Listen to your favorite artists perform "Little Boxes" and get the story behind the music. Check back every Tuesday to hear new artists, or subscribe to our RSS feed and never miss a post.
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Angelina Moysov of Persephone’s Bees
Little Boxes in Russia? Yes, we have them, too, though I grew up in a large box - a five story apartment building that was more of an insane asylum, full of angels and devils, local voodoo and alcohol - Malvina’s lyrics spoke to me of our large Soviet boxes - not full of doctors […]
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The Decemberists
Just watching this show makes me nervous. Whenever I smoke the stuff I end
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up being that guy at the party that should have really just left the scene. You know; the fool so stoned that [he] becomes cemented to the cat pee smelling cracked pleather chair in the corner who’s creeping everyone out because […]Flash player required. -
The Shins
We had a great time recording this. The main tracks are all our first take. It just went very smoothly. The song is one that I can very much identify with and a natural fit for the band.
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- James Mercer (singer/guitarist The Shins)
Our story begins in Albuquerque, NM, in 1996. Brought together by […]Flash player required. -
Billy Bob Thornton and The Boxmasters
When we received the opportunity to cut a version of “Little Boxes” for
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the show, we were in the middle of working on the Boxmasters project at
my studio “The Cave,” so we were all set up to get right to it. We knew
that we didn’t need to change anything about the song, just to give it
the […]Flash player required. -
Randy Newman
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING RANDY
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A biographical sketch of the artist as a not-so-young man
By David Wild
Stephen Foster. Aaron Copland. Irving Berlin. Cole Porter. George and Ira Gershwin.
Sadly, all of the serious competition is dead and buried, yet somehow Randy Newman lives and breathes among us. Hey, who said the world was fair? Sure as hell […]Flash player required. -
Angelique Kidjo
1. Why you recorded “Little Boxes”
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I fell in love with it the first time I heard the song. I have always
noticed that people like to put reality in little boxes to feel in
control! The music sounds so funny and simple but in fact it is very
special. It sounds like traditional music except […]Flash player required. -
Charlie Barnett
Last year I got a call from my friend Russell Ziecker at Lionsgate. He knew that I was soon going to be in the studio with a 40 piece orchestra and he had an interesting request: “Would you consider orchestrating a version of Little Boxes and squeezing it into […]
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Aidan Hawken
“Little Boxes” was written by Malvina Reynolds and inspired by Daly City, California not far from where I grew up. I remember seeing the uniform houses separated only by their bright colors against the foggy pacific ocean backdrop and felling sad. I was six. When I was asked to do a version of the song […]
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