Freegal Songs for Earth Day

Earth Day: flowering crabapple  image credit: Ellen Mackey 2012

I’ve been searching the web for the best Earth Day songs and then searching Freegal to see what was available there.

Some of these songs celebrate nature; others lament what we’ve done to it.

Kansas                         Death of Mother Nature Suite

 John Prine                   Paradise

 Yardbirds                     Shapes of Things

 Johnny Cash                Don’t Go Near the Water

James Taylor               Traffic Jam

Woody Guthrie            This Land Is Your Land

Bruce Springsteen       This Land Is Your Land            

 Michael Jackson          Earth Song

Nitty Gritty Dirt           Fishin’ in the Dark

   Band

 John Mayer                 Waiting on the World to Change

 Dave Matthews           One Sweet World

   Band

 Kenny Loggins             Conviction of the Heart

                                    This Island Earth (album)

 John Denver                Calypso

                                    The Wind

                                    Annie’s Song

                                    Sunshine on My Shoulder

                                    Rocky Mountain High

 Walk Off the Earth      Little Boxes

 Pete Seeger                 God Bless the Grass

30th Anniversary on the 30th: Thriller by Michael Jackson



Photo:  XFONG



Today marks the 30^th anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson’s album, Thriller, the best-selling album of all time.

 

The album is available on Freegal.

From the top of the world in 1982, Jackson took a 20-year fall, his albums becoming less popular, and his persona devolving from a general weirdness into felonious creepiness.

Now that he has died, his reputation is predictably starting to recover, with shows like Dancing with the Stars doing several tributes to his dancing and his music.

In case you’ve forgotten, here are some factoids about the album:

·         At its peak, it sold 500,000 copies every week

·         The song “Beat It” featured Eddie Van Halen on the guitar

·         The first single released was “The Girl Is Mine” by Paul McCartney

·         MTV would air the 14-minute “Thriller” video twice an hour to meet demand.

Jackson pretty much built MTV with his “Thriller” and “Billie Jean” videos. All Jackson, all the time.

The man could sing and dance. Bob Fosse, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were all fans of his dancing, with Astaire being quoted as saying, "My Lord, he is a wonderful mover. He makes these moves up himself and it is just great to watch...."

"Michael Jackson." Contemporary Black Biography. Vol. 76. Detroit: Gale, 2009. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 30 Nov. 2012.

 

“Just eat it” –A Song for Thanksgiving Leftovers: “Eat It” by Weird Al Yankovic

On your third day of turkey?

Had it baked boiled, fricasseed, fried, tetrazzini, a la mode?

You might be in the mood for Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”

Reportedly, Yankovic wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he’d get from the King of Pop when he submitted the lyrics.

Jackson thought it was funny, and let him proceed. Makes me think a little better of him, somehow.

“Eat It” is available for free download on Freegal. And so is Michael Jackson’s song, “Beat It.”

Halloween Tunes: Dancing Dead—“Thriller” by Michael Jackson

What if Michael Jackson was bitten by one of the dancing zombies in the video? It would explain so much.

“Thriller” facts: 

**You can download it free from Freegal.

**To qualify for the Academy Awards, the “Thriller” video was shown in California as a lead-in to the 1940-era Disney film Fantasia. Some parents were not amused.

**”Thriller” broke color barriers on FM radio and MTV. At the video’s height, MTV showed it twice an hour.

More fun facts from the L.A. Times