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

#46) "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty - This well-constructed, and for me sublimely moving, song harnesses the super-concentrated energy of something like Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves, but dampens it with a wind blast of anxiety, creating a strange but compelling emotional juxtaposition. Everything about it - from the marching forward melody, to Rob Thomas' disquieted vocals, to percussion that sounds like rocks tumbling down mountain faces onto roadways - mesmerizes me into daydreams about those heart-breaking instances - in relationships, lives, eras and worlds alike - when the end is already in motion before you realize what's happening.

Matchbox Twenty is one of those workhorse bands that never achieve superstardom, exactly, but never go away, and never seem to do anything wrong. While How Far We've Come is a resonant reminder of the instability that permeates life, it's also, I think, an affirmation that rock solid reliability, in music at least, does exist.

"Say your goodbyes if you got someone you can say goodbye to..."

#47) "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" by Merle Haggard -  It might be considered  traditional country, and for this list, a traditional 'road song', but there is really nothing traditional about Merle Haggard. A country music artist with folk sensibilities and an unerring ear for sweet melody, Haggard always spoke from the heart, even when it was unfashionable, sometimes especially if it was, and without trying too hard became country music's foremost troubadour. Today he resides as an elder statesman.

There's a sharp sullenness marking much of his music, which is what I love about it, but with the (slightly) lesser known I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am, Haggard takes a gentler tack with his ruminating. By all accounts, he lived much of what the song's about as a young man, and you can tell. There's a quiet but powerful authority to the lyrics, which lends a true presence to its melodic beauty. All of this conspires to make the fact that, until about 1960, there probably weren't many amongst the cell mates, prison guards and rough women who knew him who thought Merle Haggard would amount to much truly amazing. And inspiring.

"Hey I'm not bragging or complaining, I'm just talking to myself man to man..."

#48) "Fast as You" by Dwight Yoakam - In the early and mid-1980s, Dwight Yoakam helped spark a neo-traditional movement in country music; drawing a little from the Bakersfield sound, but adding a more sexually charged, and far hipper, dimension that was all his own.

Fast as You is perhaps the best example of this, a song so slick you can dance to it without moving, and I was lucky that it was more or less my introduction to country music. I'd grown up hating (er...not appreciating) the genre, but then, ironically enough, took a job as a deejay at a 100,000 watt country station. One Friday night, someone requested this song, and as it played over the on-air booth monitors, I realized there was much more to country than the stereotypes I'd been mocking most of my life, and for that matter, more to the stereotypes than meets the eye...or the ear.

 "Maybe I'll break hearts too..."

#49) "Stay with Me" by Faces - Ronnie Wood's axe grinding at the beginning is an air-guitarist's dream, but it's Rod Stewart's one-of-a-kind voice that keeps this song from becoming disposable. The late 60s/early 70s was the best era for Rod, in my opinion. Before he glammed out (Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?), before he lamed out (Forever Young)...back when he was just a rock and roller with a sense of humor, a slight chip on his shoulder and a killer voice, who didn't have anything to say or prove, and thus said and proved everything.

"I don't mean to sound degrading, but with a face like that you got nothing to laugh about..."


 

Reason #17 to Live Nebulously: Black Thursday...??

Seriously? Can't we have a break from the noise?  A one-day reprieve from the vigilant consumerism that permeates our lives year-round, but really gets ramped up this time of year in an effort to safeguard what we have come to believe constitutes a 'happy' holiday season?

I say this not because I'm above it all, but because I am as susceptible as anyone.  I can't say I've ever (or would ever) stand huddled in the pre-dawn darkness in front of a Best Buy on Friday morning to save $50, but would I hoist myself up at 8 p.m. Thursday night after consuming six pounds of turkey? I might; I just might.

I don't appreciate feeling like I should, feeling as though if I don't, I'm missing out on something important. I don't think it should be an option. Opening the doors to the absurd spectacle (sometimes outright freak show) that is 'Black Friday' on Thanksgiving night is not only exploiting both consumer and worker, it is the very antithesis of what the holiday should be about and needs to remain: quiet, reflective, small and insular, everything closed, with the exception of a convenience store or two, for travelers, or in case someone forgot the stuffing. A breather from the other 364 days to appreciate everything in our lives that money can't buy.  Just one day. We can handle one day without the noise, can't we?

Just one day?

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

#42) "Summertime" by Kenny Chesney - Kenny Chesney has built his career largely around kicking back and looking back. His music for the most part avoids the piss and vinegar prevalent among many of his country music co-stars; that is, it avoids being overly 'country', 'American', or 'Southern', sentiments which can lead to a kind of exclusion unless you're determined to strike a serious, and absurd, pose.

This laid back (and truthfully no less 'country', 'American' or 'Southern') musical style and vibe appeals to me. Chesney has come to represent, for me, what being a small towner should be about...and was for me, to an extent, in days gone by (minus the cowboy hat and boots, which I would look positively horrendous in). Some of the first times and good times in his music are idealized, but really no more so than they wind up being in people's memories. Some people were lucky enough to get a taste, just a taste, of something idyllic. I was one of them. 

Summertime is an ode to the sweetest season; the only season I would ever dream of trying to pull off 1/48/50 in. It's a clarion call to the anticipation and practice of a perfect summer. Like much of Chesney's music, it just kind of feels good, and more importantly, I get the sense that everyone's invited to the party.

"The nights roll in, man, just like a long lost friend..."

#43) "Winning" by Santana - Winning was released in 1981, but I didn't realize it was Santana until 2007. I'm not sure who I thought it was all those times it droned in the background on this classic rock station or that; some one-hit wonder of the era, I guess. It's not Carlos Santana singing, it rarely (never?) is, and the singer's vocal style is a bit different from other Santana collaborations. But the guitar work is hard to mistake for anyone but Santana, and this just might be the mother of all 'never say die' survival songs. I don't like the thought of getting out of bed without this song within reach, really, much less driving 14,000 miles across the country.

"I had a dream, but it turned to dust/what I thought was love that must have been lust..."

#44) "(Sittin' on) The Dock of a Bay" by Otis Redding  - Recorded just a few days before the soul singer's untimely death in 1967, (Sittin' on) The Dock of a Bay became a huge hit in the aftermath. But to dwell on the posthumous factor is to detract, unfairly in my opinion, from the greatness of the song. Between the elegant arrangement complementing his butter smooth voice, and his butter smooth voice complementing lyrics that are as salty as they are tragic, I think even if Redding were alive today this would still be considered, and rightly so, one of the greatest recordings ever.

And if you really think about it a moment, sitting on the dock of a bay, wasting time, might just be the ultimate, ultimate state of living nebulously!

"Sitting here resting my bones, and this loneliness won't leave me alone..."

#45) "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train - Train is one of those bands people love to hate; their songs usually turn up on playlists as dirty little secrets, but this keeps the band quietly and securely living on the close periphery of stardom. They never make a huge impact; never reveal themselves as game changers, never sweep the Grammies (although they have won). But since the late 90s they've kind of always been there, doing their thing. Everybody knows the band, but nobody seems to know what the lead singer's name is offhand, and nearly everyone I've talked to over time has at least one song they like that they were surprised to learn was a Train song.

For me, Train's music is like wine. The more time goes by, the better it tastes - the richer and more complex the notes. Drops of Jupiter, Meet Virginia, Calling All Angels...songs that used to annoy me (without really knowing why) simply don't anymore (also without knowing why).

I have a special place in my heart for 2009's Hey, Soul Sister. It was released at a time of upheaval in my life. When everything was changing all at once, when it was anybody's guess how things were going to shake out, and I was faced with coming to terms with a few of the leaden realities of life, this song came along like a gasp of relief, a brightly lit reassurance that everything was going to be all right, that I was going to be all right. Music doesn't normally serve that function for me, but Hey, Soul Sister was at the right place at the right time.

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

#38) "Twenty-one" by The Eagles - There's a brand of breezy cockiness to this song that I felt deep in my bones around the age of twenty-one (maybe a little younger, maybe a little older), even though I had little at the time to be cocky about. I was a young parent, had no money, had taken my turn in line with the other losers in town either not smart enough or motivated enough to go to college, whose paths crossed mine amid the few low-pay, low talent jobs available.  

But I was nevertheless certain of things back then, certain as much of what I didn't want in my life as what I wanted. I knew what I was capable of, if not exactly where I was headed; I knew what mattered and what didn't; I existed, in my mind at least, on a self-styled rarefied plane of existence, knowing myself, knowing 'things'. Twenty-one was a truly authentic contribution to the soundtrack of my young life, and these days, its bright tune and fantastically optimistic lyrics still speak to me, even though I have crossed the halfway point and don't have nearly as much time on my side.

But truthfully, I didn't have nearly as much time as I thought back then either. It's always later than we think, which is why optimism, even if it drifts into cockiness once in a while, is vital.

'They say a man should have a stock and trade/but me, I'll find another way...'

#39) "Ragin' Cajun" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Though the story this song tells is pretty ridiculous, Charlie Daniels is unique in country music for his brand of folklore-style storytelling, and Ragin' Cajun not only vividly illustrates CDB's tightly woven musicianship (also unique - as in rare - in country), but gets me thinking a little about what it means to be southern.

I am not southern. I'm the opposite of southern, in fact. I am from Wisconsin...northern Wisconsin, at that. I've always had a theory that the further north you travel, the less communicative people become. Not unfriendly or hostile, necessarily, just with less to say, and less concern whether anything gets said...laconic, terse. I've always liked being a part of that culture a little.

But in the south, man...they are just full of their southern pride, and never content to revel in it quietly. Some of it is warranted  - an undeniable friendliness and slower pace (that I've experienced anyway), pockets of really good food (Creole, Cajun, et cetera...) - some of it isn't; that is, some of it comes across like an over compensatory response to losing the Civil War...but it's there, it's real, and felt by just about everyone. Their land, their women, their sports, their traditions, figures of speech and habits, all of it lauded in song time and time again, under the unified banner of 'southern', and in this song, literally, the fiery explosion of fiddles that ushers in its frolicsome, square-dancin' middle eight section with the absolutism of a new law being enacted.

Yes, I'm proud to be where I'm from, but that pride just never reaches a fevered pitch in Wisconsin, or anywhere north of St. Louis that I've seen.  For reasons I can't quite explain, I find the phenomenon of southern pride fascinating. 

'He was faster than a copperhead, and he warn't afraid of hell...'

#40) "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug - Talk about a narrative that I don't understand, I am about as far away from the person anyone would expect to be listening to this song as can be.

And yet, I don't like having to buy into that thinking. Is music not the universal language of mankind? What's the point of making music if only for a depressingly narrow audience? Of course, subject matter is a factor. You got to be able to relate to a song somewhat in order to be fully moved by it. And I don't pretend to be moved by the lyrics to I Ain't Heard of That. They are witless and menacing, and like the previous Charlie Daniels song (ironically enough), tell a more or less ridiculous story.

But it's the rhythm of this song that gets me...infectious, hypnotic. Rhythm, for my money, is what MAKES music the universal language. Ever since the first Cro-Magnon, bored out of his gourd on a long, winter night, thought to pick up two bones off the cave floor and start tapping away on a rock, then kept at it over and over again, until his snaggle-toothed girl hoisted herself up and started shaking her ass, rhythm has been what's brought us together.

Not as a culture, or a race, but a species.

"If it make you want to move, then move..."

#41) "We Can Make the Morning" by Elvis Presley - I'm a big 'late Elvis' fan. Everything he did from his television 'comeback special' in '68 until his death in '77 represents the quintessential Elvis, what he felt he was, and was, really - his music rooted, style-wise, in the gospel he loved above all else.  I am well aware there are many in the world who would heartily disagree. Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll, they'd say, and all that Vegas-era crap he did after meeting with Richard Nixon is just his musical decline mirroring his physical decline.

But for me, there's something refreshing, something hauntingly distant and ethereal sounding, about his music from his final decade: Kentucky Rain, If I Can Dream, Memories, his fantastic live rendition of Unchained Melody in the very last weeks of his life, when it was apparent that while his body may have failed him, his voice never did. His voice soars in this era, and the music follows, as if caught in a swift updraft, right through the rain into the sunny cloud tops. We Can Make the Morning is quintessential 'late Elvis'...and late Elvis songs are like the soundtracks to dreams for me...good dreams. The ones you don't want to wake up from.  I predict more than a few of them on this 1/48/50 list.

And yeah, maybe a few early ones too.  ;-)

"Hope creates a foothold for the light...."

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

#34) "Going to California" by Led Zeppelin - Another touch of surreal, Middle Earth-ism in Robert Plant's poetry and Zeppelin's music, Going to California encapsulates, in my mind, the entire 'trip' of the late 1960s. The plunky guitar seems to carry Plant's cloud-strewn voice in from another dimension, encapsulating both the excitement and beauty, and the menace and madness, of California dreaming.

And if you think about it,  it could be applied not just to the flower children of the 60s, but the Okies of the 30s, or the gold diggers of 1849. There's always been something about California that hurts as much as it heals, and never heals quite like it's expected to.

"Spent my days with a woman unkind/smoked my stuff and drank all my wine..."

#35) "Take it to the Limit" by The Eagles - I have sort of a love/hate relationship with The Eagles. They were a pretty big deal to me once (Hotel California was one of those songs I spent more than a few Saturday nights playing backwards on my record player when I was kid, searching for hidden messages, because how could there not be hidden messages in that one!), but I simply don't care for them anymore. Something about their music grates on me now, or worse, fails to keep my interest. I've said it many times: the only way to really offend me is to bore me.

But there are a couple of hold-outs in their library that have stood the test of time, and one of these, surprisingly enough, is 1975's Take it to the Limit. Surprising, in that I don't imagine a lot of energy was put into the writing of this song; it's basically just a jumble of half-baked lyrics set to a lumbering horse-trot beat. But it nevertheless captures the spirit of 'the road' pretty well in my mind, and what I find interesting is that while most highway songs are from a youth's perspective, Take it to the Limit seems to come from a later stage in life, suggesting a desire to not go gently...

Which doubtless will be much on my mind by the time 1/48/50 rolls around.

"But the dreams I've seen lately, keep on turning out, and burning out, and turning out the same..."

#36) "Snowbird" by Anne Murray - 1/48/50 promises to be a fairly cathartic experience all around, happening at a time when I will be not only taking stock of my life, but the times in which it has played out. Acknowledging this necessitates bringing along music from the cradle of my life, unfashionable - and a little embarrassing  - though it may be.

For better or worse, Snowbird is not only one of the first songs I remember hearing in my life, but its sound - mainly the crisp, gleaming orchestral accompaniment - is what I remember of much of the music playing when I was very young. I could not have custom ordered better parents, but they were not rock and rollers, and the music that was playing in those early days (before I could choose what music played) was either classical, or some form of AM gold - Carole King, The Carpenters, James Taylor, Barry Manilow, Stephen Bishop - either piddling from the tweezy tweeter of the tiny AM radio on the window sill behind the cash register in their book store, or thumping from the whopping 8-track stereo system (about the size of a small car) that prepossessed our living room..

Truth be told, I'm not embarrassed at all. Snowbird is a pretty song. It's not sexy, but its airy gentleness makes its well suited for introducing any young child to the world. It's not fashionable, but maybe that just means it will never go out of style.

"The thing I want most in life's the thing that I can't win..."

#37) "Hey Nineteen" by Steely Dan - More magical, musical elixir from Steely Dan, Hey Nineteen is flawless insertion of vocals into flawless rhythm, dressed in a flawless arrangement of horns, guitars and synthesizers. True to their track record, it does not fail to suggest a certain bewitching sleaziness running silver  - or maybe gray - just beneath the skin, and leave it to Steely Dan to make a song about a mid-life crisis sound sexy and vital.

This would be a good 'offbeat' song to watch a woman dance to.

"The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing..."