On the All Things Considered Turntable, we catch up with our in-house music connoisseurs to hear what they’ve been listening to lately. This week, GBH News anchor and New England Music Hall of Famer Henry Santoro is back with his fall playlist.
He joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to drop the needle on the three songs topping his playlist. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.
Arun Rath: Henry, welcome back.
Henry Santoro: I’m so happy to be here, Arun. It’s so great to see you. And I love this segment, myself; I love to hear what other people are listening to.
Rath: This is awesome, it’s always a light. Let’s jump right in. What do you have for song number one?
Santoro: Song number one is called “Stay In Your Lane,” and it’s by this woman named Courtney Barnett. Now, she’s an Australian-based singer, songwriter and musician, mostly known for her deadpan singing style. Her lyrics are very clever; they ramble.
I’ve been following her since her debut in 2012. A friend of mine turned me on to her, and I’ve been a fan ever since. She’s very, very great — nominated for best new artist at the 58th Annual Grammys. She had been lying low for a few years, but last month, she released a new single. It’s called “Stay In Your Lane,” and it’s got this very catchy beat, and yet it still has her signature drawl vocals. It’s really a great tune.
[“Stay In Your Lane” — Courtney Barnett]
Rath: That is awesome.
Santoro: It moves. I mean, that’s what I like about her music — that it does move. I will say this: The video is a bit creepy. It takes place in some kind of surgical ward, with her performing while wearing a bloodstained hospital gown. Other patients are mingling around this war, and they’re wrapped in bandages, but clearly, she should have stayed in her lane. That’s a very good representation of who Courtney Barnett is. She’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s really great.
Rath: Love her. Thanks for introducing me. She reminds me a little bit of St. Vincent, both in the kind of really fresh, uncompressed sound, but also those lyrics.
Santoro: Yeah, very good point. Very good comparison.
Number two is also from Australia — a band called Tame Impala. Now, they’ve been around for quite a while, but it’s really not a band at all. Tame Impala is the project of this guy named Kevin Parker.
He’s a singer. He plays many, many instruments. He writes, he records, he performs, and he produces all the project’s music in his own studio. But when on tour, he does put a band together. We used to play Tame Impala on my old radio station, WFNX. They played Boston Calling a few years ago.
Kevin’s fifth album is called “Deadbeat,” and it was released earlier this year. The song that really jumped out at me is the song called “Dracula.” It’s a song about embracing the night, partying and living in the moment. It uses the vampire or Dracula metaphor to avoid the realities of all the crap that we go through in daylight hours. It almost feels like it’s a follow-up to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Let’s give it a listen.
[“Dracula” — Tame Impala]
Rath: Again, awesome. This is great.
Santoro: Well, Kana, one of your producers, said, “We want to know what your fall playlist is.” And it’s all really feel-good music. It’s stuff that you can blast in the car, you can blast it at home. You’ll find yourself dancing around the kitchen or the living room while you’re making dinner or getting things ready. It’s just a great, great song to listen to.
It’s one of those songs that you’ll listen to over and over again, and if WFNX were still around, we would have this song in heavy rotation. It’s that catchy and that good.
Rath: These are bright and catchy songs, but Henry, there’s a little dark edge in them, too.
Santoro: Well, that’s sort of the rock way, these days.
Rath: Yeah, well, we need that.
Santoro: We do need that, yeah. I mean, we’re seeing a lot — you know what we’re going through. You’re a news guy, I’m a news guy, and we’re in the trenches every day. We need music as an escape, and there are certain types of music that we can latch onto, and these are the types that we do latch onto.
Rath: Does that hold true for pick number three?
Santoro: Pretty much, because this is a protest song. The first time you had me on, we were talking about protest songs. The song is called “Church & State,” and there’s so much that we can say about the performer Brandi Carlile. I have our higher education reporter, Kirk Carapezza, to thank for opening my eyes to Brandi Carlile. For some reason, she was never really on my radar. She is now.
Her new album, “Returning to Myself,” is in heavy rotation at my house. She falls into this folk rock, alternative country, Americana, classic rock kind of category. She’s won 11 Grammys, she’s got two Emmys, and she’s been nominated for an Academy Award.
And the work that she’s done with the LGBTQ community is unmatched. Her song “Church & State” is just awesome. It’s a protest song that really takes aim at the Christian nationalism that we’re hearing a lot about right now. So, picture yourself tooling down the highway with the song playing at peak volume.
[“Church & State” — Brandi Carlile]
Rath: Henry, that’s some great rock-and-roll. I haven’t heard of her at all.
Santoro: A little-known fact about this song — she wrote it on Election Night 2024 as a reflection on the events that were about to unfold that we’re dealing with now. It really has a deep, deep historical moment to it. She also performed it on “Saturday Night Live” earlier this month, and that really catapulted the song into the stratosphere.
But she borrowed the church and state quote from Thomas Jefferson, and she does hold out hope in the song, though. She does say, “We believe.” She does say, “We will find a way.” And that’s Brandi Carlile. She’s just very positive in her feelings, her emotions and her attitudes.
Keep in mind that Brandi Carlile is bringing this song and her music to TD Garden on Feb. 12. I know Kirk is going to be there; he’s trying to get me to come. But tickets are still available, and she’s really a great, great performer.
Rath: Well, I’m going to have to thank Kirk for introducing you to Brandi to introduce her to me, because I love this great music.
Santoro: It’s great, great stuff. You know, if you ever get a personal email from me on my personal account, underneath my name, it says, “Listen to new things often.” That quote, that phrase has been a part of my email moniker for four years, and I hope that everybody does that: Listen to new things often.
