Strong Songs

Strong Songs returns to the mighty Annie Lennox, for a closer look at her initially patient, eventually soaring 1992 single "Little Bird." This song allllmost beat out "Walking On Broken Glass" to get an episode last time around, and it's easy to see why.

Written by: Annie Lennox

Produced by: Stephen Lipson

Album: Diva, 1992

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

It's time for a second helping of ABBA, and how could we resist "Mamma Mia"? Kirk peels back the layers of one of the band's most beloved songs, revealing a carefully crafted concoction of melodies, countermelodies, stealthy synthesizers, and marimbas.

Written by: Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, and Stig Anderson

Album: ABBA, 1975

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Find the Strong Songs podcast feed here: https://feeds.strongsongspodcast.com/main

Instructions for manually adding a feed to most major podcast apps HERE

For more on Fair Use and other similar topics, check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation - they are the best.

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Kirk returns to Kind of Blue, taking a closer look at two more tunes off of the 1959 jazz classic. First, he digs into the modified 12-bar blues "Freddie Freeloader," with a focus on Wynton Kelly's much-emulated opening piano solo. He then compares and contrasts how John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley approached the closing track, "Flamenco Sketches" on tenor and alto sax, respectively.

Music by: Miles Davis and Bill Evans

The Musicians:

Miles Davis, Trumpet
Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, Alto Sax
John Coltrane, Tenor Sax
Wynton Kelly & Bill Evans, Piano
Paul...

Kirk surfs an avalanche straight into Thrash Valley, where he delves into the depths of Megadeth's 1990 opus "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due." It's an unstoppable rockslide of layered riffs, tempo shifts, power chords, and... power thirds?

Written by: Dave Mustaine

Album: Rust in Peace, 1990

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Kirk returns to the world of Joni Mitchell for a look at the many sides of her masterpiece "Both Sides, Now." From her initial 1960s live performances, to her 1969 studio recording, to the Grammy-winning orchestral rendition she released in 2000, each version of "Both Sides, Now" shows us a different side of Joni, and of ourselves. 

Written by: Joni Mitchell

Album: Clouds, 1969 | Both Sides Now, 2000

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Kirk heaps on a second helping of TWO previous Strong Songs artists: Queen and David Bowie, whose 1981 collaboration "Under Pressure" topped the charts while showing how a mid-song transformation is done.

Written by: David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor

Album: Hot Space, 1982

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Kirk kicks off Strong Songs Season Eight with a second helping of Toto, whose song "Africa" got the very first episode of Strong Songs he ever made. This time around he's focusing on 1982's "Rosanna," a song that shows just what Toto could do when every member of the band gave it their all.

Written by: David Paich

Album: Toto IV, 1982

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Strong Songs Season Eight will kick off on Friday, January 16! 

If you want to listen a week early, get monthly "Inside the Episode" bonuses, and support the creation of Strong Songs, go sign up for the Patreon. We're running a sale for the whole month of January -  use the code STRONG8 when signing up, and your first month will be just $1.

See you in a couple weeks for the season premiere!

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Kirk sits down with jazz piano legend Peter Martin to talk about Peter's musical background, his momentous early encounters with Wynton Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland, the jazz scene of the 1990s, how the Suzuki method works, and why jazz students today should be less shy about talking to their heroes. 

Check out Peter's online jazz education program Open Studio, as well as You'll Hear It, the music podcast he co-hosts with Adam Maness. 

DISCUSSED/REFERENCED:

Writer, composer, and Peabody Award-winning podcaster Jad Abumrad joins Kirk to talk about Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, his new 12-part series on the life, music, and legacy of Afrobeat superstar Fela Kuti.

DISCUSSED/REFERENCED:

This episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz originally ran in August 2025.

Kirk's 2020 episode of Strong Songs about the music of Super Mario

TWENTY THOUSAND HERTZ SHOW NOTES:

This episode was written & produced by Casey Emmerling.

From the springy jump sound to the iconic Overworld Theme, the sound of Super Mario Bros. is instantly recognizable. With just five lo-fi audio channels and 40 kilobytes of space, composer Koji Kondo created a soundscape full of unforgettable melodies. In this episode, we explore how Kondo’s playful instincts, rhythmic trickery, and love of jazz fusion defined th...

It's fun to talk about TV theme songs, so that's what Kirk and special guest Leigh Sales did. Does this episode need any more introduction than that? Probably not.

Check out Leigh's wonderful podcast Chat 10 Looks 3

A YouTube Playlist of many of the themes discussed (and some they didn't get to)

DISCUSSED/REFERENCED:

Originally Aired October 20, 2020

The Wildlings are south of the wall, the robots are rising up, Seventh Kavalry's on the move, and two percent of the world's population has vanished. Time for another edition of Strong TV Songs!

This time around the focus is on HBO, a network that has defined much of the broader TV landscape over the past couple of decades. So let's dig into a bunch of great music from a bunch of good shows, with themes for Dothraki raiders, Alethiometers, robot farmgirls, nuns with guns, monstrous moguls, and lost souls.

...

With so many dozens of albums over so many wildly disparate eras, it can take a lifetime to truly get your arms around Bob Dylan. On this episode, Kirk is joined by two guests who have spent their lifetimes doing exactly that. Matt Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell, in addition to co-hosting the terrific political history podcast Know Your Enemy, are both lifelong Dylan fans. This spring, they came on the show to give listeners a tour of Dylan's many eras, and to give newcomers a place, or places, they might start getting to know him better.

DYLAN...

The Wailin' Jennys have been singing together for more than two decades - recording albums, touring the world, and filling venues large and small. After all these years, the trio—Ruth Moody, Heather Masse, and Nicky Mehta—have reached both a plateau and an inflection point. What's it like for a musical group that's been together for that long; for singers who've found such perfect vocal harmony for one another? How do they each think of songwriting, and of creative work in general? On their recent west coast tour, they stopped by the studio for a chat about those thin...

Back in May, Kirk joined pianists Adam Maness and Peter Martin of the You'll Hear It podcast  to talk about what makes Tower of Power great. It was a very fun conversation, so he asked if he could run their episode in the Strong Songs feed. And here we are!

Listen to You'll Hear It anywhere you find podcasts, and find both Adam and Peter (and many others) teaching jazz lessons at OpenStudio.com.

ORIGINAL SHOW NOTES
May 19, 2025

We hand the mic to Kirk Hamilton from the Strong Songs podcast to help u...

THE APOCALYPSE WERE:
Tony Capuano - Guitar, Lead Vocals
John Shorb - Alto Sax
Gene Meros - Tenor Sax
Greg Novik - Bass, Backing Vocals (guitar on Stormy Monday)
Oggie Hamilton - Drums, Backing Vocals

Featuring The Apocalypse playing:

For the Season Seven finale, Kirk takes a look at Bill Withers' enduring hit "Lean On Me." In the process, he takes a broader look at a bunch of Withers' other most famous songs to better understand how this plainspoken, seemingly ordinary guy managed to write so many extraordinary songs.

Written by: Bill Withers

Album: Still Bill, 1972

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Kirk answers a bunch of listener questions on topics like bluegrass guitar, the music of Blue Prince, good apps for training theory skills, Robert Fripp's "Frippertronics," a mysterious sound on a Gene Clark song, different types of music notation, and the legacy of the blues. All that, and a trio of terrific singer/songwriters stops by the studio to help answer a question about lyrics.

Come see Triple Click Live! Friday, July 11 at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, OR. Tickets Here

Kirk has new music for sale on Bandcamp: Music For Podcasting and his...

In 1981, Sting brought a demo of a song he'd been working on down to AIR Studios in Montserrat to see what his bandmates thought of it... and they wound up keeping the demo and just recording their parts on top. The result was "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," an unusual Police song, but an enduring hit. 

On this episode, Kirk goes deep on every aspect of Sting's exuberant yet frustrated love song, unearthing the magic that lives in each piece of the music. This episode's subject was chosen by the Patrons of Strong Songs, who v...

The jazz standard "All The Things You Are" has been performed countless times by master jazz vocalists, 30s big bands, bebop small groups, hard-bop combos, modern deconstructionists, and even soon-to-be Kings of Pop. On this episode, Kirk takes listeners through the history of the now-famous tune, from its humble Broadway origins all the way to his recording studio in Portland, where he and some friends recorded an all-new arrangement just for Strong Songs.

Music/Lyrics: Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II

Versions Featured:

Turn around... every now and then I get a little lonely and the snare is sounding small
Turn around... every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of sleigh bells
Turn around... every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the cannons will not fire
Turn around...

...every now and then Kirk decides to take on a classic 80s power ballad, and winds up learning a thing or two about when to use castanets and how to pull off an elegant key change. (Are...

How should you count The Police's "Bed's Too Big Without You?" Why do so many people revere Marty Friedman's solo on Megadeth's "Tornado of Souls"? What's going on with those pauses during the Bluey theme? And what the heck is that sound on Sly and the Family Stone's "Sex Machine"? Those questions and many more on the first mailbag episode of Season Seven. 

Thanks to Nevada Jones (voice) and Scott Pemberton (guitar) for their expert contributions!

REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Kirk pays a visit the musical world of The Muppets, from their Sesame Street origins in the 60s to the globe-hopping, cinematic heights of the 70s and 80s, with plenty of detours along the way.

FEATURING:

"Sesame Street Theme" by Joe Raposo, Jon Stone, and Bruce Hart

"Mah Na Mah Na" by Piero Umilliani from Sweden: Heaven and Hell

"Pinball Number Count" by Walt Kraemer and Ed Bogas, feat. The Pointer Sisters

"Rainbow Connection" by Paul Williams (Lyrics) and William Ascher (Music), sung by Jim Henson as Kermit the...

Kirk digs into one of the most dense and challenging records in his collection, with an analysis of "Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)" from The Mars Volta's 2003 progressive rock opus De-Loused in the Comatorium.

Written by: Omar Rodríguez-López, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and Jeremy Ward

Produced by: Omar Rodríguez-López & Rick Rubin

Album: De-Loused in the Comatorium, 2003

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Kirk digs into Fiona Apple's breakneck 1999 single "Fast As You Can," a cornerstone in her late 90s collaborations with Jon Brion, as well as her work with drummer Matt Chamberlain.

Written by: Fiona Apple

Produced by: Jon Brion

Album: When The Pawn..., 1999

Listen/Buy via Album.Link

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Strong Songs Season Seven kicks off with two of the most famous songs ever recorded, from one of the biggest bands in the world. U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "With or Without You" make up two-thirds of the three-song "suite" of hit singles that kicked off their 1987 album The Joshua Tree. As it turns out, the two songs have a lot to say to one another! They also have a lot to say about how U2 wrote music, and about the beautiful, messy human process of collaborative creativity.

Written by: U2

...

Strong Songs Season Seven is now underway! You can listen to the season premiere right now on Patreon, or here in the main feed in two weeks, on March 7.

For those next two weeks, sign up to become a patron of the show and use the code "STRONG" and you'll get 80% off your first month. So basically, you can listen to the premiere right now for one dollar. Or just wait, that's fine too. The promo ends on March 7.

MUSIC RECOMMENDATION: "Up From A Dream" by HAIM from Women in Music, Pt. III

...

In between seasons, Kirk re-ran a bunch of old episodes and prefaced each one with a new music recommendation. He's taking those down recasts in preparation for season seven, but it seemed like a good idea to put all the music recommendations in one place. So that's what this episode is!

DISCUSSED AND RECOMMENDED:

In light of Janis Stockhouse's unexpected death at the tail end of 2024, we're re-posting Kirk's 2019 interview with her for anyone who might want to listen to it.

Janis started teaching at North high school in Bloomington, Indiana, in the early 1980s. It was a time when "jazz education" as a concept was still a relatively new thing. She retired 38 years later, having grown the North band program into a well-known Midwest institution, winning countless awards at festivals around the world and regularly turning out graduates who would go on to become professional musicians, as well as many...

Kirk talks with Wesley Morris and Josh Gwynn about the endless world of Stevie Wonder. Morris and Gwynn are host and producer, respectively, of the brilliant new six-part podcast series The Wonder of Stevie.

Check out Josh Gwynn's terrific pop culture podcast Back Issue, Wesley Morris's culture podcast Still Processing, and Morris' essential writing on Aretha Franklin, Jam & Lewis, Meshell Ndegeocello, and his mustache, as well as his 2019 essay about Black American Music.

REFERENCED ON THIS EPISODE:

A cross-post of the first episode of "The Wonder of Stevie," a new six-part podcast series from Higher Ground and Pineapple Street Studios. It's a great show - find it on Apple, Amazon, Spotify... it's a podcast, you know the deal.

Next week, we'll run a conversation between Kirk, host Wesley Morris, and producer Josh Gwynn all about what they learned making the show, and how they've come to think about Stevie and his music. In the meantime, check out some of Wesley Morris's  writing on Aretha Franklin, Jam & Lewis, Meshell Ndegeocello, and his mustache, as well a...

Back in August, Kirk went on Dave Hamilton's music podcast "Gig Gab" to talk about music, Strong Songs, podcasting, and life. It was a fun conversation, and seemed worth republishing here.

You can find the full show notes here, watch a video version here, and can check out Gig Gab at giggabpodcast.com or anywhere you get podcasts.

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An update on what's next now that Season Six is complete, along with some book and music recommendations!

BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia, 3rd edition - 1997, revised 2021

Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning by Gary Marcus, 2012

MUSIC RECOMMENDATION LINKS

Steve Pardo - DOS - (also in Video Game form on Steam)

Completions - I Needed Help

Ruth Moody - Wanderer

The Onesies - The Onesies Dig With the Wrong Foot

Sheena Ringo...

In the season six finale, Kirk takes a deep dive into Bruce Springsteen's signature song, 1975's "Born to Run." It's all here: tremolo guitar riffs, glockenspiel arpeggios, endless sus chords, and a sax solo for the ages. Baby, we were born for it.

Written by: Bruce Springsteen

Produced by: Springsteen, John Landau, and Mike Appel

Album: Born to Run, 1975

Listen/Buy via Lynkify

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

As Season Six draws to a close, Kirk opens up the Strong Songs mailbag to answer a bunch of listener questions on topics ranging from Diablo's use of lydian to what he means when he talks about "transcribing."

REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

Stage left! It's time for Strong Songs to talk about XTC. Stage right! Now the song is picked, analysis can begin. Stand up! If we listen close, we'll hear some lovely notes...

On this episode, Kirk takes the stage alongside "Easter Theatre," the first single off of XTC's 1999 experimental symphono-pop album Apple Venus: Vol. 1. Bring on the bassoons and power up the mellotron; we've got some shapes to stack.

Written by: Andy Partridge

Produced by: Haydn Bendall & Nick Davies

Album: Apple Venus Vol. 1, 1999 and Instruvenus, 2002

Listen/Buy via Songwhip<...

Phish may be known for their 30-minute live jams, but turns out you can distill their best qualities into a song one-tenth that length. To that end, Kirk picks apart and reassembles their 1998 studio recording of "Limb By Limb" in all its polyrhythmic, guitarpeggiated glory.

Music by: Trey Anastasio, with Page McConnell, Mike Gordon & Jon Fishman

Lyrics by: Tom Marshall & Scott Herman

Album: The Story of the Ghost (1998)

Listen/Buy via Songwhip

ALSO REFERENCED/DISCUSSED:

You came, you saw, you voted, and you picked Blondie as Strong Songs' first listener-selected artist! After weighing a number of possible songs to focus on, Kirk decided to go with the 1978 hit that took them from the punk clubs of New York to dance floors around the world.

Wanna pick an artist for Season Seven? Go join the Patreon!

Written by: Deborah Harry and Chris Stein

Produced by: Mike Chapman

Album: Parallel Lines (1978)

Listen/Buy via Songwhip

Special Guests: Katelyn and Laurie Shook, a.k.a...