Hamilton - "The Schuyler Sisters"

Today is the midterm election. A little levity and some minor political affiliation necessary.

Broadway Boys Luca Padovan (School of Rock), Joshua Colley (Les Miserables) and Douglas Baldeo (Kinky Boots) are looking for a mind at work, work in their rendition of 'The Schuyler Sisters' and knock it out of the park at the Miscast 2016 Event.

So today with hope and heartbreak in equal cups, I choose Luca Padovan, Joshua Colley, and Douglas Baldeo’s version of “The Schuyler Sisters” from Hamilton as my, make a break, flip those seats, jump up and shout song for a, is the system broken or working perfectly, change the dice, the dynamics aren’t what they should be Tuesday.

Sara Bareilles - "Love On The Rocks"

Then again, there are days when you’ve hit the rocks, you’ve crashed on the shore, and then you just need to get the saltwater out of your lungs. Breathe deeply my friends, the storm has passed, for the moment.

So today, with seawater and salt in my hair, I choose Sara Bareilles - “Love on the Rocks” as my, get yourself together, the pendulum swings, off to the races, song for a, little victories, major hurts, broken things can heal, Monday.

The Beatles & Sheryl Crow - "A Hard Day's Night"

Because there are days you just have to get through so you can get home and back into bed.

Today I choose Sheryl Crow’s version of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” as my, go on, through the mire and the muck, each step a victory, song for a, press onward soldier, believe in that hope, one more simple song Friday.

Nina Simone & Doris Day - "Something Wonderful"

I have been in love with this song for years. Honestly, I was never really one for the musical “The King & I” so I’d overlooked this song. Then after performing in a show based on the music Rogers & Hammerstein and hearing the incomparable Alli Mauzey sing this number night after night I fell in love. I heard every lyric, understood every word, felt myself living the life this song describes.

Maybe it was Mauzey’s talent, or our amazing voice teacher on the piano putting the song right in our hearts, but this song will always be the ultimate song about loves dedication. I won’t forget that show, this song, or her voice singing it. Unfortunately I don’t have any footage of that show, but I DO have my memories, and the closest I can come to the depth of Mauzey’s performance is the delicate trill of Doris Day, blended with the tempered deep urgency of Nina Simone.

So today, with loves dedication washing over me, I choose Nina Simone & Doris Day’s versions of "Something Wonderful" by Rogers & Hammerstein as my, a million dreams, believe in them, that’s enough, song for a, lift him up, hold him close, need him, song for a wonderful, wonderful Thursday.

Annie Lennox - "I Put A Spell On You" & Danny Elfman - "This Is Halloween"

Scottish singer, songwriter, political activist and philanthropist Annie Lennox has been making waves for decades. It’s clear to see that we are ALL under her spell. After achieving moderate success in the late 1970s as part of the new wave band The Tourists, she and fellow musician David A. Stewart went on to achieve major international success in the 1980s as Eurythmics. With a total of eight Brit Awards, which includes being named Best British Female Artist a record six times, Lennox has been named the "Brits Champion of Champions".

Lennox embarked on a solo career in 1992 with her debut album, Diva, which produced several hit singles including "Why" and "Walking on Broken Glass". To date, she has released six solo studio albums and a compilation album, The Annie Lennox Collection (2009). Aside from her eight Brit Awards, she has also collected four Grammy Awards and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2002, Lennox received a Billboard Century Award; the highest accolade from Billboard Magazine. In 2004, she won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Into the West", written for the soundtrack to the feature film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

In addition to her career as a musician, Lennox is also a political and social activist, notable for raising money and awareness for HIV/ AIDS as it affects women and children in Africa. In 2011, Lennox was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for her "tireless charity campaigns and championing of humanitarian causes". On 4 June 2012 she performed at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace. Lennox performed the song "Little Bird" during the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony in London on 12 August 2012.

Lennox has been named "The Greatest White Soul Singer Alive" by VH1 and one of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. In 2012, she was rated No. 22 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music. She has earned the distinction of "most successful female British artist in UK music history" due to her commercial success since the early 1980s. As of June 2008, including her work within Eurythmics, Lennox had sold over 80 million records worldwide.

At the 2015 Ivor Novello Awards, Lennox was made a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, the first female to receive the honour.] In 2017, Lennox was appointed Glasgow Caledonian University's first female chancellor, taking over the role from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. Lennox's vocal range is contralto.

Lennox's longtime support for LGBT rights have helped garner a significant following within the community. According to The Advocate, "her distinctive voice and provocative stage persona have made Lennox a longtime gay icon." With Eurythmics' music videos earning regular rotation on MTV in the 1980s, Lennox took part in the shaping of popular culture alongside other gay icons such as Boy George, Madonna, Morrissey, and Michael Stipe.

Known for her androgynous look in the 1980s – first widely seen in the 1983 music video for "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" where she had close-cropped, orange-coloured hair, and wore a man's suit brandishing a cane, a video which made her a household name – Lennox was viewed as the female version of Boy George, and during the Second British Invasion spurred by MTV, Newsweek magazine ran an issue which featured Lennox and Boy George on the cover of its 23 January 1984 edition with the caption Britain Rocks America – Again.

She’s been blazing trails for decades, and we’ve been following her like a star. Clearly we are under her spell.

So today, I choose a duo of SpooOOooky songs: Annie Lennox’s version of "I Put A Spell On You" & Danny Elfman’s "This Is Halloween" as my, remember and laugh, spook and scare, scream and cry, songs for a, wild, wondrous, and wicked Halloween Wednesday.

Bobby "Boris" Picket & the Crypt Kickers - "Monster Mash"

"Monster Mash" is a 1962 novelty song and the best-known song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. The song was released as a single on Gary S. Paxton's Garpax Records label in August 1962 along with a full-length LP called The Original Monster Mash, which contained several other monster-themed tunes. The "Monster Mash" single was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 20–27 of that year, just before Halloween. It has been a perennial holiday favorite ever since.

Pickett was an aspiring actor who sang with a band called the Cordials at night while going to auditions during the day. One night, while performing with his band, Pickett did a monologue in imitation of horror movie actor Boris Karloff while performing the Diamonds' "Little Darlin'". The audience loved it, and fellow band member Lenny Capizzi encouraged Pickett to do more with the Karloff imitation.

Pickett and Capizzi composed "Monster Mash" and recorded it with Gary S. Paxton, pianist Leon Russell, Johnny MacRae, Rickie Page, and Terry Berg, credited as "The Crypt-Kickers". (Mel Taylor, drummer for the Ventures, is sometimes credited with playing on the record as well, while Russell, who arrived late for the session, appears on the single's B-side, "Monster Mash Party".) The song was partially inspired by Paxton's earlier novelty hit "Alley Oop", as well as by the Mashed Potato dance craze of the era. A variation on the Mashed Potato was danced to "Monster Mash", in which the footwork was the same but Frankenstein-style monster gestures were made with the arms and hands.

The song is narrated by a mad scientist whose monster, late one evening, rises from his slab to perform a new dance. The dance becomes "the hit of the land" when the scientist throws a party for other monsters. The producers came up with several low-budget but effective sound effects for the recording. For example, the sound of a coffin opening was imitated by a rusty nail being pulled out of a board. The sound of a cauldron bubbling was actually water being bubbled through a straw, and the chains rattling were simply chains being dropped on a tile floor. In addition to narrating the song in the Karloff voice, Pickett also impersonated fellow horror film actor Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula with the line, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania Twist?"

So today, full of laughing memories, I choose Bobby "Boris" Picket & the Crypt Kickers’ "Monster Mash" as my, laugh your way through it, scared and excited, memory lane here we come, song for a, follow me home, with the porch light on, check my candy please, Monday.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Symphony no. 1 in D major.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach  also formerly spelled Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, was a German Classical period musician and composer, the fifth child and second (surviving) son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. His second name was given in honor of his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann, a friend of Johann Sebastian Bach.

C. P. E. Bach was an influential composer working at a time of transition between his father's baroque style and the classical and romantic styles that followed it. His personal approach, an expressive and often turbulent one known as empfindsamer Stil or 'sensitive style', applied the principles of rhetoric and drama to musical structures. Bach's dynamism stands in deliberate contrast to the more mannered galant style also then in vogue.

To distinguish him from his brother Johann Christian, the "London Bach," who at this time was music master to the Queen of England, C. P. E. Bach was known as the "Berlin Bach" during his residence in that city, and later as the "Hamburg Bach" when he succeeded Telemann as Kapellmeister there. To his contemporaries, he was known simply as Emanuel.

Today, this lesser known Bach flew in my window, and I was thrilled to learn something new. Shouldn’t we all keep learning.

So today, with new things in front of me, I choose Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s “Symphony no. 1 in D major” as my, find something wonderful, litttle miracles, every tiny dream, song for a, go out there and get ‘em, goals are just dreams you make sure you can accomplish, find your guiding star, Thursday.

Howard Shore - "Lothlórien"

I’m still riding the high from this weekend. I banded together with some of my very favorite people and made ridiculous costumes so we could become the characters from the Lord of the Rings and win a charity dodgeball tournament. It was epic. So this soundtrack has been on heavy rotation, at least it’s been on in the background as the movies played and we crafted. It was an iconic team matched up with iconic movies, helped in no small part by this incredible composer.

He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. He won three Academy Awards for his work on the first trilogy, with one being for the original song "Into the West", an award he shared with Eurythmics lead vocalist Annie Lennox and writer/producer Fran Walsh, who wrote the lyrics. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg, having scored all but one of his films since 1979.

Shore has also composed a few concert works including one opera, The Fly, based on the plot of Cronenberg's 1986 film premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on July 2, 2008,[2] a short piece Fanfare for the Wanamaker Organ and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a short overture for the Swiss 21st Century Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to his three Academy Awards, Shore has also won three Golden Globe Awards and four Grammy Awards

So today, with elf ears and crowns on my desk, I choose Howard Shore’s “Lothlórien” from the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Soundtrack as my, be who you want to be, learn that your perception of yourself is the only one that matters, give yourself the gift of forgiveness, song for a, beautiful and terrible, hold the light in your hand, take every chance you can to be as amazing as possible - you’ll never regret it, Monday.