Walking Spanish - Rain Dogs [122]

Our third track with Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer on Rain Dogs brings us to Waits’s paean to death row and an examination of our attitudes towards the incarcerated. We get to cover some more heartfelt religious allusions by Waits, as well as our tattoo histories and the intersection of hip-hop/trip-hop/brit-pop.

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Walking Spanish, Rain Dogs, Tom Waits (1985)

Black Steel, Maxinquaye, Tricky (1995)

Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Public Enemy (1988)

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Gun Street Girl - Rain Dogs [119]

Waits wanders back into the world of the criminal with this cautionary tale of life on the run. And who better to talk about what is Criminal than our guests from a fortnight ago Phoebe and Lauren. Avoiding any more discussion of freeform jazz concertos, Song by Song discusses some of the history of the Murder Ballad, the educational/control value of these stories, as well as continuing to catalogue which of Tom Waits songs you can dance to. (Spoiler: the "can't" list is a lot longer than the "can"…) 

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Gun Street Girl, Rain Dogs, Tom Waits (1985)

Stack O’Lee, American Epic: Mississippi John Hurt, Mississippi John Hurt (1928/2017)

Stagger Lee, Murder Ballads, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1996)

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Midtown (instrumental) - Rain Dogs [117]

Song by Song welcomes a rotating roster of guests for the second half of Rain Dogs, beginning this week with Lauren Spohrer and Phoebe Judge of the Criminal podcast. With some definite differences of opinion (or even ideology) on this instrumental track (as well as the whole genre of Jazz in general), Song by Song debates whether experiencing the process of the creation of art (and entertainment) is a valid or pleasurable thing, or whether we should all just get our teeth drilled instead.

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Midtown, Rain Dogs, Tom Waits (1985)

Rhapsody In Blue, George Gershwin/dir. Michael Tilson Thomas (1985)

Rhapsody In Blue, George Gershwin/dir. Leonard Bernstein (1959)

Rhapsody In Blue, George Gershwin original recording (1924)

Rhapsody In Blue, George Gershwin from Fantasia 2000 (2000)

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