One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#310) "Ace in the Hole" by George Strait - These days, George Strait is considered the "King of Country Music", and that's fair enough. He's been around a long time and has been one of the most reliable hitmakers for a lot of years, so his natural evolution as an artist was bound to include becoming an elder statesman at some point. I believe he still holds the record for the most number one hits in country music, and this does not surprise me. Already well on his way to "elder statesman" status by the mid-1990s, when I was working in country radio, the man simply could not release an unpopular song, never a half-baked single wheezing its way halfway up the charts for George Strait. They all seemed to shoot to #1 and maintain a prolonged presence on "all-request Friday nights".

And to me, there was something refreshing about the George Strait persona. He was neither a rowdy redneck stereotype, nor did he come across as a lamely forced caricature of the broad, gleaming white smile, plate-sized belt buckle and 300 gallon hat-wearing cowpoke dude. Moreover, his song selection was top notch. Choosing the right songs at the right time in one's career would seem to be a unique skill set for artists who generally don't write their own music but rely on the talents of others. George Strait always chose really catchy music - "mid-tempo country in the neo-traditionalist style" at its finest - and it was almost as if he stood out by not standing out, singing the perfect (somewhat idealized, but still truthful) accompaniment to all the little moments that make up small town life, or rural life, or cowboy life.

Released in the summer of 1989, when I was sixteen and had no interest in country music whatsoever (was in fact hostile toward it), "Ace in the Hole" became Strait's 18th #1 single, and what I might have hated about it back then is what I love about it now: the finger snappy, ragtime / big band / rockabilly feel, its positive but not overly preachy message. Among George Strait songs it does stand out, and totally works. Some songs are simply pleasant to listen to, and remain so.

"Life is a gamble, a game we must play..."

#311) "Lawyers in Love" by Jackson Browne - Once again, Jackson Browne reveals himself to be worthy of a place among the rock and roll intelligentsia (although I got to admit, I'm never quite sure what I mean when I say things like that), with a song that says something about the society we live in, with a Bob Dylan-style presence of mind that too often Browne doesn't get enough credit for.

As surely as "The Pretender" predicted the rise of the yuppie in 1976, "Lawyers in Love" is kind of the play-by-play as it was happening in 1983's Reagan era. As with a lot of Browne's music, it's all about the lyrics. He really can turn a good phrase, but does it so skillfully, the lyrics never seem too arcane or forced. They remain easily interpretable, and when you interpret them, you realize (or I do, at least): holy shit, he's right.

"I can't keep up with what's been going on..."

AS SUMMER WINDS DOWN: Whole Albums to Travel By

Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding, no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material. You know...desert island albums. In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.

So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me.  Just listen.  ;-)

"BORN IN THE USA" by Bruce Springsteen

"THE PRETENDER" By Jackson Browne

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

#98) "Roll With the Changes" by REO Speedwagon - Like the Eagles, I've always had kind of a love/hate relationship with REO Speedwagon. I think their discography possesses more than a few solid gems. I've argued that Gary Richrath is among the most unappreciated guitarists. I've maintained that there's just something about this nice, non-threatening good time band from Champaign, Illinois  missing in music these days. They're not that great to look at, they aren't musical innovators, they don't have a particularly tight sound, but they put on a good show, can raise the roof even. And there's a grass roots quality to their rock and roll. To me, they always seemed like they would feel equally at home playing to a packed stadium of 40,000 or on the second stage at a county fair (which might very well be where they play these days...), and there is something to be said for this.

Yes, I've gone out of my way to defend REO Speedwagon over the years, even though they've gone out of their way to embarrass me in front of my friends with songs like Can't Fight This Feeling or In My Dreams, songs that, were they played loud enough, at the same time, might cause the entire world to go flaccid all at once.

But the boys of REO manage to keep it up long enough to pound their way rousingly through Roll With the Changes. It's not only a tight little jam - energetic, tireless even, reluctant to give up the stage at the end - but also sage advice for a happy and successful life. Leaves nothing else needing to be said, really...

Keep on rolling.

Keep on rolling.

"I'll be here when you are ready to roll with the changes..."

#99) "Mary's Prayer" by Danny Wilson - One hit wonders Danny Wilson (a band, not a person, named after a Frank Sinatra film) pretty much defined my high school years with this song. All these years later I still enjoy its uniquely sophisticated sound. Though I didn't realize it back then, Mary's Prayer reminds me of Steely Dan - not only the slick musical engineering that reveals rhythm engaged in an effortless side-by-side stride with melody, not only (to a lesser extent) the vocals, but the grim subject matter nestled into the silver glint of an auspicious sounding melody.

Mary's Prayer is deceptively bright, deceptively cheeky. Its 1987 release provided my first opportunity to wrap my head around that concept.

"Leave a light on in heaven for me..."

#100 "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne - Back in his hey-day, Jackson Browne was kind of a minstrel for the Baby Boom generation. I would go so far as to say he was to the 1970s what Bob Dylan was to the 60s. With a highly tuned awareness, he saw things happening as they were happening, and within his music materialized a sometimes uncanny foresight that predicted certain outcomes as the 70s ground along and his generation left its ideas and ideals in the past (dust).

Running on Empty is no exception, though it is a more personal, and thus more universal, example. This song could be the story of just about anyone, of any generation, pushing 30, or 40, and realizing, with a burgeoning exasperation, that for every question that gets answered, two new ones arise.

"I don't know where that road turned onto the road I'm on..."

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

#56) "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" by Jackson Browne - When I was in high school, I was constantly on the hunt for musical heroes. While all in all I have fairly eclectic tastes, my 'heroes' list has never strayed too far from what I call white boy troubadours: John Lennon, Meat Loaf, Bruce Springsteen, Hank Williams Jr., Frank Sinatra, Tom Waits, among others, and principal among them (at least from age 16-22, when it mattered most): Bob Seger.

One night long ago, somewhere, I so frustrated a girlfriend (we'll call her Sammy) with a blowhard-ish sermon about what Seger's music is really saying (and that I was likely the only one understanding) that she blurted out, "You know what? I don't think you're Bob Seger at all...if you're 'like' anyone, it's him!" 

She pointed to the radio.  'Him' was Jackson Browne. The song playing at the time, Running on Empty.

"What the hell does that mean?" I said, flailing in the most sticky and viscous indignation my 18-year-old self could muster, as though she'd just questioned my manhood.

"I just don't think you're Bob Seger," she shrugged flatly. "You remind me of that guy."

I was appalled! Jackson Browne was obviously no Bob Seger, and she clearly wasn't listening! She wasn't understanding! She didn't GET me!  ;-)

Now, twenty-five years later, I look back on her evaluation and think it was not only spot on, but, frankly, one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me.

Those for whom music is more than mere background noise know what it means to search for heroes, artists from whose songs we can report the news of our existence, compile the soundtrack of our lives. Naturally those heroes change over time, because we grow, evolve and adapt to changing life circumstances and stages. But I think Sammy was right even back then. It took me a while to come to Jackson Browne, because I didn't understand. I wasn't listening. I didn't get "him".

Without question, the viscous 'essence' of me, the stuff that hasn't changed over time, with a long (but not too long) shelf life - how I cope with other people, with myself, with my emotions, with heartache and jubilation alike, with all those drastic changes in circumstances and stages - can be found in the comfy old shoe melancholy (the kind underwritten by a certain heavy despair) of Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate. The highway, the looking back, the looking forward, the old friends slipping away, the mellow, just-this-side-of-sentimental reflection that seeps out of the sunlight...never overwrought, never hyper-sensitive or drama-fueled but yes, always just a little bit sad and once in a while more so ... that's pretty much how I've always rolled, emotionally, ever since I've been rolling, or ever since I've been aware that I am.

And I gotta say, it's made for a slow, steady pleasurable ride that I wouldn't trade for anything.

"Sitting down by the highway (looking down the road), waiting for a ride / I don't know where I've been (wishing I could fly away), don't know where I'm going (wishing I could hide)..."

#57) "Love's the Last to Know" - by Bob Seger - Oh Sammy, that poor girl, suffered at the hands of my ego too often! In another instance, it wasn't enough to tell her about Seger, to blather about my essence, about some rarefied plane I'd cooked up in my mind, I felt compelled to play the music for her.

'Just listen to this one song,' I told her, 'and you'll understand what I'm talking about! You'll understand me!'

She reluctantly agreed to give a listen, and as I fumbled to rewind the cassette tape to just the right spot, I caught her rolling her eyes.

'Does this song have a lot of piano in it?' she groaned.

An astute observation, I've always thought, for a couple of reasons, and the answer, of course: hell yes, a lot of piano.

Love's the Last to Know doesn't move me quite like it used to. But it illustrates as vividly as a photograph the type of person I was once, or thought I would be...er, at least tried to make myself. And it still makes me think of morning as the best time to skip town. To that end, I have no doubt 1/48/50 will be launched in Steinbeck's hour of the pearl.

"There's a distant sound, to the outward bound, on a cold and windy night / A restless sigh as it fades away, a longing at first light..."

#58) "Whiskey River" by Willie Nelson - I'm not sure where this particular live version was recorded (Austin City Limits...?), or what album it was first released on (Willie and Family Live...?) but it is a great example of musical innovation, vastly different from the 1972 original by the lesser-known Johnny Bush, who wrote it. A friend of mine could not believe Willie's sharp, funked-out interpretation, which throws the country music playbook (of the time, anyway) out the window, and more importantly, captures a moment in country music history when lines were more blurred. It was harder to figure out just how the likes of Nelson (et al.) identified - as a redneck, or a hippie. Lots of twang and fiddle and pickin' going on (Willie's a killer picker), but rednecks don't groove like this...do they? And what's with the braids and bandanna?

Today, mainstream country music lamentably is mired in stereotypes that don't leave a lot of room for variety. Or braids and bandannas.

As one who has sort of always identified as a little bit redneck and a little bit hippie, and being from Wisconsin, Whiskey River has on more than one occasion provided the perfect accompaniment to the spastic moves I would bust out after 8 or 9 Pabsts, back in my younger days, when Pabst Blue Ribbon wasn't the victim of ignorant hipster whimsy, but simply the beer we could afford.

"Feeling the amber current flowing from my mind...."

#59) "Love Like You" by Paper Tongues - Something about this power ballad stirs me like no other, literally makes my heart beat faster. It's a custom-made wedding song, but encompasses all things good, fresh, and exhilarating. Seriously, this song would have you believe getting out of bed in the morning can or should be a nitrous-fueled acceleration toward the sun as she throws back her long blonde hair.

And really, what in the world could possibly be wrong with that?

"Your heart is a like a castle in my sky..."