William's Song a Day Blog - est. September 2007

From: A Night at the Opera ; Year: 1999 (1939); Genre: Comedy In a weird mood today and had the Marx Brothers film At the Circus , or rather music from it playing in my mind incessantly. Wot the Marx Brothers did musically is seemingly timeless and is enjoyable to people born more than a century after release. I still laugh and cannot turn away from this scene in particular, it is just so entertaining and hilarious. Even though Groucho sings the lead and is the primary focus and does an amazing acting job, his brother Harpo doing his physical comedy in the background is my favourite aspect; he all but steals the show during this number. It took me a while to find the soundtrack, but luckily was able to find this album of one of their most popular film's namesake. It also includes three other film soundtracks, including At the Circus , of which this one came.   Watch the number performed from the film on YouTube.         My song pick 1 year ago today: Marvin Gaye...

From: Stormwatch (2019 40th Anniversary Force 10 Edition) ; Year: 1979; Genre: Progressive Rock/Blues Rock It is another one of those days where I had an album playing in my mind whilst getting ready to make the day's song pick; guess which one? I'm really getting close to running out of tracks to choose from Stormwatch; if it wasn't for all the "dusted down forgotten recordings" remastered and released a number of years ago, I surely would've by now. This is an instrumental piece that was left on the cutting room floor that did not make it on to the record or any of the "rare and unreleased" discs in the time between. Whilst it's okay, it definitely is not amongst my favourites from that recording session, but still has that hard, bluesy folk rock sound from the late 1970s. Although, to my ears it sounds as if some instruments were more recently added or dubbed over some of the original tracks; I could be wrong. However, hearing some instruments...

From: Second Fire!! ; Year: 1995; Genre: Hard Rock/Metal Decided to go with another song from one of the Japanese animé's that I have always liked a lot: Macross 7 . For those not acquainted with the series, it was created by Shōji Kawamori  and combines science fiction/space, mecha , and music/"making of the band" genres. Over the years I have been able to procure most of the CDs associated with Macross 7 and some of the other Macro ss series. I've always liked the "Duet Version" off the second disc, which is performed by both guitar virtuoso  Yoshiki Fukuyama and Chie Kajiura as their characters from the show. As far as I am aware, the music was performed by Yoshiki Fukuyama and his band at the time: Hummingbird. Anyway, this is a high-intensity heavy metal/hard rock piece that feature a lot of blazing guitar work and was heavily featured in the show.    Hear Holy Lonely Light on YouTube.   Watch an awesome live performance of the song on YouTube.   ...

From: I Robot ; Year: 1977; Genre: Progressive Rock Just had this record on my mind since yesterday evening; why not just go ahead and pick the first, title track? I Robot  acts as the overture to the overall concept album loosely based on Isaac Asimov 's stories concerning the mechanical men . Essentially is a six-minute instrumental piece heavy with synth programing and keyboards except for a chorale providing a human touch with vocalizations, which probably was the intention considering the overall conceptual story.    Hear I Robot on YouTube.         My song pick 1 year ago today: Rainbow - Black Sheep of the Family   My song pick 2 years ago today: Funkadelic - Take Your Dead Ass Home! (Say Som'n Nasty)   My song pick 3 years ago today: The Exciters - Tell Him   My song pick 4 years ago today: Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers - I Promise To Remember   My song pick 5 years ago today: Santana - Song of the Wind   My song...

From: You Don't Mess Around With Jim ; Year: 1972; Genre: Folk Rock I remember buying an old stereo 8-track tape of this album at either a yard sale or thrift store back when I was a young teenager for five cents; the tape was already quite old and a dead format even back then. Not having a lot of money to spend then, I would normally get my music cheap and then record it onto a cassette tape or just play it. One thing about Jim Croce's albums, for me at least, I never skipped a song; I'd let it play. Each and every song was special and so uplifting. The only problem with 8-tracks was the fact that you couldn't rewind them, so, if you wanted to hear a song again you had to let it come back around on the continuous loop of tape. As long as you kept your player and cartridge in good working order it'd just keep playing, that is, until that little metal switching splice fell off and it started to eat your tape. then you'd have to re-spool and use the good ol' s...

From: Tony Joe ; Year: 1970; Genre: Country Funk/Blues Something a little different for this Funky Friday; some funky country blues crossover. It is just the great kind of weird just how well country/western and funk go together. A lot of people probably see the two musical genres as not related, but since both genres are children of of blues so to speak they have much more in common than not and thus go together like peanut butter and jam. As I've said before blues is one powerful and all-encompassing musical school and can bond together a great deal; and not just music either. Tony Joe White really does well using the whole "jilted lover done wrong" idea by comparing their relationship to that of a black widow spider and her usually soon-to-be-dinner mate. Heck, this track could be played in many mixed settings and eras; even today this one would go over well. Probably the best aspect of this song for me is the overall lower fidelity production; makes his vocals even al...