Rush - "Time Stand Still"

 

We saw Rush in concert earlier this week, catching the first of their two stops in DC.  It was basically a year ago that Rush announced they'd be doing a limited tour for the first time since long before Neil Peart, drummer extraordinaire, died in 2020.  I'll admit that I was skeptical when I first heard they'd be touring again, with Anika Nilles filling in for Neil, but when both Drew and Hillary were blowing up my phone in separate threads about seeing the show, I was in.  The tour was originally going to be a limited number of cities (7?), but the demand was so high that they extended.  At first we had tickets to see them in Chicago in July, but when DC shows were announced for October, I sold the Chicago tickets and got DC tickets.  

They put on a great show, and Anika filled in admirably.  With a 20 minute intermission, the show was over 3 hours long, so we definitely got our money's worth. The setlist varies some from show to show, but I was very happy that my three favorite songs made the cut: "Limelight", "Spirit of the Radio", and "Subdivisions".  But I'm choosing to mark this concert* with 1987's "Time Stand Still", from the LP "Hold Your Fire".

I had forgotten all about "Time Stand Still", so it was a pleasant surprise.  But the biggest surprise was a video showing Aimee Mann singing co-lead vocals on the song, something I did not realize back in 1987.  She wasn't there in person, but they recorded a video of her singing her part for the tour.  I looked up the video on YouTube, and I don't remember it from MTV either.  It's actually not good, with modish late 80s special effects distracting from the song, but Aimee features prominently in the video, so I should have known this back in 1987.  And as far as the studio version of the song, Alex Lifeson's guitar sound is also modishly a little too jangly, REM-ish for my taste.  But the song is great, and Neil and Geddy Lee sound superb.  Danette and I had talked about how cool it was that Rush had chosen a woman for Neil's replacement, but it took me nearly 40 years to realize they had already opened the boy's club that is Rush with Aimee (who is a complete badass, btw).  

So while "Time Stand Still" is not necessarily in my, say, top 5 Rush songs, it's still quite good, and the collaboration with Aimee Mann was a pleasant surprise.   I was happy to get the chance to see them, even without Neil; Danette saw Rush back in 1989, and I know Drew saw them back in the day as well (not sure about Hillary).

Freeze this moment

A little bit longer

Make each sensation

A little bit stronger

Experience slips away…

Rush - "Time Stand Still" 

* Fun story: Drew got his tickets later and could only get nosebleed seats (we couldn't get tickets together).  Right as the show is about to start, a roadie for the band sees them and gives them free upgrades to the center floor, 16 rows back.  Talk about an upgrade! We're taking the boys with us to all future shows ;-)

Pink Floyd - "Green is the Colour"

Happy Birthday Danette! 

Once again, I'm doing a song that makes me think of her, not really a song that likes.  In fact, I only recently shared this song with her (I don't think she knew of it previously), and explained the story of how I connected it to her.

Part of our evening routine is that I make chamomile tea for us and prepare our evening pills (because we're old, pills. are a big part of our day).  She takes sweetener in her tea and I do not, so I have to keep our tea cups separate.  I do this by "assigning" us tea cups that only one of us uses.  They don't always get washed every day, so I have primary and secondary pairs assigned; even a tertiary pair in case things are especially hectic. 

One of the pairs is otherwise matching, except the colors are orange and green.  Danette always gets the green one, because of the Pink Floyd song "Green is the Colour".  It is from one of my favorite early Pink Floyd LPs, their 1969 soundtrack for the film "More", which has two of the best Pink Floyd songs  that you've probably never heard: "Cymbaline" and "Green is the Colour". 

As with many of her birthdays songs, the association is not strictly literal. Instead, the song evokes a sense of tenderness, longing, wonder, adoration, and simultaneous familiarity and mystery, so it is only natural that I associate it with Danette:  

Heavy hung the canopy of blue

Shade my eyes and I can see you

White was the light

That shines through the dress that you wore

She lay in the shadow of a wave

Hazy were the visions overplayed

Sunshine in her eyes

But moonshine made her cry every time

Green is the colour of her kind

Quickness of the eye

Deceives the mind

Envy is the bond between

The hopeful and the damned

The studio version on the LP is good, but the contemporary live versions are both more raw, simple, and evocative, especially David Gilmour's achingly beautiful playing -- is there another guitarist who "says" more with so few notes? Let's also pause to mourn the loss of the David Gilmour and Roger Waters partnership: Roger writing and David singing is a winning combination, one that they failed to replicate without each other.  

"Green is the Colour" studio, live 1970 for KQED

Previous birthday songs:

2025: Sonic Youth - "I Love Her All the Time"

2024: Devo - "Uncontrollable Urge"

2023: Brandi Carlile - "The Story" 
2022: Plastic Bertrand - "Ça plane pour moi" 
2021: Adam and the Ants - "Christian D'or" 
2020: Walk Off The Earth - "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
2019: Nicki Minaj - "Monster"
2018: Bear Hands - "Giants" 
2017: Alvvays - "Archie, Marry Me" 
2016: Molly Hatchet - "Flirtin' With Disaster" 
2015: Avett Brothers - "Kick Drum Heart"
2014: Ani DiFranco - "32 Flavors" 
2013: The Green Pajamas - "Kim the Waitress"
2012: The Cure - "High"
2011: Blink 182 - "Josie"
2010:  Dead Milkmen - "Punk Rock Girl"  

Dolly Parton - "Love is Like a Butterfly"

Dolly Parton passed three weeks ago.  She is an icon, a legend, one of the few universally revered artists, and her death marks the ends an era of popular music.  We had hoped to see her in Vegas in December, 2025, but that was postponed until September of 2026, and then in May 2026 it was cancelled.  

I grew up with country music in the house, so there are many of her songs that I know by heart, and could choose to mark her passing.  Look at the all-star line up that performed "Jolene" in 2022 at her induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  And one can't not mention Whitney Houston's 1992 blockbuster cover of "I Will Always Love You", which reintroduced Dolly to a whole new audience.  Honorable mention to 1989's upbeat "Why'd You Come In Here".  

Instead, I'm choosing 1974's "Love is Like a Butterfly", which became a personal favorite for Danette's and mine, when she performed this with Stephen Colbert in 2012 on the Colbert Report.  Stephen becomes self-conscious that he's performing with a legend, and his various errors and false-starts are endearing. 

Comedy Central pulled all of the Colbert Reports from the web, presumably when he went to CBS, so the original URL no longer works, and while the page is archived in the Wayback Machine, the embedded video is not.  Fortunately, the Internet Archive has more than just the Wayback Machine, and the broadcast is saved in a completely different collection.*

Dolly is gone, and that makes the world a less kind place.  We are deeply saddened at her passing, and regret that we never got to see her.  

"He's just scared. You calm down now, we'll get through this thing."

Dolly Parton - "Love is Like a Butterfly" (1974 studio, 1976 TV show)

* A serendipitous confluence of my research and entertainment interests.   

Rolling Stones - "Waiting on a Friend"

Last month, jazz saxophone great Sonny Rollins died.  I'm not going to attempt to convey the depth and magnitude of classic LPs like "Saxophone Colossus", other than to point out that it was inducted in Library of Congress's National Recording Registry in 2016.  He is of additional personal interest to me because he was the last living artist from the iconic 1958 photograph "A Great Day in Harlem", and the film based on this photograph is what Danette and I saw on our second date, in Portsmouth, 1998.  I can't remember the exact venue, it may have been a church or community center -- it was not a standard movie theater as I recall.  I've looked online for more details, but records from 1998 are sparse.  

What does this have to do with The Rolling Stones?  Fun fact: Sonny Rollins plays saxophone on "Waiting on a Friend", the second single from their 1981 smash comeback LP, "Tattoo You".  I was 12 at the time, only sort of knew how important The Rolling Stones were, and certainly knew nothing of Sonny Rollins.  I recall how much I loved the sax from the early MTV video of this song, even though I would not learn that it was Sonny Rollins until a few years ago.  Another fun fact: "Tattoo You" is almost entirely constructed from studio leftovers and demos, and although this song came out in 1981, it was recorded in 1973 during the classic "Goats Heads Soup" sessions.   

Sonny Rollins is, well, a saxophone colossus, but "Waiting on a Friend" is pleasant surprise to his canon, and will always have a special place in my heart for all the reasons listed above.  

The Rolling Stones (with Sonny Rollins) - "Waiting on a Friend"

 

David Byrne - Tiny Desk Concert (2025-12-01)

We've recently seen David Byrne twice on his "Who is the Sky?" tour.  The first time was on September 27, 2025 in Washington DC, and the second was May 13, 2026 in Virginia Beach.  We enjoyed it so much, we'd happily see him a third time.  Combining the best elements of performance art and a marching band, the highly choreographed show is engaging and visually unlike any concert we've seen before. It's simultaneously minimalist and overwhelming, simple and complex.  

I've seen some full audience recordings of shows from this tour, but they get taken down pretty quickly.  In the mean time, enjoy the Tiny Desk Concert version of this show -- complete with all 13 (!) members in the studio!

The above photos are from the Anthem in DC, and the photos below are from the Dome in Virginia Beach. 

Bruce Springsteen - "Streets of Minneapolis"

Bruce Springsteen released the single "Streets of Minneapolis" earlier this week.   

Through the winter's ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
'Neath an occupier's boots
King Trump's private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes 

Against smoke and rubber bullets
In the dawn's early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good 

Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We'll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of '26
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis 

Trump's federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead
Their claim was self-defense, sir
Just don't believe your eyes
It's our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem's dirty lies 

Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis 

Now they say they're here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of "ICE out now"
Our city's heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis 

Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of '26
We'll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We'll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Bruce has always been a populist, but his stories were encoded with the themes of Americana (e.g., "Badlands", "My Hometown", "Born in the USA"), which often caused casual listeners to focus on the story at the expense of the message.  Even "The Ghost of Tom Joad", which had been his most overtly political song, borrowed its frame from "The Grapes of Wrath".  

"Streets of Minneapolis" abandons all such conceits, and the message is raw and direct.  

"Streets of Minneapolis" -- studio, live 2026-01-30*

* bonus link: The live link above is from a 3 song set with Tom Morello, in which they also did "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and John Lennon's "Power to the People".  At the beginning of the set, he says "nuance is wonderful, but sometimes you need to kick them in the teeth."

Rage Against the Machine - "Freedom"

The militant poet in once again, check it
It’s set up like a deck of cards
They’re sending us to early graves
For all the diamonds
They’ll use a pair of clubs to beat the spades
With poetry I paint the pictures that hit
More like the murals that fit
Don’t turn away
Get in front of it 

Brotha, did ya forget ya name?
Did ya lose it on the wall
Playin’ tic-tac-toe? 

Yo, check the diagonal
Three brothers gone
Come on
Doesn’t that make it three in a row?

Anger is a gift

The fourth and final single from RATM's 1992 self-titled debut LP, "Freedom" is about AIM, but is sadly also relevant today.

Rage Against the Machine - "Freedom"

Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images