One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

 #351) "Wide Open Spaces" by The Dixie Chicks - How fresh this song. 

Even two decades after being abandoned (as everything is) by a society that moves forward ceaselessly with precious little time or inclination for looking back, and a musical industry and fanbase that within a few years of this song's release, decided it'd had enough of singer Natalie Maines' right to free speech, "Wide Open Spaces" still spritzes finely, freshly, a sun-dappled rumination, two parts hope, one half part melancholy. It was popular when I worked in "hot country" radio - as were The Dixie Chicks - and will always have a place - in my eyes - among the gold standards of 90s country music - a softer, more reasonable, less blustery (and less manic) approach to all things "country".

Some might say too soft, too "pop"...and come to think of it, I might have been one of those during the many weeks in late 1998 when this song dominated all-request Friday nights. But 20 years is a long time, plenty of time to realize your big mistakes. The message of the song has outlasted the generations. There are lots of country songs about the redneck lifestyle and patriotism and trucks and bars and zippity doo da, but precious few in the genre, from any decade, that touch on such a specific, but intimately important, and grandly timeless, theme, whether you're a city mouse or a county mouse: setting out on your own for the first time, and all the anticipation and anxiety, all the joy, surprise and sometimes sorrow found there.

"But now she won't be coming back with the rest..."

#352) "Hello It's Me" by Todd Rundgren - Todd Rundgren is on my short list of musical geniuses, those individuals who make innovation and real step-outside-the-box creativity part of their brand, who are successful at creating a musical signature that simply could not be anyone else.  Rundgren has had a hand producing some monumental albums for other artists over the years, among them Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" and XTC's "Skylarking", but his own music is just....I don't know...perhaps it's most accurate to say it's difficult to describe, but impossible to ignore. 

Nowhere is this more true than with "Hello It's Me", one of his radio hits from 1972's Something/Anything?   All of the bizarrely charming elements that make a Todd Rundgren song are at play here - odd chord progressions, a masterful command of harmony and self-effacing humor, a flat vocal style that - again - you can't really stop listening to. 

Difficult to describe. Impossible to ignore.

"'Cause I never want to make you change for me..." 

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#349) "I Let Her Lie" by Daryle Singletary - The best country songs are the ones that don't spew redneck braggadocio, or self-righteous nonsense about bad behavior and good times being strung together by the uber patriotic act of keeping a job and raising kids, but instead paint a reliable portrait of rural or small town life as it actually exists. Make no mistake, this doesn't always have to be a portrait of misery and sorrow, in other words, the woman doesn't always have to be leaving and taking the kids and the dog with her, but life is a shit sandwich sometimes, and I know from experience there is a unique flavor to the main ingredient of that sandwich when you live in a small town, which is not always captured by every country ballad that comes down the pike. I've said it many times: the best country ballads, the ones that really get at the heart of a matter, tell truth in a moving, memorable way, are as much folk songs as anything.

There's no braggadocio in "I Let Her Lie", not much of anything deserving to be called drama, for that matter. Just an anguish as intimately dull as a cloudy Wednesday afternoon on Main Street, where traffic is never anything more than light and the local gift shop didn't have a single customer all morning. It is here, in the town where the pace is a little slower because not much ever happens, where a romantic relationship that has started to show signs of its death throes bears its sharpest claws.

There are lots of songs about breakups and failed relationships, particularly in country music, but "I Let Her Lie" has always struck an especially potent chord with me. Maybe because it concerns itself with the response, rather than what is happening. In the song, the woman is cheating, the man is suffering - all too easy in this bad ol' world to shrug and say, "Natch." - but in this instance, the man's response isn't all that decisive, because in real life it wouldn't be. It would be informed - distracted - by a host of complex and contradictory emotions, and it's this balk that has created the heartache, the regret, the confusion. There comes the inevitable gossip, because it's a small town after all, and the more talk there is floating around a small town, in and out of bars and work places and that Main Street gift shop, the owner of which almost certainly knows someone who knows someone who knows you, the harder it is to make the move you know you will eventually have to make.

I get it. In some measure, to some extent, long ago, I was there. "I Let Her Lie" will always serve as a totem to that specific time in my life.

And isn't that what songs are meant for? ;-)

"We were that small town scandal, but she was my only world..."


#350) "Goin' Up the Country" by Canned Heat - It's all in the voice, I'd say. The late but fairly great Alan Wilson lent his distinctive vocal style to the two Canned Heat songs most people remember. Wilson overdosed in 1970 (a member of that lamentable "27" club, actually), but left behind the quintessential counterculture anthem, although in actuality, the song has a deep musical history dating back to the 1920s. But this version, with updated lyrics that reflect the times in which it was recorded, has other nifty things going on - a spunky bass line and spritely flute line are held together by the tautest drum line, all of which weirdly (but splendidly) complement Wilson's froggy vocals. Fifty years on, "Goin' Up the Country" is simply fun to listen to, and though on one hand it's pretty dated, from another point of view it's entirely timeless.

"We might even leave the USA / 'Cause there's a brand new game that I don't want to play...."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#347) "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour - Our uber-PC world might not accept talk like this today, but back in the late 1980s, a black rock or heavy metal band was a novel concept, something most of the people I knew at the time, among family, the underclassman sweat sock gang at school, and even those on MTV, were talking about before talking about the song itself.

Of course, we were also jamming, because "Cult of Personality" is killer. To me, this was positively electrifying in 1988, and 30+ years on, I think it sounds just as fresh and urgent and of the moment as it did when I was fifteen. And what it's saying about the world we live in, our relationship with our leaders, our influencers, our movers and shakers, is no different today than it was back then. In fact, it's probably three times more relevant today.  "I've been everything you want to be...", indeed.

Great song.

"I tell you one and one makes three..."

#348) "All Through the Night" by Cyndi Lauper - Ask ten people what their favorite Cyndi Lauper song is, most them will say "Time After Time", and that's fine as far as it goes, but I've always been partial to "All Through the Night", and while most of the reason for this has to do with specific memories in childhood, like "Cult of Personality", I think it could also be said that it still sounds fresh, has managed to last all through the night, as it were.

It's one of those sublime blends of instrumentation, rhythm and vocals that can't really not hold up over time, it's just so well done, and therefore naturally preserved. Although it's a beautiful melody in any context, Lauper's re-stylized version greatly eclipses the original by singer/songwriter Jules Shear (always noteworthy to me, when a cover manages to pull this off), and I was pleased to learn recently that the magnificent falsetto at the end, one of hallmarks of Lauper's version (and always the element, outside of perhaps the lyrics, which has provoked the longest thoughts in me), is Shear himself.

"Until it ends, there is no end..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#345) "Rattlesnake" by Live - They've been around for a long time, but I barely noticed Live back in the day. In no way is that meant as a dig at them, more an acknowledgement of their surprisingly long carrer spent flying just under the radar, never taking their place among the more prominent bands of the 90s, even though their body of work is pretty rock solid. They are that band, where you hear a song, you remember it, remember loving it even at some point in your past, but you're not sure whose song it is.

In fact, were it not for a buddy, I'd never have heard "Rattlesnake", from 1997s Secret Samadhi, though when I did, it quickly became, and has remained, a seminal song for me, a dark and cryptic but completely accurate portrayal of my existence when I was in my twenties, I guess everyone's existence in their twenties - that lull in the action, when you're no longer a kid, but not doing anything particularly interesting or dynamic, when, without fail, the party starts becoming a little lamer with each passing week, month and year.

"The rack is full, and so are we, of laughing gas, and ennui..."

But it's more than that. "Rattlesnake" has always made me think of the tenuous grasp we have over what we know as reality, how fleeting our sense of place in that reality actually is. I think a lot about that these days, as I've aged, faced mortality in a steadily dwindling sphere of time, but even twenty years ago, when it was still all before me and I couldn't see the top, bottom or sides of the sphere, this song inspired those thoughts. There but for the gentle breath of a butterfly's wings go I...as I think I know myself.

"In another place, in another time, I'd be driving trucks my dear / I'd be skinning hunted deer..."

#346) "Wrack my Brain" by Ringo Starr - Far and away, my favorite post-Beatles Beatle song, "Wrack my Brain" was written by George Harrison, and if you know anything about such things, you won't be surprised by this. The album, 1981's Stop and Smell the Roses, is further evidence that in a way, the Beatles never really broke up, or at least almost certainly would have reunited at some point, were it not for Lennon's assassination. Each of the other three lads either contributed to, played on or produced at least one song for Ringo, and that was the case with many of their solo albums throughout the 70s, and 80s. Each was a lingering presence in the others' solo careers, sporadically, over time.

"Wrack my Brain" is great, if for no other reason than being unmistakably a George Harrison song. Not quite as spell-binding as "Something" or "Here Comes the Sun", it nevertheless sports that light breath of transcendentalism paired with equally gentle humor that so often found its way into Harrison's lyrics, wrapped in a winsome melody constructed on the bedrock of exquisitely anguished-sounding chord progressions, which were also hallmarks of the "quiet Beatle". Almost makes me wish George Harrison had recorded it, rather than Ringo. Although at the same time, Ringo's "aw shucks" persona lends something to the song, so I guess everything happens for a reason.

"With a will, there's a way, but there's no way I can see, coming up with something you'd enjoy as much as TV..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#343) "I Feel for You" by Chaka Khan - I've talked frequently here about my first experience(s) with rap music growing up in what could be called the "great white north" for reasons other than long winters. My embrace of rap and hip hop was centered primarily around Run-DMC at the time, and the fact that my brother went away to college in New York City and took to sending me recorded tapes of New York radio, notably Kiss FM (I'm pretty sure a box of those cassettes are still floating around somewhere...I'll have to dig them out someday...then find a way to play them); there was also, as I've mentioned, LL Cool J, and various soundtracks like Beat Street, and Breakin', which I got heavily into, mostly by thrashing about like a short-circuiting robot on a buddy's front lawn and thinking that I, too, was "breakin'".

But my first exposure to rapping that totally blew me away, for its precision, its flawlessly excitable flow, for being something completely new and out of the box, enough so to prompt me to take on the very tall order of emulation, was the first thirty seconds of Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You", a rap performed by Melle Mel, that prologues this Prince cover. It was released in 1984, and turned my FM / MTV world, which at the time was a lot of "Sister Christian", "Like a Virgin" and "I Can't Fight this Feeling", on its ear, and I was hooked.

I can still do the rap, my flow's still pretty tight (er….right? 😎 ), although now I'm not just conspicuously white, but also almost 50, so I don't trot this out of mothballs much anymore (and haven't since Reagan was president). I love the song, though. It's Prince, after all, and that fact coupled with Chaka Khan's smooth vocals and Stevie Wonder's matching ultra-slick harmonica, makes "I Feel for You" impossible not to feel.

"I feel for you / I think I love you..."

#344) "Nasty" by Janet Jackson - Janet Jackson's "Nasty" was much more pop-oriented, more mainstream and less "street" (such as that phrase was, or could ever be, in my 13-year-old eyes) than Chaka Khan, but it was nevertheless something new that I was being introduced to, something important. On account of "Nasty", and each successive single from the Control album for that matter, Janet Jackson was my first inter-racial crush, my inaugural departure from the brick house blondes - the Farrah Fawcetts, Heather Locklears and Victoria Principals (okay, blondes and redheads...) that populated my pre-pubescent fantasies. This might seem silly, but it really wasn't at the time - it was actually a pivotal moment in my youth when a racial and cultural bridge was crossed.

And almost forty years later (is...that...possible...??), "Nasty" is still a nasty jam.

"No my first name ain't baby, it's Janet / Miss Jackson is you're nasty..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#341) "One Night in Bangkok" by Murray Head - I can't say this song holds up for me, exactly, any more than the stage musical it's from holds up. Although, I can't say I know much about Chess, other than the fact that the guys from Abba, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, were among the creative force behind it, along with Tim Rice, and "One Night in Bangkok" is the only song on the soundtrack that doesn't have that overly mushy, "theater" sound.

"One Night..." was released as a pop single, doubtless to drum up interest in the musical itself, and I must say, there was a time when it was all pretty electrifying to me, when its sound, its chorus, the lines, "I can feel the devil walking next to me", and "not much between despair and ecstasy", all struck an evocative chord. There was a time, just before I discovered Run DMC, and the Breakin' and Beat Street soundtracks, and took to "break dancing" (well, gesticulating spastically) across the grass in a buddy's front yard, when to my ears, "One Night in Bangkok" was "rapping" in its coolest form, and performing it for the playground set, getting through it without missing a word or beat, was a pretty big deal. This, for about 21.5 seconds sometime in late summer of '85.

Nowadays, for whatever reason - maturity, burgeoning immaturity as I age, who knows... - I just don't buy into whatever Chess or "One Night in Bangkok" presents.  It's not Benny, Bjorn, or Tim's fault really, I've simply lost my taste for theater in general. Whether Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, or Hamilton....ugh, it's just not my cup of tea anymore, and that's significant only in that it wasn't always the case. I grew up more or less a "drama kid", appreciating and taking part in local musical theater on a regular basis, actually used to jam out to the L'il Abner soundtrack in my bedroom when I was eleven (always thought it'd be fun to play the part of Marryin' Sam!), but time can be a mysteriously corrosive agent, and when it comes to musical theater, I just can't get there like I used to.

But "One Night in Bangkok" is still listenable, and unique in its way, it might be said, for being a (sort of) "white guy rap", if nothing else.  And I still think the lines "I can feel the devil walking next to me" and "not much between despair and ecstasy" are evocative, which perhaps means I haven't become completely jaded, I guess.

"Can't be too careful with your company..."


#342) "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes - This is definitely from the "shit your parents listened to" vault, a song I never noticed or appreciated as a kid, but have come to love as an adult. The elements I might once have thought were cheesy, the heavily synthesized drum beat and electronic chords, are a big part of its charm now.  The lyrics are fairly poetic, and although nothing can really ever replace Eddie Murphy's performance of it on Saturday Night Live back in the 1980s (Buckwheat sings all your favorites!), there could not have been a better choice of vocals than Kim Carnes' raspy pipes, which blend with the music so seamlessly, her voice seems almost electronically generated itself. (But isn't, of course, as this was long before Auto-Tune.)

And no question, Bette Davis' eyes deserve their own song, so it's win-win-win, all around!

"Her hair is Harlow gold / Her lips sweet surprise..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#339) "Off to the Races" by Lana Del Rey - On the surface, "Off to the Races" is kind of ridiculous, because Lana Del Rey is kind of ridiculous, just not necessarily in a bad way. Throughout its five minutes, the song, about a Lolita-style love affair in which there does not appear to be any winners, teeters on the edge of self-indulgence, always seeming about to collapse under the weight of its own overkill, but it also seems aware of this fact...almost self-aware. There is a cinematic luster at play, as the song phases between a fiercely guarded (and potentially dangerous) emotional mystery and a kind of hedonistic, deliberately "fuck you" exhibitionism, during the chorus especially, which I find immensely stirring, without knowing exactly why.

"You are my one true love / you are my one true love..."


#340) "Only Women Bleed" by Alice Cooper - According to Wikipedia (and as always, take it for what you will), there are people in this world who hear this song and assume it's about menstruation.

No joke. This "fact" (and let's hope the dismissive quotations really are warranted) is not only hilarious, but also kind of depressing. To think that anyone out there reads this uniquely lovely, Beatles-esque ballad, among the first of its kind from a hard rock artist, as nothing more than a 9th grade Health class lecture, rather than a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of a put-upon woman in an abusive relationship/marriage, is something I don't want to dwell on.  Only women bleed, indeed.

"Next, kids, we learn about a young man's changing body..."

This is one instance where I pray Wikipedia is as unreliable as people say it is.

"Man makes your hair gray, he's your life's mistake / All you're really looking for is an even break..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#337) "Key Largo" Bertie Higgins - Man, when I was a kid, about ten or eleven, and this song came on the radio, I had a hell of a raucous time singing out loud what I thought were the actual lyrics. Having no knowledge whatsoever of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall or the movie being referenced, I thought the line was, "We had it all, just like boogie in the corn", and thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.

For the most part, the song didn't do much for me, even though it could be said I was plugged into sappy ditties - the "shit your parents listened to" - more than other kids. All I ever felt moved to do was make fun of this one, and I totally did (while not knowing what the hell I was talking about). But "Key Largo" is one of those songs that gets better with age, the passage of time, and perhaps requires a next level of maturity to appreciate. If you park your snark for five minutes (and maybe don't watch the video), you'll likely come to realize that there is an oddly dim beauty to the musicality of this song. Although it still doesn't move me to want to fall in love or fuck, its soft edges are hard not to get caught on, and swept away by...just a little.

"Starring in our own late, late show / Sailing away to Key Largo..."

#338) "Sailing" by Christopher Cross - Now this is a song I could get on board with when I was ten, and it remains so to this day.  So subtly rendered, without ever becoming overwrought or too sappy, it's the music of a soft, bright day dream, any pleasant afternoon-turned-evening, of, indeed, the very azure sky and calm blue-green seas it speaks of. It's the progenitor of that subgenre known as yacht rock, but I think it works if you're just sailing through the rich blue waters of your mind, and I would say it qualifies for "they just don't right 'em like this anymore" designation. Surely, it would not wind up on pop radio these days, as it did, reaching No. 1 in August 1980.

"Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#335) "Sad Eyes" by Robert John - For the longest time, I thought (assumed) this song was a Bee Gees song; it would seem to fit perfectly in their wheelhouse, right down to the high vocals. But it was released in 1979, around the height of the Bee Gees' fame, and by then the brothers Gibb had long forsaken the likes of "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" and "I Started a Joke" for trendier, and radio friendlier, hits like "Tragedy" and "Stayin' Alive".

I also thought for a long time that Robert John was British, doubtless a Bee Gees-related assumption, but he's American, Brooklyn born, and also, with "Sad Eyes", as much a one-hit wonder as there has ever been.

"Sad Eyes" was his only song to hit #1, and this comes as no surprise to me because it's pretty lovely, as ballads go. It drapes over everything, in a good way. I like that it's not an anguished break-up song, at least not for the guy. He's been having an affair with someone, and now his girlfriend or wife is coming back and he's looking for as clean an "out" as is possible. I'm not saying he's not a cad, but I enjoy the emotional timbre of the song, its note of hope for the future, the suggestion that every exit is also an entrance to someplace else, and you can never really go wrong with that slow, horse-trot beat. I like the guitar solo as well; it's simple, but sometimes simple sings the best.

"I never used you, you knew I really cared..."

#336) "'65 Love Affair" by Paul Davis - I was 11 when this song was released. I remember vividly it spilling out of tiny radios and mini-boom boxes all over the neighborhood for a few months, along with Eddie Rabbit and Alabama and Juice Newton, and I remember feeling its melancholy, its longing for days past, even though I didn't have a lot of my own "days past" at the time. I felt it not because I was a super sensitive sage at 11 (I wasn't), but because the song so vividly captures what it's looking to capture in its lyrics and melody: being young and being in love for the first time, in a world that will one day be looked back on as much smaller than it felt at the time, in the days when "rock and roll was simple and free."

Moreover, "'65 Love Affair" always struck me as historically accurate. 1965, maybe '66, might very well have been the last time rock and roll could be considered simple and free, right before the Sixties, as we remember them, exploded.  To that end, no joke: I think, "Doo wop, diddy wop, diddy wop, doo", as it's presented in "'65 Love Affair", is one of the greatest lines in any pop song ever.

"Well I acted like a dumb-dumb / you were bad with your pom-poms..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#333) "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin - This, perhaps more than any other song, is a love/hate relationship for me. Anybody who has followed this page over the years knows that I'm an unapologetic fan of 70s AM Gold-type music. Some of it I love because I maintain it's authentically beautiful, and/or musically sound (if not cool), like The Carpenters, or Bread, and some of it I love just because it reminds me of my childhood, the first days of my life I can remember, like Barry Manilow, etc., because it's what my parents listened to.

But "Cat's in the Cradle" is a weird one for me.  As much as I enjoy listening to it, it also annoys me in a way others of its kind don't. I'm not sure why. Harry Chapin's 1981 death was untimely, and I don't really know anything else about him or his music, don't know any other songs of his (meaning: have no memories from childhood), so maybe that unfamiliarity ignites some kind of unconscious aversion. The song is repetitive, doesn't really go anywhere musically, and yet, the story it tells is ultimately so profound, so relevant to most people's existence (to some extent), that it's okay. I listen anyway. Feel compelled to listen.

I can't honestly say I relate to it. I was lucky. I had an attentive father, and in turn, like to think I was attentive to my sons as they grew up. And yet, Life still feels this way sometimes, as I age. There just isn't enough time for anything, and before you know it, your opportunities vanish, and even before they do, you're stuck having to prioritize them, because there are always "planes to catch, and bills to pay..."

"And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he'd grown up just like me / My boy was just like me..."

#334) "Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas - With a mad laboratory assemblage of musical hooks and harmonies pieced together in a sloppily genius discipline of weird science, "Carry on Wayward Son" takes really sharp corners on two wheels, all the while offering heady lyrics worthy of 1970s airwaves (worthy of the band that also gave us "Dust in the Wind").

But also, this song is - for my money - among the first arena rock anthems, and I never really thought of it that way.  Watching the live video, which I only did in recent months, reveals that Kansas was, in terms of visuals, of general vibe, closer to a "hair band" (as opposed to a prog rock band) in 1976 than I ever would have imagined listening to this song and putting my own spin on it all these years.

And I'm not complaining. :-) There's nothing, musically or visually, I don't love about this, to be honest. At the end of the day, it's kind of exactly the way I always pictured it, without realizing what it was I was seeing. 

"And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know...."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#331) "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" by Creedence Clearwater Revival - From a musical standpoint, there's nothing not to like about CCR. At the height of the tumultuous 1960s, the Fogerty brothers, Tom and John, along with Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, came onto the scene with a homespun sound that was no less agitated, no less emotionally chaotic and intense, than anything from the time that might now be called acid rock. They weren't exactly the downhome bayou brothers their music suggested, they hailed from the San Francisco area, but they weren't "hippies" either, though they were aware of what was going on around them and certainly had something to say about it, which they did, quite powerfully, through their music.

Music's a funny, wonderful thing, isn't it?  Songs have a way of becoming personal property in the listener's mind, and playlists like this one, whether designed for a road trip or just sitting at home chilling, have a way of reading as nothing less than a soundtrack of the listener's life.

But tastes, and therefore influences, change over time. If I'd started a list like this when I was 22, I don't think it would have been nearly as diverse or interesting, as I would have been far more inclined to include only music I felt told my story, as I believed it to be.

That's still somewhat true now, of course, but far less so than once would have been the case.  As I've aged, I think I've broadened my musical scope. I appreciate songs simply for their musicality now, appreciate the artist's moment rendering that music in whatever way they have. In other words, it no longer has to be something I can relate to on a personal level in order to get my attention, and yet (and here's the "funny and wonderful" part), I still do feel it personally, just in a broader - and frankly, more satisfying - way.  I appreciate live music more than ever before as well, perhaps because I dabble a little myself, and while I can play, I never feel like I could get up in front of people and play with a bunch of other musicians, with precise timing, or engage in some epic guitar or keyboard solo without fucking up, having (or wanting) to start over. I know it's about practice, practice, practice, but it also involves a certain God-given gift bestowed upon the Billy Joels, Les Claypools, Princes and Walter Becketts of the world (among others), which I just don't have. Most people just don't have.

"Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" gets interpreted different ways by different people, probably because it was recorded at such a crazy time in history, and there's definitely a heaviness present to reflect that fact, a sense that it's saying something, has an important message. It's not entirely clear what that message is, you just know its heavy, and you feel compelled to find it.

John Fogerty has said the song isn't really about the Sixties, or Vietnam, or any one momentously bad thing that happened at the time, but actually about the band's unhappiness being superstars. At first glance, that might seem to cheapen it, but I don't think it does. It makes the song greater, turns it into a broad collector of all the sadness, frustration and heartache and melancholy Life can dish out, a universal anthem, with one size fitting all.

The straightforward notion that it's just about a sun shower is valid too, because I've truly always thought, musically, it sounds like rain falling on a sunny day.

Doesn't it...?! It sounds like a sun shower.  Which, at the end of the day, is all it needs to sound like.

"And forever on it goes, through the circle, fast and slow..."


#332) "Fortunate Son" by Creedance Clearwater Revival - Here, CCR doesn't fuck around with metaphor, no need to interpret what this song is about. Although, in keeping with the band's offbeat vibe, it's a slightly different take on the antiwar message: not about the horror or futility of war, as such, but the class warfare that went on in the time of something so crazy as a national military draft. 'Twas ever thus: the poor, furthest away from ever being able to enjoy the American dream as it was presented, were the ones expected to fight for it....and then totally shit on by the American public if they were lucky enough to come marching home.  Liberal, conservative...there is a lot of blame to go around for what happened back then.

But none of it ever sullied (or sullies) the unique splendor of John Fogerty's voice.


"Some folks are born silver spoon in hand / Lord, don't they help themselves..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#329) "So Far Away" by Carole King - How lovely is this song? Really....just how lovely? Like a fire crackling or the night whispering or a really good cup of coffee just waiting for you to lift it up to your needy and grateful lips for that soul-feeding first sip in the bright morning sunshine....er, something like that.

I discovered "So Far Away" when I was in high school, when it - like I - was less than 20 years old. I was in the throes of a fairly potent singer/songwriter phase at the time, and big on remembering the 1970s not for the awkwardly troubled and anxious times they were, but simply as I remembered experiencing them as a young kid, which involved less trouble and anxiety, more late morning sunshine illuminating the woods behind our house, where all I had to do was play Army (and the only threat was wood ticks), while my parents sat around drinking coffee and talking about interesting stuff, selling books for a living.

Admittedly, my memories of that time are a bit rose-colored, but they're not completely off base or fabricated. AM Gold was always playing in the background, leaking from some tiny radio somewhere, and "So Far Away" (along with other "woodsy" [in my mind] music from the likes of The Carpenters, James Taylor, Barry Manilow...) has always represented the calm, almost primitive beauty I enjoyed when I was still very young, for which (although I didn't realize it at the time, and wish I had), I was very lucky.

So the song has always held a deeply personal significance for me, but nowadays, I also think its timing was historically significant: released in 1971, at the tail end of an era of social upheaval, which gave rise to a winsome restlessness that would in turn imbue popular culture for the next ten years, Carole King offers a different tack for her generation at the trailhead of the 1970s, and in a way (although this may or may not have been her intent), foreshadowed what was to become of the modern American family: not physically far away, necessarily, but emotionally and psychologically distant, perfect strangers living and raising children under one roof, strained circumstances that led her generation to its soaring divorce rate. The lyrics could be considered a metaphor, really: doesn't anybody stay in one place, anymore?, King sings.

From about 1970 on, they didn't as much, even in (or especially in) their hearts and minds.

"One more song about moving along the highway / Can't say much of anything that's new..."


#330) "Laura" by Billy Joel - I've said it before (I've said lots of things more than once on this page, I've come to realize), but I feel it bears repeating: Billy Joel gets a bad rap, skewered by music purists for being too slick, too polished, and for this, inauthentic, lacking a certain critical rawness in the whole smoky, gritty, street-wise thing that was a recurring theme of his music/image, at least early on.

But to me, that's always meant that he's just too damn good.  A masterful songwriter and performer, Billy Joel identified as the piano man, but he really could have gotten away with calling himself the music man. Seriously, if Michael Jackson was the king of pop, and Howard Stern is the king of all media, then Billy Joel gets my nomination for the king of all music.  He's one of those artists who sees music - the notes, the chords, their harmonious mesh with rhythm - in multiple dimensions, multiple colors, and was able to forge a seemingly effortless presentation by pairing beyond-handy chops on multiple instruments with not just a rock solid understanding of, but an innovative approach to, the songwriting process.  His album The Nylon Curtain (1982) is a perfect example of his experimental side, and "Laura", a clear homage to the Beatles that nevertheless stands on its own, is front and center.

And speaking my truth, I, like doubtless every man at some point in his life, knew a few girls like Laura back in my day. Just sayin'...;-)

"Here I am, feeling like a fucking fool...."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#327) "Foolin'" by Def Leppard - Simply put, one of the best hair metal songs ever, although Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot would likely not appreciate any further association with hair metal than has already taken place over the years. And I guess it really isn't a fair categorization, if calling anything they did "hair metal" places it anywhere within the vicinity of White Lion, or Winger. And "Foolin'" pre-dates the height of "hair metal" by a couple of years, was howling away when "the kids" were still digging Michael Jackson, the Police and Culture Club...and USA for Africa. ;-)

But whether you call it hair metal or whatever, "Foolin'" is, decades later, still kind of awesome (and this might be a reason not to call it hair metal): aggressive and anxious in equal measure, the authentically haunting melody pairs seamlessly with growling guitars, pounding drums and Elliot's formidably squealing vocals.

Let's just agree to call it a great song...from the hair metal era.

"Is anybody out there, anybody there / Does anybody wonder, anybody care..."

#328) "No Excuses" by Alice in Chains - Alice in Chains is another band that doesn't deserve to be chained (sorry...) to its association with a specific era of music, in their case "grunge".  That being said, Alice in Chains was the best of the grunge bands in my opinion, tasking one of the greatest rock voices of all time in Layne Staley with the job of being the perfect vehicle with which to carry Jerry Cantrell's sinister harmonies.

"No Excuses", from the 1994 EP Jar of Flies, is one of those rare things I was into as it was happening.  Usually, I display a sort of automatic skepticism when it comes to anything current, anything too cool, too of the moment, and then reliably come around years after the fact, flashing a "what was I (not) thinking...??" shrug and going on and on about everything I missed. Many of the songs on this very list, which I've been churning out for almost six years now, are songs I came late to.

But the grinding sense of alienation, the false hopes and empty promises, the fatalistic sense of departure, perhaps to something you can't come back from, so effortlessly forged in "No Excuses" by Staley's compelling vocals, was something I was absorbing fully like ointment when I was 21 and this music - and music like it - was slow-crawling up the charts.

"You my friend, I will defend, and if we change well I'll love you anyway..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#325) "Goodbye Stranger" by Supertramp - I was introduced to this song on the television show WKRP in Cincinnati when I was a kid (it started playing during a dramatic scene...or at least as dramatic as can be achieved on a sit-com), and like Bob Seger's "Roll Me Away" at the end of the movie Mask, it sparked a powerful stirring - an electrical charge of restlessness that bordered on titillation. In my mind, the elegantly simple electric piano riff that starts the song and pulses its way reliably throughout has forever remained on that short list of musical sounds sure to get the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention. But there is something else about this song that I love, and it has nothing to do with musicality. Musical styles and stylizations come and go, and at the end of the day, what's good and what's bad, what's moving and what's not, are never more than subjective at best.

It's the sentiment of the song: the notion of moving on or hoping to move on to something new, something better, or maybe feeling the need to keep on moving on in order to keep yourself right, making travel plans for a completely uninspiring and uncertain future as a means of coping.

Concepts like that don't seem to be much of a thing in popular music anymore, certainly not the way they were for the likes of Bob Seger, Jackson Browne and Lynard Skynard back in the day. Nobody rambles and roams anymore, or even thinks they might want to, or need to. Maybe they never did; maybe it was always a bit of a smoke and mirrors illusion. But a lot of the music from the late 70s, when "Goodbye Stranger" was released, seemed to suggest the notion that personal peace-of-mind was directly linked to physical freedom, the ability to come and go at will, with no chains, no one to answer to, nothing holding you back, holding you down.

No longer. Music is all about staying put these days - or at least being perfectly content with how things are, how you are - and that's not really surprising, I guess, with the Internet being a virtual means of escape. Nobody's stuck staring at the same four walls, even if they're surrounded by the same four walls. They can essentially travel the world without ever leaving the house, see things, talk to people, choose to talk to no one if they so desire. This leaves - that I've noticed - young people, who don't know a world any different, with little or no inclination to go anywhere, ever. They're living with their parents well into their twenties, or thirties, barely bothering to get driver's licenses unless it becomes absolutely necessary.  This is weird to me.

Yes, the whole "freedom" think is dangerously idealistic, and a bit of a tread-worn trope, and yes, it can certainly be argued that it was a uniquely Baby Boomer thing to put such a premium on unmitigated freedom. Millennials and Gen Y might be self-absorbed, but it's no secret the "Me" generation was selfish.  The frosty farewell evident in "Goodbye Stranger"...literally the lyrics, "goodbye stranger" and "I have to have things my own way to keep me in my youth"... were doubtless spoken to wives, husbands and children all too often back in the aftermath of 1960s, when it might be argued that too many doors were left wide open.

But that it doesn't turn up in songs at all these days is something lost, as far as I'm concerned. Once in a great while, "freedom" - in terms of hitting the road not merely to get from point A to point B, but to disappear into the sunshine - pops up in the odd country song, but not often. Usually in country music these days, you get a lot of thick, pasty patriotism and/or a completely cartoonish portrayal of redneckism that reveals no inclination to leave whatsoever, would even appear to suggest rambling and roaming is the coward's way out.  This is my land, the modern country artist is far more inclined to croon smugly, my country, my family, my roots are here, I'm not going anywhere! I got everything I need right here, and every right to be here! I'm staying put. I'm blessed. So fuck you.

In her lovely 1971 ballad "So Far Away", Carole King sang (negatively): "...one more song about moving along the highway / can't say much of anything that's new..."

I feel that way now, but for the opposite reason.  Nobody seems to want to hit the highway anymore, they don't want a sprawling leap into an unknown creating soul-feeding distance and perspective. They really do just want to sit at home and play on their computer in whatever capacity they prefer, let the world come to them in RGB. And make no mistake, I fall victim to that impulse (or lack of impulse) all the time, and I am by no means a Millennial.

But am I right in the assertion that it's more than a little too bad?

"It was early morning yesterday, I was up before the dawn..."


#326) "Awoo" by Sofi Tukker - Since their debut in 2016, Sofi Tukker, a New York based duo consisting of Sophie Hawley-Weld, Tucker Halpern and an extensive list of collaborative and/or contributing guests, have proven themselves to be a force to be reckoned with, existing and thriving on the funky and just a little kooky fringe of pop music, where they can blend equal portions of ultra cool and ultra ridiculous, do both very well, and appeal to everyone. I hear a little Prince in their sound, a little Lady Gaga, a lot of the B-52s, even a little Steely Dan, yet they've created their own vibe that is unflinchingly unique to their time, their generation.

Pop music, rock and roll, whatever you want to call it, is first and foremost all about being interesting.  Being boring - basic  - is the only real offense, and Sofi Tukker are anything but that. "Awoo" is sexy and playful, never taking itself too seriously, yet coming across entirely legit.

"I was there and then I quit..."

SUMMER PROJECT: Songs That Will Definitely NOT Be Coming Along on 1/48/50

Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for quite a while is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on something so heady as a road trip mix.  I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't get bogged down by age, image, genre or coolness factor and looking back, I'm proud of the fact that my list has been all over the road, so to speak.

But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons. Sometimes they try too hard. Sometimes they don't try hard enough.  Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way.   Sometimes there's no reason for a certain song to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip).  

And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.

Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50.  I won't comment beyond the listing.  Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!'  Either way is fine with me.  ;-)

❌  "From a Distance" by Bette Midler

❌  "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees

❌  "Walk the Dinosaur" by Was (Not Was)

SUMMER PROJECT: Songs That Will Definitely NOT Be Coming Along on 1/48/50

Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for quite a while is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on something so heady as a road trip mix.  I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't get bogged down by age, image, genre or coolness factor and looking back, I'm proud of the fact that my list has been all over the road, so to speak.

But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons. Sometimes they try too hard. Sometimes they don't try hard enough.  Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way.   Sometimes there's no reason for a certain song to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip).  

And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.

Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50.  I won't comment beyond the listing.  Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!'  Either way is fine with me.  ;-)

❌  "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice

❌  "Thong Song" by Cisqo

❌  "Rico Suave" by Gerardo

SUMMER PROJECT: Songs That Will Definitely NOT Be Coming Along on 1/48/50

Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for quite a while is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on something so heady as a road trip mix.  I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't get bogged down by age, image, genre or coolness factor and looking back, I'm proud of the fact that my list has been all over the road, so to speak.

But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons. Sometimes they try too hard. Sometimes they don't try hard enough.  Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way.   Sometimes there's no reason for a certain song to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip).  

And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.

Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50.  I won't comment beyond the listing.  Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!'  Either way is fine with me.  ;-)

❌  "Don't Trust Me" by 3OH!3

❌  "Leader of the Pats" by Bob and Zip

❌  "The Superbowl Shuffle" by The Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew  (even when I was a completely uncool 12-year-old, I felt I was too cool for this...)