Singleversity #15

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 102.

MA:



I have always liked Jackie DeShannon’s "What the World Needs Now is Love". With its relatively simple and lush arrangement (that melody-echoing trombone is so perfect it’s ridiculous), I always wondered whether the Bacharach/David tune was written as influenced by Brian Wilson or did it act as an inspiration for his similar compositions on Pet Sounds, released a year later. Plus, DeShannon never gets the recognition she deserves. Besides being maybe the first purveyor of folk-rock, she opened for The Beatles on their first U.S. tour, dated Elvis, and penned “Bette Davis Eyes” among so many other pop-chart destroying tunes.

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In January, NPR’s “Weekend America” asked listeners what their favorite song to fall asleep to was. Though it seems like a backhanded compliment, Over the Atlantic’s “Fly to the States” is a song that strikes me in a very special way… So special I wrote up a description and hoped they would include the whole song; a 30-second clip is useless, so here is its full splendor. Though I may not know where I’m going or what I’m doing with my life, the New Zealand duo are quietly backing me up, gently easing me into the white abyss. Malevich would be proud.