Song by Song

Happy New Year! It's 2020 and that means Song by Song is taking the opportunity to delve into some of the listener mail we've received over the last year or so. Check out the show notes below for more links and details of the songs discussed. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: News...

Our final discussion around The Black Rider continues from last week, as Martin and Sam get Burroughs quotes wrong ("Do what you will, that is the whole of the law" obviously being an Alistair Crowley quote, you idiot Sam, how did you miss that?!?), talk about the problematic autobiographical elements of the story, and what the lack of subtlety in this play means. Thanks for sticking with us throu...

Sam and Martin dig into the four tracks that only appear in The Black Rider play, trying to decide why they weren't featured on the Waits album. With some mixed feelings about the quality of the songs overall, and a little discussion about the language used by Waits and Burroughs (both in English and German), we start a conversation that will continue next week with a final summing up of both the...

A third week with David & Callum brings Sam & Martin to the end of The Black Rider album, although we reach back to much earlier in the play. Ideas of carnival celebrations in a British context are compared to the American funfair/freakshow image, and we take a bit of time to think about the ideology of the play and album in general. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: s...

Moving into a coda of sorts (both in the album and the play) Callum, David, Sam & Martin discuss the way Waits winds down The Black Rider with this final "proper" song. With some full-blooded disagreement over comparison between the theatre and album versions, Song by Song edges towards the conclusion of this very complicated album. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: so...

Theatre-maker David Shopland joins his collaborator and returning guest Callum Hughes (plus the usual goofs Martin & Sam) to listen to this climactic track from The Black Rider. We discuss fusion of Waits's traditional mode of writing with the theatrical context, the nature of his writing throughout the album, as well as the writing of Belle&Sebastian. Stick with us to the end of the episode for a...

A fourth week with Penny Foxley sees her talk with Sam and Martin about more cacophonous instrumental music, this time with a vocal to put even Waits to shame. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Oily Night, The Black Rider, Tom Waits (1993) khemchim, dalai beldiri, Yat-Kha (1999) W...

A short episode for the shortest of short tracks, as Penny, Martin and Sam discuss this 18sec Greg Cohen extract from the Black Rider score. Now with even less Tom Waits! website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Interlude, The Black Rider, Tom Waits (1993) We think your Song by Song expe...

Penny Foxley returns to give Martin & Sam some more context and detail for the Black Rider play from 2004. The cacophony of the music (and the evolution of that music), Marianne Faithfull's tailcoat, and the raw energy of early-2000s girlband pop all feature in today's discussion... sometimes slightly tangentially? website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gm...

Another Waits-does-Burroughs track this week, as we're joined by stage manager and Black Rider alumnus Penny Foxley for some discussion of her first-hand experience working on the play. We talk through Robert Wilson's micromanagement of actors' gestures, the fun of doing the show compared to its bleak content, and the presence of the crossroads myth in the 1930s blues of Robert Johnson. website: s...

Waits returns to more directly narrative material through the lyrics of William Burroughs, as Jenny, Sam and Martin talk about vocal quality, musical dissonance, and the extraordinary musical stylings of Björk. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Flash Pan Hunter, The Black Rider, T...

A second week with Jenny Conley-Drizos sees her talking with Sam and Martin about restraint, morbidity and violence in this crooner ballad. With some of Sam's "Overworked Lyric Unpicking" (patent pending) and Martin's Smooth Marble Egg theory of music, we have one of the most stereotypical episodes of Song by Song yet... sorry folks, we're 100% on-brand this week. website: songbysongpodcast.com tw...

The mental gymnastics are in full force for this odd atonal instrumental, as Martin and Sam are joined by Jenny Conley-Drizos of the Decemberists to discuss the orchestral creation of "the essence of train", Scott Johnson's intense 80s editing strategies, and to list some instruments Sam has owned but never bothered to practice. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songby...

It's St. Petersburg or bust this week for Charlie, Martin & Sam, as Waits pulls out a shortcut to the traditional music of Russia (Soviet, Tzarist or otherwise) for this odd interstital moment in both the album and the play. I usually write something which vaguely describes the episode here, but really you should just stop reading, go to the website and watch every single Little Big video right no...

Charlie Harding returns for this two-for-one special, listening to this twinned and linked pair of songs by Burroughs and Waits. With more talk of the endless foreshadowing as well as some comparisons to Shakespearian themes in pop music, Sam, Martin & Charlie think about the extra text for That's The Way, the validity of biographical shout-outs, and the symbolism of neon shotguns. website: songby...

Charlie Harding of Switched On Pop joins Sam and Martin for some discussion around this little instrumental interlude on The Black Rider. We begin with a brief exploration of leitmotif as related to lightsabers, and then move through Waits's more elegant compositional techniques, before landing on a bit of light bird identification. Many thanks to Charlie, as well as Suzy of The Casual Birder Podc...

We're sort of missing Waits this week, as William Burroughs covers this Edgars/Donaldson song from his childhood. Simon and David return for more discussion with Martin and Sam around authenticity (of voice, of writing, or of instrumental sound), the fusion of Waits and Burroughs' writing, and the nature of wax art. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@g...

More mental gymnastics from David, Simon, Sam & Martin, as Song by Song grapples with not only defining the Black Box as a song, as well as a theatrical conceit. There's some in-depth discussion of unusual instruments and their use in musical storytelling/signposting, comparison with other Robert Wilson collaborations, and we work our who that guy from Labyrinth is. website: songbysongpodcast.com...

Playwright Simon Stephens and Composer David Shrubsole join Martin and Sam to talk about the influence of Kurt Weill, the nature of musical theatre and the origins of the story at the heart of The Black Rider. Looking at Porgy and Bess and the performance of Nina Simone in terms of themes of addiction, we touch on other autobiographical elements of the play, as well as the effect of poetic vs dram...

As we try to unpick some of the interplay between the album The Black Rider and the play of the same name, Jeu Jeu la Foille, Martin & Sam reflect (pun intended) on the fatalistic imagery in the song, the foreshadowing of endings and beginnings, and the benefits of bonfire-building in awkward social situations. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail....

Guest host Jeu Jeu La Foille returns for a second week looking at the opening tracks from The Black Rider, discussing with Martin and Sam the presence and absence of Wilhelm and Käthchen in the play and the music, the mirror the play provides to Burroughs' own history, and how "beauty" and "ugliness" represent themselves through music and performance. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songb...

Song by Song returns for its 15th season, digging into one of the densest and most involved albums in the whole project, The Black Rider. Guest host Jeu Jeu La Foille joins Sam and Martin to add her experience in use of Waits in theatrical performance as well as her own memories of the stage production, as we discuss the function of overtures & introductions, the interactions between ablism & empo...

We're just a week away from season 15, but The Black Rider needs a little contextual work from both us the podcast and you the listeners. Check the website for links to some of the material we'll be using to discuss the album as well as the play, collect your opera glasses and buy your popcorn, and we'll see you back here for the overture very shortly... website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @so...

Sam and Martin get together (on the same continent no less!) to talk through both this track specifically as well as the album Bone Machine in general. Discussing what That Feel might be - in terms of love, religion or friendship - as well as the evolution of Waits's music in general, Song by Song wraps up season 14 with a little musical flourish from our very own Mr Zaltz-Austwick. Song by Song i...

Ooh it's another little sound fragment track from Waits this week, as Scary, Martin and Sam explore the possibilities of a James Brown pun in this penultimate track from Bone Machine. With debate over seagulls vs. squeaking gears, various branding opportunities for the Godfather of Soul, and... and... and it's only 53 seconds long, so we just talk about some other stuff. Song by Song is Martin Zal...