Category: Music

One Hand’s Tremblin’ Over My Heart: Springsteen’s “Valentine’s Day”

Love Birds

In the video below, Bruce Springsteen sings “Valentine’s Day,” the closing song on his Tunnel of Love album. The song captures an underlying fear of any relationship, the fear of loss (“What scares me is losin’ you”). It’s one of the saddest songs about someone in a happy relationship.

But sometimes thinking about the fear of loss can make you appreciate the value of what you have. Check it out.

The performance is from October 15, 2005 in Madison, Wisconsin. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Photo of love birds by Chimesfreedom. What is your favorite Valentine’s Day song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Steve Earle “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now”

    Steve Earle Blues

    Steve Earle’s newest song is “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now” from his upcoming album Terraplane (2015). The country blues of “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now” reveals that Earle is going in a blues direction with his backing band the Dukes on the new album.

    A few months ago, Earle explained to Rolling Stone that “there’s a lot of sad stuff” on the album because he had recently been going through a divorce from singer-songwriter Allison Moorer. Thus, he notes, “It was a good time to make a blues record.”

    In case you are wondering what is a “Terraplane,” the title of the blues album is a nod to blues man Robert Johnson’s song, “Terraplane Blues.” In Johnson’s song, he used the car model Terraplane (a model artistically rendered on the cover of Steve Earle’s album above) as a metaphor for sex. As for Earle’s new song, you may listen to “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now” below.

    Terraplane, which features 11 songs all written by Earle, will be available on Tuesday, February 17, 2015. Allison Moorer will be releasing her own new album, Down to Believing, one month later on March 17.

    What do you think of “Ain’t Nobody’s Daddy Now”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Brandy Clark “Hold My Hand” At Grammys

    Hold My Hand Grammys

    One of the highlights of the recent 57th annual Grammy Awards occurred when Best New Artist nominee Brandy Clark appeared on a side stage with Dwight Yoakam to perform “Hold My Hand.” The two gave one of the small-stage emotional moments on a night usually dominated by big production numbers.

    Clark and Yoakam’s performance of “Hold My Hand” is of a song about relationship insecurities that Clark wrote with Mark Stephen Jones. 20925 Update:  While the Grammy performance is no longer on YouTube, below is a recording of Clark and Yoakam singing the song.

    “Hold My Hand” is from Clark’s album, 12 Stories. Although she did not win Best New Artist or Country Album of the Year, the Internet loved her performance and hopefully sharing the spotlight with Dwight Yoakam will make sure we hear more from her in the future.

    What was your favorite performance at the Grammy Awards? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Paul McCartney and Kanye West Join Rihanna On “FourFiveSeconds”

    Rihanna Kanye
    Kanye West and Paul McCartney help out on the new song from Rihanna, “FourFiveSeconds.” In the new black-and-white video for the song, you can see and hear Rihanna and West sing while McCartney plays an acoustic guitar.

    Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin directed the denim-clad musicians in the video. Check it out.

    “FourFiveSeconds” is the first single from Rihanna’s upcoming album, which is currently without a title.

    What do you think of “FourFiveSeconds”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    “Stay With Me” Because “I Won’t Back Down”

    Recently it was revealed that Sam Smith had agreed to pay royalties from his mega-hit “Stay With Me” to Tom Petty because of the similarity between Smith’s song and Petty’s 1989 hit “I Won’t Back Down.” The deal also involved giving credit to Jeff Lynne (of ELO fame), who contributed to Petty’s song.

    Prior to the announcement, a number of folks had noticed the similarity between the two songs. Below is on the the mash-ups from YouTube.

    Meanwhile, Slate argues that the reason Petty’s representatives have heard similarities between Petty’s songs and other hits at least three times is because Petty’s music uses basic rock and roll progressions. And, they explain, it is hard to avoid the basics. As for Petty, he released a statement saying he has no hard feelings against Sam Smith and understands how these things happen.

    What do you think? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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