I say a little prayer

https://www.gocomics.com/bignate/2020/08/01

 

LP #36 Stevie Wonder – Innervisions (1973)

Wonderfully consistent, with a canny mix of love ballads and social commentary.

 

From Rolling Stone:

 

Stevie Wonder's high-flying musical experimentation and penetrating lyrical insight made Innervisions a textured, but never self-indulgent, work of soulful self-discovery. Fusing social realism with spiritual idealism, he brings expressive color and irresistible funk to his keyboards on "Too High" (a cautionary anti-drug song) and "Higher Ground" (which echoes Martin Luther King Jr.'s message of transcendence). The album's centerpiece is "Living for the City," a cinematic depiction of exploitation and injustice.

 

(Random thought: about seven years later, Wonder released an album titled Hotter Than July. I don’t even want to go there.)

 

Favorite tracks:

 

All In Love Is Fair

Living For The City

Golden Lady

Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing

Higher Ground

How Congress can stop gerrymandering

This actually sounds as if it could work.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/gerrymandering-redistricting-census-congress/2020/07/17/d1002146-c6f5-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html  

John Lewis obituary

Wonderful obit this morning in the Post.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/john-r-lewis-front-line-civil-rights-leader-and-eminence-of-capitol-hill-dies-at-80/2020/07/17/54a67e1a-c3ad-11ea-b4f6-cb39cd8940fb_story.html

Notable Quote #11

“Talc is cheap.” 

Maggie Simpson:  Season 31, Episode 15 (“Screenless”)

We can’t wait for schools to reopen safely!

“Everyone knows how important it is that we have a plan to reopen schools safely. That is why the Trump administration has devised a plan: to reopen schools. They sure hope your governor has plans for the safety part! In the meantime, your kids and their teachers get to be heroes and pioneers, instead of just reading about them in musty textbooks!”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/08/we-cant-wait-schools-reopen-safely/

LP #35 Mary Chapin Carpenter – Come On Come On (1992)

Back in the days when country music radio welcomed everyone from Rhodes Scholars to Brown University graduates, Mary Chapin Carpenter had an amazing run of commercial success, hitting the top 20 of Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart 17 times between 1989 and 1995. Seven of those hits were from this album, and the album itself was her most commercially successful, selling over 4 million copies in the U.S. Most of the non-single tracks are great as well (especially “I Am A Town” and “Rhythm Of The Blues”), to the extent that I (regretfully) had to leave her cover of Mark Knopfler’s “The Bug” off of my list below.

 

Favorite tracks:

 

Passionate Kisses 

He Thinks He'll Keep Her

I Feel Lucky

The Hard Way

I Am A Town

I Take My Chances

Rhythm Of The Blues

Lyric Of The Day #19 (July 9, 2020)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxwqBJLU8A

 

Starting with:

 

Close the door, light the light

We're stayin' home tonight

 

And a chorus that begins:

 

We'll build a world of our own that no one else can share

 

My all-time favorite Australian act was obviously 55 years ahead of its time.

The impossible dream

https://foxtrot.com/2020/07/05/impossible-dream/

Early prediction

The recently-released Reunions, by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, will wind up getting a GRAMMY nomination for Album Of The Year. You (probably) heard it here first.