The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#107) "Downtown Train" by Rod Stewart - I've said it numerous times on this page, I'm not usually a fan of cover versions, especially covers of songs penned by remarkable talents. Tom Waits is a musical genius, a poet and innovator, even if his voice sounds like he's been gargling with Drano the last twenty-five years. For me, he is hallowed, and like The Beatles, I generally feel like other artists should just leave him alone. But every once in a while, it happens that someone comes along and does someone else's great song justice.

In 1990, Rod Stewart was enjoying not only a resurgence in popularity, but a kind of image makeover. He'd gone from semi-androgynous disco diva dude (which itself had been a departure from his original rock and blues roots) to pop music elder statesman in the blink of an eye; in other words, replaced sashaying across the stage in spandex tights singing Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? with riding in the back of a truck with a precocious five-year-old reflecting on Life in Forever Young. Downtown Train was part of this evolution into a more mature, sophisticated Rod.

In truth, the beauty of Downtown Train is self-contained and self-fulfilling. It's one of those dramatic songs that captures something larger than merely the moment at hand, encompasses whole pages of script in Whitman's powerful play all at once. But Stewart's version discovers - and frees - a certain restlessness locked up in Waits' version, concealed by spartan arrangement and Waits' limited vocal ability. Rod's powerful and compelling voice brings it all home in a way that - *sigh* - Waits, for all his genius, simply can't.

"All my dreams fall like rain..."

#108) "Wild Horses" by The Sundays -  Here we have another example of a cover version that does the original justice, although in this case, Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones doesn't really need a lot of help. Among the most melancholy songs I've ever heard, it draws forth potent personal memories, makes me think of being young and dumb and in a relationship going nowhere, of first realizing adulthood might not be what I thought it would be when I was little, and the long, daunting days that plodded past dressed in gray. Keith Richards is quoted as saying the song is about 'being a million miles from where you want to be.'

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

The Sundays' version, from 1992, amplifies the emotional drudgery of the song by draping across it the strange hope that all that sickly melancholy is just a bad dream you'll eventually wake up from.

Of course it isn't. And you don't.

"Wild, wild horses, we'll ride them someday..."

#109) "Long Time Gone" by The Dixie Chicks - Natalie Maines doesn't necessarily have the best voice in country music, but for my money hers is the sexiest, and this is no more evident than in Long Time Gone. She's got pipes too, that is, like any country diva worth her salt she can bellow at 300 decibels if need be, but her music has never revolved around the fact that she can. Rather, she possesses a nuanced tonal quality that sets The Dixie Chicks, and herself as an artist, apart from all the rest in country, and which I find compellingly attractive. The strong, and nuanced, musicianship of the Chicks is also no better represented than in Long Time Gone.

"They got money, but they don't have Cash..."

#110) "Whip It" by Devo - The truth is, at the end of the day, don't we all just wanted to be remembered?

It's easy to sing the praises of someone's genius, to laud the Beatles, Stones, Floyds and Macs, the Axls, Kurts, Dre's, Em's, in our midst. But not everyone these days remembers - or gives a crap - about them, and as time goes by, styles and tastes change irreparably. It's a major pitfall of being the voice of a generation. That generation grows up, and old, and the next generation just can't or won't recognize...not in the same way. It invariably gets its own thing going.

But I don't think I've ever met anyone, of any age, who can't get down to Whip It. Silly and goony as it is, it nevertheless oddly transcends time, style and genre. It reliably gets everyone turning the radio up, jamming out, as it were, and that is an accomplishment not to be dismissed.

Plus, listen to the lyrics. Whip It is precisely the attitude with which to approach Life. :-)

"When something's going wrong, you must whip it..."

Reason #28 to Live Nebulously

Seriously, I know I've been kind of fixating on robots and drones this summer, but how could this not lead somewhere bad...?

How is this not part of a (our) dystopian future?

At what point does (will) this thing start thinking on its own?

Three Things That Always Stir Restlesness

1) Geese flying south

2) Wildfires out west

3) Talk of snow up north

Three Things That Always Stir Restlessness

1) Change in temperature

2) Change in color

3) Everyone going back to school but me