Tunes and Cartoons

Music from Al Green, Billy Bragg, Talking Heads and Herbie Hancock/Marvin Gaye, plus a few shots at the Elephant in the Room.

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, writer/director of three films since 2021 (all airing on PBS), and longtime executive editor of the legendary Crawdaddy, 1971-1979.

Here we are: lazy, crazy, final days of summer (we don’t count September), so just hoping this finds you (if it does) enjoying final pre-Labor Day weekend. A little “new” music below and a few cartoons. Subscribe, it’s still free. And one more note for those who are looking for (or thought they were subscribing to) my new “Oppenheimer and The Legacy of His Bomb” newsletter: here it is.

Oliver Anthony’s “political” song-of-the-summer, “Rich Men North of Richmond,” even kicked off Fox’s awful, absurd handling of the GOP debate this week, so it was nice that on Friday he mentioned that in his song he was referring to, among others, everyone on that stage!

It's aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I'm one of them. It's aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we're buddies and act like we're fighting the same struggle here. It was funny seeing it at the presidential debate 'cause it's like I wrote that song about those people, you know, so for them to have to sit there and listen to that, uh, that cracks me up.

Billy Bragg had already released his response, below, while noting:

Since I saw that clip of Oliver Anthony singing his song “Rich Men North of Richmond,” the ghost of Woody Guthrie has been whispering in my ear. "Help that guy out" Woody keeps telling me "Let him know there's a way to deal with those problems he's singing about." So today I sat down and wrote this response to Mr Anthony's song.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Al Green released his first new music in six years, a stunning version of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” And because I love you, 30 minutes of Al’s greatest hits here.

More good news, they are bringing back the Jonathan Demme/Talking Heads collaboration, Stop Making Sense, in a 40th anniversary 4K cut. Here is “Once in a Lifetime.” If it big suits you.

Also, a 50th anniversary version of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On features newly found tracks, mainly instrumental, contributed by Herbie Hancock and not found on the original.

Just published: an expanded edition of my book Atomic Cover-up, now with several thousand words of mine re: Oppenheimer. And it’s on sale this week as an ebook for just $3.99 ($12.95 for the paperback).