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

#378) "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" by The Hollies - I'm thinking I might have to declare this the greatest song ever recorded. Well, okay, I don't have to, but I guess I really want to. Every time I listen to it, it makes me want to. 

I've been blabbing in this space for years now. A lot of good music has been blabbed about, a lot of similar declarations about musical magnificence made, but when it comes to urgent, excitable ballads, songs with a message, and in terms of overall musicality, there's nothing about this 1969 single I would do any different.

From the first squealing (and evocatively off-tune) harmonica wail, to the melted drizzle of the chords, to singer Allan Clarke's vocals (seeming to match the harmonica), the blue sky harmonies and that cirrus cloud-style orchestration I love so much (very much a musical memento that makes a lot of soft music from the 1960s and early 70s great in my opinion), right down to the message of the song itself (the lovely story of its inspiration dating back to a young Scottish girl in the nineteenth century), "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" performs like lace curtains; it covers the window, obscures sight of the ugliness outside just enough to bring relief, without ever preventing sunlight from streaming in. This is one of those rare songs that simultaneously fills my heart with joy and sorrow.

"The road is long, with many a winding turn / That leads us to who knows where, who knows where ..."

 #379) "Got You (Where I Want You)" by The Flys - Not the greatest song ever recorded, necessarily, but a sturdy jam cut from a very specific time in my life (and doubtless the lives of many Gen X'ers ... a crossroads, for sure), this weirdly ideal driving song (perfect for 1/48/50) has aged well, never sounds dated, which might be why it's a good driving song, especially if you're driving somewhere new.

And if you're driving alone, come on, try, try, try not to sing along with the chorus. ;)

"Well, I think you're smart, you sweet thing / Tell me your sign, I'm dying here ... "

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

#376 -  "Arrow Through Me" by Paul McCartney and Wings - Seems every time Sir Paul winds up on this 1/48/50 list, I have the same glowing things to say, primarily about his range as an artist. There's a lot of good music out there, fine songwriters, musicians and performers, but a very short list of artists who have been able to swing so effortlessly between styles, with no awkward (read: unconvincing) overlap, and all music that they wrote themselves. 

Just within the short six years The Beatles were in America, he gave us, "Helter Skelter', and "Yesterday", "Oh Darling!" and "Let It Be", "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" and "Mother Nature's Son".  "Penny Lane", and "And I Love Her". Yes, I know they're all credited as "Lennon-McCartney", but any Beatles fan worth his/her salt knows that they mostly wrote their own music. To that end, Lennon certainly contributed mightily to that which made the Beatles The Beatles, but was he as far-ranging as McCartney, musically speaking? As seamlessly adept at the execution? Nah, I don't think so.

And McCartney kept up this unique musical range throughout the 1970s, with Wings: "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Let Em In".  "Silly Love Songs" and "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".  "Jet" and "Listen to What the Man Said".  "Live and Let Die" and "My Love". 

And then there's "Arrow Through Me" (like Maude!), from 1979.  Just when you think there isn't anywhere else for the man to go musically, or perhaps more accurately, nowhere else you think he will go, along comes something almost experimental-sounding, with an undulating melody and crisp, funk-inspired rhythmic and bass hooks, a kind of a musical mélange, to which McCartney adds some sassy brass and clavinet chords being turned inside out repeatedly, like someone working a stress ball, as he alternately (and handily) shrieks and croons in his inimitable Macca style.  

It's completely different, and yet unmistakably McCartney. A perennial joy to listen to. Far and away my favorite from the Wings era, and I'd venture one of his best of all time, although when it comes to McCartney, perhaps that notion is more open to debate than your average artist.

"You wouldn't have found a more down hero ... "

#377 - "Sunday Will Never be the Same" by Spanky and Our Gang - I was lucky, I think. This and so many other songs like it from the 60s and 70s formed nothing less than the architecture of my emotional state when I was kid. My parents owned a bookstore and there was a little AM radio on the window sill behind the cash register, and whatever station they were tuned into always played "sunshine pop" and "AM gold", all of the music that to this day people are quick to scorn and/or mock, yet secretly love at the same time. I wouldn't want to be my age and only ever listening to The Carpenters, but it's not a bad serenade to being anywhere from four to ten years old. 

Some insist on dismissing this kind of music as bubblegum schlock, and maybe that's what it was at the time. Maybe it could be argued that in 1967, songs like "Sunday Will Never be the Same" paled in comparison to what innovative and ground-breaking stuff the Beatles or the Stones or the Who were putting out, and might also be argued that even today the two camps don't compare.

But perhaps they don't compare because it's apples to oranges. If you want to go apples to apples, a fair, direct comparison, you have to compare the "schlock" (the one hit wonders, fast buck feel good ditties and cheesy love songs) of the 60s and 70s to the "schlock" of 80s, 90s and beyond, and by that yardstick, I maintain that post-1980 schlock does not age as well as pre-1980. 

I think much of this has to do with the fact that songs of this type were once built upon melody, rather than rhythm, and more so the fact that the whole process of writing popular music and either performing it yourself or finding someone else to perform it, did not take a pre-fab concept of "celebrity" into consideration so readily.  Nowadays, some form of a slick, glittery celebrity aesthetic is never too far removed from popular music of any kind or quality.  Artists need to look a certain way, comport themselves just so, say the right things at the right time (and lately, take caution never to say the wrong thing, while praying nobody discovers the "wrong" things they may have said 15 years ago). It's all slick and polished, carefully prescribed, produced, and more importantly, presented to a painstakingly scrutinizing audience who know nothing else other than the brightly but artificially colored, hi def world they grew up in, in which image isn't everything, it's the only thing. And that's not even to say that the music is better or worse, necessarily, just different. There are talented artists now, and good music being made, but it is roundly less organic, less accessible, less viscerally felt, I'd say, because the emphasis, the driving force, is always on the artist before the listener. 

"Sunday Will Never be the Same" wasn't about Spanky and our Gang as a group, as entertainers, so much as simply about the Sunday it speaks of, the park, the dying embers of love as clouds roll in. The listener could relate without any need to see Spanky and Our Gang, or care whether they were cool enough to be celebrities. This is a tricky and subtle point I'm making, open to debate surely, but definitely worthy of debate. 

Er, right? 😉

"Nobody waiting for me / Sunday's just another day..."

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

#364) "You Are Everything" by The Stylistics - Philadelphia soul in the 1970s was primarily about production. The composite sound I have simply adored since first hearing it dribble out of an AM radio somewhere in the sunny spaces of my parents' bookstore in the days when my favorite TV show was CHIPs, was created by writers/producers like Thom Bell skillfully joining just the right vocals to an even righter musical arrangement, which was usually spartan, but completely satisfying to listen to.

Like its musical cousin Motown, I think there is a purity to this kind of music, an emotional timbre that is raw and vulnerable, strangely haunting and hopeful all at once. Philly soul is a bit more polished for its heightened production value, but that's not a bad thing. Yes, Russell Thompkins Jr's vocals are impressive, low and sturdy one moment, then crisp, clear and sky-bound the next, but it's really the accompaniment that holds the Philly sound together. It's a delicate discipline lacing together drums and strings and other assorted instrumentation (a kind of musical flea market...in a good way) and having it complement rather than overwhelm, share space rather than conquer land.

Also like Motown, I think Philadelphia soul is timeless, comprised of songs that exist forever in the secluded corners of our minds, where - forever - they administer measured doses of their austere but monumental beauty to the memories collected there.

"I just can't go on living life as I do, comparing each girl to you, knowing they just won't do / They're not you..."

✅ And there are other gems courtesy of the Stylistics that not only deserve to be remembered, but recognized. I think The Stylistics were in a class by themselves.  

#365) "You Make Me Feel Brand New" by The Stylistics - See above.

#366) "Betcha By Golly, Wow" by The Stylistics - See above.

----- 

 #367) "How Deep is Your Love" by The Bee Gees - You know, the real tragedy is that when all the dust has settled, and these times of ours are just another footnote in the annals of history, the Bee Gees are most likely going to be remembered for "Stayin' Alive". That's all anybody I knew (and myself) ever gave them credit for back in the day, and usually in a mocking way. I remember being in high school, and everyone, everyone, making fun of the tight pants, big hair, silly-sounding falsetto and contrived swagger; it was SOP when "Stayin' Alive" played or the Bee Gees were so much as brought up in conversation, to start doing the John Travolta apple-picking dance and squealing "aah aah aah aah stayin' alive...!!!!!!!!!" , safe in the knowledge that you'd get a laugh from someone, and it was a good bet they'd join in. "Stayin' Alive" was barely ten years old at the time, but it seemed much older, and so lame, so of the 1970s, that decade with all the ugly clothing, cars and décor. 

But seriously, what the fuck did I know? 

First off, for the record, I don't think there is anything wrong with "Stayin' Alive". It's a disco song, yes, but so what? It's not a bad disco song. Great bass line, and the "swagger" actually reads more legitimate when it's confined to the song itself...same goes for the lyrics. At the end of the day, it was just a sell-out move for the otherwise uber-talented Brothers Gibb, who'd been around since the mid-1960s, and whose command of melody, harmony and message when it comes to songwriting rivaled, in my opinion, many universally recognized greats of the 20th century.  

I'm willing to back that up, too. As a pop ballad, I'd put "How Deep is Your Love" up against just about any other song for comparison, any song enjoying a fully secure spot in those annals of history - "Something" by the Beatles, anything by The Beatles, or Fleetwood Mac or the Stones or Billy Joel or Elton John or a Motown luminary like Smokey Robinson. A lot of great music, ballads and otherwise, came out of the 60s and 70s, but so many people are quick to laud the genius of The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac or Smokey Robinson (as well they should), while just continuing to the do the apple picking dance whenever someone mentions the Bee Gees. 

"How Deep is Your Love" takes the Bee Gees' distinctive harmonies and turns them breathy and hypnotic. This song comes to me on a summer breeze, man, no joke. It was among the first songs I ever heard on the radio, when I was very, very young, the first to make me feel things, that is, my first exposure to music that moved me emotionally, but in an ill-defined kind of way. I was seven once, I know I was, riding in the back seat of my parents station wagon, hearing this song and feeling an emotional mélange - one part sorrow, one part intoxicated love, one part loneliness, and one and a quarter parts anxiety.  

Forty years later, it still has the exact same effect.

"'Cause we're living in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be / We belong to you and me..."

✅ And there are other gems courtesy of The Bee Gees that not only deserve to be remembered, but recognized. Turns out, The Bee Gees were in a class by themselves.  

#368) "Too Much Heaven" by The Bee Gees - See above.

#369) "To Love Somebody" by The Bee Gees - See above.

#370) "I Started a Joke" by The Bee Gees - See above.

#371) "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" by The Bee Gees - See above.

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

#359) "A Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams Jr. - Although I've always liked it, lately, I've started having mixed emotions about this song, and its message.  Don't get me wrong, it's not necessarily a bad message, at once a cautionary tale and affirmation of something seminal to our species which, while I can't relate to it entirely, I certainly acknowledge as truth. There's no denying that it's going to be "a country boy" who will survive when/if the shit hits the fan.  

But of course, this, like every other facet of American society, has become starkly politicized in recent years, thanks to our current president and those Americans who support him. "A country boy", and all that that implies and entails, has become this politically motivated (and painfully binary) red state v. blue state caricature in the 21st century. Less a matter of knowledge, vigilance and adaptability trumping (no pun intended) softness and entitlement, more something completely dumbed down, to the point of being silly and superficial: Toyota Prius drivers vs. Dodge Ram drivers. Wal-Mart shoppers vs. food co-op shoppers. Conservatives vs. 'libtards'. Recently, country music as a whole seems to have engaged and perpetuated this big time.

It shouldn't be this way. Nothing about our modern lives, nothing so serious in our lives, should be dumbed down to such depressingly one-dimensional terms, particularly in an age when we can't really trust what's being presented as unbiased facts - true hard news, devoid of spin - from any side.  But that's where we're at, and now, when I listen to this song, and for that matter, hear Williams' own public rhetoric over the years (which has become increasingly divisive...not for being conservative, but conspiratorial; real "Obama is a Kenyan-born Muslim extremist"-type horseshit, which I have no patience for), it reads a lot more self-righteous than it used to, and I just want to say, dude, simmer down, okay? Nobody wants to take away your Christmas tree.

And yet, again, there's no denying the song's truth.  I hope it doesn't come to this, pray the proverbial shit doesn't hit the proverbial fan, but if this big bloated technological house of cards, which keeps us fat and anything-but-happy on a gluttonous diet of wet-mashed glitter and sparkles ever collapses, really lurches straight down into its own footprint to the point where we've got a Walking Dead scenario on our hands (minus the zombies) ... a country boy will survive. And were that to happen, any individual with the ability to draw from the land and live without E! Hollywood True Story-style luxuries (or even Real Housewives of Canton, Ohio-style...) will simply have a better chance of surviving and adapting to long-term changes in our way of life, even the vanishing of our way of life. 

"A Country Boy Can Survive" has gone through some renovations over the years. Originally released in 1982 (making it a fairly prescient song, I'd say), it was covered by country artist Chad Brock in 1999 with altered lyrics to reflect the perceived threat of Y2K potentially rendering the entire world nothing but country boys, then again in 2001, by Hank Jr. himself in the aftermath of 9/11. Doubtless many fans (and Hank Jr.) would disagree, but I'm not down with that; not only because I've never been down with cover versions (even covers by the original artist), but also because the song stood on its own originally, answering something larger than mere politics and priorities of the moment, and should still stand, without having to be reconstituted.

"But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife / For 43 dollars my friend lost his life..."

#360) "Turn to Stone" by Electric Light Orchestra - According to Jeff Lynne, the purpose of Electric Light Orchestra was to "pick up where the Beatles left off". A lofty goal, to say the least, but sometime before he was assassinated ten years after The Beatles left off, John Lennon completely validated this by calling ELO the "Sons of the Beatles", meaning, presumably, the heir apparent to the Fab Four's musical legacy. 

To be perfectly honest, I don't know that I would go that far. I think in their time they were innovative and harmony-rich enough to get Lennon's attention, however (and as always, it's just my opinion) whether a lot of ELO's music holds up 40 years later is open to debate.

And yet, "Turn to Stone" is one of those songs on this road trip list that seems to grab people's attention today just as it did in 1977. I've witnessed this first-hand, Millennials and Gen Y'ers at work responding to this song when it plays, asking me to turn it up. And I completely get why. With it's anxious-sounding harmonies, and subject matter, it's kind of timeless. 

"The dying embers of the night (a fire that slowly fades 'til dawn) / Still glow upon the wall so bright (turning, turning, turning)..."

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

#333) "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin - This, perhaps more than any other song, is a love/hate relationship for me. Anybody who has followed this page over the years knows that I'm an unapologetic fan of 70s AM Gold-type music. Some of it I love because I maintain it's authentically beautiful, and/or musically sound (if not cool), like The Carpenters, or Bread, and some of it I love just because it reminds me of my childhood, the first days of my life I can remember, like Barry Manilow, etc., because it's what my parents listened to.

But "Cat's in the Cradle" is a weird one for me.  As much as I enjoy listening to it, it also annoys me in a way others of its kind don't. I'm not sure why. Harry Chapin's 1981 death was untimely, and I don't really know anything else about him or his music, don't know any other songs of his (meaning: have no memories from childhood), so maybe that unfamiliarity ignites some kind of unconscious aversion. The song is repetitive, doesn't really go anywhere musically, and yet, the story it tells is ultimately so profound, so relevant to most people's existence (to some extent), that it's okay. I listen anyway. Feel compelled to listen.

I can't honestly say I relate to it. I was lucky. I had an attentive father, and in turn, like to think I was attentive to my sons as they grew up. And yet, Life still feels this way sometimes, as I age. There just isn't enough time for anything, and before you know it, your opportunities vanish, and even before they do, you're stuck having to prioritize them, because there are always "planes to catch, and bills to pay..."

"And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he'd grown up just like me / My boy was just like me..."

#334) "Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas - With a mad laboratory assemblage of musical hooks and harmonies pieced together in the name of weird and funky musical science, "Carry on Wayward Son" takes really sharp corners on two wheels, all the while offering heady lyrics worthy of 1970s airwaves and the prog rock giants who inhabited that reach in the days when Carter was president (worthy of the band that gave us "Dust in the Wind").

But also, this song is - for my money - among the first arena rock anthems, and I never really thought of it that way until viewing the video below for the first time, which I only did recently. It's a live performance that reveals, if only just a naughty glimpse of ankle, that in 1976, Kansas was, in terms of visuals, of general vibe, of basic energy, closer to a hair band (as opposed to prog rock) than I ever would have imagined listening to this song and putting my own spin on it all these decades.

And I'm not complaining. :-) There's nothing, musically or visually, I don't love about this, to be honest. At the end of the day, I guess it's kind of exactly the way I always pictured it, without realizing what it was I was seeing. 

"And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know...."

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

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.  ;-)

❌  "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot

❌  "Clumsy" by Fergie

❌  "Taking Care of Business" by Bachman Turner Overdrive

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

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.  ;-)

❌  "Wonderful Tonight" by Eric Clapton

❌  "Can't Get it Out of my Head" by ELO

❌  "All Right Now" by Free

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

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.  ;-)

❌  "Rock and Roll High School" by The Ramones

❌  "I Wanna be Sedated" by The Ramones

❌  "Sometimes When we Touch" by Dan Hill

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

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.  ;-)

❌  "Party all the Time" by Eddie Murphy

❌  "Daydream Believer" by The Monkees

❌  "Lying Eyes" by The Eagles