A list (in no particular order) of my 500 favorite songs (singles, deep cuts, hits, and more) of all time. Includes a wide array of selections from rock, punk, funk, R&B, soul, classical, jazz, folk, and world music.
It's hard to quantify the impact of Chuck Berry on modern music. Although others like Buddy Holly and Little Richard also were out there in the mid-50s blending country/hillbilly music with blues themes and gospel structures to create rock & roll, Berry had a sound all his own. For one, he pushed the electric guitar to the forefront. He also set the standard for what a rock & roll frontman was supposed to be: you weren't just up there to sing some words; you were up there to be a showman and shaman. Speaking of words, he had a knack for crafting some fantastic lyrics, too. In fact, he's one of music's greatest storytellers, communicating a novella's-worth of material in a few short stanzas in every one of his songs. "You Never Can Tell" from the 1964 album From St. Louis to Liverpool is a prime example. Berry relays, in a little over two minutes, a whole story about two teenage kids who get married and, against the odds, stay together to celebrate their one-year anniversary. Curiously, this particular song isn't driven by Berry's guitar; it only really pops up for a second in the intro. Rather, session pianist Johnnie Johnson (who played alongside Berry for much of his career and unsuccessfully tried suing for co-writing credits on a number of Berry's hit songs, including this one) is featured most prominently, playing a boogie-woogie pattern against drummer Odie Payne's double-time rhythm, which is so South Louisiana it makes you sweat just listening to it. And if you had any doubt about this ditty being straight out of the bayou, Berry throws in a little French for good measure ('C'est la vie,' say the old folks / It goes to show you never can tell).
Lyrically, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" from 1971's Sticky Fingers is one of Mick Jagger's meh moments. It's a string of drug references and a semi-coherent story about a guy trying to convince his girlfriend to let him into her apartment after returning from a night on the town. (Although, knowing Mick and the boys, I'm guessing the lyrics are a druggy, euphemistic plea for extra-marital nookie in the same vein as blues songs like Howlin' Wolf's "Back Door Man.") Musically, however, this is one of the best Stones tracks ever, capturing the blistering napalm of Keith Richards's riffs as well as the subtler melodic style of co-lead guitarist Mick Taylor. It's the perfect balance of Stonesian yin and yang. It's Richards's guitar that you hear as the track opens—a raunchy, staccato burst of flame that ignites the song's slinky groove. In his autobiography Life (2010), Richards reveals that the song's riff was the simple result of jamming around in the studio and stumbling upon a rhythm that everyone just sort of fell into. The second half of the song also was the result of jamming, but in this case, Taylor took the lead. He was enjoying the groove they had going, so he decided to keep on playing after the song was over, not realizing that the tape was still running. After a couple of bars, everyone else picked up their instruments again and dropped back in, locking into the Latin-tinged rhythm that Taylor and session percussionist Rocky Dijon were working. Incidentally, what you hear at the end of the song is the product of a single, improvised take without any edits or overdubbing. The contrast to Richards's style is pretty stark: Taylor finesses each chord instead of bludgeoning it. Notes ripple and flow with jazzy nuance as they weave their way around the soulful sax of Bobby Keys. The burn is slower, but it's still hot.
So it's pretty widely known what inspired the song "Black Dog" from Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album: bassist John Paul Jones had been listening to the 1968 Muddy Waters concept album Electric Mud, which pairs the bluesman with young rockers to create acid-fried renditions of his old hits. Jones wanted to do a funky electric blues in a similar vein, but one that wasn't too simplistic. So he came up with the serpentine core riff, which wraps itself around alternating 4/4 and 5/4 time.
The song's start-stop vocal-instrumental sections were inspired by a different artist, however. That aspect of the song is an homage to Fleetwood Mac's 1969 song "Oh Well," in which Peter Green shifts between a cappella vocals and electric, bluesy riffing. (Yeah, kids. Fleetwood Mac was a very different creature in the late 60s.)
Anyway, the first time I heard "Black Dog," it was by accident.
It was probably mid-December 1981. To keep me from being underfoot while my mother was trying to bake Christmas cookies, she gave me the task of queueing up a couple of Christmas albums on my dad's turntable—a task I'd gotten pretty good at, even as a toddler. I pulled a stack of albums off the shelf, and I saw this one that had an old fashioned depiction of Santa Claus on the cover. (At least that's what it looked like to me.) So I stacked the record on the turntable along with the Norman Luboff Choir, Henry Mancini, the London Philharmonic, etc.
Time passed. "Jingle Bells," "Sleigh Ride," and the "Hallelujah" chorus played. Then, out of nowhere, this banshee wail blasted out of the stereo: Hey, hey mama, said the way you move / Gon' make you sweat, gon' make you groove.
I thought it was hilarious. To my ears, Plant's preternaturally high voice was the funniest thing I'd ever heard; I asked my mother if he was a Muppet. She got a big kick, too, out of me thinking that The Hermit on the front cover was some sort of Olde English depiction of Santa.
So, there you go.
As I got older, I came to appreciate the song for the flaming chunk of clever, raunchy blues fire that it is. Although, I'll admit, I still chuckle at the thought of a felt puppet version of Robert Plant, belting out this song.
I read an interview with Wilco's frontman Jeff Tweedy some years ago (if I can locate it again online, I'll post a link) that "Heavy Metal Drummer" was about him and his buddies going to a place called Laclede's Landing on the riverfront in St. Louis in the late 80s/early 90s, where they'd basically spend summer evenings getting hammered and making fun of guys and gals with big hair and acid washed jeans. The twist was, looking back on those days years later, Tweedy realized they'd wasted all that time poking fun and being miserable while the rockers were there having a blast, reveling in the glammy cheesiness of it all. Which explains why the song has a sunny air of nostalgia about it. It's one of the few Wilco songs that really captures Tweedy's sense of humor and heart at the same time. It also combines a bubbling stew of influences--all of which, curiously, have nothing to do with heavy metal (that Tweedy sense of humor coming through again); there are Kraftwerk-like buzzing synths and Bomb Squad-like sampled drum breaks that pop up throughout. It almost feels like a long-lost collaboration between Brian Eno and David Byrne that wasn't finished in time for Remain in Light. The song is the perfect mood shift after the emotional "Ashes of American Flags" on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and just the perfect track to evoke carefree, teenage summers.
Once again, I have NC State University's WKNC radio to thank for introducing me to a song. I was on I-40, driving back to Raleigh from dinner with a friend in Durham, and this great song came on during a program featuring rising local artists. It sounded kind of like Jay Farrar, if Jay Farrar steered Son Volt off the gravel backroads and onto the expressway for a change. There were hints of Neil Young, John Fogerty, and the power pop of Big Star, too. But it sounded like an homage, not a ripoff. I'm almost afraid to admit this... But I actually pulled off the freeway at a random exit and sat in a grocery store parking lot until the song finished, and then I left myself a voice memo to remember the name of the band. (Nerd.) Anyway, the song was "Game" by a Durham-based indie rock outfit, Bull City. Written by the band's frontman/guitarist/occasional keyboardist Jim Brantley, "Game" is a terse, tight rocker about the topic of work/success/priorities. It features crunchy guitars and the kind of driving backbeat that gets you (unwittingly) slapping the steering wheel of your car. It also has these unexpected, lush strings that rise out of nowhere and underlie a stunning guitar solo from Brantley, which sounds like Wilco's Nels Cline reimagining Fogerty's swampy freakout from Creedence's cover of "Suzie Q." As far as I know, the band only ever put out two short EPs, one of which is Guns & Butter (2007) containing the track "Game." It's a shame they didn't do any more, because Guns & Butter is one hell of a collection of well-crafted songs with raw, live immediacy and heart. I highly recommend downloading it (for free, if you wish) from their Bandcamp artist page.
"Black Water" from the 1974 album What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits was written by The Doobie Brothers' lead guitarist Patrick Simmons. It was his very first single for the band and, incidentally, the band's first #1 song. And it came about by accident. "Black Water" originally was released without fanfare as the B-side of the single "Another Park, Another Sunday," which is itself a great, soulful ballad about lost love by band founder Tom Johnston. Thing was, "Another Park..." contains the lyric My car is empty and the radio just seems to bring me down, which didn't sit too well with radio programming directors at the time. So they had DJs flip the single, and "Black Water" took off instead, leaving Johnston's A-side in the dust. In a 2012 interview with Vintage Guitar magazine, Simmons recounted how he had been working on the song's riff–"kind of a lazy delta blues thing," in his words–just before the band played its first shows in New Orleans. After soaking in the Crescent City, Simmons said the pieces of the song easily fell into place. "I think it was all the wonderful experiences–the food, walking along the Mississippi, the French Quarter, Dixieland music in the clubs." He also recalls how a simple trip to the laundromat resulted in one of the verses of the song. "I wrote the second verse while riding a streetcar up St. Charles [Avenue] to the Garden District to do my laundry. It was raining–one of those summer showers where it’s sunny. It was a magical moment for me. So I jotted down the lyrics. If it rains, I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. Just take that streetcar that's goin' Uptown." I think that line and the little tag at the end of the chorus And I ain't got no worries 'cause I ain't in no hurry at all are kind of the essence of the whole song. (Side note: Hearing that lyric always brings to mind a scene in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, where Dean Moriarty, Sal Paradise, and Marylou are cruising into New Orleans at sunset, grooving to a radio show that's blasting bop jazz and funky R&B, and the DJ keeps saying, "Don't worry about nothing.") Having been to New Orleans several times, I would be lying if I said the city is all Twainian paddlewheel boats and "funky Dixieland" jazz. It's not–not for the past century, anyway. (Unless, that is, it's being artificially reenacted in the Quarter for the benefit of wealthy European tourists). Nevertheless, Simmons does capture certain qualities of the city that ring true: that living time capsule feel you get riding a century-old streetcar through the Garden District, and that live-and-let-live, no worries/no hurries vibe. New Orleans is the kind of place where you step inside some shady watering hole just to get out of the heat for a moment, only to find yourself sidled up to a 200-year-old bar, sipping some bright green concoction over sugar cubes that's rumored to cause brain damage, buying rounds of Sazeracs for people who were strangers a mere 60 minutes before, and then suddenly realizing it's 1 am but not really caring that you and midnight never rubbed shoulders, because, God willing and the levees hold, there's always tomorrow. That's what I hear when I listen to this song. That, and I hear a track that defies easy categorization. (Is it Cajun R&B? That straight-outta-the-bayou fiddle might make one think so. Is it funk-grass? That acoustic finger-picking against Tiran Porter's fat bass would help it qualify. Swamp rock? Maybe–but then where does that Southern Gospel harmony/a cappella breakdown fit into the picture?) Whatever it is, I keep revisiting it. New Orleans, too.
Like a lot of Chester Burnett's (a.k.a. Howlin' Wolf's) output for Chess Records in the 1960s, "Spoonful" (1960) is a composition by writer/arranger/bassist Willie Dixon. As the liner notes for Howlin' Wolf: The Definitive Collection (2007) state, Burnett himself had penned a number of hits in the 50s and wanted to keep writing and controlling his own output. However, the owners of Chess Records (brothers Leonard and Phil Chess) saw to it that Dixon, who had a finger on pop tastes and a knack for crafting catchy riffs, was the only one writing new music for Wolf and labelmates like Muddy Waters to keep Chess competitive. The liner notes from the album include a 60s-era quote from Burnett to music journalist Peter Guralnick: "I can do my own songs better, but, you see, they won't let me."
Even though he wasn't too thrilled about having to sing Dixon's songs (they got in shouting matches quite frequently), Burnett couldn't have asked for a song better suited to his gritty style than "Spoonful," which is loosely based on the recording "A Spoonful Blues" (1929) by Delta bluesman Charlie Patton.
The entire song rides atop a single chord and a shuffling groove as Burnett moans about lustful pursuits and the ends mankind will go to for a mere "spoonful*," his larger-than-life sandpaper baritone duetting perfectly with session guitarist Hubert Sumlin's confident, piercing lead.
"Working Class Hero" from the raw/honest/anti-pop John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) may well be the most personal song that John Lennon ever wrote. In fact, its spare Dylan-esque guitar and lo-fi production make it feel more like eavesdropping on a private session with his psychoanalyst than a song meant for public consumption. Lyrically, he's questioning conformity and the status quo while sardonically looking at his own lot in life as a "working class hero." It's clear that he sees himself as anything but a hero. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, you can't deny the man is telling the truth as he sees it, which is what makes it so compelling and timeless.
The album Willy and the Poorboys (1969) is 30-something minutes of pure, perfect roots rock. The songs are mostly lean and mean, and even the (slightly) longer, jammier ones never overstay their welcome. The albumalso happens to contain one of John Fogerty's best, lesser known compositions, "Don't Look Now (It Ain't You or Me)." The brief song rides along on a swinging rockabilly groove that's heavily indebted to Johnny Cash. While the tune itself is massively catchy, it's Fogerty's lyrics—which, thematically, also owe a lot to Cash—that grab me every time I hear the song. Through a series of rhetorical questions, Fogerty reminds the listener not to forget about the humble laborer (the miner, farmer, and factory worker), the underprivileged, and the Almighty. In fact, his lyrics will say more than my analysis can: Who’ll take the coal from the mine? Who’ll take the salt from the earth? Who'll take a leaf and grow it to a tree? Don't look now, it ain't you or me. Who’ll work the fields with his hands? Who’ll put his back to the plough? Who'll take the mountain and give it to the sea? Don't look now, it ain't you or me. Don’t look now, someone's done your starvin'; Don't look now, someone's done your prayin' too. Who’ll make the shoes for your feet? Who’ll make the clothes that you wear? Who'll take the promise that you don't have to keep? Don’t look now, it ain't you or me. Well, don’t look now, someone's done your starvin'; Don't look now, someone's done your prayin' too. Who'll take the coal from the mine? Who'll take the salt from the earth? Who'll take the promise that you don't have to keep? Don't look now, it ain't you or me. - J.C. Fogerty
It's almost hard to believe the Van Morrison who could create ebullient R&B like "Caravan" is the same curmudgeonly hermit who scowls through every live performance these days like its a chore to be around humanity. (I kind of get it; how many times can you sing "Brown Eyed Girl" without wishing you'd never met the raven-eyed wench in the first place?) Thing is, when Morrison is on, he's on fire. "Caravan," which Morrison famously set ablaze during his set for The Band's 1976 farewell concert/film The Last Waltz, was inspired by Morrison's time living in Woodstock, NY, in the late 60s before the town became a household name. Even though his home was a half-mile from his nearest neighbor, he could clearly hear music coming from the neighbor's radio. That experience of sharing his neighbor's music through the woods plus the bucolic, back-to-nature vibe of rural Woodstock came together to inspire his tale of red and white-painted caravans, young Gypsies dancing by the light of a campfire, and his repeated declarations to Turn it up! so that he could feel the groove coming from the radio. The version on his near-perfect 1970 album Moondance is a rousing affair. Morrison's voice is in top form with maximum soul, blasting out la-la-la's like his voice is part of the reed section backing him. But the pinnacle really is the breakdown at the end of the song, where you have a whole chorus of Morrisons over that funky backbeat by session drummer Gary Mallaber. Definitely, turn it up.
"The Weight" is one of those songs that sounds like it always existed. It's so ubiquitous that it's hard to believe that it was written by a rock band* in the late 1960s instead of hardscrabble coal miners, field hands, or railroad workers in the late 1860s. And the plethora of Biblical references (Nazareth, Moses, Luke, the Devil, and Judgment Day) definitely help lend it an air of timelessness.
The lyrics are built around what's called a "journey motif" in the world of literature. (Thank you, Joan Ideker and your senior AP English class.) The everyman narrator is sent to Nazareth by Ms. Fanny with a seemingly simple task: convey her regards to the people there. But along the way, things get complicated: he can't find lodging, discovers Ms. Fanny's friend Carmen engaged in some sort of immoral activity, and gets saddled with taking care of Crazy Chester's dog, among other things. In the end, his enthusiasm for carrying out Ms. Fanny's task has faded, and he decides it's time to leave Nazareth and head home.
The lyrics taken as a whole paint a surreal tableau of the American experience, where people still hop trains and carry their earthly belongings in a bindle on a stick, and where the physical and metaphysical worlds blur into one.
The music itself also captures a sound that is steeped in Americana without fitting into any particular genre or period. The late Levon Helm's vocal (and the late Rick Danko's, too, for that matter) is as indebted to Ray Charles as it is Woody Guthrie. Helm's drumming also resides in a charmed space somewhere between "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" and Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill." And then there's Garth Hudson's quarter-note pulse on the acoustic piano, which is as pure Southern Gospel as you can get.
It's easily one of the best songs of the 1960s.
(*Despite guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson still claiming sole credit for the song, I'm inclined to believe Helm's assertion in a year 2000 interview with journalist Larry Getlen: although Robertson came up with the core of the song, the entire band contributed to the composition—particularly Hudson.)
"All Along the Watchtower" is probably one of Bob Dylan's creepiest compositions. It's involves Pinter-esque dialogue between two outcasts (the joker and the thief), set against a backdrop of apocalyptic images: howling winds, wildcats growling, and general upheaval. At the end of the song, you're left with the feeling that the clueless patricians and their servants in the castle are about to get a rude awakening from these "two riders." Dylan's own version on his album John Wesley Harding (1967) is good and spare. But Jimi Hendrix's dramatic rendition makes it easy to forget that Dylan's version existed first. In fact, it kind of makes you forget that Hendrix didn't pen the song himself. According to Chris Salewicz's liner notes for the now out-of-print compilation Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience (1993), Hendrix heard Dylan's version while at a party with guitarist Dave Mason of the band Traffic. As he and Mason discussed the song, Hendrix decided on the spot that he had to record it, although he was extremely nervous about being able to do the song justice—which explains why, even though he recorded his version in January 1968, it didn't see the light of day as a single until October of that year. Hendrix pulls out all the stops: there's layer upon layer of electric guitar—sometimes fed through a Leslie speaker, sometimes a wah-wah pedal, and other times panned between speakers through production wizardry; every solo is tasteful, strategic, and used to maximum effect. He also plays a mean bass on the track (I actually prefer his nimble bass playing to Noel Redding's plodding style), keeping metronome time with Dave Mason, who's strumming and slashing away on the acoustic guitar. As always, Mitch Mitchell's drums I could take or leave. Too many sloppy fills, not enough groove. But, thankfully, it doesn't hurt the track. "Watchtower" (and the 1968 album Electric Ladyland on which it appears) solidified that there was more to Hendrix than electric blooze, pyrotechnic stage theatrics, and psychedelia-tinged 3-minute singles. It cinched his lasting reputation as a priest of sound.
I'm a fan of Bob Dylan's music and words but not always a fan of his recordings. (That's why I usually prefer other artists covering his stuff.) Too often, it's painfully obvious that he and his backing musicians ran through a song once, rolled a joint, and then pressed "record" on run-through #2. Some might call it tossed-off charm or warts-'n-all immediacy. But I call it sloppy. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't expect a Dylan album from the mid-60s to sound polished and glossy—that's not who he was/is. But hearing a brilliant song like "Visions of Johanna" get marred by musicians fumbling their way through chord changes, quite frankly, sucks. One of the reasons I like "Just Like a Woman" from the 1966 album Blonde on Blonde is because Dylan and his band sound rehearsed—not to the point of sounding rigid, but simply ready to record: they know what the changes are, where the bridge is, where Dylan is going to stop and start, etc. Anyway, the song is rumored to be about Edie Sedgwick, a wealthy NYC socialite and member of Andy Warhol's "Factory" crowd, who had a tumultuous relationship with a friend of Dylan's. To deal with the rocky relationship and her party lifestyle, Sedgwick turned to booze and pills as a crutch—vices that ultimately led to her accidental death in 1971 after various stints of trying to get clean. In a way, it seems plausible that the lyrics are a critique of a high-fashion debutante who's into staying high to avoid reality. But I think that's too easy. Dylan was never that simplistic. Or quite that misogynistic. My take is that the "woman" in the chorus isn't specifically Sedgwick but more of a metaphor for dependency and vice in general. In other words, the amphetamines (and whatever else) seem to provide the kind of unconditional love, acceptance, and shelter that one craves from another human being; however, by their very nature, they are ephemeral and take more than they give, leaving the addict wounded and broken in the end. In any case, it's one of his best ballads and best-sounding recordings of this period.
Although Alex Chilton was just 16 years old when he recorded the #1 hit "The Letter" (1967) with the Memphis-based band The Box Tops, his gritty, bluesy voice sounded like that of someone three times his age. Chilton would score one more Top 10 hit with The Box Tops (1968's "Cry Like A Baby") before the group decided to call it quits in 1970. From there, Chilton joined up with former schoolmate and songwriter/guitarist Chris Bell, an adamant Anglophile and Beatles fanatic, to found the band Big Star. Chilton permanently retired his affected blue-eyed soul growl and began finding his true voice through their Lennon-McCartney-esque songwriting partnership, which generated some of the best so-called "power pop" ever recorded. Story goes, Big Star (which also consisted of bassist Andy Hummel and drummer Jody Stephens) recorded its debut album #1 Record in mid-1971 and released it to a huge amount of critical fanfare in early 1972. But despite the praise and expectations of making it big (it was called #1 Record, after all), the album simply didn't sell. The problem was not that the music didn't resonate; it was record label politics. Big Star's label—the indie outfit Ardent Records, a subsidiary of the Memphis R&B/soul label Stax Records—had worked out a distribution deal through Columbia Records, where music mogul and all-around douchebag Clive Davis was head of operations in the early 70s. Davis got canned after getting caught with his hand in the company coffers, and the new guard at Columbia saw the distribution arrangement with Stax/Ardent as a threat to its own record sales. So they essentially let #1 Record and other Stax/Ardent recordings wither on the vine by simply not shipping their albums to record stores. In turn, #1 Record sold fewer than 10,000 copies, and Stax went bankrupt. After the album flopped, Bell departed the band and spent time hanging out in Europe, where he attempted to cut a solo record. In the meantime, Chilton went back into the studio in Memphis and cut a second album called Radio City (1974)—which, incidentally, sounds more like late-70s Television, mid-80s R.E.M., or 2000's Wilco than anything Big Star's contemporaries were producing, circa 1974. The album is filled with instantly catchy melodies that have beautifully jagged edges and unexpected twists, as well as smart lyrics, real emotion, and unbridled, uncompromising creativity. It was way ahead of its time and still sounds amazingly fresh. (Unfortunately, it also met with poor sales and led to the band's disintegration before its brilliantly quirky third album, Sister Lovers, was released.) A standout song from Radio City is "September Gurls"—a Chilton-penned song that's about longing and depression and sex and girls and loneliness...all in three terse stanzas and two perfect minutes and forty-eight immaculate seconds. The track has the same kind of chiming guitar sound as a Byrds or Beatles track from 1965/66 with the same kind of spry immediacy and urgency, too. Chilton's vocals (including his harmony backing vocals) sound as sunny and bright as a day at the beach yet are tinged with real melancholy, adding a layer of complexity to what might have been just a fluffy pop confection in lesser hands. A classic song from a classic album.
Apart from being one of Ringo Starr's best performances on tape (his drum fills here are a thing of wonder), "She Said, She Said" is one of John Lennon's best compositions on the album Revolver (1966). The Beatles were staying at a rented house in Beverly Hills during a break from touring in mid-1965, when Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of The Byrds dropped by with LSD, ready to party. Everyone (with the exception of Paul McCartney) got their dosage and started tripping. However, George Harrison began to panic, telling the others that he felt like he was dying. Actor Peter Fonda, who also happened to be in attendance, tried to console Harrison by assuring him that he wasn't dying, repeatedly telling him, "You're not dying; I know what it's like to be dead," while simultaneously showing The Beatle a bullet wound from childhood, the result of a gun accident that had almost killed him. Whatever Fonda's intentions, the discussion of death and bullet wounds freaked Harrison out that much more. Lennon, ever the big brother to Harrison, berated Fonda for talking about death, chiding him with, "You're making me feel like I've never been born!" As McGuinn later recounted to Rolling Stone, "We were all on acid, and John couldn't take it. John said, 'Get this guy out of here!' It was morbid and bizarre." To stick it to Fonda, Lennon wrote a song that he initially called "He Said, He Said," about the incident in LA, incorporating Fonda's words (I know what it's like to be dead) as well as his own retort (You're making me feel like I've never been born) into the song's lyrics. Ultimately, Lennon decided that "he said" didn't sound quite right, so he changed it to "She Said, She Said." It's a favorite of mine because it sounds deceptively simple: a straight-ahead rocker with a bit of West Coast influence. But there are subtle things in Lennon's composition that are pure genius—like switching from 4/4 to 3/4 and back again on the bridges, utilizing the shifting time signature as a way to indicate dialogue between two people who aren't really syncing up intellectually. Same thing with Lennon's chiming rhythm guitar against Harrison's almost brass-like lead. It also has a pure, mid-60s guitar sound and a simple but effective bassline, which is played by Harrison, not McCartney. (Like the party that inspired the song, McCartney sat this one out.)
As its title implies, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" from Crosby, Stills & Nash's 1969 debut album is a suite—a set of short, connected songs built around a common theme. In this case, it was multi-instrumentalist and ex-Buffalo Springfield guitarist Stephen Stills writing about his then-girlfriend, folksinger Judy Collins, and the disintegration of their relationship. In an August 2010 Sound on Sound article, Bill Halverson, the recording engineer on the session for "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," recounts that Stills had the entire suite completely worked out before tape even rolled. “It still gives me goosebumps when I listen to that recording, aware that he blew through seven-and-a-half minutes with all the time changes, all the pauses, all the everything, in just one take. No edits, no nothing.” (So the acoustic guitar and the main vocal you hear in the left channel throughout are the result of a single, uninterrupted take. Pretty amazing.) After Stills cut the initial track, the trio (also comprised of ex-Byrd David Crosby and ex-Hollie Graham Nash) overdubbed those incomparable CSN backing vocals. There's nothing else on tape quite like the hair-raising vocal blend on the middle what have you got to lose? section. And who couldn't love thatLatin-flavored coda with those doo-doo-doo-doo-da-doo vocals that close the song? As Stills told Debbie Elliott of NPR's All Things Considered in December 2012, the end section was a total afterthought, crafted in the studio. Stills intended it as a lyrical and stylistic break from the rest of the suite to end it on an upbeat note, even going so far as to sing the lyrics in inscrutable broken Spanish. (Basically, he's singing that he misses the beauty of Cuba and wishes he could visit again but, unfortunately, he can't.) Although Stills claims the coda is a non sequitur to the rest of the song, I think it's an extended metaphor about missing the early part of his relationship with Collins but realizing they could never go back again. It's just an intelligent, epic song from an inordinately talented bunch of musicians who often exuded greatness when they weren't letting egos and chemicals get in the way.
Okay, here's how to approach an America song: first and foremost, just accept that the lyrics have no deeper meaning; the words are only there as rhythmic pegs for the band to hang its three-part vocal harmonies upon. Secondly, focus on the virtuosity of the players and the intricacy of the interplay between the acoustic guitars. Finally, forget about the lyrics. Seriously. Forget about 'em.
"Ventura Highway" is a perfect specimen of why the band was as successful as it was in the 70s. The twin guitar harmonies that open the song and cycle throughout evoke such a feeling of Southern California sunshine and open spaces that it's impossible not to drift away in your mind to a sunbaked stretch of blacktop cutting through the desert.
As much as the song evokes that geographic location, the band members weren't really from there. They were Air Force brats who moved frequently from base to base, all around the US and Europe. The three founding members—Dewey Bunnell (writer/lead singer of "Ventura Highway"), Gerry Beckley, and Dan Peek—met at an American expatriate high school while their families were stationed in England. In a reflection of nostalgia for the US and to signal that they weren't a British band trying to sound American, they named their band "America."
Speaking of nostalgia, "Ventura Highway" from the 1972 album Homecoming was inspired by Bunnell's childhood memory of his family relocating from one military base to another and getting a flat tire in the middle of the California desert. He and his brother sat on the side of the road, staring up at the sky, playing the game of spotting shapes in the clouds, hence the abstract line: Alligator lizards in the air. Apparently, there also was a road sign pointing toward "Ventura" on the side of the road, and that image stuck with him.
So there ya go. "Ventura Highway": lyrical marshmallow fluff atop an indelible instrumental track, which features the key rhythmic contributions of session musicians Hal Blaine (drums) and Joe Osborn (bass)—members of the collective known as "The Wrecking Crew" who played on countless rock and pop songs of the 60s and 70s.
Scottish musician Gerry Rafferty was a founding member of the band Stealers Wheel, best known for its jangly 1972 hit "Stuck in the Middle with You" (a song that was used to great/creepy effect in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs some 20 years later). However, Rafferty departed Stealers Wheel just before the single (which he co-wrote and sang the lead vocal on) made it big. He spent the next five years trying to get out of his recording contract, which involved many hours spent traveling between his home near Glasgow and London to meet with his lawyers. When spending time in London, Rafferty often would crash at his friend's home on the famed Baker Street. As he told the Scottish Daily Mail in 1995 (reprinted in the Washington Post in January 2011 after his death), the two would sit for hours, playing music and talking, which helped Rafferty get through his legal woes and feelings of isolation. Once Rafferty finally was free and clear of his old contract and able to record again, he penned the song "Baker Street" (from the 1978 album City to City) as an autobiographical sketch of that bleak period in his life. Musically, the song shifts between soft, introspective piano-driven sections on the verses and the decidedly more rocking eight-bar breaks, featuring that famous alto sax hook by session musician Raphael Ravenscroft and those swooping byooooooooo synth slides by session keyboardist Tommy Eyre. Curiously, the song has no real chorus, only the instrumental breaks and bridges. But I think having a wordless hook is a genius touch of composition that spotlights his world-weary lyrics. Too, it makes the bittersweet triumph of the hook that much more anthemic and absorbing.
There's still a lot of speculation about what/who "Positively 4th Street" is all about. I think it's pretty obvious that it was Bob Dylan's rebuttal to his detractors for "going electric."
Let's check out the timeline: Dylan started toying with mixing folk and rock in 1964, moving away from the acoustic protest songs, like "Blowin' in the Wind," that had earned him renown and respect in the folk music community. The initial product of his folk-rock experiments was the half electric, half acoustic March 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, which garnered mixed reactions among his folk music fans.Not long after, Dylan released the sprawling rock single "Like A Rolling Stone" on July 20. Five days after the release of "Like A Rolling Stone," Dylan played the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, RI, on July 25, where he decided at the last moment to play an electric set.
And he got booed.
Some Dylan contemporaries and fans postulate it's because his set was too short or the sound quality was poor. Others (including Dylan) contend that it was because his new, electric sound had pissed off traditionalists in the folk community. Whatever the case, the crowd reaction cut Dylan to the quick: the very people who were so ready to claim him as the folk movement's poster child one moment had suddenly and nastily turned on him the next (as you can see in this trailer for the 2007 documentary The Other Side of the Mirror).
His very next single was the acerbic "Positively 4th Street," released September 6, 1965.
Musically, the song floats along on a sublime, upbeat melody with bright splashes of organ and slightly-distorted rhythm guitar, courtesy of Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield, who'd both performed with Dylan at Newport.
Lyrically, it's napalm. The words come off as if he's berating a single individual, and—in a sense—he is. The subject of his derision is symbolically "4th Street," which most certainly refers to West 4th Street in New York's Greenwich Village—the geographic center of the folk movement where Dylan got his start. His vitriol is aimed squarely at the community he feels stabbed him in the back after he "went electric." He cries foul that "folkies" were genuinely hurt and disillusioned by his stylistic shift, telling them You have no faith to lose, and you know it. He also points out that the community still wants to claim him as its own, using his success for its own ends, but then never hesitates to disparage his mainstream acceptance. You just want to be on the side that's winning... It's Dylan at his thrifty, snarky, direct best.
I'll be frank: I've never been a fan of contemporary country music. Too many songs seem like they were inspired by an empty 12-pack of Natural Light and the kind of wisdom one would glean from a slogan on a sun-faded t-shirt in a Myrtle Beach gift shop window. However, I always have enjoyed classic Country & Western: the outlaw/outsider/storyteller stuff of artists like Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Hank Williams, and one Mrs. Loretta Lynn—a true original. I guess I shouldn't have been shocked when Lynn paired up with Jack White of The White Stripes in 2004 to craft the album Van Lear Rose. She always was a risk taker (listen to the controversial 1975 track "The Pill" for proof). But I never expected the final product to blend Lynn's style and personality with White's signature lo-fi grit so well. In fact, it's as if White provided a kind of safe haven for her to write the pithy, brutally honest songs that she wanted to write—songs that delve into her brush with death as a child, her rocky 50-yearmarriage, and her warm memories of her mother, the titular "Van Lear Rose." As Lynn told NPR's Melissa Block in 2004, "I like true life things, I like real things...I think that's why people bought my records, because they're living in this world, and so am I. So I see what's going on, and I grab it." One of the standout tracks on the collection is a vocal duet with White, "Portland, Oregon." It's a frank song (with words and music by Lynn) about a no-regrets one-night-stand after getting wasted on a pitcher of Sloe Gin Fizz. White's arrangement of the song perfectly mirrors the story in Lynn's lyrics: it opens with a freewheeling instrumental section with abstract splashes of steel guitar over a vaguely rumba beat (the night of flirting and fun) before settling into a steady, booming wall-of-sound (the hangover and afterglow). Their voices blend astonishingly well; Lynn's sounds as strong as it did in 1960. Plus, their backing band (which Lynn affectionately dubbed the "Do Whaters," because "they got in there and did whatever we needed them to," as she says on her website) absolutely roars beneath them with this tight-but-loose, Detroit garage rock-meets-Music City twang. (That scorching pedal steel guitar hurts so, so good.) It's brash, witty, and unapologetic. It's everything that great Country & Western should be.
"20th Century Man" is the opening track from the 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies--a concept album of sorts about modernization malaise. Lead singer and songwriter for The Kinks, Ray Davies, grew up with his seven siblings (including younger brother, Dave, who was lead guitarist for The Kinks) in a tiny row house in a working class neighborhood of London called Muswell Hill. Before Ray and Dave were born in the mid-1940s, the Davies had lived closer to the center of London in a spacious, old Victorian house with plenty of room for the whole family. But then they were forced out in the name of urban renewal, and their beloved home was razed to the ground. In the end, they moved to the only area that they could afford, and their new house was minuscule by comparison and their surroundings depressing; they were a family of 10, living in a house meant for a family of four, in the middle of a faceless London suburb. The album and "20th Century Man" are studies in the psychological and emotional effects of having one's community/world turned upside down in the name of modernization. In the song, the protagonist wants nothing to do with anything modern--going so far as to shrug off all modern art and literature, too. Give me William Shakespeare, he intones. I'm a 20th Century man, but I don't want to be here. (The song reminds me a bit of my own childhood, watching my small neighborhood get dismantled by a road construction project. It was very jarring. Sizable maple trees that my father had planted in our front yard years earlier were snapped in two with a single swipe of a backhoe. The little roadside store just over the hill where my mom would send me to buy milk, cornbread, candy, etc. was shuttered and reduced to a pile of gray stones. Neighbors and homes that had been there for years suddenly were gone. In fact, I recall watching workers physically relocate the Sizemore family's house across from ours, wheeling it down the soon-to-be multi-lane highway on what lookedlike a giant roller skate pulled by a semi truck. All that remained afterward was a gaping hole framed by lonely shade trees and shrubs, looking like they were waiting for their house to come home. Ah, eminent domain. Ah, modernity. Thomas Wolfe had it right all along...) Apart from it being a great bit of lyric writing, it's a tasty little acoustic rocker with a jangly rhythm guitar line and pounding backbeat. It cleverly builds to a simmer as the protagonist gets more and more disillusioned and disgusted with modern life, finally erupting in a full-on assault of electric organ and guitar.
In the early 60s, Nancy Sinatra was signed to her father's record label, Reprise, and--get this--by 1966, she was at risk of having her contract dropped because she hadn't scored a hit. (Dropped from her father's record label! Oof...) Anyway, papa Sinatra decided that Lee Hazelwood, a seasoned writer and producer, was the ticket to a hit single for his little girl. Hazelwood, however, had planned on retiring from the music industry at the ripe old age of 36, and he turned Ol' Blue Eyes down. But Sinatra wouldn't take no for an answer and cajoled Hazelwood into writing/producing for Nancy. (I mean, would you say no to Frank Sinatra? At best, he'd end up beating you with a tire iron to the tune of "I Did It My Way.") So, Hazelwood gave Nancy his composition "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"--an intentional departure from the tamer material that Nancy had been singing up to that point. More or less, it's the story of a girl who confronts her boyfriend about his cheating ways, only to turn tables (that little Ha! she belts out before the last verse), letting him know that she's already got a new man who does "things" he couldn't even begin to comprehend. If there were any doubt about what "things" she's singing about, Hazelwood's direction to her to sing the song "like a 16-year-old who f***s truck drivers" should erase any doubt. Hazelwood's production perfectly frames her limited vocal range, letting her almost speak-sing the badass lyrics in a cool, composed way--like a gunslinger who's staring down a nemesis at the end of a dusty street. Also, genius touches--like the famous sliding run on the double bass and the go-go beat against the lope-along rhythm guitar--are what make this song a perennial classic rather than a mod pop relic.
"Loving Cup" off the decadent, sprawling masterpiece Exile on Main St. (1972) is the sound of The Rolling Stones at its creative peak. Pretty much every album since then has been a long, agonizing slide into mediocrity and a case study in the power of brand equity. (In other words, even though 90% of what they've released in the past 40 years has been dreck, people keep shelling out money for their merchandise and concert tickets because that tongue-n'-lips still somehow embodies their former badass-ness.) Anyway, the sessions for Exile are the stuff of rock legend. Story goes, the band went to southern France to record in April 1971 to escape the British taxman. For the better part of a year, members of the band--along with producer Jimmy Miller, various wives/girlfriends, random acquaintances, and assorted heroin dealers--lived in Villa Nellcôte, a sprawling mansion that Keith Richards rented for £1000 a week. When the group was sober-ish, they'd record in the mansion's basement, using a mobile recording studio to capture the feverish riffs that Richards and fellow axe slinger Mick Taylor were tossing out effortlessly. By March 1972, however, the French police had tired of the narcotics-fueled rowdiness at Nellcôte. Likewise, Mick Jagger had grown annoyed with his writing partner's heroin use and the scene in southern France, and he decided to move the recording sessions to Los Angeles to finish the album, which was quickly developing into a double set. "Loving Cup" was one of the tracks created during the LA sessions. Keyboardist Billy Preston had convinced Jagger to go with him to a Pentecostal church in LA near the recording studio, and Jagger had a sort of religious experience hearing the church's gospel choir. So much so that he began writing and arranging the remaining songs for the album with a more soulful, gospel feel. Although Preston plays on other tracks, session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins is featured playing the Southern Gospel-tinged piano intro to "Loving Cup." At times, the song feels vaguely like Memphis soul, what with the blazing horn and rhythm sections. But then it just as easily slips into the realm of honky tonk--like a Hank Williams song written with a nose full of coke instead of a liver full of Jack. Whatever genre it falls into, Jagger sounds like he's having fun, which is something that couldn't be said again until 1978's Some Girls.
"Fortunate Son" from the 1969 album Willy and the Poor Boys may be the protest song to end all protest songs.
The story behind it is fairly simple: John Fogerty was angry. He was angry about students getting beaten by riot police after anti-war protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was angry about Richard Nixon's dismissive attitude toward young people and the establishment's attempts to paint war protestors as un-American. And he was angry about watching young men--guys who were his age and largely from working-class backgrounds, like himself--getting drafted, en masse, to fight in a conflict where the goals and motivations were nebulous at best. (Fogerty himself had been drafted in 1965 and served in the Army Reserve until he was honorably discharged in mid-1967, when he returned to his home of El Cerrito, CA, and re-launched his band, Creedence Clearwater Revival.)
But it was after seeing media coverage of the lavish wedding plans for Nixon's daughter, Julie, to ex-President Dwight Eisenhower's grandson, David, that Fogerty's fiery pen started flying, churning out the lyrics to the song in 20 minutes.
Stated Fogerty in a Rolling Stone interview, "You just had the feeling that none of these people were going to be too involved in the war."
As Fogerty recites from his upcoming autobiography, the song's title came from the political phrase "favorite son," which often refers to a candidate for national office who gets unwavering support from their home state regardless of political affiliation. He took that phrase and changed it to "Fortunate Son"--an apt title for his searing indictment of politicians and figures in power, whose children were receiving special treatment by not being sent into battle.
Likewise, Fogerty points out that, having served in the armed forces himself, his goal was to let servicemen know that he was not against them, unlike some anti-war protestors who were inexplicably spitting on troops returning home from Vietnam. Rather, Fogerty's sights were set squarely on Nixon and the establishment.
I believe "Fortunate Son" remains evergreen because of its scorching truth and brevity. In just over two minutes, Fogerty and his bandmates unleash a stomping, swamp rock attack on hypocrisy. That's why, even though Fogerty's lyrics were inspired by events surrounding the Vietnam War and politics in the late 1960s, it feels like the most pointed, ego-shattering editorial when it's lobbed at figures of power still today.
I hate to admit it. But it kind of makes me glad when bands that should make it big only gain a cult following or remain local stars. It's like knowing about a fantastic restaurant in a shitty location: there's a selfish joy in knowing you can always walk right in and get a table anytime, but at the same time, you are keenly aware that, unless you start telling people about the place, it's probably doomed. I feel that way about the band French Kicks--a former indie rock quartet that was based in (where else?) Brooklyn. I first heard them on college radio in Raleigh, NC, and then only once again after that while having dinner at a Chipotle in Chapel Hill, NC. I spent months Googling lyrics, trying to find the band that had created the goodie I'd heard while pondering life over a veggie burrito bowl. Once I finally found them and their near-perfect album Swimming (2008), I kind of didn't want to share them with anyone, and I didn't want anyone else sharing them with the world at large. Apart from my inherent Gollum-like selfishness, I didn't want this great, unique thing to suddenly be picked up by the mainstream--the next logical step being a major label swooping in and buffing down all of its gorgeous, natural edges into a mass-marketable commodity. Then, all you're left with is: "Ugh, they used to be so good, once." At the same time, I couldn't understand why, apart from WKNC and Chipotle Radio, no one was playing the damn thing. Especially the opening track, "Abandon." The opening riff, which walks a tightrope between a late 60s John Fogerty guitar tone and a late 70s Joy Division/Bernard Sumner tone, should have been enough to propel the song to at least some mainstream airplay (or a car commercial, or something). The song also has this thunderous, echoey bassline and drum track that sound like they were recorded live in a deserted subway tunnel. In fact, the mix and mastering on this song (and entire album) are amazing--I've never heard an indie release capture this kind of "live" sound but also be able to get a drum sound this clean, or a bass sound that full, and still have lead and harmony vocals come through crystal clear. (Yes, I just nerded out about how someone mixed and mastered an album.) It's a great song from an undiscovered band and album that probably should have been (but gratefully/selfishly wasn't) a mainstream hit.
If you've never read Cameron Crowe's 1975 Rolling Stone article "The Durable Led Zeppelin," read it. It sheds light on a number of things about the band--namely, what's fact and what's fiction. It also confirms that they're intelligent, talented guys who were intensely serious about their music (even when they weren't being all that serious on the road). It's really a great, well-written article by an 18-year-old Crowe. In the article, lead singer Robert Plant reveals what the song "Ten Years Gone" from 1975's Physical Graffiti is all about:
"Let me tell you a little story behind the song 'Ten Years Gone' on our new album. I was working my ass off before joining Zeppelin. A lady I really dearly loved said, 'Right. It's me or your fans.' Not that I had fans, but I said, 'I can't stop, I've got to keep going.' She's quite content these days, I imagine. She's got a washing machine that works by itself and a little sports-car. We wouldn't have anything to say anymore. I could probably relate to her, but she couldn't relate to me. I'd be smiling too much. Ten years gone, I'm afraid."
Various articles I've read over the years have said that the woman he's singing to/about in "Ten Years Gone" is Shirley Wilson, the sister of Plant's then-wife Maureen Wilson. Shirley, Plant's girlfriend from the mid-60s when his career was just getting started, wasn't a fan of the rock & roll lifestyle, and she gave Plant an ultimatum. So they split up, and Plant took up with her sister, Maureen, who was less concerned about his constant gigging and all of the trappings of life on the road. Despite building a life and having three children with Maureen, Plant pined for Shirley (as is crystal clear in the song). Some years later, after he and Maureen had divorced and Led Zeppelin had disbanded, he and Shirley got back together for the better part of a decade and had a son, Jesse Lee, in 1991. While the history behind the song is bar-trivia interesting, it's the quintessential Zep treatment of this ballad that draws me in every time. The shifting dynamics, the thunderous rhythm section, Jimmy Page's crunching riffs and countless layers of guitars (especially on that gorgeous bridge), and Plant's expressive vocal--they all combine to create an intensely powerful, yet immensely tender, song. I don't know of many bands that could pull that off without sounding hokey.
