PictureJoe Strummer & The Mescaleros
One of my favorite new songs of the summer is actually a six(!) year old tune that comes via one of my favorite new television programs of the summer: John From Cincinnati. If you haven’t caught the first season of this wonderfully bizarre series on HBO, you’ll probably have another chance soon because the last episode airs this Sunday and I’m sure they’ll re-run the series in the fall. I won’t even attempt to describe the show except to say that it is hilarious, uplifting, sad, strangely sacred, poetic, inspiring, confounding and mesmerizing nearly every week.  What really clinches it for me is the somewhat obscure music that some music director dug up and married to the opening title sequence. Dodging the obvious surf or beach-themed music choices like Dick Dale, the Tornadoes or Beach Boys (already being wonderfully utilized in the opening credits for another HBO series: Big Love with the song “God Only Knows”), etc., I was pleasantly surprised to discover Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros setting the stage each week for John From Cincinnati, with their song: “Johnny Appleseed.” What made the discovery all the more enjoyable — beside the fact that I think the song is brilliant and wonderfully catchy in a quirky sort of way — is that Joe Strummer, someone who had more or less disappeared “under the radar,” and in fact died, was the artist responsible for the song I found myself whistling every Monday morning. It almost felt like Joe was somehow reaching out from beyond the grave to make one last stand… one final bid for recognition and notoriety as someone other than the founding member of “the only band that matters.” Perhaps we all owe Joe and his lesser known group of musicians a second listen. The long overdue Happy Medium Song of the Day is “Johnny Appleseed” by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros from the album Global A Go-Go.