SUMMER PROJECT: Songs That Will Definitely NOT Be Coming Along on 1/48/50

Music, like all things creative, is a very subjective thing. I know that this list of "road songs" I've been cobbling together for almost three years now is not the last word. I know everyone would have a vastly different group of songs to place on something so ceremonial 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 generally get bogged down in image or genre.  But there are some songs I simply cannot get on board with.  

Sometimes they try too hard. 

Sometimes they don't try hard enough. 

Sometimes they don't make any sense...or make too much sense (which usually leads back to trying too hard...)

Sometimes they're just boring..."different ways of yawning", as my brother has said.  And boring me is really the only way I can be offended.

Sometimes it's a song from a band or an artist I otherwise dig. Sometimes this one left turn into a musically bad neighborhood is an aberration.

Sometimes not. Sometimes it's the start of a descent into the career-killing abyss.

Sometimes a certain song is so horrible, so insulting to its genre, the artist performing it, and the LISTENER, it makes my skin crawl, even pissing me off a little, if I'm stuck listening to it long enough. 

Sometimes it just reminds me of a time in my life I don't wish to remember. Music hath charms, good and bad.

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, not take them at all, decide I don't know what I'm talking about (if they haven't already), or cry out 'Hallelujah!'.  ;-)


❌  "Angel Eyes" by The Jeff Healy Band

❌  "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" by Great White

❌  "Legs" by ZZ Top

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

#187) "The Heart of the Matter" by Don Henley - A candidate for the "They Don't Write 'Em Like This Anymore" Hall of Fame (at least not with any hope of scoring a Top 40 hit), "The Heart of the Matter" might in some ways be considered the swan song to Henley's career (at least the commercially successful portion of it). But in my opinion, outside of perhaps "The Boys of Summer" (which it could be said is in a class by itself), it's also the most shining example of his contribution to pop music overall, a deserving paradigm for the whole Eagles/Don Henley/California rock vibe.

Inasmuch as any of us bother to cobble together music on playlists in hopes of creating the soundtrack of our lives, to whatever extent we assign certain songs a vaunted status and believe we very well could have written them ourselves, the message of this song is the universally held last word for all people everywhere. When the dust has settled from our trials and tribulations, our grand gestures and bitter disappointments, our hey days and hurt feelings, our back stabbing and stabs at glory, it is forgiveness - rather than love - that holds, and will hold, the universe together.

"I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter / Because the flesh will get weak, and the ashes will scatter..."

#188) "Tush" by ZZ Top - On the other hand, there is a certain "last word" evident in this song too. In the end, each and every one of us is searching for, and/or craving, the profound emotional and psychological depths made accessible by physical contact with others, which, make no mistake, are present - the driving force - in even the seediest one night stand. In other words, every sexual encounter, even the dirty ones, and whether we realize it, is as much a matter of psychological gratification as it is physical.

In any case, I MUCH prefer this version of ZZ Top (from 1975) to the half-baked ZZ Top I grew up with in the early days of MTV. "Legs" (for instance) is for my money among the lamest rock songs (and dumbest videos) ever.

Whereas "Tush" still tears it up, all these years later. Not a lot of this on Top 40 radio anymore either, and that's too bad.

"I've been bad, I've been good / Dallas, Texas, Hollywood / I ain't asking for much..."

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Seriously, "Legs" might one day kick off the list of Top 100 songs I absolutely will NOT be taking with me on 1/48/50...;-)