Song Spotlight: Smashing Pumpkins - "A Song for a Son"

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, the ambitious new Smashing Pumpkins album, has had the first of its 44 songs released.  As of December 8, 2009, "A Song for a Son" can be downloaded for free from the band's website.  I've been trying to figure out the best way of covering this album here; for example, do I post an album spotlight of the entire thing, 44 individual song spotlights, or something in between?  Since a lot depends on how the band itself decides to release the album, I'll just post about this song for now and figure out the rest of the details when I know more.  Given the amount of people who come to this blog looking for free Smashing Pumpkins music (my post about Machina II is the most popular single post on this site by a very wide margin), I think that's the best thing to do.

I really like "A Song for a Son".  Billy Corgan has stated that it has "the right epic quality to it that says, ‘OK, here we go on this massive journey!’"  I have to agree.  The song starts quietly, with piano, acoustic guitar, and what sounds like a Mellotron providing the backdrop for Corgan's vocals.  Later on, it moves into more progressive territory with layers of harmonized guitars.  If this is even a taste of what is to come, then the rest of the album is definitely something to look forward to.

You can download the song from the band's website.  They're using a widget that I will try to embed at the end of this post.  If you don't see anything there, then I guess it didn't work.  If you do see something there, please let me know what you think of it, as I generally like to keep my posts pretty plain, but if people find it useful (i.e. it makes it easier to download the music), perhaps I'll try things like that more often in the future.  Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.smashingpumpkins.com/

Song Spotlight: Paul McCartney - "Meat Free Monday"

One of my favourite moments on The Simpsons was when Paul and Linda McCartney showed up to support Lisa's efforts to become a vegetarian.  As Lisa was preparing to leave, Paul asked her if she would like to hear a song, to which she responded very enthusiastically.  Paul then handed things over to Apu, who began singing, rather terribly, "I'm Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Man, I hope I will enjoy my show."  At this point, Lisa began backing quietly away with a nervous (or was that terrified?) smile on her face.

 

Some 14 years later, Sir Paul himself has composed a song about vegetarianism called "Meat Free Monday".  Now, as I mentioned before, I'm not terribly familiar with McCartney's solo output, so I don't know if he's done this kind of thing before.  I'm pretty sure that he hasn't offered any songs about vegetarianism for free before, though.  Well, technically the song can be downloaded for making a donation to the Meat Free Monday campaign, but the site also includes a link to download the song without making a donation; how you obtain it is up to you.

 

"Meat Free Monday" is quite a fun song.  Musically, it reminds me of some Beatles songs like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Octopus's Garden".  Lyrically, he's not going for anything terribly complicated, with lines like "Meat Free Monday, it's a fun day, and it's happenin' all around the world," but that actually works in the song's favour; by keeping things simple, the song takes on a certain charm, not unlike something you might hear from Sesame Street or Schoolhouse Rock!  No matter what your views on vegetarianism are, I think it's pretty hard to deny that this is a really catchy song.

 

To download "Meat Free Monday", you need to enter your email address in the widget, and the download link will be sent to the address you provide.  Happy listening!

 

URLs:

http://www.supportmfm.org/donate/

http://www.supportmfm.org/donate/download.cfm