“Take On Me” is a song by the Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha. The original version, recorded in 1984 and released in October of that year, was produced by Tony Mansfield and remixed by John Ratcliff. The 1985 international hit version was produced by Alan Tarney for the group’s debut studio album, Hunting High and Low […]
Mozart – Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor
The Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1785. The first performance took place at the Mehlgrube Concert Hall in Vienna on 11 February 1785, with the composer as the soloist. A few days after the first performance, the composer’s father, Leopold, visiting in Vienna, wrote […]
Big Yellow Taxi
“Big Yellow Taxi” is a song written, composed, and originally recorded by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell in 1970, and originally released on her third album, Ladies of the Canyon (1970). Released in April 1970 by Reprise Records, the single was a hit in her native Canada (No. 15) as well as Australia (No. 6) and […]
Boogie-Woogie
Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, but already developed in African-American communities since the 1870s. It was eventually extended from piano to piano duo and trio, guitar, big band, country and western, and gospel. While standard blues traditionally expresses a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly dance […]
You Can’t Hurry Love
“You Can’t Hurry Love” is a song originally recorded by the Supremes on the Motown label and was the second single from the Supremes’ album The Supremes A’ Go-Go… The song “You Can’t Hurry Love”, is a memory of a mother’s words (“My mama said ‘you can’t hurry love/No you just have to wait’”) telling […]
Chaconne
A Chaconne is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line (ground bass) which offers a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia. It originates and was particularly popular […]
Carmen Jones
Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical with music by Georges Bizet (orchestrated for Broadway by Robert Russell Bennett) and lyrics and book by Oscar Hammerstein II which was performed at The Broadway Theatre. Conceptually, it is Bizet’s opera Carmen updated to a World War II-era, African-American setting. Bizet’s opera was, in turn, based on […]
The Fields of Athenry
“The Fields of Athenry” is a song written in 1979 by Pete St. John in the style of an Irish folk ballad. Set during the Great Famine of the 1840s, the lyrics feature a fictional man from near Athenry in County Galway, who stole food for his starving family and has been sentenced to transportation […]
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
“Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” is a song written by Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott and Sol Marcus. Composer and arranger Horace Ott came up with the melody and chorus lyrics after a temporary falling out with his girlfriend (and wife-to-be), Gloria Caldwell. Ott then brought it to writing partners Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus to […]
Tom Lehrer
Tom Lehrer was an American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, who later taught mathematics and musical theatre. He recorded pithy and humorous, often political songs that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. His songs often parodied popular musical forms, though they usually had original melodies. Lehrer was considered a child prodigy and skipped two […]