The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas.......

.....and forecast to be the inspiration for songwriters for another 5 billion years.

  Intro   In 1993 They Might Be Giants recorded a cover of "Why Does the Sun Shine?" originally written in 1959 by Hy Zaret.

The next song is 'My Head is in the Sun' by The Rentals it fits perfectly into the unheard category as it only has about 4,000 hits on Youtube.  Another version put together by a fan has 7,000 plays.  Great song to sing along to in the car.

    Back in March of O-10 my wife and I rented a car for a short weekend trip.  The vehicle was brand new and had a six-month free satellite subscription which made the hours of driving pass quickly.  On the Sirius XMU channel Bethany Consentino and Bobb Bruno's band Best Coast had a song 'The Sun was High' in moderate rotation.  When we arrived home from the trip I found out they were going to play in Detroit at the Magic Stick in April.  Even though their debut CD wasn't released until July of that year,  I was able to purchase a Lisa Frank sticker spangled CD-R that contained all the songs that appeared on their upcoming disc.

   There's a universe other than the one I reside in,  where bands can put out intelligent cutting edge, melodic power pop, get radio play and sell records.   From October 2002 to August 2004 the London band The Libertines released 2 full length albums and 3 EP's.  A mercurial rise was followed by an equally quick implosion as the relationship between the band's two song writers Carl Barat and Pete Doherty became strained by the latter's  increasing erratic drug-fueled behavior.  In fact, by the time they played the Magic Stick in October of 2004 Doherty had left (or was kicked out of) the band, for a series alternating stints of rehab and jail.  Their contribution to the songs-about-the-sun theme is 'Don't Look Back Into the Sun'.   Although the video has 4.8 million youtube plays, I doubt it has been played on a commercial radio station in Detroit.

It's a Monday, it's so mundane.

  A couple of weeks ago I was slacking-multi-tasking on my computer while watching TV, when the following Snickers commercial aired.  

  Sure I appreciate a Snickers bar as much as the next low-brow chocoholic.  Also I had  my share of Godzilla nightmares growing up in an era with only 6 channels available on TV.  But what caught my attention was the music in the ad.  It reminded me of a Throwing Muses song that I couldn't remember the name of.  I knew that I had the song on my computer and my Zune mp3 player.  I skimmed through the 2000 music files on the computer and couldn't find it.   Two hours later I was driving to work listening to the Tiger game when an inning ended and the station went to commercial.  I switched from the radio to my mp3 player during the commercial break and what song did the Zune (set as always on random) play?  "Not too soon" by the Throwing Muses, the very song that the candy commercial reminded me of.

  Although the song appeared on the Muses' 1991 album 'The Real Ramona'  it was originally written in the mid-80's when the band's founders, step-sisters Tonya Donelly and Kristen Hersh were in their late teens.  Tonya Donelly went on in the 1990's to found two other bands The Breeders and Belly  and still records solo material. 

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    In 1995 P J(Polly Jean) Harvey release the album 'To Bring You My Love'.  Critically acclaimed from it's release, it was later named by Spin magazine as the #3 album of the 90's and included in Rolling Stones top 500 albums of all time.  The 7th song on the album, 'Down by the Water', received quite a bit of play on alternative stations back in the late 90's,  but to me the preceding track "Long Snake Moan" is the song that gets me cranking whatever electronic player to maximum volume. 

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  WDET's Jon Mosier has a Friday night radio show called 'Modern Music'.  It is the only place in this area to hear any newer music that is more substance than style.   It was on Mosier's show that I heard Courtney Barnett's 2013 gem 'Avant Gardener'.  The song is a humorous account of an allergic reaction while gardening during a heat wave.  Courtney Barnett is not only a heralded songwriter, she also started her own record label, Milk Records.

The underlying theme of this post is Female songwriters from islands.  Courtney Barnett is from Melbourne, Australia . P J Harvey is from Bridport, England.  Tonya Donelly and Kristen Hersh are from Newport, Rhode Island.......oops.  Maybe that island thing is a stretch.