Hi Friends!

The other week I attended the Ontario Health Coalition’s rally at Queen’s Park to push for an end to Doug Ford’s efforts to privatize our healthcare. If you are also interested in advocating to keep healthcare public, please consider sending a letter to PM Carney with this new campaign from the Canadian Health Coalition. Every bit helps.

Anyway, at the rally they were playing this song over the loudspeakers about keeping healthcare public. While, yes, I agreed with the song’s message, there were things about it in a musical sense, that, well, just straight up sucked. But hey, to be fair, at least they only played it 100 times in a row.

It was so bad that at one point a guy walked up to me and asked, “Wow, is this a real song?” I shrugged. He walked away. Then I got a text from my friend Mayeesha. “Do you think this is a custom slop song about fighting for health care?” Nobody was buying it.

I remember the OHC had asked in their newsletter for someone to help them write a pro-public healthcare anthem. “NO A.I.,” they said. It must be tricky for them because around the same time there was an A.I. Lego country music video about Doug Ford’s gravy plane that was really catchy, and it had a mini-moment over the weekend when that news broke, so people saw how viral a song about Ontario government drama could be.

The problem with the healthcare song, which I would argue is the same problem with the gravy plane song, is that AI or not, the lyrics are so shoe-horned and ham-fisted that I could never in a million years lack enough self-awareness to sing along. Technically it’s a song, but feels more like a rhyming twitter rant squeezed into a melody. Can’t imagine that it’s all that politically useful.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m tapping out on AI songs after having heard “She Farted So Hard She Died”. What more could such music offer to the world than that.

The title of this newsletter comes from the short story "The Last Testament" by Carol Amen. Much like When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs, The Last Testament is about how normal people cope in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, and they way their bodies, brains, and spirits fall apart. The line is referring to a character who is monitoring CB radio transmissions, trying to get information from nearby communities about what’s happening. Eventually there is nobody left of the other end of the radio to share any kind of news. If that sounds compelling, I recommend watching the movie adaptations of either story!

Anyways, here’s the link to the latest mix:

ANNOTATIONS

Minor Threat - Salad Days Close personal friends.

Worlds Worst - Challenger I was trying to find more songs like Washer’s “Your guess is as bad as mine”, which brought me to Worlds Worst. Like the Methyl Ethel track later on, I do feel like I can hear the tricks in this. Doesn’t make it any less good, but I do feel a little like a dope that I fall for them so easily.

ELO - Livin’ Thing Close personal friends for sure, but I think this came back to me from watching Shrinking.

Dead Kennedys - Police Truck Close personal friends.

Conway Twitty - Lonely Blue Boy Close personal friend. I would love to do this at karaoke, but I’m sure 90% of any room would check out from not knowing it.

Olivia Branch Walker - New Life I think this was on someone’s IG reel.

Methyl Ethel - Twilight Driving Song I think this was on someone’s IG reel.

Rosalía - Reliquia Close personal friend.

Add N to (x ) - Plug Me In This is on the When The 2000s Clashed: Machine Music For A New Millennium 5 CD compilation.

Céline Dessberg - L’histoire de ta vie I think this was on someone’s IG reel.

El Perro del Mar - How Did We Forget Close personal friend, but it came back on my radar from the March 2026 episode of CBB FM.

Astrud Gilberto - Who Needs Forever? This is from the soundtrack for The Deadly Affair, a movie I remember enjoying a fair bit.

Buffalo Springfield - Expecting to Fly Close personal friends.

Robert Lester Folsom - See You Later, I’m Gone YouTube recommendation. The comments are full of a pet peeve, which is people saying “This sounds like the end of a movie.” Look, I know why they say that, but no! What they’re thinking about is a feeling, which exists independently of any movie. A movie may have given them that feeling, but that feeling is not “movieness”. Maybe in this case it’s “nostalgia” or “melancholy” or whatever, but the feelings are the targets, not the idea of “closing credits”. Like when someone says “Oh, this sunset looks like a painting” NO! Some paintings do an amazing job capturing a sunset, but you have to remember that the miracle of sunsets came first and that’s what everything that comes after is trying to be. Any painting is secondary to the true beauty of nature.

Caro D. - Mountain This was in the movie Follies, which is one of my favourite genres of stories - bored hetero couple decides to explore their sexuality, it doesn’t solve their problems, and they’re still kinda of boring at the end.

John Barry - The Three of Us This is from the soundtrack to Walkabout, a movie I hope to see some day.

rei harakami - sequence_03 This was on a playlist I listened to recently, but don’t remember which one. Possibly NTS.

Tom Waits - If I Have to Go Close personal friend.

While space allows, I’m stashing my recent mixes and annotations in a Google Drive folder, which you can visit here: The Archive

Andrew’s Fundraiser 2026

As always, here's the link to this year's fundraiser. The goal is a modest $2026, but I will increase it if we go over. It would mean a lot to me if you considered donating: tinyurl.com/550aday.

Even if you’ve already donated, please consider sharing it with your friends and family.