Grown up to the naked eye

Yehudit Ravitz - Shir Lelo Shem

Isaac Klepter - Tslil Mechuvan

Ariel Zilber - Ve'eich She'lo

Bob Dylan - Not Dark Yet

John Lennon - Watching the Wheels

May '10

Superstar - Sonic Youth (originally the Carpenters)

Rocket Man - Elton John

Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye

For What It's Worth - the Puppet Folk Revival (Red Band) covering Buffalo Springfield

כל אחד רוצה - Arik Einstein & Shalom Chanoch

African music by Bernard and Alfred

I Could Never Be Your Woman - White Town

Real Love - the Beatles (posthumous Lennon), and a cover by Regina Spektor

The third way

Culture Club (Boy George's old group) - Karma Chameleon

Hot Chip - I Feel Better

Shlomo Gronich with Matti Caspi, the mad gentle genius and the gruff one - יש לי סימפטיה

Led Zeppelin - Since I've Been Loving You (1973).

Chava Alberstein - שיר ארץ ( Lyrics by Nathan Yonatan, music by Sasha Argov)

Could do worse than music

Elton John - I'm Still Standing (dedicated to Israel on her 62nd birthday).

I Wanna Be Like You and My Own Home from Disney's Jungle Book.

J. Viewz - Worth Light

Anouk - Hey Michel

And there was something by Depeche Mode... but it slipped my mind. Suggestions welcome.

Funk & Blues Guitars / Who Needs Singers

Click here to go straight to the playlist.

Bass, drums & something electronic jamming.

Bomb the Bass - Butterfingers.

Buddy Hankerson, 1984 bass solo.

Joe Walsh - Funk #49 at the Crossroads Guitar Festival.

Also from the Crossroads festival, 1994 - Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Cause We've Ended as Lovers.

ZZ Top - Blue Jeans Blues.

The music that got me through the week

This godawful week.

I Want Love - Elton John

E Doce Morrer No Mar - Dorival Caymmi

Sua Estupideza - Gal Costa

Crazy Love - Red Band & Marina Maximilian Blumin

Kewpie Station - Kaki King

This one's just cute - Gal Costa, Viver e Reviver (the Beatles' "Here, There and Everywhere")

Short Trip on the Caffeine Rollercoaster

Uzi Navon & Makarim covering She's Not There with awesome.

Ruth Dolores Weiss - קיץ Kayitz (This is a link to her myspace where it's 3rd on the playlist)
And a dish of serendipity - Ruth singing "Shake Sugaree" with the Brothers Ramirez, and here is the much earlier version by Elizabeth Cotten with her 14-year old granddaughter.

Olivia Newton John, Hopelessly Devoted to You
...hey, my defenses were down.

שֶׁקֶט

Stupid Thing - Aimee Mann

רואה לך בעיניים - Etti Ankri

שֶׁקֶט - Yona Volach's lyrics, music by Yuval Messner, performed by Balagan. (Yup, the redhead is Dana Berger.)

Dancing in my room

Lambada - Kaoma with Loalwa Braz. 1989. Good old fashioned music video features the child duo Chico & Roberta. People dancing on a deck in the sun. Not a single android in sight.

John Lennon's Watching the Wheels.

Animation short - Capoeira Angola (with Mestre Morais' music)

Shaggy feat. Marsha in a cover of Piece of my Heart.

Fiona Apple covering Cy Coleman: Why Try To Change Me Now

A playlist of Have You Ever Seen the Rain (Creedence Clearwater Revival) covers.

Drawing on the Living Room Wall Songs

Björk - There's More To Life Than This (live) - sorry, couldn't find a better recording.

Fairouz - Habbou Badun
I don't know what she's singing about but I love this song.

Yehudit Ravitz with Gidi Gov live (1994) in a fun version of Coming from Love/באה מאהבה

Matti Caspi and Shlomo Gronich - Rocky Raccoon
This is a bonus track from the reissue of "Behind the Sounds/מאחורי הצלילים". Two twenty-something musical geniuses, just beginning their career at the time - they get together and sparks fly and out come wild brilliant improvisations. The album is amazing. You should buy it so Matti doesn't have to do any more TV commercials.

Shalom Chanoch - Maya

From the Desert to the Sea in a day

Going to California - Led Zeppelin tone it down some.

Africa - a jazz choir covers the song by Toto - and simulates a rainstorm with body percussion. (Thanks Clark!)

I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues - my favorite Elton John song.

Waves of Last Week

Crazy Love by Van Morrison with Bob Dylan. The lyrics are almost embarrassing... but Bob Dylan's grating voice in the background rescues the song from its own corniness.

***

Come Together - the Beatles, from Abbey Road remastered.

This song always seemed to me like a moment of serendipity occurring entirely in John Lennon's drugged up head, hardly a classic cover song. So I was blown away when I found so many outstanding versions each of which absolutely stands on its own. Made for a long night =)

My favorites are listed below, or just go directly to my playlist on YouTube. Listen with headphones.

Impressive cover by Michael Jackson (live)

Tina Turner (live)

Joe Cocker - from the film "Across the Universe"

Cassandra Wilson and Diana Reeves

Elton John live at Madison Square Garden

Robin Williams with Bobby McFerrin singing the bass part!

Soundgarden

***

My Sweet Lord - Billy Preston in a tribute concert to the late George Harrison.

I've got to admit, it's getting better

"You love your lovin'... but not like you love your freedom." Joni Mitchell speaks pearls.
Help Me - K. D. Lang covering Joni's song from Court and Spark.

Helpless - Neil Young (Live)

Getting Better - the Beatles, from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

בתוך הצינורות - Algier. Wait for the guitar solo...

Joni, Joni

A Case of You - from her album "Blue". Listening to this song induces the feeling of Being In Love even if you aren't...

Since YouTube is now silencing copyrighted audio, here's a link to some other streaming site. The original by Joni Mitchell is first on the list. Suggestions for a better site (that works in Israel) are welcome.

I've arrived in the 60's, think I'll stay a while

"Ad hoc, ad loc, and quid pro quo. So little time, so much to know..."
Nowhere Man scene from Yellow Submarine.

Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell, from her 1969 album "Clouds". She recorded it again in 2000, in her now-smoky voice, totally different. The studio recording isn't available on YouTube - this is the best live version I could find from before her voice changed.

Cry Me a River

Another old jazz standard - written for Ella Fitzgerald but recorded first by Julie London. Once again, there are many excellent versions by big names, from Barbara Streisand to Susan Boyle. Here is an extensive list of covering artists from Wikipedia (although some of them are actually covering the Justin Timberlake song).
I'm posting the ones that pleased or caught my ear for some reason.

Patricia Elena Vlieg, saucy and lively.

My favorite jazz version: Diana Krall with her unsweet voice.

Someone had to do a "naive" version, so here is Swedish singer Lisa Ekdahl.

But there's nobody like Bjork - as always, exquisitely casual and precise, childlike and emotional and slightly mad.

Also works as hard rock - Joe Cocker on Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 1970

And Caetano Veloso always makes my toes tingle...

I'm not in the mood for Ella Fitzgerald, but I'm putting these up for another day maybe:

Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass (1975)

Dinah Washington (who saucily acknowledges the existence of Spokane before starting)

And the original, Julie London.

Piping up for November

Voçê Não Entende Nada / Cotidiano - Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque charm and disarm on TV.

Oh! Darling by the Beatles - love the rhythmic squacks of protest from George Harrison's instrument interjected between Paul's cries.

And this sentimental little thing:
Nothing Even Matters - Lauryn Hill and D'Angelo

=)

This song makes me smile: Boys of Summer - Don Henley

Staring into space daydreaming kind of music

Apple Tree - Erykah Badu (from her first album, Baduizm)
Erykah Badu is Something Else. That inimitable dreamy delivery, vague enunciation, irresistibly groovy instrumental backing. Something conceived in a creative haze... there's no way that kind of music could have been thought up, in a clear mind.

Life in a Northern Town - Dream Academy.

Last October songs

Wednesday's: Nobody's Fault But Mine - Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in their 1994 live album "No Quarter (Unledded)".
This is an old blues standard, first recorded by Blind Willie Nelson in 1927 or so. In 1976 Led Zeppelin tore it up and put it back together as metal. Then in 1994 Page and Plant backed off and gave it another chance, and that is the version above.

Thursday the weather shifted, and Leonard Cohen poked a first tender song through, like all those green things that pop out of the earth after the first rain:
Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

Later on rainy Thursday I heard this on the radio:
From Hank to Hendrix - Neil Young (unplugged)