Phil Kline:  Been to Hell

Phil Kline: Been to Hell

I’m including a Zippo Song for sentimental reasons—Phil Kline and I met via this album in 2004, when I was publicizing Bang on a Can and its record label Cantaloupe, which put out a lot of Phil’s music. We married a year later. Zippo Songs simply blew my mind. A poet...
Song of the Day: July 31

Song of the Day: July 31

Phil Kline’s final Song of the Day this week. Thanks, Phil! “Waterloo Sunset,” Ray Davies, The Kinks Of all the amazing songs that came with the creative expansion of rock and pop music in the late sixties, I can think of none that I love more than...
Song of the Day: July 30

Song of the Day: July 30

(Curator: Phil Kline) “Mysteries of the Macabre” – Gyorgi Ligeti – sung and conducted by Barbara Hannigan My ears perked up when this person I’d never heard of, Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan, did a sparkling turn in the song “Das Himmlische...
Song of the Day:  July 29

Song of the Day: July 29

(Curator:  Phil Kline) “Al Atlal” (The Ruins) – poem Ibrahim Nagi, music Riad El-Sonbati – sung by Kalthoum When I was a kid I saw TV footage of four million people crowding the streets of Cairo for the funeral of Oum Kalthoum. I wondered who...
Song of the Day:  July 28

Song of the Day: July 28

(Curator: Phil Kline) “To Gratiana Dancing and Singing” – William Denis Browne, sung by Ian Bostridge, with Julius Drake, piano. This one always gets me. The poem is by Richard Lovelace and the song alludes to an anonymous allmayne in the Elizabeth...