YOU ARE HERE: zharth.net / Zharth's Music Log / Week 171 (Lonely Is The Word)
(Originally finalized on November 28, 2025)
Preface: Looking back again to two quarters ago, my theme on leaving left me with some difficult choices to make. But I noticed a pattern, and saw an opportunity to relieve some of the pressure by doing a spin-off - centered on loneliness.
Monday: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Leave My Girl Alone [In Step, 1989]
Comments: The title of Stevie Ray Vaughan's last album to be released before his untimely death in a helicopter crash alludes to his recent commitment to a sober lifestyle; but if this searing blues is any indication, he still had the fire burning inside him. Given the subject matter, I don't know if it's ironic, or makes sense that he had also just divorced his wife and muse, Lenny - whom Stevie had named one of his guitars and a song after.
Tuesday: Janis Joplin - A Woman Left Lonely [Pearl, 1971]
Comments: At one time considered for my "left or right" theme, before it instead became "right or wrong", I had to again leave behind this song - which features another artist who left us too soon, from her last album before shuffling off this mortal coil - when my leaving theme splintered in two. But now, finally, it has found itself a home.
Wednesday: Traffic - Light Up Or Leave Me Alone [The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, 1971]
Comments: Not being super familiar with this band, I've only just learned that they actually broke up, briefly, during the time that Steve Winwood joined Eric Clapton in the supergroup Blind Faith, before reforming and, essentially, not missing a beat. While the band's early output was dominated by the song Dear Mr. Fantasy, their second period's most memorable hit was the title track from the album that this song hails from.
Thursday: Journey - Ask The Lonely [Two of a Kind (Soundtack), 1983]
Comments: My past track record will show that I've liked to use this music log to raise awareness of Journey's early jazz rock fusion beginnings, which stand in stark contrast to their '80s pop balladeering days. That said, I don't hate pop Journey. They're not one of my favorites, and some of their stuff is just too saccharine. But the band's got talent, and you can see it shining through every now and then - like on this movie soundtrack cut from the Frontiers era.
Friday: Black Sabbath - Lonely Is The Word [Heaven And Hell, 1980]
Comments: And how could I pass up the opportunity to share a song from Dio-era Sabbath? With all due respect to Ozzy - and the early days of Black Sabbath were deservedly history-making - when the band recruited Dio from ex-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's pet project, Rainbow (as we've seen), it marked a new dawn. Not just for the band, either, but for Dio's metamorphosis into heavy metal's preeminent crooner, as well. I bet it's lonely at the top.
Saturday: Scorpions - Lonesome Crow [Lonesome Crow, 1972]
Comments: With a spacey, progressive epic that would not sound out of place among my assemblage of side-long songs (if it were but half as long again), German rockers Scorpions prove on their debut album that, like Journey, there's a lot more, instrumentally, going on with the band than their later hits (such as Rock You Like A Hurricane) might suggest.
Sunday: The Rolling Stones - Blue & Lonesome [Blue & Lonesome, 2016]
Comments: Though released as recently as less than a decade ago, this track from the Stones' back-to-their-roots album of blues covers is not quite so jarring a detour into the 21st century as you might expect. Sonically, it's very consistent with their beginnings, albeit with all the maturity that some fifty years in the business must necessarily afford.
Honorable Mention: Stonefield - House of the Lonely [Stonefield, 2013]
Comments: I'm gonna leave you off this week with another track from Stonefield's feature-length debut, which is just about impossible to find anywhere outside of their home country of Australia. And it's a damn shame, because on it these incredibly talented girls succeed at the challenging task of combining the unbridled energy of rock-and-roll with a very catchy and listener-friendly studio polish.