Playlist (and a few samples) from Wednesday's Radio Show

In honor of tonight's lunar eclipse, the last to occur until 2010, I decided to devote my very first "Play It and Be Darned" radio show to songs about Earth's closest neighbor.

In case you forgot: The hour-long show is available worldwide over the Internet through the web site of Orchard Radio. (The Quicktime plug-in is required). It airs every Wednesday at 10 a.m. Eastern/New York time. If you are unsure about what time that would be in your neck of the woods, try this "Time Zone Converter" link.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. And while there were plenty of first-time jitters and problems (where is that turntable anyway?), I managed to put together a decent broadcast. I've decided that, much like a musical version of NPR's This American Life, each show will focus on a theme. You'll have to tune in next week to find out what will be my next theme.

Anyway, here's the playlist. Of course, you can play (and download) the songs with the blue links.

"Valentine Moon" featuring Sam Brown	Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
Virginia Moon	Foo Fighters
The Whole Of The Moon	The Waterboys
Pink Moon	Nick Drake
Children of the Moon	Alan Parsons Project
Goodnight Moon	Shivaree
Walking On The Moon	Sting and The Police
Feather Moon	Vienna Teng
Under The Cherry Moon	Prince
Bad Moon Rising	Creedence Clearwater Revival
I Wish I Was The Moon	Neko Case
Moon River	Audrey Hepburn
Harvest Moon	Neil Young

A few notes: Of course, there were other songs I could have selected (and had indeed brought with me), but there were time limitations. I am happy, however, I played most of my personal favorite moon songs – some mainstream, some not so mainstream.

Miscellaneous facts:
•Did you know that David Paton ("Children of the Moon") is one of six lead vocalists credited on the Eye in the Sky (1982) album?

•According to Sting, "Walking on the Moon" is a song about the feeling of being in love. It hit No. 1 in the U.K. in 1979, but never made the charts in the states

•Teng's sister once criticized her about "Feather Moon," saying it droned on and on about breathing in and breathing out. Vienna reportedly responded indignantly: "That's the WHOLE POINT."

•Harvest Moon (1992) was intended as a semi-sequel to Young's classic Harvest. In fact, many of the musicians played on both albums.

•The co-composer of "Under the Cherry Moon" is listed as John L. Nelson, the purple one's father.

•You will not find Hepburn's version of "Moon River" on the soundtrack album to Breakfast at Tiffanys (1961). In fact, it was almost cut from the film until Hepburn supposedly launched a few well-placed expletives at studio execs. The song was composed to fit the limited vocal range of Hepburn, who famously had her vocals dubbed in My Fair Lady (1964) by Marni Nixon.