Let’s get this out of the way: like millions of other people, I’m sad and angry and disillusioned about the moment in history in which we find ourselves. I have spoken up about this and will continue to do so.

At the same time, I have been recognizing the need to take care of myself amid the chaos and, as it’s always been for me, music is therapy. Delving into songs and albums, old and new, is necessary.

For the first time in many years, I now have a definitive numbered list of the albums (and 12” singles, they come with the album territory) in my record collection. While I’m not going to reveal an exact number, I have been collecting records since approximately 1974. Even before that, I’ve had records. I don’t remember not having records in my life.

So, yeah. I own a few records.

Now that I have this list, I thought I’d try to get back to posting daily records. I’ll start today and see where this leads. I’ll be using an online number picker wheel to randomly select the daily records.

Just because I’ll be focusing on music from the past doesn’t mean I’ve given up on current music. Therefore, I’m also going to highlight a song released this year, 2026, with each of these posts. Past and present can co-exist.

This is why these entries will have two parts: a fresh song released in 2026, and a daily record, released anytime over the past 70 years.

Here we go.

Anna is an extraordinarily talented singer-songwriter who lives in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, where we lived for many years. Anna and her husband Shawn, who owns the Forever Changes record store in Phoenixville, are good friends of ours.

Anna and Shawn are also leaders among people in this area who are trying to bring some light and grace to our horrifying national and international situation. Anna’s song, “Do the Next Right Thing,” both warmed and energized Donna, Chris and me at a frigid protest in downtown Phoenixville earlier this year.

Anna and Shawn are the real deal.

As it happens, Anna released a brand-new song just hours before I decided to begin this series. “Wind Blows Through” was written for and is featured in an independent short film, 88.6 by Brian Cloutier and Autumn Tapley. I need to learn more about the film, but for now I wholeheartedly recommend “Wind Blows Through,” which is a haunting tune with a bit of a Suzanne Vega vibe.

“Wind Blows Through” is available on Apple Music, but even better, you can find it on Anna’s Bandcamp page. While you’re there, check out “Do the Next Right Thing” from Anna’s live album,Sunlight Returning: Songs of Hope, and explore the rest of her work as well!

This is a coincidence, but it was 104 years ago this week (March 18, 1922) that WFI radio began its first broadcast, making the station (which subsequently became WFIL) one of the oldest radio stations in the world.

The history of WFIL is more than I can cover here, though the Wiki entry on the station looks like a deep dive that would be well worth reading. But I have my own history with WFIL, since it was the station my mom tuned into most weekday mornings during the 1970s. WFIL soundtracked my childhood. If I have anything resembling an encyclopedic knowledge of Top 40 hits of the ‘70s, it’s because Mom preferred music to news radio at breakfast time.

Like many other radio stations, WFIL produced a series of compilation albums throughout the 1960s and into the ‘70s. Mom had a few of those albums, which are mine now. I’ve also added to Mom’s ‘FIL collection.

This 50^th anniversary album, released in 1972, was not one of Mom’s, and I don’t remember where or when I found it. But it’s amazing to think about how in 1972, WFIL was already celebrating 50 years as a radio station.  

WFIL 50^th Anniversary doesn’t pretend to be comprehensive overview of music played on the station over five decades, but it does provide a nice snapshot of what the ‘FIL and other a.m. stations sounded like in 1972, which is right around the time I became a young WFIL listener. Some songs are creepy now (“Vehicle” by Ides of March rocks, but the lyrics are awful; “Stay Awhile” by Bells seems icky as well).

Great songs abound here though, not the least of which is Freda Payne’s enigmatic “Band of Gold.” Is Freda really singing about what I think she’s singing about?

The back cover liner notes briefly detail the history of WFIL, closing with the now poignant sentence, “It is our hope to be of service to you and we’re looking forward with great anticipation to our 100^th birthday in 2022.”

WFIL rode out the 1970s as popular as it had ever been, but by the end of that wild decade, the glory days of a.m. radio were over. While its listenership is much smaller now, 104 years after its initial broadcast, WFIL does still exist and does still serve, these days as a Christian station.