Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#209) "Cycles" by Frank Sinatra - About as far away as can be imagined from what people think of when they hear the name "Sinatra", "Cycles" is the title track from a 1968 album of cover songs, some of which have appeared on this list by other artists.

Make no mistake, this is not 1940s/50s crooner Frankie, or Frankie ringa-dinga-lingin' with his Rat Pack buddies and complement of cuckoo broads. "Cycles" doesn't have the flair or flash, or the energy, to get that job done. And to its credit, it doesn't seem to care. What the song does instead, in my opinion, is reveal Sinatra the artist, the consummate interpreter of music. All music.

"Cycles" is a soft-spoken (and for this, moving) testament to the life we all must endure sometimes, gentle reassurance in moments of hardship, anguish, frustration and fear that things are going to be all right, that indeed, "after winter, comes the spring..."  Sinatra makes you believe that he believes, and that's what being a "consummate interpreter of music" is all about.

Not much more needs to be said, really...nothing that the album cover doesn't say, before a single word is even sung:

"I've been many places, maybe not as far as you / So I think I'll stay a while, and see if some dreams some true..."

#210) "Rag Doll" by Aerosmith - Arguably one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time, Aerosmith has a unique claim to having been icons of the 1970s before fading away almost to oblivion, then coming back and achieving icon status in the late 80s and early 90s, producing music throughout both periods that never seems dated. Whether you like it, you have to admit, most of it sounds just as fresh and urgent as the day it was recorded.

They achieved this, in part, by creating a unique sound, something just a little different, with a flair nobody else rockin' big hair and spandex at the time had, a style nobody else would (dare) try on for size. "Rag Doll" is a perfect example of the band's ability to think outside the box, and do nothing less than reinvent the rock and roll business model.

Who the hell else could "Rag Doll" be, but Aerosmith?

"Rag doll, livin' in a movie / Hot tramp, daddy's little cutie..."

#211) "Back in the Saddle" by Aerosmith - Not quite as outside the box as "Rag Doll", 1977's "Back in the Saddle" still tears it up and spits it out, and in that uniquely Aerosmith fashion. It's not merely hard rock, and it's surely not half-baked "hair metal"...it's an oddly potent brew, the sounds you hear rumbling from behind the bulwark of the male psyche, with just a wisp of the frantic overcompensation most men are disposed to, even if they never admit it.

In a word, "Back in the Saddle" is the motherfucker. The bass line bounces off the walls of that bulwark, manages to escape, and starts smashing windows around the neighborhood...and Steven Tyler's voice, man...for my money, nobody even comes close.

Who the hell else could sing "Back in the Saddle", but Steven Tyler?

"I'm calling all the shots tonight, I'm like a loaded gun..."


#212) "Pink" by Aerosmith - See #210 and #211....

Who the hell else could "Pink" be, but Aerosmith? 😉

"Pink, it's my new obsession, pink, it's not even a question / Pink on the lips of your lover, 'cause pink is the love you discover..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#207) "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" by XTC - From an intense album (Skylarking  - 1987), comes an intense scorcher of a song, a true collaboration between music and lyrics to create not just a piece of music, but an experience (similar to the best of Prince's work).

This could really be said about the entire album.  XTC had already been around for a while by '87, but Skylarking sent them over the top, gave them that sought-after mainstream success. Were their talent not met halfway by Todd Rundgren's competent production, this album might have faded into the cauldron of derivative Beatles-esque neo-psychedelia popping up at the time.

Actually, on second thought, I don't know if that's entirely true. It might be more accurate to say Rundgren's production enhanced - perhaps sewed together, or punctuated - singer Andy Partridge and band mate Colin Moulding's already burgeoning musical vision. They were the songwriters, after all, the genesis.

Either way, Skylarking is fucking fantastic. The aforementioned collaboration of music and lyrics is well-matched to Partridge's vocal delivery, and will find a listener in just about anyone, and keep them, because this music is not feckless, floppy dribble, not "hippies" dancing in circles, and that's what makes it so good. It's emotionally charged, angry, sometimes frightening, even, in its revelations...humorous too, at moments, but never without the cutting edge of snark.

The off-the hook percussion, the romping, jazz-infused melody, the lyrics serving as a kind of universal indictment of human flaws and frailty, all conspire to make "The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul" the best musical ambassador for the album. In the song's closing moments, the listener is led on a finger-snapping stroll through the dark woods of consciousness, to one revealing, and horrifying, final three seconds.

Wait for it...wait for it...



"The man who sailed around his soul, from East to West, from pole to pole / With ego as his drunken captain, Greed, the mutineer, had trapped all reason in the hold."
#208) "Gentle On My Mind" by Glen Campbell - One of the new American standards that has been covered by countless artists over the years, Glen Campbell's version of "Gentle On My Mind" does the song the most justice, in my opinion. Very "of the time" in which it was written and recorded, it just sounds like afternoon sunshine, although truthfully, it was probably kind of edgy in the late 1960s, for country music at least, addressing divorce and the relief that follows it, and suggesting that marriage may not only be not ideal, but not all that necessary.

It's sad that country music doesn't sound like this anymore. That is, not at all. Today, the genre has become largely a breeding ground for carefully prescribed stereotypes that seem almost unwittingly self-mocking, and leave little room for anything outside the box.

What better "road song" is there, really? What more do or can we expect from a road trip, then for everything to become gentle on the mind, everything to sound like afternoon sunshine?

"I still might run in silence, tears of joy might stain my face, and the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind / But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the back roads, by the rivers flowin' gentle on my mind..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#205) "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" by The Offspring - One of the best bands to come out of the 1990s (although they actually date back to the 80s), The Offspring always struck me as an edgier version of Weezer. Same kind of funny and offbeat music, but more intense. There is a sharpness to both The Offspring's sound and subject matter. It is as much social commentary as entertainment.

To that end, it's not at all a surprise, really, that lead singer and songwriter Dexter Holland is now a doctoral student in molecular biology. You can just tell, in all of his songs, that he's no dummy, no typical rock and roller, that is, the "hoodlum" that has been terrifying parents in one form or another since the 1950s.

Nowhere is this more evident than in "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)". This song cracks me up, which ultimately is what it's supposed to do. But it's also painfully accurate. I KNEW a kid like this once... a lily white dude, hailing from west-central Wisconsin, he would swagger into work with his hat sideways and his pants low, muttering black slang so carefully considered and clumsily interjected into conversations, I'd have sworn he took an "Ebonics" course through Rosetta Stone.

No kidding, he actually had "Thug Life" tattooed on his skinny little white arm.

He even looked like the kid in this video. There were times looking at him, listening to him, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Which also, I'd venture, is the point of this song.



"So if you don't rate, just overcompensate / At least you know you can always go on Ricki Lake..."

#206) "Come Out and Play" by The Offspring -  See all of the above, only instead of a humorous look at white posers, "Come Out and Play" is a more intense examination of gang life in teen culture, from more than twenty years ago now. That fact alone is sort of hard to believe.

Both songs...all of The Offspring's music, really - belongs on a road trip. "The Kids Aren't Alright", "Self-Esteem"....great stuff. Holland's got a killer voice, as well.



"Your never-ending spree of death and violence and hate, is gonna tie your own rope, tie your own rope, tie your own..."

Yet ANOTHER Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#203) "Rainy Night in Georgia" by Brook Benton - I first heard this song when I was in high school, and I legitimately liked it, but I also went out of my way to tell everyone I liked it, in an effort to make myself look musically complex, or sophisticated, or something or other. I didn't know who the hell Brook Benton was, knew only that the song was unique, mood-creating, and thus mood-altering, and most importantly, wasn't just another hair-metal song.

Now, years later, I still really, really like it. It's a sensually beautiful song, painting a dimly-lit but still vivid picture of not just a rainy night in Georgia, but a rainy night in the soul wherever you are, a moment when, indeed, it does feel like it's raining all over the world.  Oddly perfect road song, actually.

"A distant moaning of a train, seems to play a sad refrain to the night..."

#204) "Little Green Apples" by O.C. Smith - This song is just a simple dimple on the musical landscape. It doesn't go anywhere, doesn't say anything important, doesn't push any musical boundaries or expand any horizons...but it too succeeds in simply setting a potent mood, and it has one of the most beautiful lines I've ever heard in a song.

"And if that's not loving me, then all I gotta say / God didn't make little green apples, and it don't rain in Indianapolis, in the summertime..."

It don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime... has probably ignited more wanderlust in my heart than all the blustery highway freedom songs ever recorded. Ironic, since the song is actually about there being no reason to want to be somewhere else other than right where you are. The guy in the song seems pretty damn content. Pretty in love.  Good for him.

But anyway, about Indianapolis...

"God didn't make little green apples / And it don't snow in Minneapolis when the winter comes..."

Make sure to vote on Tuesday!