The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach

Month: February 2013

  • Rest for the Weary (30 Days of Marc Cohn – Day 19)

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    “Rest for the Weary” The Rainy Season One of the things I like about Marc Cohn is that his songs aren’t all about finding, having, and losing the girl. Every album includes very personal songs that nonetheless seem to be universal. I’m also struck by how well his songs, without generally being all that upbeat,…

  • The Rainy Season (30 Days of Marc Cohn — Day 18)

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    “The Rainy Season” The Rainy Season The Rainy Season is not a happy album and “The Rainy Season” is not a happy song. While Marc Cohn held a wide mix of songs and styles, Cohn’s sophomore album is generally dark. What comes through more than anything is how hard love can be to maintain, especially…

  • “Girl of Mysterious Sorrow” (30 Days of Marc Cohn — Day 17)

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    “Girl of Mysterious Sorrow” Burning the Daze I’ll make a confession.  I did not get, at first, that this song was about graveside remembrance.  In fact I felt quite clever to figure it out.  Listening to it again, it now seems pretty obvious and I was just dense the first time around.  There is cleverness…

  • Time to put away childish things

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    Update (2013 Feb 4): Noah Smith has an awesome response to the attack on Prof. Krugman, too. Paul Krugman today discusses a post on “How to Debate Paul Krugman”, which by all appearances is a serious piece.  The answer can be boiled down to “Ask questions like a child”: This seems to me to be…

  • Strangers in a Car (30 Days of Marc Cohn — Day 16)

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    “Strangers in a Car” Marc Cohn Now we reach the final song of the “car trilogy” (after “Listening to Levon” and “Silver Thunderbird“).  It certainly wasn’t planned to make automobiles the pivot point of my 30-day exploration of Marc Cohn, but it’s worked out nicely.  “Listening to Levon” is Cohn thinking back about a relationship about…

  • Silver Thunderbird (30 Days of Marc Cohn — Day 15)

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    “Silver Thunderbird” Marc Cohn It really wasn’t planned that this song follow “Listening to Levon” on my countdown, but it’s nice that it worked out that way. In “Listening to Levon”, Cohn tells us he was sitting in his dad’s “blue Valiant” but this is the song he really associates with his father.  It’s a…