Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for more than five years now is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on their road trip mix. I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't generally get bogged down by image or genre, and looking back I'm kind of proud of the fact that this list is all over the road, so to speak.
But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons.Sometimes they try too hard.Sometimes they don't try hard enough.Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way.
Sometimes there's no reason for it to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip). And yes, sometimes it's true that a certain song is so horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.
Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50. I won't comment beyond the listing. Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!' Either way is fine with me. ;-)
Music, like all things creative, is subjective. I know the list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together on this page for quite a while is not the last word. I'm fully aware everyone has a vastly different list of songs to place on something so heady as a road trip mix. I like to think I have fairly eclectic taste, fed by an open mind. If something moves me, it moves me. I don't get bogged down by age, image, genre or coolness factor and looking back, I'm proud of the fact that my list has been all over the road, so to speak.
But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with, for any number of reasons.Sometimes they try too hard.Sometimes they don't try hard enough.Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise like, just an odd left turn into a musically bad neighborhood that rubs me the wrong way.Sometimes there's no reason for a certain song to be rubbing me the wrong way, it just does. I can't explain it. Sometimes there's not really anything wrong with a song, as such, it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember (don't wish to bring along on a 14,000 mile road trip).
And yes, sometimes it is true that a certain song is just horrible, so lame or poorly or lazily rendered, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pisses me off a little.
Here are a few of the musical lemons that will not be coming along for the ride on 1/48/50. I won't comment beyond the listing. Readers can take them for what they will, or not take them at all. They may decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or they may cry out 'Hallelujah!' Either way is fine with me. ;-)
❌ "Dream On" by Aerosmith
❌ "Leather and Lace" by Don Henley and Steve Nicks
#322) "Red Red Wine" by Neil Diamond- Until very recently, I had no idea "Red Red Wine" was originally a Neil Diamond song, released in 1968 on his Just For You album. Now that I know, I'm not the least bit surprised. Buried deep in UB40's reggae-infused version (which was all I ever knew, and have always enjoyed), is an unmistakable Neil Diamond melody. It seems so obvious now, and it means that although I planned to list the UB40 cover here, in a very short time I've became an ardent fan of the Neil Diamond version, and now greatly, greatly prefer it.
It's kind of stunning, actually. Stunningly beautiful.
"Red red wine, it's up to you / all I can do I've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go..."
#323) "Red Red Wine" by UB40 - Ah, what the hell, I still like this version too, especially the chanting at the end, which is what caught my attention 30 years ago.
"Red red wine you make me feel so fine, you keep me rockin' all of the time..."
#324) "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel - Like most people who were around when it was new, it's the video for "Sledgehammer" that I remember, more than the song. Its painstakingly detailed stop-motion animation was a pretty big deal in 1987, garnered a lot of buzz, won a lot of awards. I remember checking in to MTV frequently, in hopes of catching it being played, and pressing the record button on the VCR quick enough to make it worth recording.
But now, all these years later - and I guess I'm lucky to be able to say this - I don't need the video. There's a kind of rare, crazy visual going on in my mind just listening to the song. In its own way, this fun, funky, kooky jam is pretty inspired, to a point where the video is almost a needless distraction.
Still cool, though. ;-)
"You could have an aeroplane flying, if you bring your blue sky back..."
#321) "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" by Elton John - Elton John is one of those artists whose career is so long and far-reaching, it's debatable which era he is/will be best known for. Though in the end, he's most likely to be remembered for the glammy outfits and crazy glasses in which he made a name for himself in the 1970s, the relatively staid 80s Elton John produced much better music. He ushered in the decade with "Little Jeannie", which set the bar pretty high, and followed it up with a string of hits that valued substance over flash. Although it could be argued that Elton John is Sir Elton John because his music was substantive from the beginning, even when he was on stage dressed like Donald Duck.
In terms of vocals and musical structure, "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" is among John's best songs, and also among his most durable, sounding just as fresh today as it did in 1983. "Bennie and the Jets" (for instance), always seems dated to me, as does "Little Jeannie" for that matter (which is saying something, seeing as it's far and away my favorite song of his). But "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" is fairly timeless, which makes it a song that can lend itself to another artist's repertoire without that interpretation seeming like an affront to the original. That's really saying something for me, because I generally don't care for covers. A song has just two lives, in my opinion: its life in the time it was recorded/released, and its life in the time I first heard it. Although I know that in the end, it's all subjective; I know for a fact there are young people in our midst who know only (and/or prefer) "Landslide" sung by the Dixie Chicks.
Poor little bastards.
"Laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder, under the covers..."
#322) "Reminiscing" by The Little River Band - Reportedly among John Lennon's favorite songs at the time his death, "Reminiscing" is one of those I had to mature a little (okay, a lot), before I could appreciate fully. For years, in my youth and young adulthood, it remained just another dismissible eye-roller from what I was pretty sure was a one hit wonder band (I was wrong about that of course, although much of that time, I didn't realize the song was by The Little River Band).
Then one day, fairly recently, for no reason at all, I heard it on the radio somewhere, and also for no reason at all, I actually listened, and started realizing just what is going on there. It's simply gorgeous, just right in every way....and really, not "simple" at all.
"How to tell you girl / I want to build my world around you..."
#323) "Baby Come Back" by Player - Here, also, we have a song that remains forever in danger of being dismissed as an FM lite hits sludge nugget, but give a second listen and you realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The bass line, the ringing guitar, and the vocal harmonies all contribute to a quite lovely whole that is worth much more than its parts. "Baby Come Back" is a clean-burning ballad that carries on solidly 40 years after its release.
A bit dated in its sound, perhaps, but none the worse for wear.
#318) "(You Shook Me) All Night Long" by AC/DC - One of those songs I discovered at the just right time - age 12 or 13 - just as I was starting to marinate in a fresh batch of my own testosterone and desperately seeking opportunities to flex my new, hormonally charged (challenged?) "manly" muscles and feel like a total "bad ass".
Still works, once in a while, to jam out to loud music like this, gets me (healthily) aggressive, makes things (and me) feel urgent and vital...perhaps because "(You Shook Me) All Night Long" still holds up, that is, doesn't seem as lamely dated as other metal music from the 1980s. This is probably due to the fact that it was released in 1980, was more hard rock (that is, rock and roll being pushed to the limit) than the spandex, bandana and eye liner-wearing "metal" clown show that arose in the Reagan years, which rendered the whole genre kind of inorganic and unrelatable, and by the end of the decade, naturally left us screaming out loud for something like grunge.
"She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean / She was the best damn woman that I'd ever seen..."
#319) "Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth - See #318, Paragraph 1.
"Now you're messing with a son of a bitch..."
#320) "Round and Round" by Ratt - And again... Although the video for this song does have undeniable elements of the mascara and spandex decadence that defined the scene in the 1980s (and completely put me off), at the same time, it's a pretty solid song. And I notice that among the "oldie" music I play at work (which at this point, includes stuff from the 1990s...even early 2000s), "Round and Round" is usually on the short list of songs Millennials and younger either already know and like, or eventually come to like if they hear it enough.
And come on, how can you not love Milton Berle in the video?
"I knew right from the beginning, that you would end up winning..."
#320) "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC - Question: would the admittedly awkward spectacle of me and two other kids from my middle school years "breakdancing" in our front yards to "It's Tricky", blasting it and others from the golden age of rap on boxes that didn't really sport a lot of boom, be considered cultural appropriation?
Mind you, we weren't just listening to it, we felt we were living it, which by every possible measure could not have been less possible. But young and dumb and eager to feel way more cool than we were, way more "street" than we could ever be, we cobbled together whatever gear and clothing we thought might help us pass - a Sony dual cassette boom box (again, not a lot boom), Adidas or parachute pants, Converse sneakers...(I think I may have thought a beret and a Swatch watch was a good idea too)... - and totally went to town in the summer of 1987, gesticulating spastically across the lawn, feeling edgy and defiant and raw. We were white kids who wanted to be black, because the music, the style, the look, was totally cool, totally the opposite of everything we knew, opposite of the town we grew up in, and I can cite those experiences - short lived though they were - as having shaped, in some measure at least, the adult I would one day be.
If that's cultural appropriation, and cultural appropriation is wrong, then lock me up. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything. You bet your ass I appropriated, happily and excitedly merging a variety of elements more laughably disjointed than I realized into a completely artificial (but no less gratifying) "street cred". And no joke, as it was happening, there ceased being skin color and cultural divides lending at worst aversion, at best an inability to communicate; there was just the music, and I was part of it in my northern hinterlands hometown, where there was probably a grand total of five black people growing up. And yet there I was, getting a mouthful of grass trying to do the Worm, feeling crazy cool wind-milling around the sidewalk (after a fresh push-off from my buddies).
Mortifying, kind of...but isn't that what's supposed to happen? Isn't that what happened when Run-DMC covered Aerosmith's "Walk this Way" and Aerosmith was in on it? Didn't everyone get on board, remove the laces from their shoes, and just start grooving?
When it comes to race relations in this country, it seems we've lost ground, rather than gained it. That isn't the way the last 40 years were supposed to play out.
"I met this little girlie, her hair was kinda curly..."
