We tried out this recipe for DIY window paint last Saturday when the wind and icy drizzle succeeded in dampening our (mommy's) interest in exploring outside. It's a fun, creative and most importantly – easy – toddler activity that doesn't make *too* much mess. An excellent way to spend time on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Take a deep breath, have a coffee and get mixing!
The other websites where I'd seen this mentioned used it outside, but we found it drip free enough to use (carefully) indoors. However, I limited the use of this to the kitchen where the paint would be easy to wipe off the floor. After clocking the level of excitement in LP mixing the paint, I realised my original plan to use this on the living room's french windows had to be scrapped. Toddler + food colouring + sofas = bad idea.
Either way, this is a sensory, surprising and stimulating activity for little ones which allows them to try some skills needed for cooking as well as mark-making – plus fun for the adults involved.
Also, it was easy to clean off the windows afterwards. I think they ended up cleaner than before they started – but what better way to clean than to make it a game? It is a shame I didn't have Mary Poppin's style bluebirds to help out but it really wasn't that much of chore.
Admire toddler's beautiful and messy window art creations!
LP was so excited when the brush made initial contact with the window that he was literally trembling. You can see the wonder on his face.
He quickly got the hand of swirling and curving the paintbrush across the glass, then scribbling the colours all together.
Of course I couldn't resist adding a little decoration of my own and signing the masterpiece on behalf of the artist.
All in all, it kept him occupied for 30 mins, which is pretty good for a 23 month old. I'm sure that older kids would be entertained and help to clean up afterwards! I left the artwork up for a while so BP could admire it when he got in from rugby.
Here's to your little artists having a go too! If you'd like to share your pictures in the comments or Facebook, please do.
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Home » 17 July 2017 - What's new
17 July 2017 - What's new
'The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain...' Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and the forthcoming The Book of Dust, provides our Comment, from his website.
The Galley Beggar Press is having an open submission which is open to all with no entry fee, with possible publication as the prize. They are looking for adult literary fiction and narrative non-fiction till 31 July and again from 15-30 November 2017.
Are you writing for the children's market? Have you found it difficult to get expert editorial input on your work ? Do you want to know if it has real commercial potential? Or are you planning to self-publish? Our four Children's Editorial Services are provided by skilled children's editors and will help you get your work published.
Our May Magazine is now ready, offering easy access to a range of recent articles and links, such as 'Show me the money!': the self-published authors being snapped up by Hollywood | Books | The Guardian and The Most Common Entry-Level Mistake in the Writing Game | Jane Friedman.
Figures quoted by China Daily show that publishers in China are benefiting from 300m users of mobile devices who read electronic books. The market is up 25% year on year and reached $1.7 billion in sales last year.... Difficult though it can be to get western books into China, this presents a huge opportunity for international publishers and their authors, although of course the biggest potential is for Chinese writers reaching readers in their own country and beyond. News Review
From our Archive, Writing for Children: Rule Number One - Read More than You Write by Sarah Taylor-Fergusson: 'Author opinion falls into two camps on this one, with some writers maintaining that reading fiction while writing is a very bad thing. To this I might say that if you have been working for years as a published author, and you have that degree of sophistication, dexterity and confidence, then maybe sometimes yes. But for the majority of us who are not at that level...'
Our links: perhaps you're considering self-publishing, and want to have a thorough understanding of each part of the process, 10 Steps To Self-Publishing Your Book | HuffPost; being a published author is still widely considered a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field, but Will Writing That E-Book Really Boost Your Business? Contract clauses giving publishers the right to drop authors who act "immorally" are becoming more common, Authors warned not to sign 'morality' clauses | The Bookseller; and a pragmatic article about how to approach Twitter etc, So You're an Author Without a Social Media Presence: Now What? | Jane Friedman.
How to market your writing services online is a useful article from Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk about selling yourself as a writer. 'Recently someone commented to me that I seem to be doing a pretty good job of promoting my writing services on the internet. I was touched by the observation - we writers get so many rejections that a little praise is especially gratifying. And I began to wonder - what does it take to market yourself successfully as a jobbing writer today?...'
More links: another article with an editor's thoughts: So You've Decided to Write: When to Drown Your Darlings | Literary Hub; unlike Gone Girl, Girl on a Train, The Girls, Luckiest Girl Alive and others, Final Girls is written by a man, Forget George Eliot: now it's male authors disguising their sex to sell more books | Books | The Guardian; and, not if you like your crime fiction hardboiled and noir-ish, Crime in the City: Singapore, World Capital of the Cozy Mystery | Literary Hub.
Authors often find it difficult to write their own synopsis for submission to publishers, which is where our Synopsis-writing service can help. If you're preparing to self-publish and having difficulty with your blurb, our Blurb-writing service is what you need. They are all part of the biggest range of services offered on the web, Our Services for Writers.
'People are certainly impressed by the aura of creative power which a writer may wear, but can easily demolish it with a few well-chosen questions. Bob Shaw has observed that the deadliest questions usually come as a pair: "Have you published anything?" (loosely translated as: I've never heard of you) and "What name do you write under?" (loosely translatable as: I've definitely never heard of you).' Brian Stableford in our Writers' Quotes.
'The three most important things are character, character, character. Climb inside every character and live them from the inside. And remember: every character, even the most minor ones, think they are the true centre of the story.'
— Andrew Davies
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Which service?
Publishing Glossary
The Selfies Book Awards US
Edwards Fuglewicz
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William Clark Assoc
Virginia Kidd Agency Inc.
RWA Cancels 2020 RITA Awards
Amazon fake reviews bought for £3 | The Bookseller
Writing About Travel (Books for Writers) - Morag Campbell
From Animal Farm to Catch-22: the most regrettable rejections in the history of publishing | Books | The Guardian
Blaise Pascal | 'The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put ...
Frequently Asked Questions - WSSp
Advantages of Print on Demand
The Bookhabit Unpublished Competition 2008

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STUTTGART (Reuters) - Daimler will start building electric cars in China next year as a way to meet Beijing's stringent anti-pollution quotas for carmakers, even as demand for conventional models like the Mercedes-Benz Maybach remains strong.
China has introduced minimum sales requirements for so-called new energy vehicles (NEV's) and Daimler is on track to meet the quota for 2018, Daimler China chief Hubertus Troska said on Wednesday.
"We are very confident about fulfilling the NEV quotas," Troska said, adding that a new fully electric vehicle will be added to local production.
"We begin production end of next year," Troska said about the Mercedes-Benz EQC electric model.
Chinese customers are still buying high-end Maybach models at a rate of 600 vehicles a month, Troska said.
Sales of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars will continue to grow next year, given that consumer demand for premium cars has bucked an overall trend of flagging sales in the world's largest auto market, Troska told a briefing in Stuttgart.
"We are absolutely positive about business development next year," Troska said about growth prospects for Mercedes-Benz passenger cars.
Although talks with Chinese carmaker Geely about areas of potential cooperation are continuing, Troska said Daimler was very happy with its existing China partners which include BAIC and BYD.
Geely founder Li Shufu has asked Mercedes to enter a broader alliance after acquiring a 9.69 percent stake in the German carmaker earlier this year.
Daimler could enter a cooperation with a non-auto company in the area of electric vehicles, Troska said, declining to comment further.


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Posts Tagged 'Iranian Revolution'
Iran between a pragmatic pseudo-liberal and a theocratic hardliner
Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is thought to be a pragmatic conservative, ready to do whatever is necessary to protect mostly his own interests. In a 1999 sermon at the Tehran University he praised the government for using force to suppress student demonstrations. On July 17, 2009 , his highly anticipated speech at the Friday prayer satisfied neither the green opposition movement of the youth in the streets of Tehran nor did it rehabilitate his arch-enemy Ahmadinejad and his role in the most recent elections.
Rafsandjani is walking a tightrope in trying to preserve his influence and keeping pressure on Ahmadinejad and his supporters and at the same time not to alienate the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On the one hand he is a supporter of freedom of expression and civil society, and on the other hand he founded the radical Ansar-e-Hezbollah movement in Iran. In 1999 Hezbollah was involved in violent attacks on student protesters at anti-government demonstrations which lasted for about a week and resulted in a number of students being severely injured, some paralyzed and even murdered.
During his Friday prayer Rafsandjani spoke of doubt that has begrudged the people of Iran in this bitter era after the election. He suggested in order to return the trust to the people all, including the system, government, security forces, police and the people should move in line with the law. At this time it is worth mentioning that it was Rafsandjani and other Mousavi supporters who themselves deviated from the rule of law by demanding new elections when there was no legal basis for it. During his sermon Leader Ayatollah Khamenei reminded the opposition of the importance of the rule of law: "By Allah's favor, the presidential election was accurately held, and the current matters should be pursued legally."
It was Rafsandjani who did not adhere to the law and yet he is now stating the obvious after the fact that protesters have already taken their demands to the streets. That kind of twisting the facts is malicious to say the least. It is the makings of a pragmatic politician who sees his fortunes threatened and is now desperately trying to take advantage of frustration that is settling in among the young generation in Iran. He wants to leave the door to debate open but fails to recognize that there cannot be a reasonable debate with people taking to the streets and chanting death to the dictator from their roof tops. He fails to recognize that protestors want a revolution yet Rafsandjani wants to protect only his own interests.
How did it get to the point that the country of the Iranian revolution is almost going to be torn apart between the forces of a modern, young, moderate Iran and a theocratic, old and conservative leadership? The answer of the theocrats is to suppress freedom in an effort to contain this threat to the system. The answer of the opposition is to revolt against the regime. The losers are most certainly people of Iran, young and old, who are about to be crushed in a vice between this two gigantic millstones.
Rafsandjani who's role in the current revolt is appalling, nevertheless is most likely the only one who could lead the country out of the current deadlock. If you are going to drown you probably have to grab whatever you get, and Rafsandjani's pragmatism is maybe just the right thing to pull them out. In the moment the nation of Iran does not really have any alternative.
The United States, Israel and its allies are about to raise the stakes for Iran in its nuclear stand off with the west. The New York Times has floated the prospects of tough sanctions against the nation of Iran from the Obama administration. There is talk about extreme economic sanctions by cutting off Iran's imports of gasoline and other refined oil products. Iran imports about 40 percent of its gasoline from abroad. The sanctions could be implemented soon after Obama's deadline to revive talks on Iran's nuclear program ends in mid-September.
In the meantime the administration is rallying its allies behind a gasoline embargo, which is supposed to change Iran's cost-benefit analysis according to president Obama. Congress is preparing legislation that would give the president the authority to act on extreme sanction. A bill, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, has already 71 sponsors a majority in the senate and is expected to pass the house as well. US lawmakers consider this bill to arm the president with sanctions authority more appropriate than authorizing the use of military force. They seemed to have learned from the Bush debacle after all.
Of course by some stretch of imagination this energy embargo scenario could also be viewed as an act of aggression not unlike war and its use of military force. Such a draconic measure is therefore not without risk. it could further destabilize an already weakened regime in Iran and change a rather benign and contained situation into uncontrollable violence and bloodshed. This will not be enough to deter the U.S. and its allies as long as the violence remains within Iran. The U.S. has certainly a long history in such ruthless endeavors.
There is also the possibility that Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will capitalize on tough sanctions and rally his fellow countrymen behind him. Enemy number one for most Iranians is still the U.S. and sanctions will only help to reinforce anti-American sentiment in the region. After his defeat in the first Persian Gulf War Saddam Hussein was hugely unpopular, but a decade lasting of crippling sanctions transformed him into Iraqi's favorite leader once again.
In Iran's nuclear standoff with the west the door is slam shut, neither the U.S. nor the theocratic leadership seem ready to compromise. The only hope to open a window of negotiations is through the pragmatic conservative Ayatollah Rafsandjani. His support for a free market domestically and his moderate position internationally brings him closer to the U.S. than any of the other Iranian clerics and in stark contrast to president Ahmadinejad. It can be assumed with absolute certainty that Rafsandjani is the main force behind the opposition movement and the current mini-revolt against Ahamdinejad and the Islamic revolution itself.
The fronts in this historic struggle for dominance are clear. Leader Khamenei and Ahmadinejad stand for the integrity of the Islamic revolution and are pitted against more moderate reformers around clerical businessman Rafsandschani and Mousavi. Initially everything seemed to fall in line with the Supreme Leader almost hastily anointing his candidate Ahmadinejad as the winner of the current election. Nobody expected the president to alienate his conservative friends by promoting Rahim Mashaie to the post of vice-president.
After Khamenei signaled his anger with this choice Ahmadinejad decided to ignore the Supreme Leader's wish for almost a week before he finally gave in and demoted Mashaie to the post of his new chief of staff. Over the course of this row with the hard line, conservative leadership in Iran several of his ministers resigned from their posts causing a major stir among the theocratic system. His opponents immediately seized the opportunity to sense unease amongst conservatives over the disputed elections, and saw there claims of election fraud confirmed.
Some have even argued that Ahmadinejad was preparing for a coup d'état to install a military dictatorship in Iran. I think this is wrong. We have no credible evidence that the president is planning such radical action against Leader Khamenei. In his defense Ahmadinejad himself characterized his relationship with Khamenei like that of a father and son, going beyond politics and administration.
Still uncertainty remains about why would Mr. Ahamdinejad provoke his closest allies at a time when his opponents are already fiercely attacking him. The most likely explanation is, he lost his nerves. In an attempt to reach out, he wanted to include more moderate forces in his new cabinet. That did not ring through with ultraconservative, hard line members in the government. Unsure about how to resolve the current dispute with the opposition and end the threat that street protests pose to the system he charged ahead and fired some of his conservative members in the government.
Though we cannot be sure about the motives, friction between Leader Khamenei and his protégé Mr. Ahmadinejad became apparent yesterday during the official endorsement ceremony for his second term as president. A video shot during the procedure clearly showed how awkward the two men approached each other. In another sign of turmoil major critics of the recent election, including Mr. Rafsandjani, did not participate in the endorsement. In the meantime another influential ultraconservative cleric instructed the president to consult with parliament before naming his new ministry. Indeed Ahmadinejad seems to be marginalized in his power over the influential theocrats.
Among all the accusations and problems that have befallen the nation of Iran, Rafsandjani's influence has gained importance but is still up against the ultraconservative Supreme Leader of Iran. We can only speculate about the outcome of this confrontation but can be fairly certain about the main actors in this drama. Although his motives are questionable moral objections have to be abandoned in favor of an end that justifies the means of ending a nuclear standoff with the west. But here is the problem. Rafsandjani who can help to end this international dispute can only do so by committing treason on the Iranian revolution and risking civil war in Iran. Today's protestors in the streets of Tehran should be fearful to get what they wished for.
4. August 2009 at 5:47 pm
Posted in Middle East, Politics, posts in english, U.S.A.
Tagged with Ahmadinejad, Friday prayer, gasoline embargo, green movement, Iran, Iranian Revolution, Khamenei, Obama administration, pragmatism, president of Iran, Rafsandjani, street protest, Supreme Leader, theocratic, tough sanctions, ultraconservative
Friedman confuses occidental motives with oriental needs
Mr. Friedman is a distinguished book author and columnist for the Times, one of our foremost experts on globalization and all things political for that matter, and yet he does not seem to understand the political situation in the Middle East.
His article 'Bullets and Barrels' about the recent developments in Iran is confusing to say the least. At first he concedes that past elections were legitimate but then concludes that this time the regime panicked and stole the election. His analysis is entirely based on the speculative assumption that Mousavi supporters are the majority in the nation of Iran.
I can only speculate about his motives and as to how he reaches this conclusion but he seemed to completely ignore Ahmadinejad's popularity. In this election Ahmadinejad was widely believed to have run a more successful campaign than his challengers, he was seen by many as the more popular candidate during the televised debates.
While many in the west rush to judgment about Ahmadinejad they never really challenged Khamenei and the Iranian Revolution. I assume because of overwhelming support of the system among the Iranian populace. Ahmadinejad is their candidate of choice. As George Friedman points out, the question is not why Ahmadinejad won, but why so many thought he would not win.
The writers own analysis that this election was a referendum against the regime is counter to anything we know about Iran at this point. I have not found any reasonable argument in his article that would support this thesis. Like many he seems to be entirely captivated by the flow of information out of Iran that is coming from new technologies, but surely a revolution against the Iranian Revolution will not be achieved by Twitter and social networks.
Friedman also does not distinguish between reform and moderation as core-motives in this election. Reform that challenges the theocratic system of rule in Iran would be hugely chaotic and ultimately negative for the Middle East. He confuses motives of occidental governments with the needs and desires of their oriental counterparts. As long as we do not approach the Middle East with a genuine desire for peace any attempt to bring about change will fail.
Posted in Middle East, Politics, posts in english
Tagged with Ahmadinejad, election, Iran, Iranian Revolution, Middle East, NYT
Iran – has the West already won?
Iran's supreme leader during Friday's prayer sided with President Ahmadinejad over the disputed election results. He called it an absolute victory , proven by the big difference in vote count between the two challengers. Khamenei made clear that street protests would not make any difference and gave a stern warning to those responsible to resort to reason and pursue any further complains the legal way. Here are some excerpts from his speech from the Huffington Post:
"Some of our enemies in different parts of the world intended to depict this absolute victory, this definitive victory, as a doubtful victory," he said. "It is your victory. They cannot manipulate it."
"If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes?"
"It must be determined at the ballot box what the people want and what they don't want, not in the streets," he said. "I call on all to put an end to this method. … If they don't, they will be held responsible for the chaos and the consequences."
"Some may imagine that street action will create political leverage against the system and force the authorities to give in to threats. No, this is wrong," he said.
"All of them (the four candidates) belong to the system. It was a competition within the ruling system,"
This explicit statement regarding the system of government gives a hint about the real struggle that must be going on behind closed doors among the theocratic elite in Iran. At stake is not only an allegedly rigged election but rather the existence of the Iranian Revolution itself. Whether the protesters themselves led by Mousavi and Rafsanjani are aware of this daunting challenge is not clear. But what should be clear among those taking to the streets is that this revolution against the revolution will not be accomplished by Twitter and social networks alone. As supreme leader Khamenei reiterated those responsible for blood, violence and chaos have to take responsibility.
There have been many accusations, during Khamenei's prayer and before, of western governments trying to meddle with Iranian internal affairs (also here). Whether US., Great Britain and what he called Iran's other enemies try to force a showdown over Iran's non-elected theocracy and shake up the foundation of its system of rule is uncertain although possible given the general uninhibited elation in western media over the street protests. I hope all those concerned know what they are doing and are willing to accept responsibility.
The next days and weeks will define this struggle and although the outcome is uncertain, Iranian leadership must not ignore it. The hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets have already shaken the foundation of the Islamic Revolution. If the theocratic leadership remains stubborn and does not recognize since the overthrow of the Shah a generation's life has passed, they are poised to meet the same faith.
19. June 2009 at 3:14 pm
Posted in Middle East, Politics, posts in english, Uncategorized
Tagged with Ahmadinejad, election, fraud, Iran, Iranian Revolution, Khomenei, theocratic


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By Ty Burr
Updated May 02, 1997 at 04:00 AM EDT
Defiantly grimy and peopled with pasty-skinned Londoners braying in incomprehensible accents, writer-director Mike Leigh's acclaimed film, Secrets & Lies, seems the antithesis of feel-good cinema. And yes, its thicker-than-marmalade pacing seems even pokier on the small screen. But you have a family, correct? And the people in your family chafe and hedge and fib to get through the day without killing each other, right? Then you should appreciate how Leigh observes, with unvarnished clarity, the blue-collar Purley clan: dithery Mum (Oscar-nommed Brenda Blethyn), surly daughter (Claire Rushbrook), saintly brother (Timothy Spall, who should have been nominated), and illegitimate daughter (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, also an Oscar candidate). The average renter may see mud, but anyone who digs will find pearls as Leigh and his cast guide their characters to things all families deserve: resolution, peace, grace. A-


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Home Music Music Lists
September 16, 2021 8:40AM
For the first time in 17 years, we've completely remade our list of the best songs ever. More than 250 artists, writers, and industry figures helped us choose a brand-new list full of historic favourites, world-changing anthems, and new classics
By ROLLING STONE
Photo Illustration by Sean McCabe. Photographs used within illustration by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images, 3; Paul Natkin/WireImage; Val Wilmer/Redferns/Getty Images; Theo Wargo/Getty Images; Jack Mitchell/Getty Images; C Flanigan/Getty Images; Scott Dudelson/Getty Images; Gie Knaeps/Getty Images; Emma McIntyre/Getty Images; Steven Nunez; STILLZ
In 2004, Rolling Stone published its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It's one of the most widely read stories in our history, viewed hundreds of millions of times on this site. But a lot has changed since 2004; back then the iPod was relatively new, and Billie Eilish was three years old. So we've decided to give the list a total reboot. To create the new version of the RS 500 we convened a poll of more than 250 artists, musicians, and producers — from Angelique Kidjo to Zedd, Sam Smith to Megan Thee Stallion, M. Ward to Bill Ward — as well as figures from the music industry and leading critics and journalists. They each sent in a ranked list of their top 50 songs, and we tabulated the results.
How We Made the List and Who Voted
Nearly 4,000 songs received votes. Where the 2004 version of the list was dominated by early rock and soul, the new edition contains more hip-hop, modern country, indie rock, Latin pop, reggae, and R&B. More than half the songs here — 254 in all — weren't present on the old list, including a third of the Top 100. The result is a more expansive, inclusive vision of pop, music that keeps rewriting its history with every beat.
Jonathan Bernstein, Jon Blistein, David Browne, Jayson Buford, Nick Catucci, Mankaprr Conteh, Bill Crandall, Jon Dolan, Gavin Edwards, Jenny Eliscu, Brenna Ehrlich, Jon Freeman, David Fricke, Andy Greene, Joe Gross, Kory Grow, Keith Harris, Will Hermes, Brian Hiatt, Christian Hoard, Joseph Hudak, Jeff Ihaza, Rob Kemp, Greg Kot, Elias Leight, Rob Levine, Alan Light, Julyssa Lopez, Angie Martoccio, Michaelangelo Matos, Tom Moon, Tom Nawrocki, Jon Pareles, Parke Puterbaugh, Mosi Reeves, Jody Rosen, Robert Santelli, Austin Scaggs, Claire Shaffer, Bud Scoppa, Rob Sheffield, Hank Shteamer, LC Smith, Brittany Spanos, Rob Tannenbaum, Simon Vozick-Levinson, Barry Walters, Alison Weinflash, Douglas Wolk
From Rolling Stone US
The B-52's, 'Rock Lobster'
Mania usually works best in short doses, but "Rock Lobster" sustains an otherworldly energy for nearly seven minutes, while introducing every element that made this self-described "quirky little dance band" from Athens, Georgia, unique: Fred Schneider's dadaist shouts ("Here comes a bikini whale!"), Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson's eccentric harmonies, Keith Strickland's punchy, stripped-down drums, and Ricky Wilson's stinging appropriation of funk-rhythm guitar. "I was at a disco that had pictures of lobsters and children playing ball," Schneider recalled. "'Rock Lobster' sounded like a good title for a song."
Screamin' Jay Hawkins, 'I Put a Spell on You'
Long before the Doors or Black Sabbath, the Cleveland-born Screamin' Jay Hawkins connected rock & roll with the underworld, thanks to his signature, macabre stage act. "I used to lose half the audience when I leapt out of my coffin in clouds of smoke and mist," he recalled. "They all rushed up the aisles, screaming in terror." To cast the otherworldly vibe of "I Put a Spell on You," Hawkins got so drunk he didn't remember the session afterward.
Bruce Springsteen, 'Jungleland'
Springsteen's classic LP Born to Run culminated in "Jungleland," a nine-and-a-half-minute roller coaster of late-night trouble and saxophone glory. As with most of Born to Run, the song's creation was torturous, famously including a 16-hour session in which Springsteen led Clarence Clemons through his sax solo, note by note, until it was perfect. Springsteen later called the finished product Clemons' "greatest recorded moment" and said the song climaxed with his own wordless roar so it could end "in bloody operatic glory."
Beach Boys, 'Wouldn't It Be Nice'
The Beach Boys opened their 1966 classic, Pet Sounds, with "Wouldn't It Be Nice," in which Brian Wilson fantasizes about holding his girlfriend "close the whole night through" once they're old enough to live together. "The idea is, the more we talk about it, the more we want it," Wilson said, "but let's talk about it anyway." Wilson labored intensely to create it, orchestrating a band that included two pianos, three basses, and two accordions. "I was going for something I wanted to hear, and wanted to feel," Wilson recalled. "A great feeling of great joy."
Bikini Kill, 'Rebel Girl'
"When she talks, I hear the revolution/In her hips, there's revolution," Kathleen Hanna announced on "Rebel Girl," the Nineties riot-grrrl battle cry that has come to be revered as perhaps the greatest feminist punk anthem of all time. The song is so potent the band recorded and released it three different times, each with a more joyful focus. The most famous version remains the B side of the band's astounding "New Radio" single, with producer and guitar ringer Joan Jett singing background vocals and adding guitar.
The Who, 'Won't Get Fooled Again'
Pete Townshend wrote this for an aborted concept album and film called Lifehouse. But many of that project's songs were resurrected for Who's Next, which started off with a week of demo sessions at Mick Jagger's country house, Stargroves. The synthesizer on "Won't Get Fooled Again" is from those demos. "Pete came up with sounds, synthesizer basics, for tracks which were just unbelievable," said producer Glyn Johns. "Nobody had done it before in that way." "It's interesting it's been taken up in an anthemic sense," Townshend said of the song, "when in fact it's such a cautionary piece."
The Velvet Underground, 'Sweet Jane'
On their first three albums, the Velvet Underground were an outré cult band who were unafraid to sing about drug addiction, violence, and orgies. On Loaded, they reached toward the mainstream, especially on Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane." After Reed quit the band, a wistful coda was chopped out of this song. "How could anyone be that stupid?" Reed asked Rolling Stone in 1987. "If I could have stood it, I would have stayed with them and showed them what to do." For years, the only available version of the coda was on the 1969 live LP.
Alice Cooper, 'School's Out'
When Johnny Lydon auditioned to become the Sex Pistols' singer, he did it by singing along to "School's Out" on the jukebox in a London pub. With its emphatic chorus, crude simplicity, and anti-authoritarian joy, Alice Cooper's summer 1972 hit was a precursor of both punk rock and Jock Jams, adding a kiddie chorus for a perverse, Children of the Corn effect. And the riff is so much a part of rock history that after guitarist Glen Buxton died in 1997, his friends and fans created a headstone with the musical notation of his four-bar "School's Out" riff.
A Tribe Called Quest, 'Can I Kick It?'
Along with De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers, the Queens, New York, trio were part of a bold movement of buoyant positivity in rap at the time. On "Can I Kick It," Q-Tip and Phife Dawg toggle effortlessly between a slouched coolness and uptempo spontaneity, while producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad puts on a masterclass in free-form sampling brilliance, particularly with the use of the bass line from Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side." After the sample wasn't initially cleared, Reed ended up with a solo writing credit for the song, and all the proceeds.
Phil Collins, 'In the Air Tonight'
In 1979, following a lengthy tour with Genesis that led to the breakdown of his marriage, Phil Collins came home to an empty house. "I was angry, I was miserable, I was sad," he later said of the period. He set up a makeshift studio in his bedroom and channeled all that hurt into one of the most chilling and arresting songs of the Eighties — an eerie synth-and-drum-machine moodscape, topped with an elliptical, accusatory rant and the Mona Lisa of all drum fills, a descending tom-tom break that Collins once likened to the sound of "barking seals."
Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris, 'Yeah!'
In 2004, "Yeah!" was inescapable, like Juicy Couture tracksuits and Von Dutch trucker hats. Ludacris' cartoonish rap and Usher's suave R&B collided at full speed, egged on by Lil Jon's unforgettable ad-libbing. "Yeah!" dropped months before Usher's seminal Confessions LP, which went on to sell 1 million copies in its first week. The song held down the top of the charts for three months.
Bruce Springsteen, 'Atlantic City'
On March 15th, 1981, Philadelphia mob boss Philip "The Chicken Man" Testa was murdered by a nail bomb that had been hidden under his porch. Springsteen took this slice of real life as the starting point for this mournful tale of a desperate man that turns to crime to pay off "debts no honest man can pay." The song became a concert favorite, and there have been magnificent renditions by the E Street Band and the Sessions Band, but they never quite topped the tragic beauty of the acoustic original from Nebraska.
The Funky 4 + 1, 'That's the Joint'
Some groundbreaking acts never got to make an album. The Funky 4 + 1, an effervescent, explosive O.G. Bronx rap crew featuring the pioneering female MC Sha-Rock, was one. But the group broke up shortly after performing this, their second single, on Saturday Night Live in 1981 — the first hip-hop group ever to appear on the show. "We made it easier for the next generation to be able to just explode from it," Sha-Rock said, "because at that point the world was ready for it."
AC/DC, 'You Shook Me All Night Long'
AC/DC singer Bon Scott died of asphyxiation in February 1980, choking on his vomit after a night of boozing, just as their LP Highway to Hell made stars of the Aussie hard rockers. Two days later, brothers Malcolm and Angus Young were rehearsing again ("Bon would have done the same," Angus said), and within a fortnight, they'd hired a new singer, Brian Johnson. The first song this new lineup wrote together was "You Shook Me All Night Long," which Johnson told his new bandmates was "the best rock & roll song I've ever heard in my life."
ABBA, 'Dancing Queen'
ABBA's songwriters were inspired by soulman George McCrae's dance-floor hit "Rock Your Baby" to try their hands at a disco song, deciding to open their tune mid-chorus, Benny Andersson said, "for maximum impact." When Andersson auditioned the song for his fiancée and band member Anni-Frid Lyngstad, she was moved to tears. Sweden's biggest musical export debuted "Queen" in 1976 at a ball for King Carl XVI Gustaf on the eve of his wedding. The song, a frothy dessert of sublime melody and pop-operatic harmonies, became the group's only U.S. Number One.
Destiny's Child, 'Say My Name'
Initially, Destiny's Child didn't like producer Rodney Jerkins' original track. "I don't think he liked it either. There was just too much stuff going on," Beyoncé said years later, before a revision "turned it into an amazing, timeless R&B record." A bigger scandal ensued when manager (and Beyoncé's father) Mathew Knowles canned LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson when they asked for more money; newcomers Farrah Franklin and Michelle Williams sang the former members' parts in the track's video. Controversy sells, of course, and it hardly hurt that "Say My Name" was also a classic millennial R&B moment.
Leonard Cohen, 'Suzanne'
After folk sage Judy Collins recorded "Suzanne," which Cohen wrote about his unconsummated desire for a friend's younger wife, avant-garde dancer Suzanne Verdal, it became a standard, covered by everyone from Nina Simone to Neil Diamond; and Cohen, already a well-respected poet, got a record deal. His version is slow-paced and sparse, leaving space for his sensual and biblical symbolism and intimate, unashamed, commonplace voice. "I didn't know that I'd be able to sing 'Suzanne' 40 years later," he once said.
Ray Charles, 'Georgia on My Mind'
Charles' driver had heard him singing "Georgia on My Mind" in the car and suggested that Charles add it to the record he was working on, an album consisting of songs with place names in their titles. Once he recorded it, though, Charles said he thought of many ways his rendition could have been better. As the single was about to enter the charts, he introduced his version to America on Hugh Hefner's Playboy Penthouse, a syndicated show out of Chicago, with David "Fathead" Newman handling the string parts on flute.
INXS, 'Never Tear Us Apart'
This swelling Eighties pop-rock ballad, the fifth Top 10 hit from the Aussie rocker's album Kick, began as a blues number. "[It was] a Fats Domino … Rolling Stones-y, early-Sixties song," said producer Chris Thomas, who replaced the demo's piano part with strings. That orchestra-scale riff and a wailing saxophone solo by Kirk Pengilly made the track perfect for the go-go late Eighties — not to mention the song's music video, which was shot in Prague right in the midst of the fall of Czech communism.
Clipse, 'Grindin"
"It was a record that I knew was gonna be way too innovative," Pusha T said in 2012. Indeed, the rolling, sparse drums of "Grindin'" remain a stunning minimalist achievement, even in a genre known for percussive symphonies. Producer Pharrell Williams initially threatened to give the beat to Jay-Z, and Pusha and Malice rewrote their verses a few times in order to match the Neptunes' startling innovation. Still, it's hard to hear anyone but the twin brothers on "Grindin'," especially when the former growls, "I'm trying to show y'all who the fuck I am."
The Beatles, 'Penny Lane'
After Lennon composed "Strawberry Fields Forever," McCartney wrote his own snappy memoir. Penny Lane was a Liverpool bus stop where Lennon and McCartney often met. "The song was generated by a kind of 'I can do just as well as you can, John,' because we'd just recorded 'Strawberry Fields,'" said George Martin. "It was such a knockout, I think Paul went back to perfect his idea." There was collaboration amid the competition, too: "John came over and helped me with the third verse, as was often the case," McCartney said. "We were writing recently faded memories from eight or 10 years before."
Radiohead, 'Karma Police'
The idea of a karma police started as an inside joke within Radiohead. "When someone in the band behaved like an a-hole," said guitarist Ed O'Brien, "one of the others always said, 'The karma police is gonna get you.'" They turned this idea into a groundbreaking track on OK Computer that builds to a haunting outro created by Thom York and producer Nigel Godrich. "It's not the band playing," Godrich said. "It's just samples and loops, which was the forerunner of a lot of things to come, good or bad."
Toots and the Maytals, 'Pressure Drop'
Mixing Southern soul with Jamaican roots, the Maytals whipped up a near-gospel fervor on "Pressure Drop," which scores one of the most indelible music sequences in film: Jimmy Cliff being chased through Kingston by the law in The Harder They Come, as Toots' throbbing reggae groove tails him like a spotlight. In one of his final interviews, Toots Hibbert explained the title's dual meaning: "Pressure gonna drop off is a good thing. Pressure is gonna drop on people, and they work to get the pressure off."
Bo Diddley, 'Bo Diddley'
Born Ellas Otha Bates, Bo Diddley fashioned himself as the roguish trickster of his own songs' lyrics, starting with his self-titled debut for the Chess sub-label Checker (which rejected an earlier version, titled "Uncle John," for being too dirty). Diddley's badder-than-thou lyrics ("Up your house and gone again," he sneers to a rival) laid the blueprint for rap boasters from LL Cool J to Drake, and so did his undulant, kinetic guitar rhythms. And the "Bo Diddley beat" — shave and a haircut, two bits — became the Bo Diddley beat, instantly recognizable, eternally imitated but never duplicated.
Buzzcocks, 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)'
These Manchester kids invented a whole new school of pop punk — faster and funnier than any band around. Pete Shelley poured his heart into witty three-minute vignettes of sexual confusion. This 1978 hit sums them up, right down to the sly quiver in his voice as he sneers the question, "Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?" The Buzzcocks' emotional punch — and queer candor — twisted rock's gender clichés. "Brilliantly non-macho," the Smiths' Johnny Marr said. "You don't know whether Pete Shelley is being sad or funny or sarcastic or sincere."
Randy Newman, 'Sail Away'
Singers from Ray Charles to Bobby Darin to Etta James covered this portrait of American capitalist hucksterism, sung from the perspective of a slave trader. "I didn't just want to say, 'Slavery is awful.' It's too easy," Newman told Rolling Stone years later. "I had this idea of a slave ship and a sea shanty — this guy standing in a clearing, singing to a crowd of natives." As usual for Newman, it combines lush melody with painful satire. "One thing with my music," he said, "you can't sit and eat potato chips and have it on in the background at a party."
Al Green, 'Love and Happiness'
Mabon "Teenie" Hodges wrote the urgent, romantic "Love and Happiness" one morning in between having sex with his girlfriend and watching wrestling on TV. Green recently claimed that Hodges sang him the opening guitar riff on a road trip and they drove 160 miles back to Memphis to record it that night. He has described the song as "like a slow fever, building on the beat, pushing up the temperature with each breath of the staccato horns and pushing through delirium as we came up on the fade."
Roberta Flack, 'Killing Me Softly With His Song'
"Killing Me Softly With His Song" is the culmination of two discoveries. Songwriter Lori Lieberman went to a club one night to see Don McLean, then a little-known singer, and felt, overwhelmingly, like his songs could've been about her. She wrote a poem about it, which Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel turned into a song, and Lieberman recorded. Then Roberta Flack heard the song on a plane as part of the in-flight entertainment, and later called it "a song I feel was given to me as a gift." Her version is stately and elegant, a singer's tribute to the power of songwriting.
Thin Lizzy, 'The Boys Are Back in Town'
After seven years of slogging it out on the concert circuit, opening for the likes of Bob Seger and BTO, Irish rockers Thin Lizzy finally scored a worldwide hit with 1976's "The Boys Are Back in Town" — powered by the twin guitar attack of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson and frontman Phil Lynott's rowdy-night-out lyrics. At first, Lynott wasn't sure what to do with the undeniably hot song he'd come up with. "I was calling it 'G.I. Joe Is Back,' 'The Kids Are Back,' but that was like the Who," he recalled. "It was a case of overthinking."
Procol Harum, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'
A somber hymn supported by an organ theme straight out of Bach ("Air on the G String," from his Suite No. 3 in D Major), Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was unlike anything else on the radio in 1967. Keith Reid got the idea for the song when he overheard someone at a party tell a woman, "You've gone a whiter shade of pale." The track was also the only one recorded by the initial lineup of Procol Harum, which started as a British band, the Paramounts. It helped kick-start a late-Sixties classical-rock boomlet.
Nine Inch Nails, 'Closer'
"That's the all-time fuck song," Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee famously said of "Closer." "Those are pure fuck beats — Trent Reznor knew what he was doing." Or did he? According to Martin Huxley's biography of the band, Reznor was not expecting his blow-by-blow account of self-loathing to dominate the radio airwaves in 1994. But underneath its industrial grime and "I wanna fuck you like an animal!!!!" wails, the song's got an infectious, Prince-like funk to it — a trait that was only heightened, not diminished, by Reznor's lustful chorus.
The Righteous Brothers, 'Unchained Melody'
The ultimate prom ballad, "Unchained Melody" was written in 1955 by a pair of Broadway songwriters — not intended for rock & roll. But a decade later, the blue-eyed soul pioneers the Righteous Brothers took it up, with Bobby Hatfield's caramel-like tenor soaring over the most swoon-y Wall of Sound producer Phil Spector ever concocted. It proved so irresistible that it became a hit all over again a quarter-century later, thanks to its sync in the hit movie Ghost.
The Isley Brothers, 'Shout (Parts 1 and 2)'
The five-minute-long workout "Shout" was a modest hit upon its original release in 1959, but it's perhaps better remembered for its appearance in the 1978 movie Animal House, where it was relaunched as an all-time party classic. As O'Kelly Isley, who helped found the group in the mid-Fifties, noted, "People have been playin' our music in bars and discotheques for years," he told Rolling Stone in 1975, "'cause it's danceable, man."
Drake feat. Rihanna, 'Take Care'
"'Take Care' is this thing we use in passing conversation to dismiss bullshit like, 'Oh, you couldn't make it on time? Oh, take care, take care,'" Drake explained. But his second album's title track is far more tender than that — it cemented the Toronto rapper as pop's reigning male star. If Drake's superpower is elevating petty romantic complaints into hip-hop mythmaking, this is the blueprint, made from wholesale samples from Gil-Scott Heron as remixed by Jamie xx. Guest star Rihanna, effortlessly adult and sexy, and singing the refrain from Bobby Bland's "I'll Take Care of You," alchemizes the song.
Augustus Pablo, 'King Tubby Meets the Rockers Uptown'
This revolutionary dub masterwork was the tip of a musical iceberg — roots reggae's psychedelic underside, where bedrock grooves were tweaked into startling new shapes by engineers with royal nicknames like King Tubby. He did his definitive work for the B side of the Pablo-produced Jacob Miller single "Baby I Love You So." Tubby's remix kept the churning groove, but nearly all of the instruments and Miller's voice dart in and out of the mix while the King throws echo around like confetti. Floating above it all is Pablo's melodica, a plastic kids' instrument, that in his hands summoned an unearthly calm.
The Replacements, 'Left of the Dial'
The Minneapolis indie-rock heroes' peak songwriting moment was inspired by a crush Westerberg had on Lynn Blakey, singer for the North Carolina band Let's Active. "I figured the only way I'd hear her voice was her band on the radio … on a college station," he said. One night on tour, he did, and he turned the moment into a long-distance love song — to a cool Southern girl, to low-wattage college-radio stations, and the whole underground scene the Replacements had grown up in.
Marvin Gaye, 'Let's Get It On'
After 1971's "What's Going On," Gaye radically changed course with this ode to sexual bliss. With the help of producer and songwriter Ed Townsend, Gaye created a masterpiece of erotic persuasion that topped the pop and R&B charts. The singer later said that he hoped "Let's Get It On" didn't "advocate promiscuity," but also said he had a hunch the song might have "some aphrodisiac power." When Gaye's father heard it, he called and told him, "Please, please, don't go any further. You're supposed to be a minister's son."
Dolly Parton, 'Coat of Many Colors'
"Coat of Many Colors" is part autobiography, part valuable life lesson, set to a hummable melody. Parton's mother did make her a patchwork coat and the kids at school made fun of her, which was a traumatic experience. She wrote the lyrics on the back of a dry-cleaning receipt when she had the idea, and she came up with a message that still encapsulates her worldview. "It teaches about bullying, about love, about acceptance, about good parents," she wrote in the book Songteller. "That little story has even been written into a schoolbook to teach children about being different, that it's all right to be different."
Paul Simon, 'American Tune'
"I don't write overtly political songs," Simon once said, "although 'American Tune' comes pretty close, as it was written just after Richard Nixon was elected." The gently soaring song perfectly summed up the sense of weary dejection after Nixon's landslide reelection and the larger fading of the Sixties utopian dream, while also powerfully affirming a core faith in the American story and promise — when Jimmy Carter got elected three years after "American Tune" was released, Simon played it at his inauguration.
Curtis Mayfield, 'Pusherman'
Mayfield writes from the perspective of the neighborhood drug dealer — a swaggering figure, but also "a victim of ghetto demands" — in this throbbing, wah-wah-slathered track from the soundtrack to the 1972 movie Super Fly. Mayfield doles out his story in terse three-syllable bursts ("Ain't I clean/Bad machine/Super cool/Super mean"), his heavenly falsetto only partially obscuring the desperation, addiction, and menace he describes. As Johnny Pate, who collaborated with Mayfield on the arrangements for "Pusherman" and other Super Fly tracks, later noted, "If you listen to these closely … Curtis was almost rapping through these things."
The Wailers, 'Get Up, Stand Up'
"'Get Up, Stand Up' was the final song recorded for the original Wailers' final album, left for last because it was the easiest track on the album, just unison singing," said Bunny Wailer. But the sessions for Burnin', the reggae trio's second album for Island, were thick with tension — Marley's material was getting more attention than his bandmates'. Marley asked Tosh to write a verse for his rousing anthem to cut him in on the royalties; Tosh later typified his contribution, the song's fire-breathing final verse, as "bullshit."
Neil Young, 'Heart of Gold'
"[Heart of Gold] put me in the middle of the road," Young wrote in the liner notes to his retrospective Decade box. His only Number One signaled the arrival of a new countrified prettiness that would come to define the laid-back Seventies. Future soft-rock aristocrats James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt sang backing vocals at the song's Nashville session, but there's nothing mellow about the forlorn worry in Young's voice when he sings "I've been searching for a heart of gold/And I'm getting old."
Gil-Scott Heron, 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised'
Heron was a 19-year-old college student watching a baseball game in his dorm room when he got the idea for "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," a proto-rap single that demonstrates the wide gap between the messages of advertising-driven media and the goal of real societal change. Even if some of the references are dated — "Women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow" — the call to arms has not lost any of its power: "Because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day."
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, 'Heat Wave'
The Motown empire really got going in 1963, and the record that underlined the label's ascent was this buoyant summertime smash: "It became the song that summer," Reeves recalled. No surprise that it came from the company's premiere writer-producer team, Holland-Dozier-Holland — who, gearing up for world domination with the Supremes, worked with their audience in mind: "I realized that females bought the most records, and they always seemed to be falling in love with somebody," Eddie Holland said in 2019.
Metallica, 'Master of Puppets'
Metallica have always been at their best when they're raging against confinement, whether that's institutional, governmental, religious, familial, or — in arguably the greatest song, on their greatest album — chemical. "'Master of Puppets' deals pretty much with drugs," Hetfield once said of this eight-and-a-half-minute masterwork. "How things get switched around, instead of you controlling what you're taking and doing, it's drugs controlling you." Sung from the perspective of the narcotic itself, the song moves from merciless thrash to a mournful ballad interlude, simulating the perilous highs and crushing lows of a life lived at the end of addiction's strings.
Loretta Lynn, 'Coal Miner's Daughter'
In the late Sixties, many country singers stopped wearing overalls and skirts and changed into suits and gowns, which reflected the music's transformation into the more elegant and urbane style known as the Nashville Sound. In 1970, Lynn turned that trend on its end with an autobiographical song, "Coal Miner's Daughter," that celebrated rural life, in all its difficulties. She wrote it on a $17 guitar that refused to stay in tune, singing about reading the Bible by coal-oil light, going without shoes in summer, her mother's hands bleeding from hard work. "Every word is true," she later said.
The Supremes, 'Stop! In the Name of Love'
Lamont Dozier of Motown's famed Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team came up with the idea for "Stop! In the Name of Love" after his girlfriend at the time caught him cheating in a motel: "This particular girl was very headstrong," he recalled. "So we got into an argument. She started swinging, missed me, hit the floor. And I laughed and said, 'Please stop! Stop in the name of love.'" The silliness of the moment stopped the fight, and immediately struck Dozier as song material, and after affixing it to a killer Brian Holland hook, it became the Supremes' fourth of five straight Number Ones.
Willie Nelson, 'Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain'
The simplicity of this 1947 composition by Fred Rose made it the perfect vehicle for Nelson, who was then working on his ambitious concept album Red Headed Stranger. "I was gathering songs that I thought told that story. And I just thought that 'Blue Eyes' was the perfect song for that spot," Nelson said. "Simple and to the point. Beautiful, sad love song." The track marked a turning point for Nelson, whose career at the time was still mostly defined by the lush production style of Nashville in the Sixties. After nearly two decades of trying, it became his first country Number One hit as a singer.
Parliament, 'Flash Light'
"Flash Light" is the P-Funk Nation's groove manifesto. Clinton built his Parliament-Funkadelic universe over a run of Seventies concept albums, never faking the funk. "We're going to get the message out," Clinton told Rolling Stone in 1978. "We want to put the show on Broadway — tell the story straightforward so people understand that funk mean funk." "Flash Light" became one of their rare crossover hits, laying out the P-Funk philosophy, with Clinton commanding "Dance, sucker!" over Worrel's bass line (played on a Moog synth). It all builds up to the orgiastic party chant "Everybody's got a little light under the sun!"
Gloria Gaynor, 'I Will Survive'
By the mid-Seventies, Gaynor's career was falling apart. Donna Summer had replaced her as the leading disco diva, and 32-year-old Gaynor had suffered the death of her mother and had recently undergone spinal surgery after tripping onstage and triggering temporary paralysis. So when she belted out "I Will Survive," she brought extra attitude. The track was originally a B side, but after enterprising DJs started to play it at discos, it turned into a smash. "I never tire of 'I Will Survive,'" Gaynor told Rolling Stone in 2016. "I love doing it for the audience."


Successfully Added Portable Car Media Player - SD + MMC Card Reader to your Shopping Cart.
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I've released Top 10 v2.6.2. This is primarily a bug-fix release for a few bugs introduced in Top 10 v2.6.0.
The popular posts page listing under the Top 10 menu now has two fields to select the from and to date range. This range will be used to count the hits in the Daily visits column.


Multiple sources say Blake Shelton & pop star and fellow Voice judge, Gwen Stefani are dating. Others say they're just friends. Blake's rep says the dating rumors are "completely untrue."
Leading the pack for CMA Award nods are Eric Church and Little Big Town, with five each. Kenny Chesney and Miranda Lambert have four each and the show airs November 4.
Tim McGraw likes to help with the chains at his kid's high school football games but he has a tendency to argue with officials so he jokes that Faith won't let him run the chains this year.
Garth and Trisha will receive the 64th and 65th stars on the Music City Walk of Fame today in Nashville. They're the first husband-wife team to ever receive this honor.
Finally - Toby Keith performs on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.


text:
Posted on March 17, 2021 by Andrew Lee	5 comments
This morning South Somerset District Council announced another resignation from the senior management team.
Yesterday we reported the resignation of Jo Nacy. Jo had been in post as S151 officer (Finance Director if you will) for just on a year. Cllr Peter Seib took issue with our reporting. He told us our report on her resignation "makes it sound like a scandal and recent. In SSDC's case it is neither". It may not be recent, we cannot comment on that. What we can say is that SSDC councillors were not informed until yesterday. In a circular email from Nicola Hix. Which if the resignation occurred some time ago, will have been disappointing.
The new s151 officer at SSDC will be Karen Watling. She joins SSDC "with a vast amount of local authority experience, and is looking forward to working with us all." Which is exactly what Jo Nacy would have said a year ago.
Meanwhile this morning Alex Parmley announced the resignation of Martin Woods. Mr Woods has been nothing if not loyal having served the council since 1980. These days a rare and fine record of public service. Mr Woods is/was one of 6 directors of SSDC working directly with CEO Alex Parmley.
davidnorthcurry
March 17, 2021	12:42 pm
If Martin Woods has been working with SSDC for more than 40 years he's possibly coming up to retirement.
Andrew Lee
Quite possibly David. Not however the terms in which the email to staff members was couched. Quite simply they didn't mention retirement. If he is retiring, what a pity the email failed to mention the fact. It might have been nice and courteous to Mr Woods as well.
Peter Seib
March 17, 2021	6:07 pm
Quite so David. 41 years of honourable public service, I think he's earned retirement and he will eventually leave SSDC at the end of April with my heartfelt thanks for all the patient help and counsel both as Brympton Parish Chair and since 2005 as a Councillor on SSDC. What a shame it is that the Editor feels he can ignore the feelings of public servants when chasing circulation by implying scandal.
The "terms" of the email refer to Council's collective decision (supported by both sides) to re-organise the Senior Leadership Team roles to better meet the challenges of South Somerset's recovery post-COVID. The debate can be seen on the SSDC YouTube Channel at https://youtu.be/e7fJVK5oan0?t=6160. It's a far more reliable source of what's going on at SSDC …
Obviously if you believe that we were not justified in referring to Mr Woods and noting "These days a rare and fine record of public service", we can only apologise. We are not entirely sure how such a remark would be hurtful to the feelings of Mr Woods.
As to scandal. You may have inferred it, we did not imply it.
Graham Livings
Olde Somerset saying 'if it aint broke don't fix it'!


This CD re-issue combines tracks from two Billie Holiday Clef LPs (BILLIE HOLIDAY SINGS and SOLITUDE), and four bonus tracks from the same time period.
Personnel: Billie Holiday (vocals); Flip Phillips (tenor saxophone); Charlie Shavers (trumpet); Oscar Peterson (piano); Barney Kessel (guitar); Ray Brown (bass); Alvin Stoller (drums).
Recorded in Los Angeles, California in 1952. Originally released on Clef (118, 690). Includes liner notes by Vincent Pelote.
Cut right at the beginning of the LP era, SOLITUDE is the first and best of many "recitals" Billie Holiday recorded for Norman Granz's Verve label. Coming off the large orchestra Decca recordings of the late '40s, these small group sessions with trumpeter Charlie Shavers inaugurate Holiday's late period, the voice beginning to deteriorate but her artistry deepening in response. The lonely, even bleak sound she projects perfectly captures a special New York feeling. The heartbreak is palpable on "Autumn In New York," represented here by both an LP and a scratchy 78 version. Not that the album is ultimately a downer. From the very beginning, Billie seems inspired by small improvised settings, and her jaunty versions of "Blue Moon" and " I Only Have Eyes For You" are solid proof here of her indomitable musical spirit.