The Best Music of October: NPR Staff Picks
NPR Music
NPR
4.3 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 November 2021
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Music featured on this episode:
• Buffalo Nichols: "Another Man" from Buffalo Nichols
• Jordan Peters, "Float (feat. Obed Calvaire)"
• Emily D'Angelo: "Nausicaa" from enargeia
• Helado Negro: "Aguas Frías" from Far In
• Illuminati Hotties: "MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA" from Let Me Do One More
• Cerce: "Fate" from Cowboy Music
Follow the #NowPlaying blog for the NPR Music staff's favorite new songs.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | For MPR Music, you're connected to all songs considered by Bob Boyle and it's our best of the |
| 0:04.8 | month show. The show where MPR Music nerds choose their favorite songs or albums. We're looking |
| 0:09.4 | at the month of October and here to kick it off is MPR Music Critic and Correspondent and Powers. |
| 0:16.4 | I'm here to tell you about a song that really moved me, called Another Man by the Blues |
| 0:23.3 | Artist Buffalo Nichols. It's been more than a year since George Floyd's murder filled America's |
| 0:29.4 | streets with marchers. But I know I'm still feeling the need for protest songs. This one is so powerful. |
| 0:37.5 | It's based on a mid-twentieth century field hauler, an account of prison chain gangs in Alabama. |
| 0:44.4 | And that song has been a staple of folk music for decades. But Buffalo Nichols took that old chestnut |
| 0:51.1 | and made it raw again. Right for a time that still hasn't seen justice for so many Black Americans |
| 0:57.7 | who've lost their lives. I love his whole album. It revives acoustic blues in such interesting and |
| 1:05.0 | powerful ways and he is just a killer guitar player. But this song really stands out. It's visceral, |
| 1:12.1 | it's honest, it's absolutely necessary. |
| 1:43.1 | He had to hold his tongue, they'd hang you from a bridge downtown. Now they call it Stenio Ground |
| 1:53.1 | Another Man is dead. |
| 2:14.0 | Twenty percent Syrian. |
| 2:21.0 | It don't mean a thing to me. Because it might as well be 1910 men killing women and killing men. |
| 2:32.2 | Another one is dead. Another one was dead. |
| 2:40.4 | Another one was dead. |
| 2:47.2 | Tursing was an on. They locked her up and mash his gun. Another one was dead. |
| 2:57.0 | No respect for life. Just to slave in your eyes. |
| 3:04.3 | If you'd ever seen me and change, I guess some things haven't changed. |
| 3:16.3 | Well maybe I'm just angry and my words may be cliché. But it's hard to write a song while folks get murdered every day. |
... |
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