Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)

They Might Be Giants

A simple nursery-rhyme styled song about the Sun.

Yes, you gets facts n' figures about the Sun. That's pretty much it.

This is what Sesame Street would sound like if They Might Be Giants were the musical directors.

Hey, it's from a soundtrack to the kid's series (and popular video game) "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego", so the song fits.

From the album Carmen Sandiego: Out of This World

Low Budget

The Kinks

The Kinks channel The Rolling Stones.

Running on a guitar riff that would have made Keef proud, the band sing the woes of being broke. REALLY broke. About having the good life once, but now it's super tight and you gotta economize. Based on the year it came out (1979), I wouldn't be surprised if it was a knock at the horrible economic impact of Thatcherism.

It's a good, dirty, rock n' roll song with some very clever lyrics. Interestingly, the following lyrics show up in the booklet, but aren't actually in the song:


Quality costs, but quality wastes
So I'm giving up all my expensive tastes.
Caviar and champagne are definite no's
I'm acquiring a taste for brown ale and cod roes.

I look like a tramp, but don't write me off.
I'll have you all know, I was once a tough.
At least my hair is all mine, my teeth are my own.
But everything else is on permanent loan.


From the album Low Budget

Twiggy Twiggy/Twiggy vs. James Bond

Pizzicato Five

It sounds like a 60's Beach Blanket Bingo party done lounge style!
It ends with a loungy version of the James Bond theme!!
It's in Japanese!!!

Sometimes music needs to make a statement. It needs to musically address the ills of mankind. It needs to feed the soul. It should be the main course in your life.

But make sure you leave room for dessert.

This is dessert.

This is pure whipped cream. All deliciously empty calories. It moves along at a fun, bouncy pace and you don't really care if you can't understand the lyrics (unless you speak Japanese, of course). This song was a minor hit on local radio station KROQ back in 1994, when it was first issued.

From the album Made In USA

2120 South Michigan Avenue

Rolling Stones

A rare instrumental from the Stones attributed to their early pseudonym Nanker Phelge. It's an interesting mix of solid blues guitar riffing, harmonica blowing, and a very dated sounding organ. The organ sounds like something straight out of a 1960's beach blanket movie.

The track moves at a brisk pace and you can sense the band is having fun raving it up.

From the album 12 x 5

Song For Sunshine

Belle and Sebastian

A dreamy (but not in a slow, lethargic way) little pop tune dominated by a Talking Heads-esque keyboard. In fact, the keyboard is what makes the whole thing enjoyable as it winds itself through the entire song. The keyboard and percussion remind me of the live version of "Life During Wartime" from "Stop Making Sense".

Not sure what the song's about, though. Something along the lines that we're all more alike than we realize -- that despite our personal differences, we all see the same sky and the same sunshine and ask the same basic question of life: "Why".

I'm liking this band more and more and this dreamy song is worth getting lost in.

From the album The Life Pursuit

It's Good To Be King

Tom Petty

After a couple of albums slathered with Jeff Lynne's thick production style, it was nice to hear producer Rick Rubin produce a nice, clean, stripped down song from Petty.

The song is simple enough, telling the story an everyday guy dreaming what it's like to be king. The song is deceptive at first - you think the protagonist IS king. But slowly the layers of this guy's life are peeled away and we realize that he only WISHES he was king (but that would only happen once dogs had wings). His current existence seems even lowlier as he yearns for a Queen that couldn't run away. Notice that he says couldn't instead of wouldn't. This guy's reality seems steadily worse as the song progresses. It's the portrait of someone wanting to escape their life, if even just for awhile.

This song was one of the singles from Petty's second solo effort. I say solo only in that Petty's name is on the album? The song featured pretty much all of the Heartbreakers. It moves along at a nice tempo. The only thing out-of-place is the orchestrated finale, which doesn't really fit the simplicity of the song. I mean, it SOUNDS nice, but on deeper analysis, doesn't really need to be there.

From the album Wildflowers