Here's a little uplifting bop for your weekend. I don't usually love Valerie June's idiosyncratic vocal style, but I still appreciate her and listen to every record. I loved the sound of this song, so I followed along with the lyrics. "Are you ready?"

Are you ready to see
A world where we could all be free?
As branches of an endless tree
May we seek and find it
Although we may not all agree
Still live together peacefully

Watching the news almost every night
Telling the stories of all that ain't right
But what could be done from a house and a home?
Sink in the sofa and feel so alone
Getting the courage to do something small
Lifting the spirits of all that you saw
Feeling the tiniest spark in your heart
'Cause only an ember can light up the dark

Are you ready?
Are you ready?
People get, people get, people get
Ready, yeah
Ready, yeah
Ready, yeah

Tell me, my brother, how love goes around
Neighbor to neighbor, we create a town
City to country, a nation is formed
Person to person, a kindness is born
There is a beauty in the number one
Just like the moon and just like the sun
So if you're on the couch and you're feeling alone
May you feel moved after hearing this song\

Prompt: What’s the last song you discovered and loved instantly?

I finally got around to listening to the new Viagra Boys today. This song has just about everything I love in a rock song... big beat, wit, love, anger, noise, WWII facts. Good shit.

Did you know that the last Japanese soldiers surrendered in 1998?

Prompt: What’s a lyric that resonates deeply with you and why?

A 40-year-old song for our moment. History repeats, I suppose. This song blew my middle-school brain when I heard it in Pump Up the Volume. Great movie, great song. Piss-poor world.

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Sunday jazz. This melody stays stuck in my head. Welcome to the club.

The kid was enjoying this one on the way home from daycare. All time bop.

Prompt: What’s a hidden gem or underrated song you love?

This is a hymn, slam poem, hue and cry, call to arms for our present moment. In a just world, people would scream-sing this song on street corners. But there it sits with 5,500 plays on Spotify. He's writing about his specific grad school experiences, but the theme is universal for anyone toiling in an unjust system. "I'm still sublimating my lust for life, unjustly!"

Prompt: What’s a guilty pleasure song?

Guilty pleasure is just a song that makes you happy, right? Regardless of genre or expected taste. Well, I get quite a bit of enjoyment from old timey songs about food. There are so many jazz, blues, early rock and rockabilly, and doo wop songs about food, and they are so much fun. A lot (most?) of them contain some kind of sexual innuendo, and most of them are up-tempo danceable tunes. And the titles... "Gimme a Pigfoot," "Save the Bones for Henry Jones," "Coffee and Reefer," "It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion," "Get 'Em from the Peanut Man (Hot Nuts)," and so on. I have a whole playlist of them. I'm not really guilty about it, though. Maybe I should be?

Prompt: What’s a song you’ve had on repeat recently?

Dunno if this counts cause I haven't actually been listening to the song, but this one has been rattling around in my head for the past few days. Evan Dando singing a Florida Georgia Line song. Catchy as hell chorus.

I’ve been watching season 1 of Silo, which features Common in a starring role. It’s had me remembering some of his music I love. Here’s one featuring the one and only Jill Scott.

Prompt: What’s your favorite collaboration between artists?

Just getting to my Crucial Track after family time all day. I woke up to YouTube showing me Rufus Wainwright and Sara Bareilles singing She Used to Be Mine on PBS, which is a transcendent performance of that song. So I thought awesome, there’s my collab pick.

Turns out it’s not on any other streaming services. Bummer.

I thought about boygenius, Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks, Middle Brother, Joy Oladokun and a couple of different collaborators. But I settled on Dungeonesse.

Jenn Wasner is in most bands, I think. Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes, even Bon freakin’ Iver. But she also had this fabulous little collab with Jon Ehrens back in 2012/13.

It’s a no skips album for me. I just love it. Hope you enjoy the throwback synth pop/r&b vibes.