The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#175) "I Am Waiting" by The Rolling Stones - Not entirely sure if it's true, but I remember hearing or reading somewhere that The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson was so frustrated by the success of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album (released on the heels of his critically acclaimed Pet Sounds), it cast him into a protracted state of depression and self-loathing so deep rooted - and exacerbated by drugs and alcohol - that it tore at the fabric of his sanity. That's unfortunate, because he was a major talent, and I've never thought the Beach Boys get enough credit for what they contributed to American music. But Wilson may have been totally imagining things. I've never really heard anyone attempt to compare The Beatles and The Beach Boys. All things considered it's kind of apples to oranges.

The comparison I've most often heard in my life is between The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The Fab Four get the most press in the greatness department, but listening to The Stones - to certain songs, at certain moments - I sometimes find it hard to decide which band was - on balance - the more magnificent.

"I Am Waiting" is not a song likely to be included in a Rolling Stones weekend on the radio (er, does such a thing still happen...?). It doesn't possess the electrified sexual tension of Satisfaction or Miss You, the anthem-worthy energy of Start Me Up, the mesmerizing sense of madness wrought by Sympathy for the Devil or Jumpin' Jack Flash, or the drenched, down-to-Earth sorrow of Wild Horses or Angie (two songs that, I'd say, handily place them shoulder-to-shoulder with The Beatles). Recorded in 1966, a deep track on a largely inauspicious album (all things considered), "I Am Waiting" strikes me as a last vestige of the clean cut "lads" first presented to America the way the Beatles and countless other British "invaders" were, a band still waiting (no pun intended) to be allowed to develop into what it would.

But it's compellingly beautiful in its austerity, the harmonies and vocals are striking. Reading the lyrics, I'm sure the song is drug-inspired, in that bright, sunny, not-sure-quite-what-is-being-said way bands had to go about such business at the time, kind of like The Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping". Nothing overt here, just nudge-nudge, wink-wink...they don't say, but you know...

When all is said and done, The Stones have long outlasted The Beatles, and The Beach Boys, so maybe that means they win.

"I am waiting, I am waiting / Waiting for someone to come out of somewhere..."

#176) "Time Marches On" by Tracy Lawrence - Recorded during a uniquely creative period in country music (mid to late 1990s, when larger, more cinematic themes that transcended patriotism and redneck pride were being tried on for size), "Time Marches On" is a subtly but potently evocative song, depicting a family growing up - and old - across a span of some forty years.

There are plenty of songs that speak to the passage of time, to changes in attitudes and styles and the enduring nature of the human spirit through it all.  But "Time Marches On" is unusual. Written by Bobby Braddock, one of country music's hit making machines, it avoids cheesy sentimentality by depicting the family's vulnerabilities as the years pass, rather than its strengths. It offers smartly placed, and in some cases haunting, cultural references to specific time periods, and never once are we led to believe everything's all okay...or at all okay.

At the same time, never does "Time Marches On" come across like a country song trying to be something it's not. It's a country song stepping outside the box surely, but in doing so, illustrates vividly what a country song can be.

Now considered a new classic, "Time Marches On" still haunts me, for its manufacture of a dark beauty too rare in the genre, and for Lawrence's thick Southern accent working so well within the framework of the melody. Sometimes that drawl, when it's laid on too thick (by Lawrence or anyone else), can be a distraction. Not so here.

I was working in country radio when this song was released. I liked it right away, but was still too young then to wrap my head around what it was saying, had only just emerged from the part of life when time seems to move slowly.

20 years on, and oh how I've seen it march.

"Mama is depressed, barely makes a sound / Daddy's got a girlfriend in another town..."

The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#118) "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" by Billy Joel - I'm not sure exactly what, but something about this song has always stirred restlessness. Maybe it's the rolling waves of piano chords that sound like they're crashing on shore, or the lyrics alluding to that sense of futility that almost always precedes goodbye.  I can't honestly say I relate to any of what the song is actually saying (nor that I'm entirely sure what that is...), but somehow it's always been easy to plug what it's not saying (or leaving unsaid) into my own life.

Whatever it is that appeals to me, it's found only in the live version, released as a single in the early 1980s and found on Joel's double Greatest Hits package from '85. The studio version, from 1976's Turnstiles doesn't pack nearly as much of a punch.

I wonder why that is...how can that be, really? It's the exact same song, and I'm not a fan of live music; yet for some reason, when I listen to the live version of Say Goodbye to Hollywood, depending on my mood, and the time of day, and if the light outside is just right, and/or I'm driving fast enough, I get chills. Chills.

The studio version....meh. Never gonna happen.

"Say a word out of line, you find out the friends you had are gone, forever....forever..."

#119) "Roadrunner" by The Pretty Things - I'm always squawking on this page about how the original version of any song is the best, but I'm not totally inflexible on that point. Once in a while someone comes along and does a worthy cover version, sometimes even eclipsing the original, and for better or worse, it's also true that sometimes what one considers the 'original', and therefore the best, is the first version one happens to hear. I know for a fact there are those walking among us who prefer The Dixie Chicks' version of Landslide, for instance, and Faith Hill's version of Piece of My Heart for that matter, solely because that's how they were introduced to the song, and that first musical impression can leave an indelible (if unfortunate) mark.

I guess I'm guilty as well. The Pretty Things' version of Roadrunner was for a long time the only version I knew. In fact, only recently did I learn it was a Bo Didley song, and in spite of The Originator's sacrosanct legend, I'm sticking with The Pretty Things when it comes to this list. Musically, their version might be considered just this side of sloppy, but the garage band bundle of noise wipes out what I think of as the cartoonish sterility of the original...you know, that goony sound that used to find its way into John Hughes movies a lot back in the day (think Uncle Buck...)...and lends a recklessness that befits the subject matter, further embellished by Phil May's petulant sounding vocals.

What can I say? Sometimes there's no message, no relating, nothing to relate to, really, and no point tearing something apart in order to examine it. Sometimes you just like the way something sounds. Sometimes music provokes an impulse rather than a thought, and that largely indescribable phenomenon is at the heart of rock and roll. I'd be willing to bet Bo Didley, of all people, knew this.

Whoever sings it, this song just screams for the open road. Hell yeah, for four or five months, I fully intend to not be kept up with.

"I'm a road runner honey, and you can't keep up with me..." 

#120) "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones -   Fifty years on, that simple but razor-edged guitar riff remains the first and last word in rock and roll. With Satisfaction, The Stones brought the rebellion first hatched by Elvis and James Dean in the 1950s one step closer to that place of madness and menace that would come to define the 60s.

In 1979, Jeff Bridges hosted a remarkably comprehensive rock and roll retrospective called Heroes of Rock and Roll, in which he very rightly says, "Unlike the Beatles, the Stones wouldn't be content to hold your hand."

Discontentment too is at the heart of rock and roll.

"When I'm watching my TV and a man comes on to tell me how white my shirts can be / But he can't be a man cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me..."

The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#115) "Angie" by The Rolling Stones - Much like Wild Horses, Angie evokes very specific memories for me, of being a young adult overwhelmed by the adult world, of having responsibilities outpacing my means, of wondering how the hell I got where I was, and whether doing something different, or not doing something at all, might have made a difference. All of it at that age when we like to think our personal drama (especially romantic drama) matters in the great cosmic all more than it actually does, and so we hand-feed it, in a continuous and ultimately exhaustive process of nursing it back to health.

The acoustic introduction in Angie is like an emotional Tar-Baby, ensnared in which I can find every dreary Wednesday afternoon I ever sat through wishing I were somewhere else. And draped over the thin but broad shoulders of the orchestral accompaniment as the song climaxes, I can find every sunset I ever sat and watched while coming to the restless realization that is if anything was going to change in this big, daunting world - in my big, daunting world - something drastic needed to happen.

Haunting to this day, but gorgeous. Just gorgeous. For my money, Angie is one of the most expertly rendered ballads ever - vocals, percussion, instrumentation...it's all there (listen to that fucking piano!), and The Stones are certainly one of the most diverse rock bands ever. They stand second to no one. 

"Angie, Angie, ain't it good to be alive...?"

#116) "Suddenly Last Summer" by The Motels - The lyrics leave a little to be desired...well, okay, they leave a lot to be desired. But Martha Davis' voice brings them to life...well, okay, maybe performs mouth-to-mouth. But the positively mesmerizing bass line, coupled with a middle interlude of bells, synthesizers and guitars that tumble down the rock canyon of my senses, creates a phenomenal mood, the kind of place, the kind of time, I would always prefer to find myself in love in.

And as to the lyrics, does love always - or ever - make sense? Or have to?

"It keeps me standing still, it takes all my will..."

#117) "Free Will" by Rush - A long time ago, I made the mistake of engaging in a debate with a music snob, one of those people who set forth nothing less than a self-styled moral authority on what they consider to be good music and what they consider to be bad music, and always make sure to throw down names of musicians and bands nobody's ever heard of to inoculate their taste from the dreaded charge of mediocrity. This, whether they actually listen to or know the music at all. Often, for many, it's enough to be fashionable.

It's likely this guy wasn't a poser, however. He was a musician himself, a drummer, and I'm pretty sure he actually listened to and liked all that obscure, alternative music he spoke of. And that's fine. The problem wasn't that he was alternative anything, it was that he immediately dismissed the whole of Top 40 music spanning forty years as mere pap, and was quick to pounce when I remarked, mostly in passing, that a) Rush was a fairly innovative and talented band in their day, with a lot to say, and (especially) b) Neil Peart was/is a hell of a drummer. 

Whether Rush deserves to be remembered in the annals of music history is open to debate, I guess (I still think so), but if you listen to Free Will, Neal Peart's seemingly computer timed rhythm-keeping makes the song what it is, yet it was this very precision that the music snob took issue with. No, no, no, he said (definitely a 'three no' kind of guy...), Neil Peart's a little too tight, little too stringent.  He flashed a patronizing (and totally stringent) smile. He doesn't really know how to interpret.

I didn't know what the hell he was talking about at the time, and I still don't. I think Neal Peart's drumming in all of Rush's music has a way of creating a melody all it's own.

Whatever.  All I know is that in my fantasy band, especially when I'm driving down the road (as I will be for long stretches on 1/48/50), I'm almost always the singer, or pianist, or guitarist.

Unless I'm jamming to Rush, when I become the drummer (er, you know, in the richly decorated rumpus room of my mind...;-), the guy who keeps it all together, sitting mostly hidden at the back of the stage, stitching it all up nice and tight, and in Peart's case, doing nothing less than making the bleeding stop. ;-)

"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice..."

The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#107) "Downtown Train" by Rod Stewart - I've said it numerous times on this page, I'm not usually a fan of cover versions, especially covers of songs penned by remarkable talents. Tom Waits is a musical genius, a poet and innovator, even if his voice sounds like he's been gargling with Drano the last twenty-five years. For me, he is hallowed, and like The Beatles, I generally feel like other artists should just leave him alone. But every once in a while, it happens that someone comes along and does someone else's great song justice.

In 1990, Rod Stewart was enjoying not only a resurgence in popularity, but a kind of image makeover. He'd gone from semi-androgynous disco diva dude (which itself had been a departure from his original rock and blues roots) to pop music elder statesman in the blink of an eye; in other words, replaced sashaying across the stage in spandex tights singing Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? with riding in the back of a truck with a precocious five-year-old reflecting on Life in Forever Young. Downtown Train was part of this evolution into a more mature, sophisticated Rod.

In truth, the beauty of Downtown Train is self-contained and self-fulfilling. It's one of those dramatic songs that captures something larger than merely the moment at hand, encompasses whole pages of script in Whitman's powerful play all at once. But Stewart's version discovers - and frees - a certain restlessness locked up in Waits' version, concealed by spartan arrangement and Waits' limited vocal ability. Rod's powerful and compelling voice brings it all home in a way that - *sigh* - Waits, for all his genius, simply can't.

"All my dreams fall like rain..."

#108) "Wild Horses" by The Sundays -  Here we have another example of a cover version that does the original justice, although in this case, Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones doesn't really need a lot of help. Among the most melancholy songs I've ever heard, it draws forth potent personal memories, makes me think of being young and dumb and in a relationship going nowhere, of first realizing adulthood might not be what I thought it would be when I was little, and the long, daunting days that plodded past dressed in gray. Keith Richards is quoted as saying the song is about 'being a million miles from where you want to be.'

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

The Sundays' version, from 1992, amplifies the emotional drudgery of the song by draping across it the strange hope that all that sickly melancholy is just a bad dream you'll eventually wake up from.

Of course it isn't. And you don't.

"Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them someday..."

#109) "Long Time Gone" by The Dixie Chicks - Natalie Maines doesn't necessarily have the best voice in country music, but for my money hers is the sexiest, and this is no more evident than in Long Time Gone. She's got pipes too, that is, like any country diva worth her salt she can bellow at 300 decibels if need be, but her music has never revolved around the fact that she can. Rather, she possesses a nuanced tonal quality that sets The Dixie Chicks, and herself as an artist, apart from all the rest in country, and which I find compellingly attractive. The strong, and nuanced, musicianship of the Chicks is also no better represented than in Long Time Gone.

"They got money, but they don't have Cash..."

#110) "Whip It" by Devo - The truth is, at the end of the day, don't we all just wanted to be remembered?

It's easy to sing the praises of someone's genius, to laud the Beatles, Stones, Floyds and Macs, the Axls, Kurts, Dre's, Em's, in our midst. But not everyone these days remembers - or gives a crap - about them, and as time goes by, styles and tastes change irreparably. It's a major pitfall of being the voice of a generation. That generation grows up, and old, and the next generation just can't or won't recognize...not in the same way. It invariably gets its own thing going.

But I don't think I've ever met anyone, of any age, who can't get down to Whip It. Silly and goony as it is, it nevertheless oddly transcends time, style and genre. It reliably gets everyone turning the radio up, jamming out, as it were, and that is an accomplishment not to be dismissed.

Plus, listen to the lyrics. Whip It is precisely the attitude with which to approach Life. :-)

"When something's going wrong, you must whip it..."