← Feed

Posts

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, A Wider World, here is a wonderful NPR Tiny Desk Concert by Los Mirlos, a Peruvian cumbia band. Cumbia is originally a genre of folk music from Colombia, but later developed a fusion with Peruvian Andean music, Cuban percussion, and electric guitars. It became popular with workers in the Amazonian regions of Peru. Let Los Mirlos get you dancing along to their Tiny Desk concert here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCh4tfSqXFc #JukeboxFridayNight #AWide...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, A Wider World, here is a contemporary song from the world of Afro-Peruvian music. Susana Baca, the award-winning singer-songwriter, sings "María Landó", the song of a poor working woman's life. "María no tiene tiempo de alzar los ojos, María rotos de sueño, de andar sufriendo, María sólo trabaja, sólotrabaja, sólo trabaja, y su trabajo es ajeno." English translation: "María has no time to lift up her eyes, María exhausted by...

• View post

  Another song for this week's jukebox music theme of A Wider World. Joanne Shenendoah is a Haudenosaunee singer from the Oneida nation. Her music mixes sounds from her Six Nations tradition with a modern style. Here she is singing a series of Old Moccasin Dance songs from her 1993 album of Social Songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0lh6GH-LO0 #JukeboxFridayNight #AWiderWorld

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, songs from a Wider World, here is a song rooted in the Haudenosaunee musical tradition. Sadie Buck is a Tonawanda Seneca artist and author who has written new songs based on traditional Seneca music. She is the lead singer of the group Six Nations Women Singers. Here is her amazing voice leading the group singing "Uheawaewhale" in March 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy6g8v7J1qU #JukeboxFridayNight #AWiderWorld

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, songs from a Wider World, here is a song rooted in the Haudenosaunee musical tradition. Sadie Buck is a Tonawanda Seneca artist and author who has written new songs based on traditional Seneca music. She is the lead singer of the group Six Nations Women Singers. Here is her amazing voice leading the group singing in March 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy6g8v7J1qU #JukeboxFridayNight #AWiderWorld

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, Dirty, here's another song called "Don't Go Near the Water". This one written and sung by Johnny Cash, lamenting how we humans are polluting the environment. "There was a time the air was clean, And you could see forever ‘cross the plains, The wind was sweet as honey, And no one had ever heard of acid rain. We’re torturin’ the earth, And pourin’ every kind of evil in the sea, We violated nature, And our children have to pay the pen...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, Dirty, here is "Don't Go Near the Water", written by Mike Love and Al Jardine, sung by the Beach Boys. Their usual songs celebrating fun times surfing in clean water are turned around in this song warning that the water is now too dirty and polluted to be safe. "Don't go near the water, Don't you think it's sad, What's happened to the water, Our water's going bad. Oceans, rivers, lakes and streams, Have all been tou...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, Dirty, here is "Black Waters", written and sung by Jean Ritchie, lamenting the pollution and devastation of the land caused by coal strip-mining. "I come from the mountains, Kentucky's my home, Where the wild deer and black bear so lately did roam, By the cool rushing waterfall the wildflowers dream, And through every green valley, there runs a clear stream. Now there's scenes of destruction on every hand, And only black waters run...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, here is a deceptively gentle song about atmospheric poisoning. "What Have They Done to the Rain?" was originally written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962 as a protest to the strontium-poisoned rain caused by above-ground nuclear tests. Later, the song also became a protest in the 1970's and 1980's against acid rain as well. Sung here by Malvina Reynolds. "Just a little boy standing in the rain, The gentle rain that falls for years, And...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, Dirt, here is "Pollution", scathing satire with a merry tune, written and sung by Tom Lehrer. "If you visit American city, You will find it very pretty. Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air! Pollution, pollution, They got smog and sewage and mud, Turn on your tap, And get hot and cold running crud... See the halibuts and the sturgeons, Being wiped out by detergents, Fish got to...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, Dirt, here is Bill Steele's "Garbage", a musical diatribe about our trashing of the earth. Sung by Pete Seeger for a 1986 environmental documentary, in front of a backdrop of garbage barges. "Mister Thompson calls the waiter, orders steak and baked potato, He leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skin, The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it, And puts it in a can with coffee grounds and sardine tins, And...

• View post

  I began this week's Personal Playlist with "Amazing Grace", the central song of my entire life. Now I end this list with its bookend, another song that similarly speaks for my whole life, "How Can I Keep From Singing?" We heard it growing up on my dad's folk music records. We sang it around the campfire in girl scouts. I sang it in church with the choir. The first two verses have traveled with me throughout my years, sustaining me in song through life's ups and d...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the music of our own lives. I was 49 years old when I finally met Brian, at a time when I never expected to fall in love. We were together for 15 years, until he died of covid in 2024. Unlike the family I grew up in, Brian was not personally musical, and didn't have favorite albums or musical enthusiasms. But one of our favorite regular dates during our years together was going to free outdoor concerts. We took our folding chairs dow...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the music that followed us through life. My dad and I continued to discover new music together as we aged, influencing each other with our fresh enthusiasms. We discovered Motown and R&B when I was in my late 30's, and found a whole new musical world to explore. A couple of my personal favorites: Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?"- "Mother, mother, There's too many of you crying, Brother, brother, brot...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme, Personal Playlist, looks back at the music that marked our lives. I used to discover new albums I liked by borrowing them from the library. If I liked one well enough to spend money on it, I'd buy my own. Judy Collins' "Bread and Roses" album was one that I played over until it was scratched and worn. It spoke to me when I was in my 20's. Here is the title song from that album, a stirring anthem of working women. ".As we go marc...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the music of our own life. I grew up surrounded by eclectic music, in a household with my dad and my grandparents. I was awash in pop songs of the 60's and 70's, but certainly the music I heard from the older generation also struck deep into my ears. Dad listened to jazz, folk, blues, theater and movie music. Grandpa liked swing jazz and polka music. Grandma liked sweet jazz and the pop music of the 1930's and 40's. Their...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the music of our own life. I grew up surrounded my eclectic music, in a household with my dad and my grandparents. I was awash in pop songs of the 60's and 70's, but certainly the music I heard from the older generation also struck deep into my ears. Dad listened to jazz, folk, blues, theater and movie music. Grandpa liked swing jazz and polka music. Grandma liked sweet jazz and the pop music of the 1930's and 40's. Their...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the music that marked our lives. When I was a teen, I belonged to a girl scout troop filled with girls who liked to sing. Folk songs, popular songs of the day (1970's), and weird parodies, we sang anything. Here's one that was a popular sing-along in those days, late at night around the ashes of the campfire. "I'd like to build the world a home, And furnish it with love, Grow apple trees and honey bees, And snow white tu...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the music of our lives. When I was in high school, I played violin in the school orchestra, where I fell in love with Mozart. I had an album of Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" which was my homework album, spinning on my record player while I studied or did math or wrote essays. It shut out the world and helped me get in the groove and focus. Hearing this music to this day takes me back to high school. Here's the first...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the songs of our own life. Here is the one that always makes me stand up, starts my blood flowing, brings me to smiles and tears. The "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony is one of the greatest musical compositions of human genius. Here it is moving an entire crowd of people to sing along. "Freude, Schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuer-trunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Deine Zauber...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the songs of our own life. This one is a childhood memory of my dad. Pete Seeger's "Hobo's Lullaby" was the lullaby my dad used to always sing to me and my sisters when we were little ones, and it always reminds me of being tucked in cozily and safely, with my dad's familiar voice singing for me. "Go to sleep, you weary hobo, Let the towns drift slowly by. Can't you hear the steel rails hummin'? That&#3...

• View post

  This week's jukebox music theme is Personal Playlist, the songs that mean something in our own lives. My top choice is the one that seems to be the song of my own life, "Amazing Grace". There are hundreds of recordings out there, and many are wonderful, and I can only post one. So I'll go with this one by the Soweto Gospel Choir, singing from their hearts. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I'm found, Was blind,...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Cold Missouri Waters", written and sung by James Keelaghan. The song tells the story of the 1949 Mann Gulch wildfire, which killed 13 of the 16 firefighters trapped by the fire. The fire was much-studied, and led to a re-evaluation of wildfire fighting safety techniques. "But the fire crowned, jumped the valley just ahead, There was no way down, headed for the ridge instead, Too big to fight it, we'd have to fight tha...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Like a Mountain: Can't Kill the Spirit", by Naomi Littlebear Morena. It was written in 1977 and was originally the anthem of the women's anti-nuclear movement. Thirty thousand women held hands and sang while surrounding the Greenham Commons Nuclear Cruise Missile site in the UK. The song sustained that protest for 20 years. In the years since, it been adopted by various other protest movements. This recording features M...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Solomon Browne", written and sung by Seth Lakeman, a song about the 1981 Penlee Lifeboat disaster. The RNLI lifeboat Solomon Browne went to rescue five sailors aboard the Union Star after her engines failed off the coast of Cornwall. Sixteen people died, including 8 RNLI volunteers. "At fair Mount's Bay, on that Christmas week, Was such a raging storm, no man could speak, That lifeboat thundered through an angry sea,...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, here is "Mississippi Goddamn", written and sung by Nina Simone. The song was her impassioned and furious response to the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, and the many other violent attempts to shut down the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. "That's just the trouble (Too slow) Desegregation (Too slow) Mass participation (Too slow) Reunification (Too slow) Do things gradual...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", written and sung by Gordon Lightfoot. The song commemorates the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the first trans-Canada line, built in the 1880's. The song was written as part of the Canadian Centennial celebrations of 1967. "So over the mountains, and over the plains, Into the muskeg, and into the rain, Up the St. Lawrence, all the way to Gaspé, Swingin' our hammers, and draw...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Burn On", written and performed by Randy Newman. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, US, caught fire due to industrial pollution and oil slicks. The fire was a wake-up call that led to a major environmental clean-up effort, and is partially responsible for the creation of the Environmental Protection Act. "Cleveland, city of light, city of magic, Cleveland, city of light, you're calling me, Cleveland, eve...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Biko", a tribute to murdered anti-apartheid activist Steven Biko, written by Peter Gabriel, and sung by the Playing for Change music collective. "You can blow out a candle, But you can't blow out a fire, Once the flame begin to catch, The wind will blow it higher. Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja The man is dead, the man is dead." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWNE...

• View post

  For this week's jukebox music theme, History, here is "Wind of Change", written by Klaus Meine, performed by the band Scorpions. Written during the waning days of the Soviet Union, it became an iconic song in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell. "Take me to the magic of the moment, On a glory night, Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams With you and me, Take me to the magic of the moment, On a glory night, Where the children of tomorrow dream away In the wind of change...