{"id":1770,"date":"2019-01-04T08:55:07","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T08:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2019-01-02T14:18:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T14:18:53","slug":"song-of-the-week-better-things-by-tanya-donelly-and-bill-janovitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1770","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Better Things&#8221; by Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is &#8220;Better Things&#8221; by Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 350px; height: 442px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/track=29093947\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><a href=\"http:\/\/billjanovitz.bandcamp.com\/track\/better-things\">Better Things by Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz<\/a><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Better Things&#8221; is a song by the Kinks, and originally appeared on the 1981 album, <em>Give the People What They Want. <\/em>To be honest, I don&#8217;t particularly like <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"the original version (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/billjanovitz.bandcamp.com\/track\/better-things?fbclid=IwAR0TG7hw3cypOLLuWwKPkMYc64LxK0xR3P6OjPAdSxPwra-vPWpmspTHShg\" target=\"_blank\">the original version<\/a>; it&#8217;s almost willfully scrappy, and the arrangement and production get in the way of the beautiful melody and hopeful, wonderful lyrics, at least to my ear. But there are a bazillion cover versions of it out there, and I recently came across this one, by two people who are excellent songwriters themselves. If you visit <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Bill Janovitz's Bandcamp page (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/billjanovitz.bandcamp.com\/track\/better-things?fbclid=IwAR0TG7hw3cypOLLuWwKPkMYc64LxK0xR3P6OjPAdSxPwra-vPWpmspTHShg\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Janovitz&#8217;s Bandcamp page<\/a> you can buy the song in exchange for a donation to <a href=\"http:\/\/foundationtobenamedlater.org\/wordpress\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Foundation to Be Named Later (opens in a new tab)\">Foundation to Be Named Later<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Better%20Things%22%20by%20Tanya%20Donelly%20and%20Bill%20Janovitz\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Better Things&#8221; by Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz: Better Things by Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz &#8220;Better Things&#8221; is a song by the Kinks, and originally appeared on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Better%20Things%22%20by%20Tanya%20Donelly%20and%20Bill%20Janovitz\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1772,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/1772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}