Take it from the Old Guys: mothers never get enough credit (we’ll come back to dads another time…) We know this both as husbands and fathers who’ve supported amazing women and also as friends, family members, and co-workers of so many women who have been expected to manage nearly impossible sets of competing expectations for their time, presence, energy, and aspirations. And that’s just the individual and societal side, let alone the way the government makes it even more complicated these days for women to be mothers the way they would choose to be.
So for this special edition of 3A6OG, we spotlight the Playlist and notes from a recent show on Takoma Radio/WOWD-LP in Takoma Park, where OG Brad co-hosts a show with past contributor DJ Marc. On their May 10 show, Brad and Marc featured an hour of songs by artists who are also moms. We thought the moms deserved a special note, so we are posting the playlist and summarizing their choices.
Who did we miss? Who are the musical moms you think deserve inclusion on the list? If we are going to live up to the “every day should be Mother’s Day” mantra, there is no time like the present.
You can find the Apple Music playlist here.
For Set 1, we started with the guitar-drenched “Tell Tomorrow” from a lesser-known band, Mercy Rule, which was was one of those bands you find when you’re in college that are incredible and you are sure are destined for great things (even Rolling Stone thought so), and then life and reality gets in the way for them. Led by husband and wife duo Jon Taylor and Heidi Ore, they put out the record Providence in 1994 that “Tell Tomorrow” was the opening track and remains a favorite song of mine. They had their first child in 2000 and decided to end the band; there are some cool articles about them talking about the decision and their life since as parents.
We stayed with the theme of 90s Midwest regional favorites and the band Zuzu’s Petals from Minneapolis, with the song “Cinderella’s Daydream” from their 1992 debut When No One’s Looking. The late Laurie Lindeen was the lead guitarist and vocalist of the band and mother to one son, about whom she wrote an incredible essay for the New York Times in 2017 called Johnny Goes to College. She was married for 11 years to a famous Minneapolis musician; can you guess who? Kudos if you knew (or guessed) it was Paul Westerberg. Can only imagine what it’s like to try to raise a kid with Paul.
We closed that first set with the Corin Tucker Band and the song “Constance” from the 2012 record Kill My Blues. The first two songs in the set were just great songs by amazing women singers; this was a track that Corin, known of course for being one of the leads of Sleater-Kinney, wrote about having a child (though her daughter is named Glory and not Constance). We then played a song from one of the most legendary rock and roll moms, Courtney Love, and a heart-wrenching song called “Mother” she did for the soundtrack of The Turning in 2020.
For Set Two from incredible musical moms, we turned to Jill Scott and the song “Don’t Play”, off her 2026 album, To Whom This May Concern. It’s Scott’s first album in more than 10 years, and it really sounds like she was never away. Next up was Cleo Sol, best known as being one of the primary voices of our show’s most played band, SAULT (we like to call them our Sunday Midday house band; I’m sure they don’t mind). Don’t sleep on Cleo Sol’s solo work, like “Golden Child” from her 2023 release, Heaven; she also released an entire album focused on motherhood call, appropriately enough, Mother in 2021 that we highly recommend. And we brought that set home with Lauryn Hill from her classic The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, specifically with To Zion, with guest appearance from Santana. That album was released in 1998, but it still sounds so fresh that it could easily pass for new. Speaking of late-90s classics, we also played Erykah Badu’s classic song “Other Side of the Game” from her groundbreaking 1997 debut Baduizm.
For Set Three, we turned to Nina Simone and started with the powerful track “Blues for Mama.” That’s from You’ve Got to Learn, recorded at 1966 Newport Jazz Festival. After Nina Simone, we switched gears, featuring first musical mother from outside the United States, Astrud Gilberto. The song was “Manha de Carnaval,” or Carnival Morning from her 1965 album The Shadow of Your Smile. Written by Luiz Bonfá and Antônio Maria, the song featured on score of Black Orpheus along with a number of other Bossa nova classics. In first five years after release, it was recorded by artists including Stan Getz, Quincy Jones, Joan Baez, Vince Guaraldi, Dinah Shore, Hugh Masekela, and Miriam Makeba. We closed that set with Cat Power and her rendition of “Baby Let Me Follow You Down.” This was a folk song most famously recorded by Bob Dylan, and the version we heard came from Cat Power’s 2023 release, Cat Power Sings Dylan, which recreates his famous Albert Hall concert from 1966. We also gave some love to Khruangbin and singer/mom Laura Lee Ochoa with a track from their 2023 Live at Sydney Opera House. In this set, we especially wanted to focus on live performances, given what an additional struggle it can be to go out on tour as a mom.
For our final set in tribute to musical moms, we started with Joanne Roberston, from her 2020 release Zushi, made with her frequent musical companion Dean Blunt. She’s been described as someone who sounds like she’s singing from the bottom of a well, and this song captures that essence perfectly. After that we heard from Jenny Lewis from her 2014 album The Voyager, specifically the track “Just One of the Guys.” This is a more challenging part of the theme — which is the pressure on women to manage all of the competing pressures and expectations, including the decision not to have a child. It’s a catchy and sardonic but also quite painful track all in one. That set ended with the veteran Chicago band Eleventh Dream Day, who have been releasing music for close to 40 years. The band has been led largely by Rick Rizzo and Janet Beveridge Bean, who were married until the early 2000s but have continued to make great records even after divorcing (and raising their son), putting out another massive record just last month. Janet is also in the band Freakwater, which we feature a lot on our show. We heard the song “Look Out Below” from their 2021 release Since Grazed. We could not have gotten through the show without playing something from the legendary Patti Smith, and her 1988 track “The Jackson Song” from the album Dream of Life. The song was written with her husband Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5 and is just a gorgeous lullaby for their son Jackson (who now often plays in his mom’s band) as only those two could write.
We ended the show with “Tattooed Love Boys” from the Pretenders’ 1980 self-titled debut and Superchunk’s “The First Part” from 1994’s Foolish, a rare time when bass player and badass mom (and Merge Records co-owner) Laura Ballance sings backup vocals.
We know we missed plenty of amazing musical moms; we had hoped to play Low (Mimi Parker), Sharon Van Etten, Kim Gordon, and Sarah Vaughan. Not only are there dozens more who have made it, we know there are of course millions of moms balancing their work dreams and motherhood every day, whether in local bands or other pursuits altogether. It may not be much, but this one’s for you. (Brad and Marc)