Justin Timberlake & Carey Mulligan "500 Miles"

Well, I don't want to give too much away about the mvyradio Top 25 of 2013, but I WILL do a couple of posts, leading up the countdown which will start on Monday.

Every year there are a few surprises on the voting list.  Some more surprising than others.

We did have an internal discussion here at mvyradio about whether or not we should include the "Inside Llewyn Davis" soundtrack on the list.

On the "pro" side, it is a really excellent album.  Typical T Bone Burnett brilliance.

On the "con" side, the album consists mainly of covers and previously released songs.  In the past, we have excluded "covers" albums from the Top 25.

But in this case, the question was moot:  "Inside Llewyn Davis" received ZERO votes from MVY listeners for the Top 25 of 2013.

I find this a bit perplexing, and I don't really have an explanation for it.

We offered "Inside Llewyn Davis" as a gift for a donation to Friends of mvyradio, and it went quickly.  The album---and the movie---are getting rave reviews.  Folks are calling in about the single "Fare Thee Well."  Clearly, people do like this record out there in listener-land.

Zero votes?

I can't explain it.  But you won't hear it on the countdown next week.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Oscar Isaac & Marcus Mumford "Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song)"

I nearly just posted this as my Facebook status:

I Googled "Dink."

It sounds positively dirty, doesn't it?  Or at least, completely incomprehensible.

The soundtrack to the forthcoming Coen Brothers' film "Inside Llewyn Davis" includes a version of a tune entitled "Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song)."  The soundtrack has both a newly recorded version by Oscar Isaac and Marcus Mumford, as well as an older version by Dave Van Ronk, who's memoirs apparently form a loose basis for the film.

Once again, I was faced with the "Joseph Arthur" dilemma, of trying to decide if I should put it on the playlist that the MVY DJs use as "Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song)" or just "Fare Thee Well."

Growing up, the ONLY use of the work "dink" in my neighborhood, was as a slightly toned down synonym of "dick" that was okay to use as a 4th Grader.

I did learn later in life that "Dink" has some other connotations, including being a military acronym for"Desperately In Need of Knowledge" and the census/statistician acronym for "Double Income, No Kids."

But I realized that despite knowing that "Fare Thee Well" was known as "Dink's Song," (via Jeff Buckley's version), I had no idea why it was called "Dink's Song."

And that's when I Googled "dink" just praying that I didn't get a computer porn virus the way I did the day I Googled "Edith Head."

Though the song has been around for a couple hundred years, the first recording of it was by John Lomax in 1908.  He was doing field recordings of African American levee-builders in Texas, and made the first known recording of this song, as sung by a woman know as "Dink."

Hence, "Dink's Song."

So, is it more likely that a DJ is going to play the song and discuss turn-of-the-century ethnomusicologist's recordings?  Or that they'll play the song and be tempted to release their inner 4th-Grader by saying "Dink dink dink dink dink dink dink . . ." on the air?

Yeah, you know it, I left "Dink" out of the track listing.


Hear the song on Youtube.