelter stormy weather, which really tickles me.
Overall, this is an absolute hit in my book. I remain excited for what's next, and hope they will soon visit the states so I can enjoy it live.
SOMETHING BORROWED
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)
1976
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Here Comes the Sun (The Beatles)
1976
With George Harrison leading the way in the original recording of Here Comes the Sun, it begins with the most delicate acoustic guitar you've ever heard. When strings and George's soft voice come in, we still have no reason to believe this isn't going to be an extremely gentle song. It certainly is, and one of the most beautiful and joyous we may ever have, but the sonic tone shifts about 25 seconds in when Ringo's drums pop up as crisply as they possibly could in just two measures. It has such an energizing power that turns the song from an angelically soft ballad into one of the greatest pop songs ever known.
When it got covered by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, who had been previously experimenting in glam rock, I feel like the group took the punchiness of those two measures and ran with it. Much like the original, it starts quietly, this time with synths instead of acoustic guitar. And when those spirited measures come in, the vigor doesn't stop. The Beatles truly captured that first truly sunny day in springtime, and the emotional moment of realization that the cold is finally breaking and there is hope at last. Meanwhile, the way I hear it, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel seem to have already comes to term with this the way, and are rather remarking on the sun coming up on a summer day like it did the day before and the day before that. It's summery, flamboyant, and bright... but maybe actually dark?
According to the Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel Discography Website, Harley apparently "interpreted the lyrics as referring to an 'apocalypse,' 'great awakening' and 'massive change,' and, in response, later emphasized the use of musical accents in its recording." That was pretty fascinating to read considering most people would say it's originally a tremendously positive song about good things coming, and nowhere near apocalyptic. It is full of buoyant (or perhaps catastrophic?) energy, interesting instrumentation, and idiosyncratic vocal styles and effects. While The Beatles end with a slowly descending guitar, this one ends somewhat abruptly with the chime of a clock. Something is here, and based on Harley's interpretation, I'm not so sure it's the sun anymore.
SOMETHING... that reminds me of this time last year
Chris Spedding - Video Life
1978
Chris Spedding - Video Life
1978
I've recently discovered, become obsessed with, and cried along to What Part of Me by Low from 2015. I couldn't help but notice that it has a specific quality that feels like the sound of last fall. Despite having never heard the song before, I could see myself on specific sidewalks near my job in my leather jacket, listening to it in my earbuds on my walk around the block before clocking in. It wasn't that, but it was very similar. There's something about it that reminds me of the likes of CCFX, CC Dust, The Cleaners From Venus, and wherein I suspect this sound first began to blossom: Chris Spedding's Video Life. All of those were dominating my listening habits last fall. In fact, since I am insanely well documented in those habits, I found that I added Video Life to my playlist of current obsessions to the exact day I began writing this, a year prior.
The best word to describe what I'm hearing very well may be "lofi," but between the exhausting "lofi beats to study to" gag and the music of 2010s artists like teen suicide and salvia palth, which I abused in the eighth grade and can no longer stand, it's a word I want to avoid. This is something separate from all of that. While in those examples the lofi quality sounds really forced to me these days, my aforementioned fall music inhibits that characteristic as a natural consequence of its production. Music by Chris Spedding and The Cleaners From Venus in the late 70s and early 80s were self produced and born authentically out of the post-punk era. When punk died, the desire to be a little rough around the edges and far from perfectly polished or pastiche remained, while the desire to focus a little more on the music than "the man" dominated. You were no longer expected to shout, gel your hair like Lady Liberty, curse the government, or break your guitar to be DIY and real.
The sound in this song isn't big because the amps were small and the budget was smaller. The guitar is trebly and uncompressed, and at times has a twinkly and dreamy sound, sounding like glimpses of a precursor to the shoegaze genre that would come later. Yet, it is thoughtfully and beautifully composed. When we look at CCFX, CC Dust, and Low, it sounds like they grew naturally out of sounds like these in combination with shoegaze, to create something truly raw and dreamlike. It's all very atmospheric and gets categorized similarly in my brain. Apparently, it is now the sound of autumn for me.