. . “Wake Me Up When September Ends” is a song by the American rock band Green Day and the fourth single from their seventh studio album, American Idiot (2004). Written by the band’s front man Billie Joe Armstrong, the song is about the death of Armstrong’s father in September 1982 and his life since. The song’s lyrics have also been interpreted […]

. Anne Murray’s “A Little Good News,”  captures so perfectly how a torrent of negative news stories can damage the psyche.  This was in 1983, mind you, when news was limited to the newspaper, radio, and broadcast television.  If Murray was craving a little good news in 1983, I truly hope she’s staying away from […]

“500 Miles” (also known as “500 Miles Away from Home” or “Railroaders’ Lament“) is a song made popular in the United States and Europe during the 1960s folk revival. The simple repetitive lyrics offer a lament by a traveler who is far from home, out of money, and too ashamed to return. In a May 1963 interview on Folk Music Worldwide, Paul […]

“Mack the Knife” originated in a 1928 German play, The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, serving as a “murder ballad” for the gangster anti-hero Macheath (Mackie Messer). The song’s history traces back to the 18th-century play The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay, which featured a highwayman character and critiqued corruption. In the 20th century, Louis […]

“Chain Gang” is a song by American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke, released as a single on July 26, 1960. This was Cooke’s second-biggest American hit, his first hit single for RCA Victor after leaving Keen Records earlier in 1959, and was also his first top 10 hit since “You Send Me” from 1957, and his second-biggest pop single. The song was […]