#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...."
