This week, guest conductor Cathy tells us "for National Coloring Day song titles/lyrics about art in general – get creative or use your high school colors to build your theme around." I’m going to do the latter and build my playlist this week around my high school colors.

I attended New Trier Township High School, West Campus in Northfield, Illinois from 1971 to 1974. I transferred in from St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago in my sophomore year. The East Campus was the original school in the district, and had such luminaries as Charlton Heston and Ann-Margret as students, while we were known for having Playboy CEO Christy Hefner and Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago, as alumni. East’s colors were green and silver, and their teams were named (in a much less politically-correct era) the Indians. West’s teams were, naturally, named the Cowboys, and, just like their namesake in the NFL, our colors were blue and silver.

In 1981, the number of students at both high schools was low enough that only freshmen were taught at West, while the remaining students had classes at East, and by 1985, the West campus was closed and all students were taught at East. It was then decided to cut down to one set of athletic teams, and that they should be called the Trevians (after the people who inhabited the area of Trier, Germany from which the original residents of the district came) and that the school colors would be green and blue, with silver being retired. Of course, the adolescent population has gone back up, and West is now a freshman campus again.

So, here are a dozen songs, divided evenly between blue, green, and silver (because I’m stubborn!).

1. The Corries, "The Bluebells of Scotland": A Scottish song written by Dora Jordan, an actress and writer, in 1801.
2. Elvis Presley, "Blue Hawaii": Theme song from the 1961 movie starring Elvis Presley, Angela Lansbury, and Joan Blackman. Other memnbers of the cast include Howard McNear (Floyd the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show) and Roland Winters (who played Charlie Chan in half a dozen movies).
3. Lou Christie, "Beyond The Blue Horizon": Written during the Depression and first done by Jeanette MacDonald in the 1930 movie Monte Carlo. Lou’s version of the song is almost identical to Michael Nesmith’s from 1970, but for some reason I like Lou’s better. The lyrics, by (one or more of) Leo Robin, Richard A. Whiting, and W. Franke Harling, are beautiful.
4. Elton John, "Blue Eyes": Released in 1982 as a single, it reached #12 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
5. Allan Sherman, "Green Stamps": A parody of the song "Green Eyes," the song celebrates the famous Sperry & Hutchinson reward program, which sadly no longer exists.
6. Lemon Pipers, "Green Tambourine": An early bubblegum song, released at the end of 1967. It reached #1 in February of 1968 and was certified Gold. And we never heard from the Lemon Pipers again…
7. Porter Wagoner, "Green Green Grass Of Home": Porter recorded his version of this in 1965, a year before Tom Jones did his, and reached #4 on the Country chart with it. The video was taken from an episode of the syndicated Porter Wagoner Show, which also starred Dolly Parton at the time.
8. The Wolfe Tones, "The Wearin’ O’ The Green": An Irish street ballad that talks of the oppression of the Irish after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, which in many respects was very much like the Scottish Rebellion in 1745 and the American Revolution in 1776. No doubt the British were especially rough on the Irish because they had lost to the Americans.
9. Fleetwood Mac, Hi-Ho Silver": From the 1970 album Kiln House, their first without Peter Green and last with Jeremy Spencer. Christine McVie, then known as Christine Perfect (if memory serves), played on the album but didn’t become a permanent member until after the album was released.
10. Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, and Loretta Lynn, "Silver Threads and Golden Needles": From their 1993 album Honky Tonk Angels, this is a fun video that has cameos from a lot of male country artists. And the ladies sound tremendous here.
11. Bing Crosby, "Silver Threads Among The Gold": Everybody’s favorite crooner recorded this in 1947.
12. Kris Kristofferson, "The Silver-Tongued Devil And I": Title track from his 1971 album.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for September 14, 2020.

Happy Labor Day to all my American friends, Happy Labour Day to all my Canadian friends, and Happy Monday to everyone else. Today being a day to honor all working men and women, here are ten songs to commemorate the holiday.

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for September 7, 2020.

Stacy, our August Guest Conductor, has one more theme for us: songs about the end of summer, which we all know by now (if you’ve been reading this blog) is today. I’m not going to explain all the ins and outs of why that is, although I tried to explain it yesterday, so if you missed that, go back and read it. I have ten songs here to celebrate that, so if you’re quite ready…

Fans of the grid: it’ll be back tomorrow.

1. Dusty Springfield, "Summer Is Over": "The finest white soul singer of her era," as Allmusic’s Jason Ankeny described her, recorded this as the B side to "Losing You" in the UK (in the US, the B side was "Here She Comes").
2. Stringspace, "Autumn Leaves": Stringspace is a company of talented Australian musicians, with separate groups in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, and Adelaide. They play music for sophisticated gatherings and specialize in classical and jazz. Here, Briana Cowlishaw from the Sydney ensemble and Hugh (don’t know his last name) from their group in Melbourne play this classic standard.
3. Billie Holiday, "Autumn In New York": From her 1956 album A Recital by Billie Holiday, this standard was written by Vernon Duke in 1934.
4. Leonid & Friends, "September": Leonid Vorobyev and his crew of amazing Russian musicians and singers, best known for their covers of Chicago (the band) tunes, have started branching out into the music of other bands with horns. One of their most recent covers is Earth Wind & Fire’s "September," and as always, Leonid has written an arrangement that’s dead-nuts on with the original. They’re amazing.
5. Nat King Cole, "September Song": My favorite cover of this tune is that of Jimmy Durante, who couldn’t sing to save his life and does one of the most heart-rending performances of this song that practically leaves me in tears whenever I watch it. So I figured I’d use a different cover this time, this by Nat King Cole, who was a remarkable singer and performer.
6. "School Days": The performer of this tune is known only as "Sheet Music Singer." It was written in 1904 by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards and is a classic back-to-school song.
7. Paul Anka, "Summer’s Gone: Until I put this list together, I hadn’t heard of this, but Paul had a #11 hit with it in 1960.
8. The Vogues, "Greenfields": The folk group The Brothers Four had a big hit with this in 1960, and The Vogues covered it in 1969. It was written in 1956 by Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dare, and Frank Miller. The Vogues’ version reached #19 on the Adult Contemporary chart in 1969.
9. Michael Jackson, "Farewell My Summer Love": This was a big hit for The King of Pop in the UK, where it reached #7, but barely made the Top 40 here. It was the title track from his 1973 album, but not released until 1984. Michael was 15 when it was recorded, before he started with the plastic surgery…
10. The Beach Boys, "All Summer Long": I’m including this because it was the last song played in the 1973 movie American Graffiti, as Richard Dreyfuss took off to go to college, thus ending his summer. The movie was set in 1962, two years before the song was released…

And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for August 31, 2020.