Leave your mark
Just leave your mark on me
Leave a mark
Just leave a mark on me
So if we part
I can still remember you
Leave a mark
Just leave it somewhere on me

~ Jessie Baylin, Leave Your Mark

This week on Lyrical Venus we'll start off celebrating some musical mothers in honor of Mother's Day - having kids sure seems to inspire some good songs!

After that, our special guest will be Jessie Baylin.

Recently off the 2008 Hotel Cafe Tour, Jessie is currently touring the country with Swedish folk-rocker Teitur and they will be appearing at the CSPS Legion Arts Center in Cedar Rapids on May 17th. Jessie's smooth vocals have been compared to melting vanilla ice cream, so it's sure to be a sweet treat! Tune in at 9am Tuesday!

Tune in for some tunes by the people from the planet Venus!

Them ladies sure do know how to sing... mmmmmmmmmmmm.

"She's got her own inner groove; nothing tentative about it. A force to be reckoned with."
- Don Was

You know why I love the internet? Because I can find new music, meet the cool independent musicians from all over the world who make that music, and interview them on my radio show! Take Amy Raasch for example - she's all the way out on the West coast, winning songwriting contests and coming up with projects to push her songwriting to a whole new level. Join me on Tuesday to meet Amy and find out how she's doing on her "52 Songs" quest to write one song per week for a year, and post it on YouTube for the world to see!

You know why else I love the internet? Everyone all over the world can tune in!

This is a delicate unraveling
Now and then I find pieces on the floor
Tiny little bits that tell me
Maybe I shouldn't do this
Or love you anymore
~ Mandy Moore, Latest Mistake

So a couple of my friends have been going through breakups lately (is there something in the air?). I was trying to figure out a theme for the week and it just wasn't coming to me. It wasn't till I sat down in the studio that I realized, "Hey most of these are breakup songs!" So there must have been something in the air, because my subconscious clicked into it. I really do believe in the healing power of music, so my heart, and these songs go out to my friends and anyone else who knows what it's like to have your heart broken.

But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother,
we don't like to make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people,
and at night we walk into our houses and burn.

~ Iowa, Dar Williams

After two months away in Barranquilla Colombia, and then a few days in Florida and Georgia visiting relatives, I'll finally be coming home to Fairfield, and just in time to play you a live show! (Well, the night before, so it's not like I'll be walking off the plane into the studio.) In any case, the songs this week all have something to do with HOME! And as always, they are all by awesome female singer-songwriters, so you can be sure it's going to be sweet, just like home.

You were the last in my twenty-fourth year
To make a demand of my voice
I tickled your ear and I laughed in your face
I gave you my choice
We were born to hum
We were born to hum

Voices On The Verge was the name of a tour with Rose Polenzani, Erin McKeown, Jess Klein, and Beth Amsel back in 2002. I was living in Boulder at the time and my roommate brought back a CD from their concert which was put into heavy rotation for the rest of my time there. Years later I was happy to re-discover this album, that I still loved the songs on it, and that all four ladies have gone on to release their own solo albums in the years since the tour. Tune in Tuesday at 9am to hear the full concert, plus a few of their newer songs!

For Easter week in Barranquilla, most folks go to the beach. After a couple glorious days in the water and only a few minor patches of sunburn, I've defintely got the sea fever - so this week's theme on Lyrical Venus is Ocean! Seems like when a singer-songwriter gets inspired by the sea, she gets really inspired - most of the songs this week are in pairs, written by the same artist. Two by Dar Williams, two by Ingrid Michaelson, two by Rachel Ries, two by Sharon Bousquet... you get the idea! Tune in Tuesday at 9 am and take a trip to the beach!  read more »

~ The Emigrant's Farewell
Traditional, Sung by Cara Dillon

In honor of St. Patrick's day, Lyrical Venus is bringing you a pot of golden voiced lassies to charm your ears. This week's playlist is also a special treat in that it was put together by my dear friend Megan Glomb, who is much more knowledgeable in Celtic music than I. With artists like Sinead O'Conner, Loreena McKennitt, Cherish the Ladies, Maire Brennan and more, you're sure to get an hour's worth of Irish musical goodness! (Even if I butcher the names of the tunes as I announce them, poor things...) Tune in at the top o' the mornin! (9 am Tuesday).

"You're so edgy
You don't even need a rhyming dictionary
I wipe my hands on your jeans
Cause they are more distressed"

This week the thing all the ladies on The Lyrical Venus Radios hour have in common is they've all played at the Hotel Cafe in LA. The amazing singer-songwriter listening room/coffee shop has hosted the likes of KT Tunstall, Ingrid Michaelson, Rachael Yamagata, Imogen Heap, The Weepies, Sara Bareilles and many, many more! Tune in to hear a few!