Which one is your favorite? - VI -

I would like to thank the blog followers for their interactivity because this series have been one of the most popular posts ever. I even started to get song requests. So thank you all for that. Please keep your requests and comments coming...

Our song for this week is;

"The Man Who Sold the World"

"The Man Who Sold the World" is a song written and performed by David Bowie. It is the title track of his third album, which was released in the US in November 1970 and in the UK in April 1971. This song is about a man who no longer recognizes himself and feels awful about it. For years, Bowie struggled with his identity and expressed himself through his songs, often creating characters to perform them.

The song was reworked by Bowie, featuring atmospheric synths, a new bassline, techno-style drums and a notably darker mood, for performances in concerts from 1995 to 1997, including the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards. Bowie later returned to playing the original version in the 2000s.

And here are the 3 versions I chose for you;

• Lulu - "The Man Who Sold the World"

• Nirvana - "The Man Who Sold the World"

• Midge Ure - "The Man Who Sold the World"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...

Five Songs for the Weekend - XLVI -

This week the post is coming from South Africa. Wonderful fresh spring weather, good food and wine accompanying me in beautiful Cape Town. I am keeping the bla bla part short this week cause I still have to discover if the water goes down the drain in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere :)...

As Roy Ayers once said;

"The true beauty of music is that it connects people. 

It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers."

And now here are the 5 songs for this weekend directly from South Africa;

• Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim)  - "African Marketplace"

• Jonathan Butler - "Lies"

• Miriam Makeba - "Pata Pata"

• Hugh Masekela - "Don't Go Lose It Baby"

• Zahara - "Mgodi"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - V -

I am happy to see that you are listening to the cover songs I am choosing for you and posting your comments on different platforms. Keep up the good work please. This week I am picking a song that I really like very much and the 3 covers below are quite different than one another, so I guess it will be a fun list.

Our song for today is:

"Heart of Glass"

Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (who were a couple) wrote the first version of this song in early 1974, shortly after they first met. They didn't have a proper title for the song, and would refer to it as "The Disco Song." Harry explained on the show Words and Music: "Lyrically, it was about a stalker who was pursuing me, and Chris saved me from him."

It wasn't until they recorded this song in 1978 that Stein came up with the title "Heart Of Glass." He didn't know that it was also the title of a 1976 German movie directed by Werner Herzog.

Featured on the band's third studio album, Parallel Lines (1978), it was released as the album's third single in January 1979 and reached number one on the charts in several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

In December 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the song number 255 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It was ranked at number 259 when the list was updated in April 2010. Slant Magazine placed it at number 42 on their list of the greatest dance songs of all time and Pitchfork named it the 18th best song of the 1970s.

In 2018, "Heart of Glass" ranked at number 66 in the UK's official list of biggest selling singles of all-time with sales of 1.32 million copies.

A funny anecdote on the lyrics;

Finding words to rhyme to "glass" that fit in a song can be... a pain in the ass.

In the last chorus, following "Once I had a love and it was a gas," Debbie Harry takes a different tack, singing "Soon turned out to be a pain in the ass." This is a key line in the song, since the singer has now realized that this relationship is more trouble than it's worth, and that her heart of glass might be more durable than she thought.

Unfortunately, American radio was generally ass-free at this time, so to ensure airplay stations were sent an edited version with the offending line replaced with "soon turned out I had a heart of glass."

The beats were made with a Roland drum machine (a CR78) and you may watch the details of the production in the bonus video at the end of the post.

Here are the 3 versions I chose for you;

• Nouvelle Vague - "Heart Of Glass"

• The Bad Plus - "Heart Of Glass"

• Gisele & Bob Sinclar - "Heart of Glass"

One small note to the male followers, it is imperative that you concentrate on the music while making your choices and comments 😅...

And here is the bonus video about the production of the original song.

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...

Five Songs for the Weekend - XLV -

Almost everyone seems a bit depressed due to the fact that summer is ending. But I can propose something that might cheer you up during these autumn days and that is to check the winter season program announcements of the venues, concert halls, jazz clubs , theater halls and art galleries that you like to visit. Believe me , wherever you are, you will find many nice concerts, shows and exhibitions and they will keep you warm till next summer...

As Berthold Auerbach once said;

"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."

And now here is our list for this weekend;

• Daniel Johnston - "True Love Will Find You In The End" - [RIP Daniel]

• Brazzos & O.K. JAZZ -  "Cha Cha Cha del Zombo"

• Terry Riley & Kronos Quartet - "Planet Elf Sindoori"

• Balthazar - "Fever"

• Ziggy Marley- "True To Myself"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - IV -

Already a month passed since I started the new series on the blog. I am grateful to you as I am receiving comments under the posts meaning that I am not the only one on the blog... Keep up the good work about comments and keep me motivated...

Our song for today is:

"All Along the Watchtower"

This is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan's subsequent greatest hits compilations. Since the late 1970s, he has performed it in concert more than any of his other songs.

Dylan recorded "All Along the Watchtower" on November 6, 1967, at Columbia Studio A in Nashville, Tennessee, the same studio where he had completed Blonde on Blonde in the spring of the previous year. Accompanying Dylan, who played acoustic guitar and harmonica, were two Nashville veterans from the Blonde on Blonde sessions, Charlie McCoy on bass guitar and Kenneth Buttrey on drums. The producer was Bob Johnston, who produced Dylan's two previous albums, Highway 61 Revisited in 1965 and Blonde on Blonde in 1966.

Here are the 3 versions I chose for you;

• The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "All Along The Watchtower"

• Bryan Ferry - "All Along the Watchtower"

• Dave Matthews Band - "All Along The Watchtower"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).

But before that here is a bonus for my generation that is out of the competition...

• U2 - "All Along The Watchtower"

nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...

Five Songs for the Weekend - XLIV -

Welcome to the 44th post of "Five Songs for the Weekend". I have shared more than 200 songs with you under this title and I really hope you have found a song that you like so far. As you have already noticed by now,  I am trying to pick the songs from various genres that could be amazing for a larger musical taste, well of course mine at the top :).

As Alphonse de Lamartine once said;

"Music is the literature of the heart; 

it commences where speech ends."

So here is the list for this weekend;

• Lana Del Rey - "Doin' Time"

• Pixies - "On Graveyard Hill"

• Blondie - "Heart Of Glass"

• Moby - "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?"

• Philip Glass - "Einstein on the Beach"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.

Which one is your favorite? - III -

Here is the third post of the interactive series that recently started on the blog. All you need to do is to listen to the 3 different versions of the song I choose, pick the one that appeals to you the most and leave a comment on why you picked that particular one...You can make your comments here on the blog page (below the post), on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/atiblogger/) or on Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/atiblogger/)...

And our song for today is:

"The Man I Love"

It is a popular standard with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira.  It was originally intended to be part of the Gershwins' 1924 musical, "Lady, Be Good", with the title, "The Girl I Love". However this wonderful and timeless song could not become so popular in that era's musicals and was eventually dropped from "Lady, Be Good"...
The Gershwins tried to fit the song in somewhere else after it was dropped from "Lady, Be Good". With the new title, "The Man I Love," it appeared in satirical anti-war show, Strike Up the Band, in 1927 and then again in Flo Ziegfeld's Rosalie in 1928.
There was one person who did like the song, though. Lady Edwina Mountbatten, wife of the great-grandson of Queen Victoria and member of England's high society heard the song when George played it a party. It was not the least bit unusual for George to commandeer a piano at party during the Roaring Twenties and play his catalog of songs. He was not shy about his work or his talent. Lady Mountbatten took a copy of the music back to England and requested that her favorite dance orchestras play it. "The Man I Love" caught fire in London and Paris. Since then, the song is being played by artists from various musical genres.


And now the 3 versions I chose for you;

• Hindi Zahra - "The Man I Love"

• Kate Bush - "The Man I Love"

• Caetano Veloso - "The Man I Love"

For this week, there's a bonus instrumental track for you (out of competition) that I like very much....

• Ethan Iverson Quartet - "The Man I Love"

Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).


nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...

Five Songs for the Weekend - XLIII -

Well, the summer is officially over...Maybe not heat wise but definitely holiday wise...So everyone seems a bit better and not ready to welcome the bleak weather. Therefore I propose you to try to get out of this mood via good music and spending more time outdoors while you still can...

As Jean Paul Richter once said;

"Music is the poetry of the air."

And here is our list for this weekend;

• Thelonious Monk Quartet - "Round Midnight"

• Florence + The Machine - "Shake It Out"

• The Chemical Brothers - "MAH"

• Laurie Anderson - "It's Not the Bullet that Kills You (It's the Hole)"

• Snarky Puppy - "Bad Kids to the Back"

Hope you have a great weekend.

nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.