The songs of the calendar

Tunes about dates ... plus Links of the Week, including the limits of caring, baseball cheesesteaks, and E.T.

This newsletter is going out on the third of June, and for some of you, when you heard “the third of June” your brain automatically added “another sleepy dusty Delta day …”

I’ve written about “Ode To Billie Joe” before—it’s a master class in storytelling—and Bobbie Gentry herself is one of the great mysteries in music history. More on that another time. I have June 3 marked as “Ode To Billie Joe Day” on my calendar. And when I saw it this year, it got me thinking about something: What are the best songs that mention a specific date on the calendar?

Here are a few of my favorites:

It was the third of September / That day I’ll always remember …

Early morning, April 4 / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky …

There was a great Atlanta band in the early ‘90s called the Jody Grind … Kelly Hogan, the singer, is still around and is one of my favorite singers of all time. “Third of July” is from their second album.

By May the 10th, Richmond had fell / It’s a time I remember oh so well …

A bonus track, not exactly one of my favorites but one I heard a million times in my Top 40 youth: Was the dark of the moon on the sixth of June / In a Kenworth pullin' logs …

“Convoy” was such a massive hit that it went #1 on the pop AND country charts, AND inspired a movie by Sam Peckinpah (!). The ‘70s were amazing, man.

I left out a LOT of songs here … I deliberately skipped all the ones that mention Christmas Day or New Year’s Day or Valentine’s Day. I’m sure y’all have favorites of your own. Leave them in the comments! I’d love to hear a song or two I haven’t run across before.

10 things I wanted to share this week:

1. My earlier post this week was about tackling the latest watermelon.

2. My weekly for WFAE was about gun violence, and how we need a second memorial day.

3. This was a profound essay by Tressie McMillan Cottom on when caring fails us.

4. On the 20th anniversary of THE WIRE, my friend Jonathan Abrams—who literally wrote the book on the show— has a Q&A in the NYT with creators David Simon and Ed Burns.

5. DOG NEWS: While I work on my book about the Westminster Dog Show and the bond between dogs and their people, I’m devoting this slot to dog stories. This week: As the show gets closer, local news outlets are profiling area dogs headed to Westminster. Here’s Frank, a Boston terrier from Calgary.

6. The story that made me laugh (and groan) the most this week was Matt Monagan’s piece on baseball’s underground cheesesteak-eating contest.

7. We really enjoyed WE FEED PEOPLE, a documentary (directed by Ron Howard) on José Andrés, the renowned chef who goes around the world to feed the hungry during disasters. He’s a complicated guy with a simple idea: When people need food, go make them something to eat.

8. We also watched E.T. as a family for its 40th (!) anniversary. I still remember taking a date to see it the first time around and having to sit in the front row, staring straight up at the screen, because the theater was so packed. This time around the dialogue felt a little syrupy to me, especially toward the end, but Steven Spielberg knows how to make magic. Something I’d forgotten: Drew Barrymore was the best actor in the movie, even though she was only 6.

9. I don’t quite know how to describe the Shutdown Fullcast. It’s “the world’s only college football podcast” and barely about college football at all. It’s surreal and strange and ungovernable and lo-fi and sometimes it makes me laugh so hard I have to pull the car over. It is the most acquired of acquired tastes. And it’s back.

10. Found when looking for something else: The Zac Brown Band covers “Enter Sandman,” and breezes through a bunch of classic rock riffs along the way.

    
    

    See y’all next week, everyone.