"Jesus, Etc." (Wilco)

There's just something about "Jesus, Etc." from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) that recalls Lennon-McCartney at the peak of their powers.  I think it's the melody: it's so indelible, and the chord changes are so natural, that it feels like it always existed.

Wilco founder/frontman Jeff Tweedy has a knack for crafting melodies that fit like old shoes.  And I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.

Speaking of affection, "Jesus, Etc." is a song about love, relationships, and priorities.  I've always interpreted the lyrics as a postmortem to a heated argument (which seems to be a common theme in Tweedy's songs).  He's trying to apologize, admitting that he was wrong, she was right.  And as much as he wants to be present in the moment, promising her that he'll be reliable and (emotionally) available, he can't help but think about the next gig and that perpetual last cigarette before hitting the road again.  Ultimately, he arrives at the realization that—disposing of well-intentioned promises and career demands—their love is all that really matters.
While I'm always fond of Wilco's instrumental interplay (they are still one of the tightest bands out there, 20 years on), this track is particularly well executed.  Glenn Kotche's heartbeat tom-toms thump in tandem with John Stirratt's steadfast bass.  Wisps of understated Wurlitzer piano, acoustic guitar, and pedal steel drift in.  But it's the strings that always floor me: they're evocative but not sentimental, classical yet folky.  It's also a nice touch how, from verse to verse, the strings shift from legato to tremolo to pizzicato.  Actually, Tweedy discussed this with The Nation in 2002:

"I'm really happy with how it all panned out, because the goal was to have each section of the song commented on a little bit differently with the string texture. If you listen to it, the parts change; each is varied from the one before it. I don't know if someone who went to school for that stuff would think it's good. I just listen to it and think, ‘How did that happen?’"

So what's with the title of the song, you ask?
The track's working title was "Jesus, Don't Cry," reflecting the song's opening lyric.  However, when band member/collaborator Jay Bennett wrote the name of the song on the master tapes during the album's mixing sessions, he shorthanded it to "Jesus, Etc." Tweedy liked the shortened title's innocent irreverence, so it stuck.

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (J.S. Bach)

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."  A.K.A. "Chorale from Cantata 147."
However you wish to refer to it, I fell in love with this piece of music as a kid.  

Asheville, NC's ABC affiliate, WLOS-TV, used it in station identification spots during the holiday season for much of the early 80s.  I remember, the first time I heard it, it stopped me in my tracks (I probably was shuffling across the living room carpet in sock feet, trying to build up a static charge to shock my dad—a favorite pastime of mine in the winter).  It was quite possibly the most joyous, beautiful piece of music I'd ever heard.  
Although Bach composed it as a chorale (and I've sung it as such many times), I actually prefer it the way I first experienced it: as an instrumental.  
When it's played correctly, that is.
By that, I mean conductors and performers tend to have two tendencies when performing this piece of music: a) they drag the tempo so much that it sinks under its own weight, or b) they take it at such a breakneck pace that the notes completely blur.  Really, the song should take about 3:45 - 4:00 to perform.  Not 7:00.  Not 2:00.
Also, this composition (like many others of his) is a dance.  And as with any dance, it's meant to have a little bounce to it when performed.  You should be able to not only hear but also feel the basso continuo in every Bach song—especially this one.
Anyway, nearly 30 years after I first heard this piece, I'd venture to say it is still my favorite J.S. Bach composition—maybe even my favorite classical composition—of all time.

"A Love Supreme, Part I: Acknowledgement" (John Coltrane)

I'd heard a fair amount of music by John Coltrane before hearing A Love Supreme for the first time in college.  I knew him as the fluid alto sax soloist on Miles Davis's 1959 masterpiece, Kind of Blue.  I knew his classic hard bop album Blue Train (1957) and its title tune by heart.
But A Love Supreme threw me upon first listen.  I sat there, waiting for a melody to reach out and grab me, or a catchy sax/piano/bass solo in the same vein as "Blue Train."  But neither showed up.  Instead, it was like musical mercury, flowing and changing shape from moment to moment, never content to stay in the same place.  
Frankly, I found it frustrating and turned it off.
But then I gave it a few days.  Something about it intrigued me, and it pulled me back in.  Especially the first part, called "Acknowledgement."  
Jimmy Garrison's soulful bassline and Elvin Jones's hypnotic drum pattern (which feels as if it might go off the rails at any moment, but never does) are the song's anchors, freeing up Coltrane and pianist McCoy Tyner to flow where they will.  (Although, I wouldn't go so far as to call this "free jazz."  There's still a lot of reliance on modality and unity of performance.)
Coltrane, who in the album's liner notes declares his newfound relationship with God, intended the album to be an expression and an extension of his faith.  He also alludes to his former dependency on alcohol and heroin and being able to kick those demons through faith—something the professor of my jazz appreciation music course in college told us led to this unbridled expression of joy and gratitude.
The key moment in "Acknowledgement" arrives after Coltrane plays a four-note pattern that rhythmically spells out "a-love-su-preme."  He plays it, over and over (more than 30 times), in twelve different keys before he begins the vocal chant: A love supreme / A love supreme / A love supreme...
At first blush, it just seems like Coltrane is noodling around, letting whatever ideas that are popping into his head flow through him.  I never really thought about it much until I ran across a 2012 NPR piece about the making of the album awhile back.  In the article, there's a bit of analysis from Dr. Lewis Porter, a Professor of Music at Rutgers University, who points out that, by playing the "love supreme" theme in all twelve keys, Coltrane is saying that God is everywhere and in everything.  
So what seems random actually is very purposeful and planned.
Selah.

"The Firebird: Kastchei's spell is broken..." (Igor Stravinsky)

First a bit of history.
Russian composer Igor Stravinsky grew up in a musical family: his father was a professional opera singer, and his mother was a pianist and amateur vocalist.  So it was no real surprise when, after years of piano lessons, he began writing his own compositions at the age of 15.
Despite his obvious passion and aptitude for composing for music, his parents were intent on him becoming a lawyer.  Aiming to please, he went to study law and philosophy at the University of Saint Petersburg in 1901.
But (obviously) he didn't give up on music.
In 1902, he made an extended visit to the home of famed Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who became Stravinsky's mentor, tutoring him in musical composition.   (Stravinsky's interest in his legal studies waned pretty quickly.)
The turning point in Stravinsky's musical career came after he created an expressive, somewhat-experimental piece in 1909 called Feyerverk (Fireworks) as a wedding present for Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter.  The artistic director of the Parisian Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev, happened to catch a performance of the piece in St. Petersburg and immediately sensed that Stravinsky had the kind of "fresh blood" that he wanted in a composer for his ballet company.  Diaghilev quickly offered Stravinsky the job of composing music for a new ballet that was loosely based upon the Russian folktale, The Firebird.
(Quick synopsis of the story: The sorcerer, Kastchei, has placed everything in his kingdom under an evil spell.  The hero, Prince Ivan, wanders into the kingdom garden and finds the mythical Firebird there.  He tries and succeeds at catching her.  But she bargains with Ivan that, if he lets her go, she'll help him if he's ever in need.  He agrees and releases her.  As Ivan wanders the garden, he spots a princess who's being held under Kastchei's spell and instantly falls in love with her.  He follows the princess back to Kastchei's castle, where he's captured by the sorcerer's evil henchmen.  Just before Ivan is about to be turned to stone, the Firebird suddenly appears and leads Kastchei and his minions in the frenetic "Infernal Dance" until they pass out from exhaustion, giving Ivan time to destroy a giant egg that houses Kastchei's soul.  Kastchei dies, which frees both the princess and the Firebird from the evil spell.  Ivan and the princess are reunited.  The Firebird flies away.  Curtain.  Applause.  Everybody exits the hall and tries to flag down a cab.)
The very last part of the story is what's relevant to the piece of music here—its full title: "Scene II - Kastchei's spell is broken, his palace disappears, and the Petrified Knights return to life.  General thanksgiving." 
Long and short: it's the grand finale of the entire work.
Even if you had no clue about the folktale behind the composition, you'd probably still realize that it's a song about triumph over adversity.  It begins humbly and softly: the lone, pure voice of a muted French horn, playing the main theme.  Then, it swells as strings and woodwinds join in.  Finally, it bursts forth with soul-stirring brass and timpani; it is the sound of victory and freedom of the spirit.  Few pieces of music are more life-affirming.
It's no wonder that the composition made Stravinsky an overnight sensation in 1910.

"The Golden Age" (Beck)

Beck Hansen had spent the better part of the 90s making a name for himself as a purveyor of alternative hip-hop and off-kilter funk.  So when the aptly-titled album Sea Change came along in 2002, it threw everyone for a loop.
Here was an album that didn't shake with unbridled energy.  Instead, it quaked under the weight of the world.  
It was introspective, mournful.  There were no obscure samples.  No references to turntables and microphones.  Just heartfelt compositions that leaned toward deep blue alt-country on the musical spectrum, all largely built around delicate guitar melodies with pillowy layers of vintage keyboards, airy synths, steel guitar, and cinematic strings.
The album came on the heels of a breakup with his girlfriend of nine years, clothing designer Leigh Limon, after he discovered that she had been cheating on him.  What's more, the events of 9/11/01 were still very fresh on everyone's minds here in the US.  So, under the circumstances, it was the right set of songs at a time when many people, including Beck, needed to heal.
The album opener, "The Golden Age," sounds like the first steps to recovery.  The song begins slowly with folky acoustic guitar strumming and watercolor splashes of ambient noise over a deliberate beat.  As it unfolds, with Beck proclaiming (or trying to convince himself) Put your hands on the wheel / Let the golden age begin, elements like slide guitar, glockenspiel, harmonium, and electric keyboard float in, creating a sense of quiet desolation.  Sonically, it's a thread of open highway running through a vast, open desert, inviting you to leave your current state behind as you drive into the benevolent moonlight.
Even as he confesses These days, I barely get by, the feeling is that everything will turn out alright.  Which is why this song is always a favorite of mine when I'm seeking a momentary escape from the world.

"Summer Breeze" (Seals & Crofts)

I always felt that the group Seals & Crofts, which was comprised of Texas natives (and former members of The Champs) Jim Seals and Dash Crofts, got unfairly branded "soft rock."  
Granted, no one would confuse their music with, say, Led Zeppelin.  But to say their music was "soft" is just a lazy characterization.  Quite often, their songs combined influences as far flung as bop jazz, R&B, acoustic blues, bluegrass, Eastern classical music, as well as straight up rock & roll, played with real virtuosity and soul.  (Actually, in many ways, their eclectic, world-embracing output is actually closer to Zep than the music of their supposed soft rock contemporaries.)
Although they had a string of hit songs in the early 70s, their very first hit single "Summer Breeze" (off the 1972 album of the same name) is my personal favorite.
On the surface, it's a carefree tune about warm July evenings and all of the familiar sights/sounds/smells that welcome you home after a hard week's work.  But I've always sensed something more melancholy in the song; its minor-hued hook (played in unison on toy piano, alto sax, and clarinet) always seemed to express longing for something more.  
Consider the lyrics: the protagonist finds comfort in the simplicity of a summer breeze, the smell of jasmine, and the affection of his mate.  Everything else (his job, the newspaper on the sidewalk, the music from the neighbor's house) is a distraction.  It seems to be a song about seeking what is real and true in life.
Whatever your interpretation, the song has an undeniable R&B groove.  (It's no wonder The Isley Brothers covered it on their album 3+3, giving it a sultry 6-minute workout.)  Bobby Lichtig's dynamic bassline, which is as melodic as it is funky, almost has a Motown/James Jamerson quality about it.  It, along with Louie Shelton's fuzzed out guitar riff on the chorus and the duo's close harmony vocals throughout, make it one of the few AM radio hits of that era that I actually want to hear, over and over.

"Aht Uh Mi Hed" (Shuggie Otis)

Who is Shuggie Otis?

For one, he's the son of R&B bandleader Johnny Otis, who's best known for the 1958 hit "Willie & The Hand Jive."  Shuggie also was a guitar prodigy who started playing at the age of 2.  By the age of 13, he was touring extensively with his dad's band, playing alongside musicians 3 times his age.  (He often wore dark glasses and a fake mustache on stage so that he wouldn't get booted from clubs for being under age.) 
He got his own recording contract with Epic Records in 1969 at age 16 (the same year he played bass on Frank Zappa's Hot Rats album).  At age 18, he wrote the R&B classic "Strawberry Letter 23," which The Brothers Johnson took to #1 on the R&B charts in 1977.  Then at age 21, he dropped an experimental R&B album on the world that was heavily inspired by his idols Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone and their increasingly "do-it-yourself"/auteurist approach to making music.  The album, named Inspiration Information (1974), was completely written, arranged, performed, and produced by Otis himself and featured an amalgam of funk, jazz, and proto-electronica.  
Unfortunately, Epic only released the title track as a single and did little to promote the difficult-to-pigeonhole album.  Consequently, it quietly sank into obscurity, along with Shuggie himself.
(He's only recently resurfaced and started playing live shows again.)

I first learned about the album after David Byrne's Luaka Bop label decided to re-release it in 2001.  There was a full-page ad in Downbeat magazine with quotes from everyone from Questlove to Moby, gushing about how revolutionary it was.  I remember that I called an 800-number in the ad and listened to song snippets over the phone (hey, it was 2001, and I couldn't afford Internet access at my place at the time), and my gut reaction was that Byrne was playing some elaborate practical joke on the world.  The music didn't sound like it was from 1974; it sounded like something from Maxwell or Cody Chesnutt with well-executed throwback touches.  

As skeptical as I was about its authenticity, I called the number several more more times and tried to soak in what I was hearing.  By call #6, I was a convert.  I went out the next day to the Olsson's Books & Records (R.I.P.) up the street from my apartment in Arlington's Courthouse neighborhood and bought the store's lone copy.  And for the next month, I couldn't get enough of a track called "Aht Uh Mi Hed."

Lyrically, it's an enigmatic grab-bag of images.  As far as I can tell, it's an ode to "elevating one's mind" (herbally).

Musically, it's an intricate funk layer cake.  It begins simply enough with a samba-style drum machine beat, heavily-phased organ, and keyboard bass.  But then instruments come flying in from every direction: strummed acoustic guitar, muted electric guitar, slapped electric bass, Hammond organ, bells, tambourines, timbales...  All played by Otis himself.

The most awe-inspiring moment, though, is the instrumental break after the second bridge, where these lush strings and woodwinds (also arranged by Otis) suddenly blow in and swirl around like a warm breeze on a tranquil summer afternoon.  It's like Igor Stravinsky dipping his toe in the funk pond.

It's rare to say this about an R&B song, but it's amazingly beautiful.

Shuggie Otis should have been a mega-star in his day.

"Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" (The Flaming Lips)

Like any great work of science fiction, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002) uses fantasy to examine the human condition and human foibles.  
Mortality.  Love.  Longing.  Need.  Hubris.  
All of these things are stirred into the electronic masterpiece that is Yoshimi and, more specifically, the album track "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell."
Thematically, the song is about obsessing over a single instance of rejection to the point of letting everyone and everything else in life fall by the wayside.  Or, to use Lips frontman Wayne Coyne's more philosophical explanation of the song (which was, at one time, posted on the band's website): "To derive one's happiness from only specific moments in time is to miss out on the cosmic accident that is all of life's moments..."
The production feels futuristic; burbling/chirping sound effects, fat synth bass, and surprisingly funky drum programming set the Year 3000 mood.  But strip away the sci-fi motif and digital effects, and keep only the piano and strummed acoustic guitars, and what remains is a classic ballad that stands tall on its own as a composition.  
And that's what makes me revisit this song, over and over.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" (The Beach Boys)

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" easily is one of the best album openers in rock music history.  The moment you hear the dreamy guitar intro, you can sense that Pet Sounds (1966) is not going to be another Beach Boys album filled with songs about hot rods and big waves.
Brian Wilson's God-given ability to not only craft amazing melodies but to also translate the sounds in his head into multi-layered, nuanced arrangements/orchestrations is on full display here.  The upbeat verses, which feature a carnival-like mix of tack piano, brass, woodwinds, drums, timpani, and twin accordions, are perfectly offset by the ethereal bridges, where the key shifts, the beat is suspended, and the guitar sings like plucked harp strings.
The lyrics, penned by Wilson's collaborator Tony Asher, perfectly match the mood of the music, conveying the emotions of young lovers who dream of the day they can get married and be together, forever.  It's teenage fantasy elevated to high art.
So who was this lucky bastard named Asher?
He was an ad copywriter whose agency had assigned him to write lyrics for advertising jingles.  As he told Rockcellar magazine in 2013, he happened to be at Hollywood's United Western Recorders studio one morning, supervising the recording of a new jingle, when he ran into Wilson at the water cooler during a break.  They struck up a conversation, which quickly turned to music, and ended up popping into an unused studio to play each other snippets of songs they each were working on.  
Eventually, Asher was summoned back to his client's ad jingle session, and he chalked up his chance meeting with Wilson to fodder for cocktail party conversation.
But then Wilson unexpectedly gave Asher a call and expressed his intentions to make a new album with a completely different tone and direction for The Beach Boys.  And he wanted Asher's help.
Says Asher, "He didn’t say, 'Do you want to try writing one song?'  He said, 'Do you want to write this album with me?'"

"Chicago" (Sufjan Stevens)

Sufjan Stevens is one hard cat to pin down.  One minute he's composing impressionistic, sentimental classical pieces about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.  The next, he's making trippy, electronic hip-hop as part of the group Sisyphus.  But he's probably best known for his lush, folky song cycles and his widely-publicized ambitions to record 50 albums, each capturing some aspect of the 50 US States.  (Though, he admitted in 2009 that his so-called "50 States Project" actually was a joke/marketing gimmick—albeit a successful one.)
One of the "States" albums, Illinois (2005), is a collection of songs that thematically relate, in one way or another, to the altered titular state.  It's also his best-known, most critically-lauded work.  And rightfully so.  There are touches of Neil Young's bucolic side, the poignant, intimate poetry of Leonard Cohen, and the majestic pop of 60s-era Brian Wilson.
Illinois is lo-fi and DIY at turns, especially in the way it was recorded and produced.  But then the songs have this gigantic, larger than life feel, where everything from clawhammer banjos and out-of-tune upright pianos to thundering timpani and vintage electric keyboards come together in unexpected, grand ways.  
Such is the case with "Chicago," a tune that was used to great effect in the film Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
On the surface, the song is a semi-autobiographical recounting of a road trip to the title city (and New York, too).  But it's not so much a tale about hitting the highway; it's more of an allegory for youthful indiscretions, hasty decisions, and a longing to escape the mundane.  In other words, being in your early 20s.
It's a song that forces you to absorb each individual moment.  At times, it's like listening to a lone singer/songwriter, bearing his soul to a "crowd" of 10 people at a dimly lit coffeehouse.  Then, at the drop of a hat, it leaps to life with mountains of reverberating drums, brass, strings, and a chorus of voices, placing you in the middle of a grand concert hall.
That unassuming-yet-colossal feel perfectly captures Chicago's vibe: Midwestern aw-shucks optimism mixed with Midwestern Broad Shoulders might.
It's a brilliant track off a near-perfect album by a smart, risk-taking artist.

"Killer Joe" (The Jazztet)

"Killer Joe" (as performed by The Jazztet) is one of those songs that embodies everything most folks think of when they think of "jazz": a catchy melody, musician virtuosity, and soulful urbanity.  Whenever people hear it, even if they don't know its name or who composed it, there's inevitably that moment of recognition: "Oh yeah!  That song!"
Actually, saxophonist and prolific songwriter Benny Golson—a founding member of The Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer, wrote the tune in 1959.  As Golson tells listeners in his comedic monologue at the beginning of the group's 1960 recording of the song on Meet the Jazztet, "Killer Joe" is a musical sketch of a well-dressed hipster who kind of glides through life, using his slick charm to bilk women out of money while also avoiding manual labor.
The tune primarily is built upon a simple ascending/descending pattern, played on trumpet.  By itself, the riff doesn't seem like much.  But when paired with some sexy staccato piano chords, walking upright bass, and swinging drums, it absolutely oozes cool.  (The structure and arrangement seem to embody whatever real-life character inspired the song to begin with: nothing too impressive on his own, but the King of Cool when decked out in his finery.)
The bridges and releases that come between the choruses are what make this a perennial favorite of mine, though.  The lush, inventive chord changes on each bridge are sophisticated little departures from that core riff.  Same thing with each verse: each soloist takes a few bars and noodles around, establishing his own groove before swinging elegantly back into the chorus.  
Golson's compositional approach of taking the listener into uncharted territory and then bringing them back to the familiar is pure genius; because, as everyone knows, the homecoming is the sweetest part of the trip.

"Steppin' Out" (Joe Jackson)

For the latter part of the 70s, Joe Jackson and fellow Brit Elvis Costello were in a neck-and-neck race for the title of "King of the Snarky/Intellectual New Wavers."  By the time Jackson's album Night and Day (a concept album that attempted to capture the feel of 24 hours in New York City) came out in 1982, though, he'd pretty much abandoned all vestiges of New Wave for jazz-influenced pop.  
In this new stage of his career, he occasionally veered into airport lounge muzak territory (ex: "Breaking Us in Two").  But when he struck the right balance between his Cole Porter infatuations and knack for crafting crunchy, taught grooves, the blend worked incredibly well.
Night and Day's centerpiece, "Steppin' Out," is a perfect specimen, blending 40s glam with 80s DIY electronics.  
Its lush, piano-driven melody and lyrics, which urgently beckon you to leave daily pressures behind for a sophisticated night on the town, are invigorating.  But it's the insistent synth bass playing off the simple, but effective, funk box rhythm that grab ahold of the velvet lapels on your tuxedo jacket and refuse to let go.   
Apart from its catchy melody and bassline, the song was a favorite of mine as a kid simply because it was about a night out in Manhattan.  I pretty much was infatuated with anything concerning New York City in those days.  (Actually, not much has changed...)

"Policy of Truth" (Depeche Mode)

Depeche Mode's album Violator (1990) sort of created a genre of its own.  It wasn't quite synth pop, even though there were quite a few synths and electronic elements in the mix.  And it wasn't quite alternative rock, even though there were electric and acoustic guitars on many of the songs.  It had its danceable moments, with thumping beats and production touches that made it feel club ready.  But it was too dark and dramatic to be a straight up dance record.  
(I am still surprised, actually, that Violator didn't spawn more imitators, considering it sold 1 million copies upon release here in the US and got tons of airplay.  Usually, that would send every record company scrambling to find/create the "next Depeche Mode.")
The album's third single, "Policy of Truth," definitely leans toward the danceable side of things.  Lyrically, it's a harsh critique of someone (it could be first or third person) who never seems to know when to keep his/her mouth shut.  Musically, its an R&B-tinged jam with electronic beats, percussive synths, and a poppy melody that keeps the track buoyant and immensely catchy.  More or less, it's songwriter/band member Martin Gore's heart-on-sleeve amalgamation of Motown's Holland-Dozier-Holland and Kraftwerk.
I'm especially a fan of the little production touches, like the swooping synth that pans from the right to left channel on the instrumental hook, and the thunderous bass hum that roars beneath the burbling synths on the break from 2:22-2:56.  (If you've never listened to this song on a decent car stereo, do it.  The panning effects, separation, and raw bass will make you feel like you're sitting in the middle of the recording studio, hearing the song performed live.  The mix and mastering on Violator are something to behold.)

"Justify My Love" (Madonna)

If you were alive in 1990, you probably recall the controversy surrounding the video for "Justify My Love."  If you were old enough to stay up late and/or young enough to give a damn, you also probably watched the unedited video when it made its US debut on the December 3, 1990, edition of ABC's Nightline.  
I remember watching the video as a pre-teen and thinking it was the silliest thing I'd ever seen.  Yes, there were glimpses of people's bangers n' mash, but it wasn't nearly as raunchy and titillating as the media made it out to be.  The content certainly didn't warrant it being banned from MTV.  It was sexual hyperbole—an elaborate joke leveled by Ms. Ciccone at the puritanical world.  (And she laughed all the way to the bank when the VHS release of the 5-minute video became the top-selling music video release of all time.)
But so much for all that.
It's a song that sounds like no other.  Those whispered, non-sung lyrics* over that relentless, trip-hop beat** still sound fresh today.  And even though the song set the tone for what was on the horizon with 1992's Erotica, she never got quite this funky or seductive again.

* The song's co-writer/producer/background vocalist, Lenny Kravitz, was having an affair with Prince protégé, Ingrid Chavez, back in 1990.  Chavez wrote Kravitz a private love letter/poem, and that poem became the basis of the lyrics.  However, Kravitz used the words without crediting her.  She sued.  Yadda yadda yadda, they settled out of court, and now Chavez is listed in the song credits.
** The beat was sampled from the Public Enemy track "Security of the First World" without the group's permission.  It almost led to another lawsuit against Kravitz by Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee.  But then questions arose about whether Shocklee had himself lifted the beat from James Brown's "Funky Drummer," so Kravitz escaped lawsuit #2.

"Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" (P.M. Dawn)

They weren't exactly hip-hop.  They definitely weren't mainstream R&B.  In fact, they were pariahs in both worlds.  
Their hippie look, art house vibe, and psychedelic spirituality got them figuratively beat up in the R&B world.  Then, after the group's frontman Attrell Cordes (a.k.a. Prince Be) publicly dissed Boogie Down Productions' Lawrence Parker (a.k.a. KRS-One) in a 1991 Details magazine interview (stating, "KRS-One wants to be a teacher, but a teacher of what?"), they literally got beat up.  In January 1992, KRS-One marched on stage at an MTV-sponsored P.M. Dawn show in New York and physically threw Prince Be off the stage.  Any modicum of credibility that P.M. Dawn had in the rap world pretty much disintegrated at that moment.
As a music lover, I couldn't have cared less about the beef with KRS-One or the clothes they wore.  My only occasional gripe was that they culled the mainstream a little too eagerly for samples and musical inspiration.  (Ex: 1993's "Looking Through Patient Eyes" is little more than George Michael's 1988 single "Father Figure" with a different beat.  It made me question whether they were the sellouts others claimed they were.)
While I can't deny that "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" (1991) is wholly built upon Spandau Ballet's "True," I also can't deny that it's catchy as hell.  Who would have thought that flinging the "True" riff to the breakbeat from "Ashley's Roachclip" by the Soul Searchers (better known as the beat from Eric B. & Rakim's classic "Paid In Full") would have worked so well?  
In signature P.M. Dawn fashion, the song is a mix of spoken word and lush, breathy crooning, the subject matter being infatuation, unrequited love, and longing—again, not exactly common hip-hop fare.   Prince Be even throws in some obscure references to Joni Mitchell (the whole part about The camera pans the cocktail glass / Behind a blind of plastic plants is a reworking of a stanza from Mitchell's "The Boho Dance" from her 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns). 
Despite the heat P.M. Dawn took at the time, "Set Adrift on Memory Bliss" is a singular statement.  I can't think of another single from the 1990s that made me want to do the running man and get lost in philosophical thought about the nature of love, at the same time.

"True" (Spandau Ballet)

For the longest time, I thought "True" (1983) was a song by Tears for Fears.  You have to admit Spandau Ballet's lead singer, Tony Hadley, can sound an awful lot like Tears for Fears' Roland Orzabal—especially on a car radio with crappy reception, which is how I typically heard new music in the 80s.  I believe radio programmers may have played up the similarities, actually, because I remember "True" being in heavy rotation again in the mid-80s when Songs from the Big Chair was shooting up the charts.  There's even the line in "True," Head over heels when toe to toe, which sounded like a reference to the song "Head Over Heels." In fact, I remember being somewhat disappointed when the song "True" wasn't part of the track listing on Songs from the Big Chair.
But I digress.
"True" was penned by Spandau Ballet's keyboardist/guitarist Gary Kemp as an homage to American soul music and artists like Al Green and Marvin Gaye, who gets name-checked in the song.  As Kemp told Rhino Records in a 2014 interview, the song came about because he was looking to write something that wasn't completely rooted in synth pop, like the band's earlier records.  This quest led him to R&B/soul.
Kemp notes that, at the time in the UK, a white, middle-class Londoner band trying its hand at soul was kind of "subversive."  Coming from an American point of view, it's kind of strange to think of this mellow, blue-eyed soul ballad as "subversive."  Nevertheless, Kemp explains, "(Soul music) was seen as sort of aspirational working-class music and therefore not politically correct, maybe.  But it was the sound of working-class kids in London.  And I wanted to make a record that had something that sat in that world."
Kemp and his bandmates probably never imagined the song would land them on Soul Train, chatting with Don Cornelius.  Or that they would be back touring in 2014, playing "True" for American audiences like it's 1983 all over again.

"Head Over Heels/Broken" (Tears for Fears)

Tears for Fears seemingly came out of nowhere in 1985.  
Truth was, they'd been around for a number of years.  They even had a massive hit album, The Hurting (1983), under their belt in England.  But, here in the States, we were late to the party.  Nothing new.
Their breakthrough in the US, Songs from the Big Chair (1985), was a refreshing change for the pop landscape at the time: there were touches of New Wave and synth pop, but the moment you expected them to go full-on Kajagoogoo, their crunchy/funky rock side would come through, setting them squarely in Bowie Scary Monsters territory.  They also brought a cerebral approach to pop lyric writing that signaled they were thinking about more than living in the material world, which definitely set them apart from the all-that-glitters world of 80s pop.
Although it wasn't the first song I'd heard by the band, "Head Over Heels" was my fast favorite.  It had a confident groove and that classic "Hey Jude"-esque singalong portion that made it stick squarely in the brain.  
The song actually began its life as a link between the two parts of an earlier song, "Broken," which uses the same piano riff as "Head Over Heels."  The band debuted the "Head Over Heels/Broken" medley, live at London's Hammersmith Odeon (a.k.a. Hammersmith Apollo), in 1983.  In fact, the coda at the end of the 1985 album-version was taken from this 1983 live show.  (I'd always assumed that the "live" cheering at the end was the product of studio trickery and canned sound effects.  But it really is genuine crowd reaction to hearing the song for the first time.)

"In the Air Tonight" (Phil Collins)

I'm not a Phil Collins fan.

I confess that I once owned a copy of No Jacket Required and frequently hopped around my bedroom to "Sussudio" as a kid.  I also ran across the cassette again in college and decided to pop it into the tape deck for old time's sake, and I couldn't stand more than 2 minutes of it.  Let's just say time wasn't exactly kind to the album: way too glossy, too synthesized, and too derivative of what Sting, Peter Gabriel, and Prince were doing at the time.  (Let's be honest, "Sussudio" is a complete rip-off of the song "1999.")

Don't get me wrong, Collins is a talented guy.  It's just that 99% of his music makes me want to hurl pea soup like Linda Blair.

So it's strange to me that I have such an affection for the song "In the Air Tonight" from Face Value (1981).  

Or, actually, it's strange to me that the same guy who did a cheesy, non-ironic cover of The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love" on his very next album was capable of something this singular and unhinged.  It's simply a badass, minimalist masterpiece of brewing tension that slinks along on a hypnotic digital drum pattern before erupting in a fury of live drums, drenched in gated reverb.  It makes you want to hop into your vintage Daytona Spider and hunt down scar-faced coke dealers, Crockett and Tubbs-style.  (Or, at the very least, start air drumming like a tool.)

Side note: there was an urban legend that the song was autobiographical.  Story went that Collins had witnessed a man die—specifically, he saw one guy let another drown but was too far from the scene himself to come to the rescue.  So he wrote the song as a cryptic message to the negligent party.  Then (just to make the rumor juicier), he supposedly spotted the guy at one of his shows and confronted him from the stage.

Of course, this is bullshit.

The real story is that Collins was pissed off after going through a divorce.  He was playing around with his drum machine, liked what he heard, and decided to lay down some scratch vocals without having any real idea what he was going to sing.  Apparently, the nefarious-sounding lyrics poured out of him spontaneously, on the spot.  

I think if I'd been his ex, I would have gone into the witness protection program after hearing this.

"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" (Radiohead)

Like a number of tracks on the exceptional album In Rainbows (2007), "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" was birthed at Radiohead's live shows years before the album's release.  Originally named just "Arpeggi" (i.e. the plural of "arpeggio": notes in a chord played in sequence, one after the other, rather than simultaneously), Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood debuted the song at London's Ether Arts/Tech Festival in 2005, backed by the Nazareth Orchestra.  In many ways, the track that appears on In Rainbows is the same as the original, only with the addition of Philip Selway's funky drumming and a few extra electronic/atmospheric touches.
In any case, "arpeggi" aptly describes the waves of notes that bubble and flow around Yorke's vocals, as he sings about drowning in love/passion to the point of being consumed, leaving him with only a nagging urge to escape.  The music has the same hypnotic effect as the experimental, minimalist work of Philip Glass and Steve Reich—who, incidentally, composed the minimalist classical piece Radio Rewrite based on two of Radiohead's other songs: "Everything in Its Right Place" from Kid A and "Jigsaw Falling Into Place," also from In Rainbows.

"Panthers" (Wilco)

Despite being an outtake from the sessions for A Ghost Is Born (2004), "Panthers" is one of the best songs associated with the album.  (To be exact, "Panthers" was released in 2005 as part of a free, 5-track EP that the band made available to anyone who'd purchased the full LP.)
Lyrically, it seems to be another of Jeff Tweedy's experiments with the "cut-up" technique (which he used extensively on previous albums), where one pulls random words out of a hat and then reassembles them to create a verse.  More or less, you allow the words to unveil their own meaning as you construct phrases.
It would explain why each verse seems randomly assembled and why, from verse to verse, there's little cohesion.  Take the first bridge, for example:
Hide in the weeds
The orchestra
Is proving death again
If nothing else, the lyrics evoke a feeling of instability and brewing unrest: a panther getting ready to pounce; nerves worn thin to the point of breaking.
Musically, it also reflects a sense of brooding calm.  The track is built on a melancholy, vaguely Far Eastern-sounding pattern, played on marimba, along with understated percussion, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and droplets of plaintive piano.  Oh, and a bass harmonica drops in on each bridge for good measure, too (it actually fits beautifully into the quirky puzzle).  
But the literal crowning touch is Glenn Kotche's bucket drumming at the close of the track; it comes out of nowhere and marches boldly, hand-in-hand, with the piano to the end.  
It's as quirky and gorgeous a track as Wilco has ever produced.

"Once Upon A Time" (Smashing Pumpkins)

It's songs like "Once Upon A Time" that made me a fan of Smashing Pumpkins' Adore (1998).  It feels like four minutes of floating, weightless.  And it would be easy to drift away into its dreamlike atmospherics if it weren't grounded by the fact that it's about Billy Corgan's mom, Martha, dying from cancer and him trying to deal with the loss.  (Although, I think the song's solemnity makes it more beautiful than if it were just some pleasant-sounding sugary confection.)
Musically, it's a fine balance of organic and electronic elements—not unlike the rest of the album.  There are strummed acoustic and electric guitars, atmospheric synths and misty keyboards, as well as live drums (played with brushes by Beck's drummer, Joey Waronker) atop a delicate drum machine beat, which actually is easier to discern on the original 1997 demo.
I still find it odd that, back when Adore was released, Corgan had such a difficult time explaining to the music press what had inspired the sound of the record and how it differed from the multi-platinum Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness (1995).  Depending upon what you read at the time, some were reporting it was "an acoustic album," while others were describing it as "a techno album," and Corgan wasn't offering much information either way about what was true.
The production on Adore was greatly influenced by UK band Nitzer Ebb, a pioneering synth-driven industrial/post-punk band that was founded in the early 80s.  In fact, founding member of Nitzer Ebb, Vaughn “Bon” Harris, was recruited by Corgan to add finishing touches to nearly half of the completed tracks on the album, giving them an "electronic edge."
The result, to my ears, was something that felt like an homage to The Cure's moody and decadent album Disintegration (1989), only with late-90s drum sequencing and Pro Tools wizardry instead of pillowy mountains of late-80s gate reverb. 
At its heart, Adore was a collection of intensely personal, sometimes dark, well-written songs.  But it was never the techno-rock monolith that most people made it out to be.

"Crystal Blue Persuasion" (Tommy James & The Shondells)

If you believe half of the idiots on the Interwebs, "Crystal Blue Persuasion" (1969) by Tommy James & The Shondells is some sort of druggie endorsement of methamphetamine or LSD.  (Vince Gilligan's truly brilliant use of the song in the Season 5 episode of Breaking Bad, "Gliding Over All," no doubt has refueled those rumors.)  
Thing is, it's not about drugs; it's about a spiritual awakening.
To deal with the pace of endless touring and having to constantly churn out new music, James turned to booze and pills in the mid-60s.  His frenetic schedule of writing/recording amid one-nighters wasn't the only thing weighing on him, however.  He also had discovered that his record label, NYC-based Roulette Records, was being run as a front for the Genovese crime family by its ruthless president, Morris Levy.  James literally feared for his life on a daily basis.  (To make matters worse, he would discover that Roulette was screwing him out of millions of dollars in royalties, too.)
At one particularly low, narcotic-addled point during a North American tour, James stumbled upon a Gideon's Bible in his motel room's nightstand.  From that day on, he made a practice of randomly flipping through The Bible every evening and reading whatever passage he landed upon.  Passages from the Book of Revelation—specifically, Chapter 21's vivid descriptions of the New Jerusalem and the crystalline light of the glory of God, were the inspiration behind the song's title and its hope-filled lyrics of peace and brotherhood.
"Crystal Blue Persuasion" marked a stylistic shift for The Shondells away from the garage rock of "Mony, Mony" and "Hanky Panky" to a more mature, somewhat experimental, sound.  It also marked a personal shift for James toward a heightened sense of spirituality.  (Even so, it took collapsing and nearly dying on stage in 1970 for him to finally kick his addiction demons for good.)
The spare arrangement—which makes brilliant use of light percussion, congas, bongos, Spanish acoustic and electric guitar, Hammond organ, and electric bass (plus overdubbed brass, if you're listening to Roulette's radio edit instead of the album version)—is pure sunshine and soul.  It feels almost like a Smokey Robinson composition as interpreted by The Rascals.
In a 2009 interview with Songfacts.com, James discusses the recording process of "Crystal Blue Persuasion," noting that the initial mix of the song wasn't the airy, tranquil version that everyone now knows.  Instead, the first version was sonically thick with copious layers of drums, percussion, guitars, keyboards, etc.  James and his bandmates unanimously agreed that they had gone too far and had "overproduced" the track.  So they set about the arduous task of deleting each instrument, layer by layer, until they again found the essence of the song.
“Suddenly when you emptied out the record, it sounded like 'Crystal Blue' again,” says James in the interview.  “It had that light, airy sound, which it needed to be right.  And it took us about 6 weeks to do all that.  It really was a very intricate un-production, pulling all the things out.” 

"Nightshift" (The Commodores)

The Commodores' 1985 single "Nightshift" is a touching tribute to recording artists Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, who both passed away in 1984 (Gaye died after being shot in the back by his father; Wilson, who'd suffered a heart attack on stage in 1975, died from pneumonia after nearly a decade in a coma).  
It was one of my favorite songs as a kid.  Admittedly, though, I didn't have a strong emotional connection to the subject matter at the time.  (As I learned more about Gaye and Wilson later in life, the words took on a new resonance.)  But, I liked the sound of the song.  Its celestial synthesizers, rumbling keyboard bass, Latin-tinged beat, and soulful vocals evoked the calm, reverent feeling of nighttime.  I also found its message—that everything was going to be okay, even in the midst of grief and loss—to be really soothing.  
In fact, I listened to the song quite a bit to help make sense of things after my great-grandmother passed in 1986.
My favorite parts of the song (then and now) are the bridges leading from the first and second verses into the choruses: the key changes, the drums kick in, and an angelic synth choir rises in a soft, blue mist behind Walter Orange and J.D. Nicholas's lead vocals.  I've always thought it was a clever bit of songwriting/arranging to have the rhythm and key shift in tandem with the emotional shift in the lyrics.  On the verses, they're singing about remembrance and loss; on the bridges, however, they're singing about the musical legacies of Gaye and Wilson and how each will live on through the music.  It's subtle, but it reflects movement from grief to acceptance.
It's one of the few true soul songs of the 1980s and one of the most sincere tribute songs ever written.

"Love and Happiness" (Al Green)

Al Green's I'm Still in Love with You (1972) is 99.9% perfect from start to finish.  On every track, Green's voice ripples over the gospel-tinged, Memphis-flavored grooves with a sustained sincerity and sexiness that no one has been able to match since.  (Even an unexpected cover of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" works fairly well.)
But the cornerstone of the album is "Love and Happiness," a track Green co-wrote with his rhythm guitarist, Mabon "Teenie" Hodges.  Somehow, Green and Hodges take a chunk of dirt floors, down home soul and make it as sweet as raw honeycomb.  Again, it has a lot to do with Green's vocals: he hits you in the gut with that dulcet delivery, leaping from a whisper to glorious falsetto in a single measure.  He simply pulls you in, like an old friend and confidant, and you find yourself nodding along to every line he sings: "Yeah, man, I've done some crazy things for love, too...on the phone / 3 o'clock in the morning...yep, been there..."  
But the song also is defined by the groove that Booker T. & The MG's drummer/human metronome, Al Jackson, Jr., locks into from moment one.  Without it, the supple horn blasts, perfectly syncopated gulps of church organ, funky guitar licks, and on-point harmony backing vocals wouldn't have a footing; Jackson's percussion builds the track's rock-solid foundation.  
Which, curiously enough, is kind of what the Reverend Green is driving at in the song: happiness comes from a rock-solid foundation of love.

"That's the Way Love Goes" (Janet Jackson)

Of all the mainstream pop acts of the late 80s/early 90s, Janet Jackson probably was my favorite.  Even though she was the little sister of arguably the most famous man on the planet, she wasn't just coasting on her family name.  She had real talent, singing and dancing her way through a string of hits that she'd helped write with former members of The Time, James "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Lewis.  Yet, even when she became a megastar, she always seemed a little more humble and real than some of her contemporaries (exhibit A: Madonna).  Which is why I liked her.

I'd been a Jackson fan ever since I saw her tear through a performance of "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" on a 1986 episode of American Bandstand.  I'd worn out my copies of the Prince-flavored Control and the eclectic/epic Rhythm Nation.  But when the single "That's the Way Love Goes" dropped to herald the release of her 1993 album, simply titled janet., it seemed to come from a completely different galaxy.  It was funky yet smooth, sweet yet sultry, and brimming with cool confidence.  Anchored by a tasteful sample of James Brown's "Papa Don't Take No Mess, Pt. 1," its jazz fusion-meets-hip hop vibe were a breath of fresh air at a time when R&B was kind of turning into a cheesy, oversexed parody of itself (exhibits B & C: Color Me Badd and Silk).  And even though I've seen the song classified as New Jack Swing, I'd contend it was the first Neo-soul track of the decade, opening the door for acts like D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and Maxwell to take R&B in a more jazz-inflected, soulful direction by the close of the 90s.

"Papa Don't Take No Mess, Pt. 1" (James Brown)

"Papa Don't Take No Mess" was written for a soundtrack album that never came to be.
  After crafting the soundtrack for the 1973 blaxploitation flick Black Caesar, which follows the rise of protagonist "Tommy Gibbs" (played by actor Fred Williamson) from poverty to kingpin of a Harlem crime syndicate, James Brown and The JB's were again tapped by the film's producers to record the soundtrack for the sequel, Hell Up in Harlem, which hit theaters later that same year.  (You can about imagine the quality of the writing and production if the studio was able to churn out both feature-length films the same year.)  
Story goes, when the film's producers heard Brown's score for Hell Up in Harlem, they decided the tracks "didn't sound James Brown enough" (whatever that means).  In the end, they rejected Brown's soundtrack and went with Motown artist Edwin Starr instead.
Ultimately, tracks recorded for Hell Up in Harlem made their way onto Brown's best-selling album, The Payback (1973), and its equally successful followup, Hell (1974).  "Papa Don't Take No Mess" in its sprawling 13-minute incarnation appears on the latter album.
Being that the song was written for the film, it's a bit different thematically from a lot of Brown's other output during this period: there's no call to get on the dance floor, and no specific commentary about politics or civil rights.  It's more of a story-song, ostensibly about the film's badass protagonist.  
Although, looking at it in a different light, the song also could be about Brown's hardscrabble upbringing by his own father in Depression-era, rural South Carolina.  After James's mother, Susan, abandoned the family when he was four years old, James's father, Joe Brown, was left to look after his son.  More often than not, though, Joe would leave young James with neighbors while he was busy trying to make a meager living gathering pine sap to sell to turpentine manufacturers.  The neighbors often were not much help, however, considering they were preoccupied with trying to feed their own families; Joe returned home from work many a time to find James sitting, alone and hungry, in their one-room shack.  After several years of living this way, Joe decided they couldn't continue in that vein.  So he and James walked 11 miles from Barnwell, SC, across the state line to Augusta, GA, where he sent the youngster to live with his aunt Honey Stevenson, the madam of a bordello near Fort Gordon.  (Maybe not an ideal situation, but it quite possibly saved James from dying of starvation.)
Lines from the song like Papa is the man who can understand / How a man has to do whatever he can... and Papa would do his part / When the game get hard... easily could have been about Joe, who—if nothing else—gave James the will and grit to survive, against all odds.