#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..."
