#104) "Did it in a Minute" by Hall and Oates - Like most of what Hall and Oates did back in the day, Did it in a Minute is highly stylized and uniquely their own (seriously, who else could sing a song like this and make it work so well...?), but it doesn't really move me emotionally in any way. Instead, it evokes sharp and crisp memories from childhood, and those are what move me.
It makes me think of being ten, of Little League summers, of losing a lot of games. It brings to life memories of my teammates and me watching the game unfold intently, perched in a row in the dugout like the big leaguers, smacking wads of Big League Chew with our teeth and hacking out pink saliva. I can still taste the Faygo Rock and Rye, just a dime per bottle at the corner store...how well it seemed to pair with a chocolate Charleston Chew. Every once in a while a kid had real chew....Steve W. let me dip from his tin of Skoal once or twice; it was disgusting, but there was no way I was gonna be anything but supercool and pretend to want more. But then he cruelly (calculatedly...?) cut me off, and I was forced to ride my Huffy Rawhide banana seater down to the corner store to try to buy some for myself. The lady behind the counter wouldn't sell it to me, and I wound up making my escape on my Huffy Rawhide banana seater when two town bullies strolled in and caught me in the candy aisle buying Big League Chew.
The song playing on the radio behind the counter in that corner store, and on my dad's car radio when he came to pick me up (they chased me clear to the other side of town; I lost them, but broke my bike chain in the process...), and on my older brother's little plastic boom box all through that summer as he cantered about in his tight purple shorts, knee-high striped socks and elastic head band? Did it in a Minute by Hall and Oates.
"Everybody likes to laugh at love, but what they want is to be proven wrong..."
#105) "It's a Great Day to be Alive" by Travis Tritt - Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd be willing to place Travis Tritt on the (very) short list of celebrities you could probably sit down and have a few beers with and not have to endure being reminded every thirty seconds who he is.
That makes him well suited for a song like It's a Great Day to Be Alive, a grass roots 'feel good' song if ever there were one, yet not simple by any means. There's an undertone of uncertainty permeating this song's syncopated rhythm, a gloss of (potential) doom hiding in the tall, waving grass of lyrics. The line, 'I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes' alone is pretty heady, carries with it an undeniable - and unavoidable - subtext.
And yet, the song still manages to offer a reliable prescription for the successful management of nearly all of life's bullshit.
"I got a three-day beard I don't plan to shave..."
#106) "The Logical Song" by Supertramp - Talk about heady, if I sit and concentrate on the lyrics of this song while it plays, each word a jigsaw puzzle piece put in place, I run the risk of having my mind blown totally offshore. Maybe it's not such a good idea to bring this one along with me on 1/48/50. I might start marinating in a casserole dish of my own existence and run off the road. ;-)
The Logical Song is another good example of a piece of pop music that would be hard pressed to find any airplay these days, much less reach #6 on the charts, as it did in the U.S. in 1979.
"There are times when all the world's asleep, the questions run too deep, for such a simple man..."
