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atcl.bsky.social
All The City Lights
@atcl.bsky.social
770 followers 960 following 4.4K posts
Fan of music, cargo bikes, the #EastBay, and humor. Not a fan of the seemingly inexorable slide into fascism. #ShoupPilled. Follow me if you want to have far too many song-a-day #MusicChallenge posts sliding into your timeline.
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atcl.bsky.social
You just died.

The 6th picture in your phone gallery is what killed you.
November 27, 2025 at 4:37 AM
atcl.bsky.social
Did you all want to see screencaps of my full #TheTwen2ie5 HM submission by any chance?
November 25, 2025 at 5:55 PM
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#readandplay (540)
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“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

Read 📚 & Play🎶
Quote attributed to Patton Oswalt: "When I was 25, all I did was just scream, ‘Sellout! Fucking sellouts! Corporate sellout! Industry bullshit!’ I looked back on it and I realized, 'Oh, I was screaming sellout because nobody wanted to buy what I was selling.'"
November 25, 2025 at 5:37 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Here's what I had to say about it back in 2021:
1. “Paprika,” Japanese Breakfast Sometimes it’s a surprise to take stock of the music that you’ve listened to over the last 12 months and gauge what rose to the top, and sometimes you hear a song one time and say, “That’s going to be my song of the year.” This is a case of the latter. Man, what a song. I don’t even care that the lyrical message is basically, “It sure is great writing songs that people love and relate to (but also it can be a a bit lonely)!” I’ll buy that. Especially if you’re writing songs this well. To my ears, it hearkens back a time when Balkan brass bands and highly literate chamber pop were all the rage, but my 8-year-old daughter also is smitten with this track, so its appeal can’t just be all mid-2000s nostalgia.
November 25, 2025 at 5:30 PM
atcl.bsky.social
It has continued to grow on me more and more since I wrote this back in 2022:
5. “A Feeling That Never Came,” First Aid Kit I-I-I-IV-V. Chord progressions don’t get much simpler than that. And there is nothing more to this song, chordally. It’s the same four-bar pattern over and over and over again. The song spends 75% of its time on the tonic, for crying out loud. And yet it’s brilliant. The Swedish folk-pop duo keeps things fresh by gradually layering on more and more stuff—strings, tambourine, hand claps, crunchy guitar, bass and drums, different rhythmic accents, different fills, different lyrical ideas—but the real masterstroke here is the sweet vocal harmonies. Two melodic lines, swirling around each other, weaving the perfect sequence of intervals to complement those simple, simple chords. I’m putting this on the imaginary 25th anniversary Lilith Fair promotional sampler CD I’m constructing in my head, too.
November 24, 2025 at 7:28 PM
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“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

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(From "On the Origin of the Species," published on this date in 1859.)
Quote attributed to Charles Darwin: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
November 24, 2025 at 6:19 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Here is what I had to say about it last year (with commentary from my then-11-year-old daughter in orange):
1. “Birds of a Feather,” Billie Eilish What do the all hits by female pop stars in my Top 5 have in common? Majority plays on my favorite radio station? Well, yes, but also they’ve all got a vein of harsh resentment barely hidden under a covering of genuine sadness and vulnerability, don’t they? It’s been a long time since I had to deal with major heartbreak, thank God, but back in the day, that’s pretty much how I played it. So, yeah, I can relate to these songs—none quite as well as Billie’s. We’re not breaking any new ground with the chord progression. The repeated four-bar I-vi-ii-V pattern means it’d be not-that-difficult to do a “Birds of a Feather”/”Hungry Heart” mashup, to give just one example. But what a satisfying, beautiful, nostalgic progression it is. I probably don’t talk enough in my little write-ups about vocal performance. I fancy myself a singer, so you’d think I’d pay more attention to delivery, but Billie really does nail the vulnerable-yet-resentful vibe I was talking about. She’s also very proud of being able to belt out a D for the first time in her recording career. (Like I said, high-register singing is a trend I’d love to see continue in 2025.) What elevates this into the No. 1 position, though, is once again instrumentation. It’s that noodly little electronic appendage that comes in after the aforementioned high D. It sounds a bit like a theremin, although I suspect it’s one of the many theremin-esque alternatives. You’ll have to ask Finneas. Either way, good job, my man: I look forward to whatever that thing is making its entrance every single time.
November 23, 2025 at 5:59 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Let me know the way before there's hell to pay
Give me room to lay the law and let me go
I've got to make a play to make my lover stay
So what would an angel say? The devil wants to knooooooow!!!
November 23, 2025 at 5:09 AM
atcl.bsky.social
As my No. 1 song of 2020, this was the centerpiece of my pandemic soundtrack. Here's what I wrote about it at the time:
1. “Jump Rope Gazers,” The Beths I do not know what a ” jump rope gazer” is. Perhaps someone who just watches other people jumping rope … in the middle of the night? Um … look, it doesn’t matter. This is a gorgeous song, and it marks an early, dramatic turning point in the album that shares its name, wherein you realize that the New Zealand band isn’t just going to repeat the snappy highs of its debut. This is a polished, hooky, mid-tempo, guitar-pop love song that’s just begging to travel back in time to 1988-1990 so it can be played on the radio alongside “The Flame” and “Heart of the Matter.”
November 22, 2025 at 4:28 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Never had to get out the pipe pliers to open a wine bottle before.
November 22, 2025 at 2:57 AM
atcl.bsky.social
Back in 2022 it nabbed the title of my favorite song of the year. Here is what I said at the time:
1. “Speeding Towards a Wall,” Graham Hunt Despite all the contenders, this is the piece of guitar-driven, melodic rock designed to appeal to dads and set off their ’90s nostalgia neurons that landed at No. 1. I’m so happy I stumbled upon Hunt, who lives in Wisconsin and, as far as I can tell, doesn’t really perform outside Madison and Milwaukee or get written about outside those city’s alt-news-and-culture publications. If anyone on this list deserves a bigger audience, it’s him, though. I’m not the only guy out there who loves some shuffling Midwest low-fi power-pop with neo-psychedelic overtones. There are dozens of us. Dozens! Furthermore, I feel like this song’s resigned sense of impending disaster—the chorus is surely a Wile E. Coyote reference, right?—is thematically appropriate as we barrel headlong into 2023.
November 21, 2025 at 6:20 PM
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#readandplay (536)
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“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

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Anonymous quote: "Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand."
November 21, 2025 at 5:24 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Here's what I had to say about it back in 2000. That Jimmy Fallon performance is still MIA. All Haim's other appearances on The Tonight Show are on YouTube, before and after this one. Weird!
9. “The Steps,” Haim I watched the Haim sisters perform this on Jimmy Fallon (a video that is inexplicably no longer available on the internets), and I would just like to know where I apply to be the slightly husky white dude who plays simple chords in tempo on a 12-string for this song, because it is my dream job. This tune did not have to grow on me at all—I fell in love with it instantly, from the first cracks of snare drum.
November 20, 2025 at 8:23 PM
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Posting this bit ☝️ a 2nd time so I can experience the disappointment of no one even acknowledging it all over again.

Anyway, here's what I said about this little-known tune a year ago, along with commentary by my then-11-year-old daughter (in orange):
4. "Good Luck, Babe!," Chappell Roan I, for one, welcome our new upper-register soprano pop overlords. As a dude with a relatively high tenor voice, I’ve been able to sing along with every female pop star in her own register for the last decade. Not so on the chorus of “Good Luck, Babe!” I hope the trend catches on. I also just want to say that this is an absolutely bonkers way to end an ostensible radio single. Like, “We’ll HAL 9000 the hook to really drive home the emotional apocalypse” is a total Flaming Lips move. The kids are all saying this. I can kind of sing the chorus—just maybe some parts an octave lower. Anyhoooooooooo, Chappell Roan is pretty awesome. Google can’t say her name, but nonetheless. (She means that the Google Assistant on the smart device in our kitchen can’t pronounce Chappell Roan correctly.) Oh, and Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is good, too. I really like some songs on there.
November 19, 2025 at 5:22 PM
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#readandplay (533)
#MusicChallenge
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“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

Read 📚 & Play🎶
Quote attributed to musical humorist Tom Lehrer (from the introduction to "National Brotherhood Week"): “I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!”
November 18, 2025 at 4:59 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Here is what I had to say about the song in 2021:
These two make so much sense together, it’s surprising that it took them this long to collaborate on something. Too bad it’s just a one-off single. It’s also a shame they couldn’t find a way to make the chorus bigger. A few dozen French horns and an 80-inch gong would have cinched it.
November 17, 2025 at 7:42 PM
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Here's what I said about COUSIN's opening track in 2023:
If you’re going to title a song “Infinite Surprise,” you’d better make it at least a bit unpredictable. To help in that endeavor, Wilco enlisted Cate Le Bon, whose production certainly takes this song in unexpected directions. If the rest of the Chicago band’s 13th album never quite reaches the same level of disorienting weirdness, it was still enough for most dad-rock commentators to declare that Wilco had rediscovered its “experimental stage” (after revisiting alt-country on last year’s Cruel Country). To be clear, “Infinite Surprise” joins the pantheon of great Wilco opening tracks alongside “Misunderstood,” “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart,” and “Art of Almost.” It’s that good. But while each of those songs built to some sort of breaking point, Le Bon’s production teases that sort of cacophony without every arriving at a release. The incessant ticking of a stopwatch, 60 Minutes style, that springs the song into action—and seems to promise a commentary on harried modern life or the relentless march of time or some such—is quickly buried beneath a mix of whale-song synths. All of this musical frustration and uncertainty and mystery complements the lyrical themes of a song that, at its core, asks whether it’s still possible for a relationship to surprise you after years of comfortable routines.
November 16, 2025 at 6:25 PM
atcl.bsky.social
#readandplay (529)
#MusicChallenge
#MusicSky

“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

Read 📚 & Play🎶
Quote attributed to Michael Douglas: "I'm impressed with the people from Chicago. Hollywood is hype, New York is talk, Chicago is work."
November 14, 2025 at 5:15 PM
atcl.bsky.social
#readandplay (526)
#MusicChallenge
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“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

Read 📚 & Play🎶
Quote attributed to Fleetwood Mac songwriter/keyboardist Christine McVie: "You can only mend the vase so many times before you have to chuck it away."
November 11, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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#readandplay (522)
#MusicChallenge
#MusicSky

“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

Read 📚 & Play🎶
Quote attributed to arch cynic H.L. Mencken: "It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office."
November 7, 2025 at 5:17 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Well somebody obviously watched BRAVEHEART last night.

Source: www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...
Mike Johnson quoted in a S.F. Chronicle story on passage of Prop 50 saying: “We’re going to fight like warrior poets in California.”
November 5, 2025 at 9:23 PM
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#readandplay (519)
#MusicChallenge
#MusicSky

“No rules. The only limit is our imagination.”

Read 📚 & Play🎶
Quote attributed to singer and activist Nina Simone: "I CHOOSE to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself. That, to me, is my duty. And at this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when everyday is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved."
November 4, 2025 at 5:12 PM
atcl.bsky.social
How is your Halloween going?
November 1, 2025 at 3:22 AM
atcl.bsky.social
Oh, OK
October 31, 2025 at 5:15 PM
atcl.bsky.social
Just like the stores are already taking down their Halloween stuff and getting up their holiday displays, it's time to start thinking about next month's cover song #MusicChallenge. Start lining up now for #5CoverSongsBlackFriday.
#5CoverSongsBlackFriday #NewMusicChallenge Post a cover song each day from 11/26/25 - 11/30/25. Each song should feature something related to -buying/selling -a store or mall -waiting in line in the artist name/song title/lyrics
October 31, 2025 at 4:00 PM