The Top 100 (or so) songs I absolutely must have with me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#5: 'Without Love' by Tom Jones - Once recently, as I pulled into the K-mart parking lot, I was blaring this song and singing along to the best of my ability. My driver side window was open, and when it came to the great six-step crescendo of horns and vocals, I sung so loudly (straining a groin muscle trying to do what Jones does), a guy walking out of K-mart looked up startled from his phone to see my gigantic mouth open in a full-throttle bellow. Poor guy.

I really like the 'aging Sinatra/fat Elvis' vibe of this late-60s ballad (as I am a fan of both aging Sinatra and fat Elvis). There's no arguing the sentiment, and though it's hard to listen to (or watch) She's a Lady or his later version of Prince's Kiss and take him too seriously, there's no denying Tom Jones' magnificent tenor and effective method of attack, or the fact that, with the right song, he sounds like, and becomes, nothing less than the bomb motherfucker.

Rather than the lovesick hippopotamus I became in the K-mart parking lot.

"Without love, I had nothing, nothing at all...(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)"

#6: 'Sweeter Than Wine' by The Brains - Once more, I feel The Brains will provide a kind of insulation from dark thoughts on the road...although maybe not. I'm not sure this song doesn't have a streak of Patrick Bateman-esque cannibalism running through it. But its (even strayer) Stray Cats hook and smooth vocals - and just a little the suggestion of something sinister - are pretty compelling. It will keep me from falling asleep at the wheel, if nothing else.

"I like the way, the way that she dances/get this started and skip the romances..."

#7 'God' by John Lennon - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was Lennon's first post-Beatles offering, and God, playing at the end, is a cathartic summation of the rage, disillusionment and weariness (with everything except 'Yoko and me...') coursing through the album. It's a little hard to plug in personally to God, though, as it is so unambiguously about Lennon, but the mood of the song (wrought by the angry punching of piano chords, percussion lumbering along reluctantly, Lennon's tormented vocals...) evokes a sense of precipitous futility, a kind of event horizon from which there is no turning back felt by most people (even those who weren't around in the 60s) at some point in their lives. It makes me think of tides turning, paradigms shifting, ground crumbling beneath feet, and in the end, when the dust has settled, nothing being left but the sunlight captured in the strangely beautiful album cover art, which just might be where we all should want to be headed.   No matter how we get there, or when.

"The dream is over/what can I say...?"
 

#8: 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane - By no means a 'road song' in the traditional sense, Somewhere Only We Know is a wind-driven piece of music that, for me, captures something larger than itself. The thoughts that, on a day-to-day basis, inspire me, frighten me, bring me up, take me down, turn me out, lead me to loving, sometimes hating, cause me to reflect, to mourn, to move on, get me writing or sometimes render me unable to write, all sound a lot like Somewhere Only We Know. And it would be a long 14,000 miles without hearing this once, somewhere along the way.

"Oh simple thing, where have you gone/I'm getting old and I need something to rely on..."

#9: 'The Golden Age' by Cracker - Released in 1996, The Golden Age was a divergent musical path for Cracker. I might never have known about this beauty, had it not wound up on a CDX release sent to the country radio station where I worked at the time. 

It is 'country', I guess, certainly possesses the requisite twang, but that's about it. The Golden Age exists - plays - on a more complex level than any country song...at least anything considered 'hot country'. Like Somewhere Only We Know, it is lush and spacy and grabs at a weightier sadness than merely our emotions, holding court in a larger venue and seeming to flourish in long, lingering sunlight. I'd venture The Golden Age as my favorite song of all time. 1/48/50 would feel incomplete without it.

And so would I.

"The flaxen light, off of the dying wheat/your rye whiskey mouth, and your dandelion teeth..."