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

 #351) "Wide Open Spaces" by The Dixie Chicks - How fresh this song. 

Even two decades after being abandoned (as everything is) by a society that moves forward ceaselessly with precious little time or inclination for looking back, and a musical industry and fanbase that within a few years of this song's release, decided it'd had enough of singer Natalie Maines' right to free speech, "Wide Open Spaces" still spritzes finely, freshly, a sun-dappled rumination, two parts hope, one half part melancholy. It was popular when I worked in "hot country" radio - as were The Dixie Chicks - and will always have a place - in my eyes - among the gold standards of 90s country music - a softer, more reasonable, less blustery (and less manic) approach to all things "country".

Some might say too soft, too "pop"...and come to think of it, I might have been one of those during the many weeks in late 1998 when this song dominated all-request Friday nights. But 20 years is a long time, plenty of time to realize your big mistakes. The message of the song has outlasted the generations. There are lots of country songs about the redneck lifestyle and patriotism and trucks and bars and zippity doo da, but precious few in the genre, from any decade, that touch on such a specific, but intimately important, and grandly timeless, theme, whether you're a city mouse or a county mouse: setting out on your own for the first time, and all the anticipation and anxiety, all the joy, surprise and sometimes sorrow found there.

"But now she won't be coming back with the rest..."

#352) "Hello It's Me" by Todd Rundgren - Todd Rundgren is on my short list of musical geniuses, those individuals who make innovation and real step-outside-the-box creativity part of their brand, who are successful at creating a musical signature that simply could not be anyone else.  Rundgren has had a hand producing some monumental albums for other artists over the years, among them Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" and XTC's "Skylarking", but his own music is just....I don't know...perhaps it's most accurate to say it's difficult to describe, but impossible to ignore. 

Nowhere is this more true than with "Hello It's Me", one of his radio hits from 1972's Something/Anything?   All of the bizarrely charming elements that make a Todd Rundgren song are at play here - odd chord progressions, a masterful command of harmony and self-effacing humor, a flat vocal style that - again - you can't really stop listening to. 

Difficult to describe. Impossible to ignore.

"'Cause I never want to make you change for me..." 

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

#168) "Brass in Pocket" by The Pretenders - Sometimes a song is so well crafted it effortlessly reflects more than one emotion, or impulse. By way of lyrics, melody and rhythm, Brass in Pocket captures in a single shot both our aggressive pursuit of sex and love, our need for it, and the innate sense of vulnerability that keeps it in check (for most of us).

Here, there is none hotter than Chrissie Hynde. And even generally speaking, there rarely is. She's not traditionally "hot", exactly (although that hairline-just-barely-obscuring-the-eyes thing has always sort of driven me wild), but there is something alluringly balanced about her persona: no question she's a rocker chick who isn't going to take any crap, but never at the expense of a certain vulnerability, the kind men generally can't turn away from. This compelling duality is expertly illustrated by Brass in Pocket.

"Gonna make you, make you, make you notice..."

#169) "Remember Me" by Todd Rundgren - What distinguishes this from other break up songs is that it isn't actually a break up song. It would seem a young lady has been the object of Mr. Rundgren's affections for so long and fruitless a time he has simply given up, conceded defeat, and the "remember me..." sentiment is not an impassioned entreaty in some desperate grab for that elusive closure, but a shrugging consolation prize. I think the quiet resignation, and the futility it speaks to, makes this song - all 54 seconds of it - among the most heart-breaking I've ever heard.

And there's his voice, as well.

"Down the road, across the sea, please remember me..."