flowers

 

Night Chrysanthemums, Pat Steir, 1984.

Dear Beloved Recipient,

I send you flowers today.  These paper flowers, which you can make, and maybe even give, and also this, which is Snow, Moon, and Flowers, a piano piece composed by Peter Sculthrope, and played by Shoko Kuroe.

the first

 

Robert Indiana, ONE Through ZERO, 1981 - 2001.

Dear January,

Here it is, 2023, your first song of the day!  May it bring you pleasure all year!

disfrutar

 

Oyster bed.

 

Dear Curious Oysters,

Have you wondered, long, hard, and deep into the night just how the Dodo is made?  Where do these notions come from, and how are these serendipitous snippets assembled?  

Well, I'll tell you: one thing leads to another.

Here is what an early draft or rather, sketch, of a Dodo post looks like:

tiny curtains

 

Dear Radio-Dodo Heads,

Here is a great song for you, for today.  If you will permit me the suggestion, I hope you will listen to it once, with closed eyes & monitors; and then, listen while watching, because it is a very enjoyable music video.

PS

Dry Cleaning is a pretty great band; try Leafy, which the one my DJ played for me last week.  Knackering drinks with close friends indeed!  Are there llama plushies here?!

blue hats

 

Dear October,

If your memory serves you well, this is your song of the day, and you are a lucky month, because I have more versions for you!  Try this one.  

Or this.  

This one, and that one.  

Also this one.  

Plus this one.

This one, too!

And this!  

Another one!  

One from TV! 

Another!  

One from June!  

No vocals!  

Lastly!

watching cartoons

 

Dear Friends,

Here is your song of the day, Watching Cartoons, and yes, this one is for watching!

Brown eyes.

 

 

watercolor by Jean Weiner

Dear Song Singers,

Join me!  This is a fine song for singing.  Once again, and a final time.  (Eye painting tutorial is optional).

I Can't Tell You: an anti-note.

                                       

Pettakare Cave

Dear Contemporary Parlance,

I can't tell you how much I wanted to reach out to you during this challenging time of being together alone.  It's just that I am so busy with diving deeper into self-care, that I haven't found the time.  There used to be time, but, I think it wasn't really there.  It was just crammed into smaller instants, because it was an all you can eat buffet of time.  Now that I have all this time, I am using it much differently.  I don't even recognize it as the same substance, actually.  And I really don't have time now, to observe your normal and play my pantomime role in it.  So, don't come around here for your precious 'normal,' because it's not here, it went away, and I don't miss it even a tiny bit.  Also, if you come over for a cup of 'new normal,' don't bother to knock, because I will be self-isolating for your protection.

 Not, and please never do, signed "warmly."  It sounds as if you are just starting to get mad, just at the outer edge of outrage that you should have started feeling years ago.  Instead, let me sign, 

hotly,

yours,

for now.

PS  

Your song for today.

belatedly

 

Dear Listener, Reader, Viewer, and Friend,

I forgot, again, this year, to note on February 10, the anniversary of our little meetings here.  It's been going on for 9 years.  Ain't it funny, how the time slips away? 

Encore. 

Another encore.

Encore again.

seems like

 

Ed Ruscha

“CLOCK TIME” NO LONGER VALID HERE

1982

Dry pigment on paper

60 x 40 inches

Dear The Last Time,

It may be the last time, I don't know.  But, it is your song of the day.  Tangentially, there is this song, and this article. 

Starnies

 

Sketch, Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

 

Dear You,

They are playing our song!  That has only happened twice in 22 years!  Still, it's worth noting, celebrating.  The starnies are shining bright, and I still believe it was the right song to choose.  Can you imagine?  The pressure of choosing just one song?  One song, to mean everything?  To mean for keeps, to mean 'love', to mean union?  I don't know that I could do it today, but I was younger and more confident in those days.

Now this is a bit of a digression, but I lived in Edinburgh for a summer once, and we studied Scots poetry.  Scots poetry means Bobbie Burns, for one thing, and a lot of translating for people like me.  I loved this, of course, because I love words in all languages.  I love that they have all these shades of meaning, and that starnies could equal little stars in basically the same language as my own.  If I could get anyone to listen, I might just spend every day talking about a beautiful word of my acquaintance.  Or, maybe I don't mean 'listen' so much as I mean 'get paid to.'

I have talked at length on working, jobs, vocations, and careers lately; and it has me asking you this question today: what do you wish they paid you to do?  It's only right, I feel, to answer as well as ask, and I think I want to be paid to run a roller rink and to encourage people.  Does that sound lofty?  What the heck do I mean by 'encourage'?  I mean that I want to tell people, often, and on a one to one basis, that they are okay, they are alright, they are here, they are fine, they are heard and valued. Yes, it does sound a bit lofty after all!

Cultural Appropriation.

Dear Friends,

I have been an interesting conversation about cultural appropriation recently.  I don't know if this happens to you, but words that people say often stay with me, for months, years, forever; and they shape my thoughts ever and anon. 

So, what to do with this song, Apache, by The Shadows?  I offer you this bit of reading on the topic of cultural appropriation in pop music; and now that you have read it, you can decide what should be done with the song, in a cover version by The Ventures.  Or try this one.  And this one.  One more?

I think what I would do, is apologize, publicly retract the title, and choose a new one for it:  How about "Reparation?"

Your Chant of the Day.

Dear Mothers,


Your song for today is a chant from Nina Hagen.  

Feel like more chanting?  

til tuesdays

 

Dear Days,

On Tuesdays, my favorite DJ is on- she plays the dream sets.  Last week she played this, your song of the day!  I had never heard this fabulous version.  I love this anthem!  It's a very fine song for you to sing on the way to your car at the end of your work day!  Don't worry, it's a parking lot- it's fine to sing there!

Have the Steely Dan, too.

Miss you.

 

Dear Friend,

Here is your song for today.  This song for me will forever be a paved, two lane road, with four young people walking down it- one is pushing a bmx bike.  One is carrying a mono radio with 6 D cell batteries in it.  They are headed for the motel, to go swimming. 

Have the version from the road, too.

A good one.

Dear Part Two,

Now where were we?  Oh yes, "Have a good one," she said.  Whenever I hear someone tell me this, often it occurs on the telephone, it feels like a little tear, a rip, in the script we are performing:  I am saying thank you, they are saying thank you, then they say have a good one, and I say you too.  But I am really all agog at what, exactly, I just wished them one of.

Let me expand on my (a)gog.  I have a multifaceted response to being told to have this 'good one.'  I feel wary, because who is this smart aleck to tell me what to do?  And I feel a kind of delight at the sheer absurdity of having a good one: A good what, do you suppose?  And, then, there is also the weird authenticity of the wish- I am struck by the speaker's sincerity and certitude; they earnestly wish me a 'good one.'

In conclusion, there is no where to go but here:  Have a good one, dear reader!

Bonus track.

Meet me in the middle.

 

Dear Sisters,

Here is your song for the day.  It's good for a lot of days, actually.  You may have already had a day where you needed this song, and there will come another day when you will need it again.

When I used to hear this song, the other pop station version, I always thought it expressed a beautiful clarity regarding communication.  I loved it's plaintive quality and its candor.  I love this version, even more, for the inversion of gender relationship, and the stripped down, ethereal, Norwegian Wood, & lamenting qualities of the arrangement.

And don't forget, even if I am too too hard to find, it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind.

That ain't Jack.

 

Dear John,

This is, though, and it is also your song of the day.  I adore these short, simple, and declarative Tom Petty songs.  

living in twilight

Dear Ones,

I just got off the phone, and I wanted to send you the song for today, and to send you this amazing image of the Telefontornet of Stockholm, circa 1890.

Your song today has a touch of melancholy & maudlin melodrama, and much of the grandiose, symphonic loveliness of Electric Light Orchestra.   Not everyone goes in for that, and so, you needn't stay on the line if you have somewhere else to be, some other song to listen to today.

Oh, and one more thing, she said, when she rang off:  "Have a good one!," and that is where I want to pick up our next conversation, and soon!








PS
Close and regular readers will notice that Dodo links to YouTube uploads of music often favor low view counts.  If you noticed, you can probably guess why: here at the Dodo, we love the imperfect, the ignored, the overlooked, and the seldom visited.  We dig the weird offshoots of the internet search that can be found on page 8 of the results.

A song finds its true home.

Dear Singers,

Oh!  My DJ played this song for me recently, and I think it has never sounded better!  Listen to that descending staircase of horns!  It is perfect!  To compare, and to pay our respects to the original, here is Ms. Hynde and The Pretenders.  Oh, but wait you say!  What about the uuhh aahh?  Who writes a song about being back on the chain gang?  Someone who has heard Sam Cooke, that's who.