#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..."
