Pricey listeners,
Early March is such a tease, often giving us a fleeting preview of desperately desired springtime — solely to grab it away with one more dreary, blustery, 30-something-degree day. You recognize the saying: “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” Since we’ve lastly nearly reached that fabled calendrical turning level in the course of the month, I assumed I’d put collectively a playlist that goes in like a lion and out like a lamb.
Given their potent and evocative symbolism, there is no such thing as a scarcity of music that references lions or lambs. Lions connote power, hearth and even potential hazard; lambs, consistent with their biblical affiliation, typically symbolize purity, gentleness and self-sacrifice. In at present’s picks, you’ll hear these themes explored by artists like Genesis, Neko Case and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, amongst others.
Might these songs carry hotter afternoons, longer days and far lighter jackets.
Momentum for the sake of momentum,
Hear alongside whilst you learn.
1. The Tokens: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)”
Let’s start with probably the most well-known model of this oft-covered basic a couple of lion in peaceable repose. Most parts of what would ultimately grow to be “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” have been written by the South African musician Solomon Linda, whose 1939 model of the track was titled “Mbube,” the Zulu phrase for “lion.” Pete Seeger’s people group the Weavers launched an influential model in 1951 (as Seeger, Edward Norton performs it onstage in “A Full Unknown”), however the doo-wop group the Tokens took the track to new heights of recognition in 1961, with this rendition that featured English-language lyrics by the songwriter George David Weiss.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: “Gold Lion”
Following its uncooked, in-your-face 2003 debut LP, “Fever to Inform,” the New York rock band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs launched a barely extra polished and subdued sound on this opening observe from its second album, “Present Your Bones,” launched in 2006. The title phrase is a nod to the 2 awards that Spike Jonze (then the boyfriend of the band’s frontwoman, Karen O) received on the 2005 Cannes Lions Worldwide Promoting Competition for his surreal Adidas spot “Hey Tomorrow,” that includes a haunting lullaby sung by Karen.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Lion Babe: “Deal with Me Like Hearth”
Lion Babe is an R&B duo consisting of the producer Lucas Goodman (a Leo) and the singer Jillian Hervey (a Gemini, however one identified for her notably leonine mane). This 2012 single exemplifies the collagelike texture of Goodman’s method — the track really sounds prefer it’s on hearth — and the soulful cool of Hervey’s vocals.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Neko Case: “Lion’s Jaws”
Right here’s a dreamy, superbly sung ballad from the Amplifier favourite Neko Case. As I identified earlier this 12 months in my profile of her, Case’s music attracts inspiration from nature and ceaselessly references animals; she’s written songs about sparrows, tigers, swans, whales and naturally, on this observe from the appropriately named 2006 album “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” lions.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Judee Sill: “The Lamb Ran Away With the Crown”
Let’s start to exit like a lamb with one other beloved artist to whom I as soon as devoted a complete Amplifier: The singer-songwriter Judee Sill. This spotlight from Sill’s 1971 self-titled debut sounds, in the beginning, like a fairly unassuming people tune. However because it progresses, it turns into a showcase for the wealthy, vivid imagery of Sill’s lyricism (“I sailed via the clouds on 10 crested cardinals / to protect my battleground”) and — particularly in that layered, interlocking coda within the track’s last moments — her uncommonly sensible ear as an arranger.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Genesis: “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”
This intricately composed opening title observe of Genesis’s 1974 cult-classic prog-rock opus — the band’s last launch to function the unique frontman Peter Gabriel — successfully units the scene for the dreamlike story of self-discovery that can unfold over the following 94-minute idea double album.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Buddy Man: “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Go away it to the bluesman Buddy Man to rework a kids’s nursery rhyme into an electrifying rock ’n’ roll quantity — which is simply what he did on this observe from his 1968 album “A Man & the Blues” (to which Stevie Ray Vaughn would later pay homage). Man’s lamb is an unrepentant insurgent who “adopted [Mary] to highschool at some point, and broke the trainer’s rule.” But it surely sounds prefer it was completely price it: “What a time they did have, that day at college.”
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Paul McCartney & Wings: “Little Lamb Dragonfly”
Lastly, Paul McCartney will need to have had lambs on the mind when he was writing Wings’ second album, “Purple Rose Speedway,” because it options not solely his personal tackle “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” but in addition this tender, multipart people ballad. “My coronary heart is breaking for you, little lamb,” he sings, his voice as light and heat as a late March afternoon.
▶ Hear on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb” observe record
Monitor 1: The Tokens, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh)”
Monitor 2: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Gold Lion”
Monitor 3: Lion Babe, “Deal with Me Like Hearth”
Monitor 4: Neko Case, “Lion’s Jaws”
Monitor 5: Judee Sill, “The Lamb Ran Away With the Crown”
Monitor 6: Genesis, “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”
Monitor 7: Buddy Man, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
Monitor 8: Paul McCartney & Wings, “Little Lamb Dragonfly”
