On we go into the second half of the working week with some songs appropriate to Thursdays. Interestingly all the songs today are straightforwardly related to the day. No hinkey connections today. So we begin with Jersey Thursday by Donovan from 1965.
Donovan Leitch is a Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz pop and psychedelia. Fairytale was his second album. It was first released in the UK in October 1965. Fairytale finds Donovan evolving his styles further towards British folk, especially on songs such as “Summer Day Reflection Song” and “Jersey Thursday”. There is no live performance footage but this version provides some live film of the man himself.
“Thursday’s Child” is a song recorded by David Bowie for his twenty-first studio album Hours (1999). Written by Bowie and Reeves Gabrels, the song was released as the album’s lead single in September 1999. In a performance for VH1Storytellers, Bowie revealed that the title of the song was prompted by the memory of the autobiography of actress Eartha Kitt. The book, also called Thursday’s Child, used to be a favourite of his when he was 14 years old.
Townes Van Zandt, was an American singer-songwriter. He wrote numerous songs, such as “Pancho and Lefty”, “For the Sake of the Song”, “Tecumseh Valley”, “Rex’s Blues”, and “To Live is to Fly”, that are widely considered masterpieces of American songwriting. His musical style has often been described as melancholy and features rich, poetic lyrics. During his early years, Van Zandt was respected for his guitar playing and fingerpicking ability. The track “Like a Summer Thursday” is to be found in his second album Our Mother the Mountain, released in 1969. It is considered to be one of his greatest recordings and features some of his best known works. I have included a superb live version by Chiara Giacobbe. This is something of a hidden gem.
Jess Glynne is an English singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence in 2014 as a featured artist on the singles “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit, which reached number one in the UK. She has been considered one of the “Most Influential People Under 30” by Forbes magazine in 2019. Her debut studio album, I Cry When I Laugh (2015), debuted at number one on the UK Album Charts and saw the international success of the singles “Hold My Hand” and “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself”. Her second studio album, Always In Between (2018), also debuted at number one in the UK and saw continued success. The single, “Thursday”, and several others from the album made Glynne the first British female solo artist to have seven number one singles on the UK Single Chart. Here is a simple acoustic version of the song with Ed Sheeran on guitar.
