George Jones with Melba Montgomery - We Must Have Been Out Of Our Minds

Let's have one more from George Jones. Melba Montgomery was never very well-known outside the country music field, but it wasn't because she didn't have a great voice.

Steven Spielberg's "Obama"

Truthfully I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's really well done. On the other, it reminds me a little of George W. Bush making jokes about finding WMDs, which was also a bit of comedy performed at the White House Correspondents Dinner - the tone is so lighthearted it's kind of disorienting. But for what it's worth, here it is. H/t KL @ "By Ken Levine."

George Jones - Good Year For the Roses

One more from Mr. Jones. I first heard this in Elvis Costello's version, and it's good, but the voice of George Jones is, well, phenomenal.

George Jones - The Grand Tour

Looks like he's introduced here by his then-wife, Tammy Wynette. What a voice. RIP.

Krugman on Austerity and Economists

Professor K puts the pieces together.


What, after all, do people want from economic policy?....The average American is somewhat worried about budget deficits, which is no surprise given the constant barrage of deficit scare stories in the news media, but the wealthy, by a large majority, regard deficits as the most important problem we face. And how should the budget deficit be brought down? The wealthy favor cutting federal spending on health care and Social Security — that is, “entitlements” — while the public at large actually wants to see spending on those programs rise.

You get the idea: The austerity agenda looks a lot like a simple expression of upper-class preferences, wrapped in a facade of academic rigor. What the top 1 percent wants becomes what economic science says we must do.

Tom Waits - Rainbirds

Otis Spann - Half Ain't Been Told

Otis Spann departed this world on this date in 1970. He played piano for many years in the band of Muddy Waters, but also had a solo career. Here he displays both his piano-playing skills and his vocal ability.

WIlliam Shakespeare - Sonnet 138

Happy birthday to Will. Don't know who the reader is.

The Beach Boys - Friends

Something sweet.

Bunny Wailer - This Train

This is another song I listen to when it seems like the world has been too much.

Lightnin' Slim - Voodoo Blues

Blues blues blues.

Paul Simon - Silent Eyes

There are big things happening in the world. As I write this, law enforcement officials have killed one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing and the other is being hunted, while the cleanup of the explosion in West, Texas continues. There's not much I can say about such tragedies that others aren't saying better. At such times, I always find myself returning to this song.

Public Viewing Screen in Edinburgh for Thatcher's Funeral

From the Guardian. H/t digby.

Elvis Costello - Tramp the Dirt Down

Mozart's Requiem: Lacrimosa - Karl Böhm and the Vienna Symphony

For Boston.

Krugman on Bitcoin and the Essence of Money

So it's more or less the fact that money isn't "real" the way that people want it to be...period. Live your life (and pay your bills) anyway. Krugman explains how the roller-coastering of bitcoin exemplifies this fact.

The furor over bitcoin was a useful lesson in the ways people misunderstand money — and in particular how they are misled by the desire to divorce the value of money from the society it serves.

Fats Domino - I'm Walking To New Orleans

One of the first songs I fell in love with.

Bruce Saunders Trio - Café Mercedes Jazz

A glimpse at what it means to be a working jazz musician in 2013.

Keith Jarrett Quartet - The Windup (Live 1974)

What we used to call Real Jazz.

11' 8" Bridge

I generally don't post cute videos, but this one is too good. "Cute" is the wrong word, though; how about ludicrous?

H/t JM @ TPM.

The Grateful Dead - Black Peter

As so often happens with these posts, this is just a song that's been in my head.

The Beach Boys & Annette Funicello - The Monkey's Uncle

RIP Annette Funicello, who among other things was one part of this flawlessly executed bit of goofiness.

Krugman on Medicaid and Freedom

Stating the obvious once again, Krugman irritates the elites.

The old trick of blaming the needy for their need doesn’t seem to play the way it used to, and especially not on health care: perhaps because the experience of losing insurance is so common, Medicaid enjoys remarkably strong public support. And now that health reform is the law of the land, the economic and fiscal case for individual states to accept Medicaid expansion is overwhelming. That’s why business interests strongly support expansion just about everywhere — even in Texas. But such practical concerns can be set aside if you can successfully argue that insurance is slavery.

Booker T. & The MGs - Hip Hug-Her

Once you start listening carefully, it's interesting how many songs of the twentieth century were not strictly blues, but were based on modified blues changes.

They Might Be Giants: Birdhouse In Your Soul (Live 4/3/1990)

With Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Orchestra, just to show that life can in fact be weird. H/t Atrios.

St. Lawrence String Quartet plays Haydn

I first learned about the St. Lawrence String Quartet through a recording of Schumann, but I can't find any of that on YouTube. The Haydn piece from which this movement comes is not identified, but that's okay: the point is just to show how musical they are, which is, oddly enough, far from universal among well-trained classical musicians.

Pink Floyd- The Great Gig in the Sky

This just matches my mood lately.

nada's retention capacity is somewhat surprising

Nothing today, sorry.

Amy Winehouse - Valerie (Acoustic)

Been thinking about Amy lately. She recorded several versions of the Zutons song "Valerie," but this stripped-down rendition highlights her vocal abilities in a way the others don't.

The Late Night Battles, Then and Now

Dick Cavett spent many years working in late night TV, first as a writer and then as a host, and as such is well-placed to offer an opinion on its workings.

I’ve been asked for comments by various columnists and publications these days, what with the T. Show back in the news with the Leno-Fallon-Kimmel eruption. NBC must have a bushel-size bottle of Bayer product in their infirmary labeled “Recurrent ‘Tonight Show’ Headaches.” There’s probably enough material for a series in the various “Tonight” traumas over the years, with episodes titled, “Jack Walks”; “Jack Returns”; “Johnny Arrives”; “Johnny Struggles, Then Triumphs”; “Jay Soars”; “Jay Demoted”; “Conan at Bat”; “Bye-Bye, Conan”; “Jay Redux”; “Kimmel Threatens”; “Fallon on the Rise”; “Jay Re-Threatened” and so on, into the late night.