While watching Jailhouse Rock last night I realized I’d forgotten about the scene in which Elvis is flogged by order of the prison warden a...

In Act III, Scene iv (lines 178-79) of Shakespeare’s Hamlet , the play’s eponymous hero, Hamlet, turns to his mother and says: “I must be cr...

Although the holiday season obviously is a popular time for the Christmas carol, the word carol did not always refer to a type of song, but ...

My friend Tim Lucas wrote to me last night asking me what I understood to be the meaning of Paul McCartney’s song “Jet,” a song that can b...

Last night I posted a blog entry on the trope of “magic” in popular music, a word used, so I argued, to name various physical and/or emotion...

The word “magic,” in its adjectival form—the form used in most popular music—means to make or produce “as if by magic,” that is, to have the...

This morning’s Los Angeles Times bore the news that Forrest J. Ackerman, the writer-editor who influenced a generation of horror movie fans...

On two occasions last month I posted blog entries concerning the latest call for proposals for books in Continuum’s 33 & 1/3 series exam...

It has been observed many times by many music critics that the most successful popular music always has been sentimental. For an illustratio...

Slightly over a week ago, I posted a blog entry on the yodel, followed by a second entry on the so-called “blue yodel.” At the time I posted...

Previously, in my entries of May 16 , May 31 , July 1 , July 22 , August 18 , September 8 , and October 8 , I have discussed at length my e...

X is typically used as the variable (the unknown quantity) in algebraic equations. According to this post by Dr. Ali Khounsary of the Argo...