Rainbow Sleeves (Rickie Lee Jones Special) - Blue Valentine/Girl At Her Volcano [067]

Once more, with feeling… as a final coda to our sixth season, we switch focus from Waits directly and instead look at his then-partner Rickie Lee Jones. Kit departs from us with some observations of not only the music of Waits and Jones, but also some of the social implications of writing emotional and emotive material about another "public figure", while Sam talks about… minor thirds, or sevenths, or something? And Martin nails down our inaccuracies.

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
Rainbow Sleeves, Girl At Her Volcano, Rickie Lee Jones [w. Tom Waits] (1978/1983)

A Lucky Guy, Pirates, Rickie Lee Jones (1981)

Rainbow Sleeves, deleted scene from "Divine Madness", Bette Midler (1980)

Log into the Spotify web player to hear these tracks.

I Never Talk To Strangers - Foreign Affairs [049]

Martin and Sam continue by their lonesomes, but Waits welcomes a guest-host of his own as Bette Midler joins him for this episode of Song by Song. As Foreign Affairs moves into more noir-esque tones, we discuss some of the technical choices in Midler's voice and production, the impact on the world that creates, and whether that helps or hinders a song as a whole.

Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include:
I Never Talk to Strangers, Foreign Affairs, Tom Waits/Bette Midler (1977)

Yellow Beach Umbrella, Broken Blossom, Bette Midler (1977)

I Never Talk To Strangers (Live), BBC recording, Tom Waits (1979)

Log into the Spotify web player to hear these tracks.