Good morning, musicologists and happy Memorial Day! Yesterday was Doctor Petty’s musical highlight day; today it’s The Beatles, simply the greatest band ever.
Here’s your Memorial Day run:
9:00 a.m. Free As A Bird: Various Artists
Today we celebrate those who fought for freedom with songs about being free in all its forms. This is particularly apropos as we head into November. We’re at that point again in history. You will hear Cream, Steve Winwood, Joni Mitchell, Edgar Winter, Otis Redding, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Who, The Kinks, Chicago, The Byrds, Dave Mason, Van Morrison, Tracy Chapman, Delaney & Bonnie, Chicken Shack, Emmylou Harris, Jimi Hendrix, Pete Seeger, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Dylan and more!
3:00 p.m. The Beatles Top 100 Songs
Again, not by voting listeners or scientific calculation. It’s based on sheer love of the music. We’ve got 100 Beatle songs for you today simply for the sheer listening pleasure. There’s no competition among songs; they are not in order. They simply are.
We’ve got great programming today sprinkled among our excellent playlist of 27,000 ever-rotating songs. We’re on 24/7. We’re totally free. And we do not run commercial advertising. We’re all about the music.
Good morning, fans of the fab four. And we definitely are here. Today we have one piece of musical programming and it’s our Beatles Top 100 countdown!
Here’s the fab four details:
11:00 a.m. The Beatles Top 100 Songs
It’s a great way to kick off the new year, folks. We celebrated Christmas with Dr. Petty’s Top 100, and we kick off the New Year with our ‘other’ House Band. Before and after this airing, it’s our big, wide Open Stream. Enjoy!
Good morning, music lovers! You’ve made it to the end of the work week (I’ve got one more day to go) and we’ve got some great stuff from The Mermaid Lounge coming your way!
Here’s today’s musical menagerie:
11:00 a.m. Paint It Black: Various Artists
Today’s opener is songs about the color black in the title, lyrics or both with The Hollies, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, The Rolling Stones, The Move, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, k.d. lang, Tom Rush, Fairport Convention, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Long John Baldry, J.D. Souther, Guy Clark, Nina Simone, The Beatles, Steely Dan, Stephen Stills, Curtis Mayfield, Lucinda Williams, John Lee Hooker and more!
4:00 p.m. Singer-Songwriter Series: The Music of Stephen Stills FINAL AIRING!
Today we bid farewell to Stephen Stills as our featured singer-songwriter. Tomorrow we’ll have a brand new selection here for you.
8:00 p.m. The Beatles: Songs With Character UPDATED!
We’re back with the Man in the Mack, Bungalow Bill, Maxwell and his silver hammer, Eleanor Rigby, a barber who works on Penny Lane, a chick named Polythene Pam, a dog named Martha, Lucy who loves to fly around the sky with diamonds, and more. The Beatles had a lot of characters, and tonight we’re going to meet them.
Great day to tune us in. It’s Friday. What could be better than great music free 24/7 with no commercial interruption. Go ahead. I’m waiting.
Happy Memorial Day Weekend, musicologists! We have excellent music lined up for you today as we get into the first official weekend of the summer season!
Here’s your Saturday lineup:
9:00 a.m. Album of The Week: Buffalo Springfield by Buffalo Springfield FINAL AIRING!
Today we bid a fond farewell to Buffalo Springfield’s debut album as our Album of the Week. Tomorrow, we’ll have a brand new selection for you.
11:00 a.m. The Beatles: Top 100 Countdown
We aired this last year at this time and we repeat the process today as we pay homage to one of our House Bands, the band that changed everything from haircuts, to clothing styles and, most importantly, to music itself in just seven years together. There was never a band like them before, and we are still waiting for their equal. From our perspective, that day will never come.
8:00 p.m. Singer-Songwriter Series: The Music of Guy Clark NEW!
A Mermaid Lounge favorite for sure. On a freezing winter night in Harvard Square with my friends, we were looking for a break from the cold. We walked in to Passim’s Coffee House to warm up, sat down, and were treated to a very unexpected event. A singer-songwriter named Guy Clark was playing there live that night. We stuck around. It was an amazing revelation. We were certainly happy we did. The next day, I went out and bought everything I could find. Tonight, we introduce him as our featured singer-songwriter.
It’s a looong weekend, so kick your shoes off. We’ve got great music in store for you right through Monday. If you haven’t yet tuned us in, this would definitely be a good weekend to do it. We’re totally free 24/7, and we’re also totally free of commercial advertising. It’s just wall-to-wall music.
Good Morning, Music Aficionados! How goes the battle on this fine Monday? We’ve got some great stuff here for you today, including a brand new playlist to close out our programming later.
We start the day off with Dylan live at Royal Albert Hall, vintage 1966
Here’s your Monday lineup:
11:00 a.m. Bob Dylan Live at Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, May 17, 1966
It’s a mystery. Is it May 17 or May 26. Is it the real Royal Albert Hall concert, or the Manchester concert mislabeled as Royal Albert Hall? As far as we can tell, this is the real Royal Albert Hall concert. Either way, it’s vintage early Dylan and it is a milestone in the development of popular music as he moved folk into the electric era. We here in The Mermaid Lounge love a good musical mystery. One thing we’re absolutely sure of is that this is part of what is known as The Bootleg Collection.
3:00 p.m. Banned From the Airwaves: Various Artists
This is a fun one. There are songs that have been banned from all over the spectrum, although you can pretty much catch them on all radio stations in this day and age. Petty’s You Don’t Know How It Feels was initially banned for its reference to weed; both Lola by the Kinks and Arnold Layne by Pink Floyd were banned because of their references to transgender and/or LGBTQ characters; My Generation by The Who was initially banned because it insulted people who stuttered; and McCartney’s Hi Hi Hi, The Everly Brothers’ Wake Up Little Susie, The Doors’ Love Me Two Times and The Stones’ Let’s Spend the NightTogether were all initially banned because of references to sex. Listen to the rest and see if you can figure it out.
7:00 p.m. Seasons: Various Artists NEW!
Tonight we close out the programming portion with a brand new playlist about the seasons. Either the word ‘seasons’ appears in the song somewhere or the song references a specific season in some fashion. You’ll hear Bobbie Gentry, Janis Ian, Donovan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Byrds, Johnny Rivers, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Hoyt Axton, Don Henley, Wendy Waldman, The Stone Poneys, Jefferson Airplane, The Kinks, Nina Simone, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Murphy, James Taylor, The Beatles, Eva Cassidy, Eddie Cochran, The Band, Sly & The Family Stone and more!
We’ve got a full house this morning with Germany, Chile, The Netherlands, Russian Federation, our friends from the Faroe Islands, Italy, Greece, Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal, Poland, Australia, the UK, along with Texas, Montana, Massachusetts, and New York. When are you logging on?
We are celebrating Memorial Day Weekend in style by featuring our two house bands! We start today with The Beatles’ Top 100 songs. Wherever you are, tune us in at 10:00 a.m. (or right now, for that matter).
The Beatles changed everything.
Here’s your Saturday lineup:
10:00 a.m. The Beatles Top 100 Songs!
The Beatles landed at John F. Kennedy Airport on February 7, 1964. That was my tenth birthday. A few days later, we’d all be sitting around the TV watching them on The Ed Sullivan Show. Today we give you The Beatles Top 100 songs to kick off the holiday weekend. Grab whatever the hell you’re drinking and pull up a tab.
7:00 p.m. Album of The Week: The Delta Sweete by Bobbie Gentry FINAL AIRING!
Today we bid farewell to this great album, a very ambitious concept album by Bobbie Gentry, who was incredibly talented. She was also incredibly private and never wanted the limelight. It found her, nevertheless. Tomorrow we’ll have a brand new one for you.
10:00 p.m. LIVE DEAD! The Grateful Dead Live at Winterland, San Francisco, December 31, 1977
A rare repeat here for us, but it’ll be like new. The last time we aired this one was early in 2020. A classic band from a classic venue.
We’ve already got Spain, the UK, Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy, Australia, Belgium, France, Portugal, Russian Federation, Brazil, Netherlands, Dallas, San Francisco, and New York all tuned in and ready to go. Where are you today?
Good Morning, Musicologists! We close the week by giving you the Beatles Top 100 songs and our multi-artist ‘By The Numbers’ playlist.
Today it’s The Beatles Top 100 to open the day’s programming!
Here’s today’s musical programming:
11:00 a.m. The Beatles Top 100 NEW!
We have two house bands. The Beatles is one of those house bands. (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers is the other.) This list is in no numerical order. It was done very scientifically, of course. Some Beatle fans (including me) sat around getting stoned and just threw out titles. If we agreed, we kept the song on the list. We scrubbed the ones we didn’t agree on. That’s about as scientific as we can get at this stage of the game. Some day when I am indeed fully retired, we’ll open this up to listeners by email and take votes. But for now, this is what you get. We like this list a lot.
The list itself will appear under the Playlist tab on the blog before I head out to work at 10:00 a.m. Check it out.
7:00 p.m. By The Numbers: Various Artists
Songs with numbers in the titles, or the lyrics…or both. Just over two hours of great music by many artists, including Alice Cooper, James Taylor, The Mamas &The Papas, J.J. Cale, Mudcrutch, Three Dog Night, The Doors, Stevie Nicks, Shawn Colvin, Rosanne Cash, The Searchers, Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, Paul Simon, Wilson Pickett, Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Searchers, The Beatles, and more!
Before, in between, and after we have wide Open Stream with selections by The Music Mermaid. She has impeccabletaste and plenty of songs to choose from. We’re free. We’re free 24/7. No subscription or credit card required. And no personal information requested. What more could you ask for?
#BecomeUngovernable Radio 