#60) "Truckin'" by The Grateful Dead - I can't say I'm a fan of The Grateful Dead. I don't really get the appeal, and to be honest, there's always been something about the concept of the 'Deadhead' that's annoyed me a little. Not to mention, the band's 1987 Touch of Grey was proof positive that even the grittiest, most anti-establishment rock outfit with the grittiest, most die-hard following is in danger of selling out.
But the older I get, the more I appreciate Truckin'. Sometimes there's nothing better to groove to driving down the road; sometimes this is what I want to hear just sitting in a chair staring out the window. At the same time, the older the song gets, the more significant it becomes. On the surface, it would seem a musical travelogue of the band's tireless life on the road, but it also captures a snapshot of America at a specific moment in history, that precipitous time when everything was changing, and open drug references and 'hippie' defiance were still new and terrifying to Middle America, and thus groundbreaking in music (yet tame, of course, by today's standards).
There are those who dig even deeper into the lyrics, consider Truckin' a metaphor for Life, and I can get down with that.
"What a long, strange trip it's been..."
#61) "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash - In 1996, when I was working in country radio, I found Cash's American Recordings CD stashed amongst the collection of 'hot country' artists of the day. I can't remember what about it caught my eye, or what prompted me to listen (I was indifferent to Cash when I first got that job, and country music in general), but I was blown away by the gravitas of the songs, the fact that, though he was already in his mid 60s by then, Cash was still making relevant, impactful music. Little did I know American Recordings was only the start of a twilight resurgence for the Man in Black that would continue, with a little help from the competent Rick Rubin, right up to the time he died.
This was before all of that though, before his cover of Nine Inch Nails led to a posthumous explosion in popularity, before the Joaquin Phoenix movie, before it became uncool not to recognize his greatness. Cash deserves all of it certainly, but in this instance, I really was country when country wasn't cool, digging it way back when I was not allowed to play it on the air. I played Drive On (from American Recordings) once, and immediately got a call on the studio line from the station general manager, who seemed to be always listening.
'What the hell...!' he cried. "That's not hot country!'
Though I wanted to, I didn't bother asking what the CD was doing in the on-air booth with all the Shania Twain and Brooks and Dunn and Jo Dee Messina if I wasn't supposed to play it. But I was a Johnny Cash fan from that day forward in any case.
With its train rattle rhythm and one of the wickedest guitar licks ever fried in a pan, Folsom Prison Blues is from the vintage era of Johnny Cash. Outside of Ring of Fire, it's probably his signature song. The live version is the one to seek out, a little faster, little kickier than the album original, recorded at Folsom Prison, as a matter of fact, in the late 1960s. "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," Cash warbles in his powerful - yet intriguingly unsteady - baritone. A second later, someone, presumably a member of the felonious audience, screams out "woooooo!", which I have always thought is as unsettling as it is hilarious.
Folsom Prison Blues is perfect for a road trip; always gets me thinking about freedom; that is, personal freedom, the simple yet seminal right we all (should) have to come and go as we please at any given second of our lives, to choose whether to stand on pavement or on grass, as it suits us. I can't imagine having that basic right taken away. I've known guys who have sat in jail, known some who have sat in jail repeatedly. And a few, even, who just can't seem to stay out of trouble, the majority of their adult time has been spent behind bars. No hardened criminals, mind you, but more than a few local losers who aren't bad people, just keep screwing up, and doing time, screwing up, and doing time, over and over.
This is beyond comprehension to me. One time locked up would be my only time. I would be lucky to survive it; I sure as hell wouldn't be back.
"But those people keep a-moving, and that's what tortures me..."
#62) "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns and Roses - Predominant here is what I believe to be the driving force behind G-n'-R's greatness back in the day: Slash's guitar work.
Also, if 1/48/50 is at all going to be about taking a little bit of the past along with me, no other song reminds me more of being fifteen than Sweet Child O' Mine.
"Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I'd hide..."
#63) "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen purists may disagree, but Born in the USA should never be dismissed, or God forbid excluded, when discussing his complete body of work. The Boss's transformation from wild-eyed denizen of boardwalk carnivals in the 1970s to working class everyman who comes home spent and falls asleep in the dim light of his own regret in the 80s could easily be considered a perfectly organic evolution. Bruce couldn't get into his 30s and 40s and still be singing songs like Rosalita, could he? There is probably no more lamentable cold hard truth about Life than the fact that as we age, "Rosalita" - and all that she implies - goes away.
Born in the USA is by no means my favorite Springsteen song. But it's one of those loud, ringing anthems that complements any ride into - or out of - any community, any cruise past strip malls and factories and antenna farms and housing developments surrounding sporadic vestiges of our agrarian past - the odd silo, or random barn sprouting up from the now lifeless land. It truly plays well as one sails past a lot all at once. And I love the fact that the song is not uber-patriotic. In fact, it's not patriotic in the least. If anything, it's an indictment of the USA in the post-Vietnam era. The whole album is this, really, and as I understand it, Springsteen has refused more than a few politicians and organizations who didn't understand this and asked permission to use the song as a patriotic anthem.
For that reason alone, Born in the USA is worthy of Bruce's pantheon.
"They're still there, he's all gone..."
