Sunday Night Journal — November 18, 2007
Mark Steyn (and Allan Bloom) on Pop Music & Culture

Speaking of Women and Music

I was going to post something by and about Judee Sill as a follow-up to the surprisingly active discussion about female musicians. Sill is one of the major figures in this category, even though she only released two full albums. But Daniel tells me he's going to post something about her on the Caelum et Terra blog soon (I'll link to it here when he does—I'm not sure how many people read both). So I'll await his post, and have thought of something else that rather knocks me out.

If you've watched any football this fall, you've probably heard a bit of this song: it makes a ten or fifteen second appearance in that insurance commercial that features people doing nice things for other people (which of course is the only thing insurance companies are interested in). I noticed it on the second or third hearing of the commercial, and on the fourth or fifth I thought "That's rather nice—I wonder who it is." And then I realized that I was refraining from muting the commercial just so I could hear the ten or fifteen seconds, and at that point I went looking for it.

It's a group called Hem, and the song is "The Part Where You Let Go." I think it's great:

I don't think the group produced the video, so it may not stay around permanently. In my search for information about the song, I think I read somewhere that it was written by one of the male members of the band. But I don't think it would be the same with a male vocal.

I also found out that a lot of people have sought it out because of that commercial, as you can tell from this on eMusic. Here is the band's web site—you can hear more, and buy the cd, there.

Pre-TypePad

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