"A Horse with No Name" (America)

The band America pretty much started its career banking on the fact that it sounded a lot like Crosby, Stills & Nash.  And in the case of its first hit "A Horse with No Name," CSN's occasional fourth member, Neil Young.
The song's composer Dewey Bunnell has even admitted that people mistaking the tune for a Young song aided its success in 1972.
Just like Bunnell's later hit "Ventura Highway," "A Horse with No Name" was inspired by his memories of riding through the Mojave Desert as a kid.  Bunnell's father, who was in the U.S. Air Force, had been stationed in California for a brief time before he and the family ultimately were relocated to a base in England.  In short, the composition (originally titled "Desert Song") was just a 19-year-old Bunnell's way of working through homesickness and his longing to trade the English dampness for sun soaked climes.  
In other words, it's not about heroin addiction, despite what some radio programmers and listeners thought in the 70s.
Also like "Ventura Highway," "A Horse with No Name" is not the greatest song lyrically.  Lines like The heat was hot kind of leave you thinking, "Yeah, no duh, America."
But it was the perfect song for me as a toddler.  The lyrics are innocuous and quite descriptive—great for a little mind that liked to imagine.  I'd put my mom's copy of the single on our stereo and pretend that I was riding my rocking horse (who did have a name: Spotty) through the desert, spotting the various plants and birds and rocks and things that Bunnell was singing about.  Plus, it had a catchy hook that I could La-la-lalala-lala along to with ease. 
Listening to it today, its simple strummed guitars and bongo percussion really do feel like a solitary tour of arid landscapes via horseback.  I also have to applaud the late Dan Peek's contribution on bass; that insistent pulse throughout mimics the sound of galloping hooves and lends the song a little bit of soul, saving it from being some simplistic, anti-urban hippie ditty.

"Carry On/Questions" (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

I'm not just a fan of CSN (and sometimes Y); I'm a fan of Stephen Stills, specifically.  He's one of the few rock musicians I know of who could tackle everything from acoustic folk to blues-drenched R&B and actually make it sound natural.
Case in point: his mini-suite "Carry On/Questions" from the album Déjà vu (1970).  It begins with this galloping acoustic portion that feels almost like an Indian raga before seamlessly transitioning into this funky Hammond organ-driven groove.  It's two things that probably shouldn't work together, but they do.
The track consists of two songs that Stills had been working on but never quite finished.  They needed an opening track for Déjà vu, and bandmate Graham Nash suggested they open with a suite in the same vein as "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" from their debut.  So Stills took his incomplete composition "Carry On," which is basically a message to his bandmates to persevere, and melded it with "Questions," another incomplete composition that had been knocking around since his days in Buffalo Springfield. 
What makes the track hold together (apart from the note-perfect instrumental backing, which features Stills on both acoustic and lead guitars as well as organ, bass, and percussion), is that three-part vocal blend.  My favorite part is the a cappella transition, where they intone Love is coming / Love is coming to us all.  Gives me chills every time.

"Let's Stay Together" (Al Green)

There's just something about "Let's Stay Together" that never gets old.  I've heard it hundreds of times: on the radio, at wedding receptions, in film, and on T.V.  But it never wears out its welcome.  Ever.  Even when director Quentin Tarantino stretched the track's 3:30 running time to over 5 minutes for the scene in Pulp Fiction where Marsellus Wallace tells boxer Butch Coolidge to put his pride aside and take a dive, it still felt 5 minutes too short.
It's the combination of Al Green's sincere lyrics, delivered in his smooth-as-butter falsetto, and Willie Mitchell/Al Jackson, Jr.'s steady, jazz-inflected groove that seals the deal for me.  Nothing about it feels contrived.  And I think that's the key to the track's longevity: it's as pure and natural as water.
And apparently, the whole thing came together pretty naturally, too.
As Mitchell recounted in the 1987 documentary The Gospel According to Al Green, he was experimenting with some jazz chords on piano one afternoon in 1971, purposely looking for something more nuanced to smooth out Green's sound, when he came up with the melody for "Let's Stay Together."  After playing the composition through for Green, he told Mitchell to "give him five minutes" to write some lyrics.
"About 15 minutes later, Al comes back with some words, and we start messing with this song.  So about a week later, we put the track down, and that's when everything happened."

"September" (Earth, Wind & Fire)

Like so many other Earth, Wind & Fire songs, "September" (first released on 1978's The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1) bursts with positivity and light.  It is the kind of song that, no matter what age you are and no matter what the event (picnic, wedding, birthday, reunion, bar mitzvah, etc.), it's going to get you up and dancing.  It's impossible to sit still or be cynical when you hear that signature EW&F interplay of rhythm and melody.  (Side note: Verdine White's bassline is a masterpiece in and of itself.  Isolate it and take a listen sometime.)
Thing is, in all of the years I've been a fan of the song (and we're talking since I was running around in Pampers), I've never really known what bandleader Maurice White is singing about.  The track always had an air of nostalgia about it, what with that opening line Do you remember?  But it wasn't clear if he's reminiscing about a senior prom, a night on the town, a couple's first time, or something else entirely.
And if there's one line that has always eluded me, it's what Philip Bailey sings at the top of the chorus.  Is it party on?  Party up?  Party, y'all?  On and on?  
Turns out the line is Ba-dee-ya.  
So what does it mean?
In my own best estimate, it's onomatopoeia that mimics the sound of horns.  
One of the track's writers, the awesomely eccentric Allee Willis, recently told NPR it was a Maurice White-ism that was there just as a placeholder.  Willis (who'd been a copywriter at Columbia Records, writing liner notes for R&B albums, before singer Patti LaBelle gave her her first break as a songwriter, which led to the gig with EW&F) says that they still hadn't replaced the lyric when it came time to lay down the final vocals.  But when she begged him to change it to something other than nonsensical syllables, he convinced her that the line was perfect and memorable, as is.
"I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove."

So I guess the moral of the story is not to get too hung up on what the song is about.  It's about whatever memories, feelings, or thoughts it conjures for you.

"You Got the Love" (Chaka Khan & Rufus)

"You Got the Love" from Rags to Rufus (1974) is all about rhythm.  It seeps into your hips from the chicken-scratch guitar, fat gulps of bass, and just-behind-the-beat drums.  And if for some reason those don't get you to move, that searing lead guitar and Chaka Khan's sultry delivery will.
The song, which Khan wrote with Ray Parker, Jr. (as in Ghostbusters and Raydio), is about someone having such an irresistible hold on you that you can't help but give in to their charms.  But at the same time, you've got the same kind of hold on them.  (Those not-so-subtle growled I love ya's / I need ya's after Khan's verses are evidence of that.)
It's rare for the funk to get this romantic or for romance to get this funky.

"I Wish" (Stevie Wonder)

There's unmistakeable joy in every Stevie Wonder song.  It's not only in the lyrics or his unforgettable melodies, but it's also in the delivery.  The moment you hear Stevie's voice/keyboards/harmonica/drums/percussion, you feel the elation and love in every note.  Same goes for the performances of his supporting players; you can feel that those musicians were ecstatic to be playing alongside him.
Which brings me to "I Wish" from the near-perfect Songs in the Key of Life (1976).  
I've watched the 1997 Classic Albums documentary about the making of Songs in the Key of Life more times than I can count.  And I always find myself smiling when it comes to the part where Wonder is talking about coming up with "I Wish," which lyrically reminisces about simpler times and being a kid.
In short, he'd been attending Motown's annual company picnic—hanging out, eating food, and playing games with his extended family of label-mates, and it made him feel nostalgic for his childhood.  That same evening after the picnic, he went right into the studio with the tune already gestating in his brain, and he recorded "I Wish."
The repeating, 8-note riff that Wonder plays with his left hand alone is enough to make this one of Motown's best releases of all time.  But add in that galloping beat with the funkiest hi-hat pattern ever (also played by Wonder), Nathan Watts's stringed bass, and that buoyant big band-esque horn line, and you've got a timeless classic that never fails conjure memories of "the good ol' days."  

"It's a Shame" (The Spinners)

"It's a Shame" by The Spinners (1970) was the first of many steps toward autonomy for then 20-year-old Stevie Wonder.  He'd already been recording and touring for the "Motown machine" for the better part of a decade when, inspired by the example of label mate Marvin Gaye, he began pushing to write his own material and produce other artists, too.
Along with producing his own hit single "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" in 1970, he ended up being allowed to work with The Spinners, who'd languished without a hit for 10 years until "It's a Shame" came along.  Written with his musician friend Lee Garrett and eventual ex-wife Syreeta Wright, the song actually is about a rough patch that Wonder and Wright were going through in their relationship.  (Hearing lead singer G.C. Cameron crooning about emotional manipulation and catty cruelty makes one think those two should never have been a couple to begin with.)
In spite of its subject matter, the track has an ebullient groove, complete with bright, shiny horns and a tasty electric guitar riff.  It's also a showcase for Wonder's drumming abilities, which are every bit as impressive as his harmonica skills.  Listen to how he structures the groove: he plays the kick drum just a touch behind the beat but then uses that intricate hi-hat pattern to push the meter a little.  It creates a sense of tension and also gives track a little swagger and swing.  (The man truly is a genius.)
Incidentally, the single holds the distinction of being the only Top 20 single The Spinners recorded for Motown before being dropped by the label in 1971.  The very next year, the group was picked up by Atlantic Records and ended up recording a string of huge hit singles under the direction of writer/producer Thom Bell, who turned them into one of the top-selling R&B groups of the 70s.  (Now that is a shame.)

"Sing a Simple Song" (Sly & The Family Stone)

Before Sylvester Stewart (a.k.a. Sly Stone) slipped into cocaine-fueled paranoia in the 70s, he made the tightest/loosest album of his career: Stand! (1969).  The three albums that precede it have some decent songs, but you can tell Stone was still trying to figure out the right blend of soul and psychedelic rock.  Not to mention the right balance of when to party and when to preach.
But Stand! fires on all cylinders.  There's catchy social commentary (the ubiquitous "Everyday People"), gospel-tinged motivational music ("I Want to Take You Higher"), and a lot of humor (the 13-minute "Sex Machine").
But the best song on the album in my opinion is "Sing a Simple Song."  From Freddie Stone's downright stanky guitar riff to Greg Errico's clockwork drumming (which has been sampled hundreds of times over), it encapsulates the whole Sly & The Family Stone sound in a little under 4:00.  Upbeat yet lowdown, churchy yet earthy, funny yet poignant, "Sing a Simple Song" is about trying to maintain perspective in an increasingly pessimistic, fast-moving world.  The thrifty lyrics also suggest that, when people put aside their problems and get back to basics, harmony is possible.
Although the sentiment borders on flower-power cheesiness, it's counterbalanced by The Family Stone's verse-trading delivery, which is sincere and true.  Plus, there's bassist Larry Graham singing do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do in his deep baritone—a purposely jokey nod to the 1965 movie-musical The Sound of Music.
It's the kind of song that makes you feel good to your core.
It's also the kind of document that makes one wonder if the mad genius of 1971's There's A Riot Goin' On would have sounded radically different had Stone not slipped into addiction.

"Oye Como Va" (Santana)

Santana's rendition of "Oye Como Va" from the 1970 album Abraxas might be one of the most universal songs ever recorded.  I've watched everyone from self-professed rockers to hip-hop heads get down to this track.  And it's easy to hear why: the deep, undulating rhythms and Carlos Santana's searing guitar licks fuse funk, Latin jazz, and hard rock into one irresistible amalgam.  It is impossible to sit still while listening to this song.
Thing is, it is so associated with Santana, that some people don't realize it was written and originally performed by percussionist Tito Puente in 1963.  (And it was already a melting pot before Santana got ahold of it.)
Puente, who was a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, borrowed the rhythm from Cuban chachachá—a style of dance music that was so named because of the sound dancers' feet made to the rhythm: cha-cha-CHA—and fused it with big band jazz.  The result was a spirited, brassy jam that's pretty infectious itself.
And it's not all that different from Santana's take, actually.  Yeah, there are brass and flutes instead of feverish organ and overdriven guitar, but it's essentially the same groove.
I'm still partial to Santana's version, though.  Simply because I have vivid memories of hearing the song on Mike Harvey's Super Gold oldies show in January 1987 when my family and I were stuck inside with no power during an ice storm.  I can still hear the crappy little speaker in that battery-powered radio buzzing every time Santana hit one of his guitar licks.

"Song for My Father" (Horace Silver)

I really got into jazz as a teenager.  It stemmed from listening to groups like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and then scanning the song credits to figure out where they were getting those sick jazz breaks and beats.  Pretty frequently, I was seeing the phrase "sample courtesy of Blue Note Records."  So I went hunting for stuff on the Blue Note label at the record store.
I didn't realize it at the time, but Blue Note had been defunct for quite a few years, the result of acquisitions and mergers and all of the stuff that has nothing (and everything) to do with how one consumes music.  So finding reissues of the back catalog wasn't easy at first.  Although, my guess is there were enough people like me, hearing these jazz breaks on hip-hop records and then specifically asking for this music, that the people holding the purse strings realized the Blue Note brand still had cache and there was money to be made reissuing the old albums.
Anyway, the first jazz album I ever bought was a compilation of hard-bop jazz, The Best of Blue Note (1991), and one of my favorite tracks on that compilation was pianist Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," a bossa nova groover with a memorable hook and funky/churchy soloing by Silver and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson.
Story goes, Silver was inspired to record the tune and ultimately the Song for My Father album (1964) after a trip to Brazil.  The excursion allowed Silver to reconnect with his roots—his father having hailed from the Cape Verdean island of Maio, a former Portuguese possession off the western coast of Africa.  Thinking about those influences, it's only natural the track "Song for My Father" would blend Brazilian bossa nova with a touch of African/island folk.
As a keyboardist myself, what appealed to me about the track is that it's very piano driven; Silver solos for more than half the song.  It also has this interesting mix of funky block chords and bluesy runs.  It's a great piece to warm up and/or practice with because it has that kind of variety.  Its cyclical structure and repeating bassline also sort of give you the freedom to noodle around and invent new riffs, runs, etc.
I even played it a few times for audiences, who immediately assumed that I was about to deliver an acoustic rendition of "Rikki Don't Lose That Number."  (Steely Dan borrowed the opening notes of "Song for My Father" for its 1974 hit.)

"We're A Winner" (The Impressions)

Composer Curtis Mayfield's "We're A Winner" (released 1967, charted 1968) is one of the most positive songs in all of soul music.  That's why it's almost unfathomable today that many radio stations refused to play it; its message of empowerment was perceived as "too militant" by some in the wake of rioting in cities like Detroit and Newark.  (If you're familiar with his 1971 album Curtis/Live!, you'll recall that Mayfield addresses this in the middle of a live rendition of the song.)
But all it takes is listening to the track just once—I mean really listening, and it's evident that Mayfield was encouraging black Americans to keep on pushing against stereotypes and barriers, not against riot police.  In fact, it's implicit in the celebratory atmosphere of the track, which was recorded with a live audience at RCA Studios in Chicago, that it was time for victory, not violence.
In a 2013 article for Wax Poetics, journalist Michael Gonzales recounts a 1996 interview with Mayfield, in which he acknowledges the song was a turning point for him as a composer.
Said Mayfield, "That song came to me in a dream.  I ran down in the basement and put enough down that I would remember; that was one of the few times I knew I had a smash.  Maybe not a charted smash that would earn more money, but the lyrical content of equality and freedom needed for somebody to 'Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.'  We needed to come from crying the blues to standing tall."
In addition to featuring some of Mayfield's best lyrics and one of his best melodies, the song has a rhythm track that's unstoppable.  Session drummer Billy Griffin sounds like he's coming right out of the speakers at you, especially on that instrumental break after the second chorus.  It's impossible not to move, clap, tap a toe, etc. to that groove.

"Hold On" (John Lennon)

"Hold On" is such a brief song that it's kind of easy to overlook the track when thinking about the totality of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), a raw, sometimes ragged collection of songs steeped in brutal honesty and pure emotion.  Actually, "Hold On" is almost less of a song and more of a mantra: its repeated invocation for himself, Yoko, and the world to "hold on, it's gonna be alright" feels like a prayer, spoken in deep meditation.  The words brim with hope and are framed perfectly by the understated rhythm guitar.  (The moment I hear those opening chords and that warm tone, I know it's Lennon, through and through.)  
And if nothing else, it has Lennon throwing in a little homage to Cookie Monster during the bridge.  It's impossible not to crack a smile when you hear it.

"No Woman, No Cry (Live)" (Bob Marley & The Wailers)

Even if you're not the biggest reggae fan, chances are you know the song "No Woman, No Cry"—specifically the version that was recorded live at London's Lyceum Theatre in 1975, which appears on Bob Marley's 1984 hits collection, Legend.  It's a song that transcends genre.  The musicianship, the crowd participation, and Marley's soulful performance elevate the song to anthemic proportions.  And as if one memorable hook weren't enough, the song has two memorable hooks: the reassuring No woman, no cry, and the rallying Everything's gonna be alright!  
It's impossible not to feel rejuvenated after hearing this song.
Although there are a lot of (odd) interpretations of "No Woman, No Cry" out there on the Web, I think the most plausible is that it's a political song about pre- and post-independence Jamaica and the perils faced by the poor.  In the lyrics, Marley not only discusses the abject poverty and unrest in Kingston's Trenchtown slum, but he also paints a picture of the profound hope and sense of community among its citizens, reminiscing about his own upbringing in the neighborhood.  In fact, my take is that he's not singing to any one woman in particular; he's addressing Jamaica, telling her that everything will turn out okay in the end.
A little extra factoid: if you scan the liner notes of Legend, you'll notice that the track is credited to "V. Ford."  It always puzzled me a bit, considering there was never a "V. Ford" in The Wailers.  
It seems that Marley wrote the song himself but gave credit to an old friend of his, Vincent Ford, who ran a soup kitchen in Trenchtown.  Ford had befriended and supported Marley before his rise to fame, so as a "thank you," Marley made sure Ford and his soup kitchen got the royalty checks for the song.

"You Don't Have to Cry" (Crosby, Stills & Nash)

Having an eidetic memory is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, I have this storehouse of vivid memories of even the most mundane moments with loved ones.  On the other hand, every embarrassing and painful incident from youth can be referenced just as easily.
So what does that have to do with "You Don't Have to Cry" by Crosby, Stills & Nash?
When I was 3, our next door neighbors moved away.  They were the only people with kids my age in our rural neighborhood, and their departure upset me quite a bit.  (Especially when it finally sank in that they were moving to Iowa—a state that was almost 1,000 miles away, and not Etowah—a town that was just five minutes away.)
Before they left, they had a massive yard sale, and I went with my dad to do the neighborly thing: say our goodbyes and buy a few things.  We ended up with a couple of hand tools and a copy of Crosby, Stills & Nash's 1969 debut album.  When we got home, Dad put the album on the stereo.  We sat, lounging on the sofa—"cooling it" (as Dad liked to say), listening to those indelible three-part CSN harmonies.  For some reason, it suddenly hit me that I probably wouldn't see Chrissy and Dylan again, and I started to bawl.  Dad kept asking what was wrong, and I tried to express what was going through my little kid brain, but all that came out was something like: "BUH-BUH-sniffle-sniffle-UGH-UGH-sniffle-sniffle."
Call it serendipity or coincidence, but the album hit track #4, "You Don't Have to Cry," at that very moment.  And when I heard the chorus (Cry, my baby / You don't have to cry / I said, cry, my baby / You don't have to cry), it was like a personal message: I didn't have to worry, I didn't have to be sad, and my pals would be fine in Iowa (wherever the heck that was).  I calmed right down.
Ever since, it has been a song I turn to when I need a little reminder that things could always be worse.
But that's not really what the song is about.  Stephen Stills wrote it about his ex-girlfriend, folk singer Judy Collins, addressing the fact that she chose the trappings (and traps) of fame over their relationship, leaving him heartbroken.  (The track "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" also is a chronicle of their doomed relationship.)
Incidentally, "You Don't Have to Cry" also was the first song the trio ever performed together.  Stills (who'd recently left Buffalo Springfield) and Crosby (who'd just been kicked out of The Byrds) met in 1968 at a party at Mama Cass Elliot's house in the Hollywood Hills.  Story goes, when Elliot heard the two harmonizing, she immediately knew her buddy Graham Nash, who was looking to leave The Hollies, would be the perfect third voice to round out the vocals.  So she arranged for Nash to meet Crosby and Stills at her place.  They played through "You Don't Have to Cry" twice as Nash sat and listened.  The third time through, Nash added his high harmony, and they immediately knew they had a group.

"What Makes You Think You're the One" (Fleetwood Mac)

I like Lindsey Buckingham best when he has the forum and freedom to be as weird and experimental as he wants to be.  Sure, it takes skill and talent to write/produce a pop song; but it takes guts to push your music so far from center that it teeters on the brink of madness.
Although his more recent solo albums thoroughly showcase his experimental side (1997's Under the Skin remains a personal favorite of mine), Fleetwood Mac's Tusk (1979) probably was the first inkling that he was more than just Stevie Nicks's arranger.  Every one of his tracks on the album have this hyperactive, New Wave-y urgency that signal discontentment with being a "soft rock" star.
A good example is the track "What Makes You Think You're the One."  Not unlike the acerbic "Go Your Own Way," it's a song about Buckingham's strange and complicated relationship with Nicks.  Only this time around, he's not willing to give her his world.  In fact, he's saying that he's tired of having to prop her up, musically and emotionally.
Not only does Buckingham sound fantastically unhinged, singing like a madman over his own piano and guitar accompaniment, but Mick Fleetwood beats his drums like they insulted his mother.  It's so primal and anti-pop that you might be tempted to check the album cover to make sure you're actually listening to Fleetwood Mac.  (Or, better yet, it's a reminder that Buckingham and the Mac are more than just the sum of their Top 40 hits.)

"Cecilia" (Simon and Garfunkel)

"Cecilia" and I go way back.  It was my favorite track from Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) as a kid.  Its all-too-brief 2:55 would fly by, and I'd want to hear it again.  And again.  My mom was always reluctant to replay it, though—no doubt because of the lyric Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia, up in my bedroom...  But I had no clue at the time what Paul and Artie were singing about.  I just liked the melody and that crazy percussion.  It made me happy.  Still does.
The song began as an impromptu jam.  The duo was having a party at a rented house in the Hollywood Hills.  At some point, they started patting out this syncopated rhythm on their thighs, and then others joined in—playing the seat cushion of a piano bench, strumming the slackened strings of an old guitar, etc.  They liked the groove, so they put it to tape, using a home reel-to-reel recorder with a slap-back reverb feature (which is what gives the track its distinctive, ping-pongy ricochet sound).
Ultimately, they brought the tape to producer Roy Halee and asked him to make a loop out of a minute-long section that they thought had a particularly good feel.  By splicing sections of tape together, Halee turned one minute of tape into a literal three-minute loop.  Simon quickly came up with the melody and lyric about a guy whose girlfriend cheats on him but then comes back to him in the end.
"Cecilia."
The older I get, the less I think the song is about a flaky girlfriend, however.  At least not in the literal sense.  It's about music and songwriting.  
Cecilia is the patron saint of music and musicians.  Putting it in ancient Greek terms, she's a muse.  And as anyone who has tried their hand at songwriting knows, sometimes the muse is kind and makes you feel like the ideas are never going to stop flowing.  Other times, she's a fickle slut who comes and goes as she pleases.  In fact, sometimes she doesn't show up at all, leaving your self confidence in the gutter.  But when she comes back, and you're suddenly firing on all cylinders again, somehow, it's even better than the first time around.  All is forgiven and forgotten.  Jubilation!  
(That Paul Simon is a clever one.)

"Red and Purple" (The Dodos)

I tend to take Pitchfork reviews with a grain of salt.  No—more like a hypertension-inducing shaker of salt.  The site is so bitchy and fickle.  The same reviewer might refer to a band's debut release as "nothing short of genius: 9.8 points," but then turn right around and completely pan that same group's sophomore album for some odd infraction, like "...the guitar effects on track #4 made my cat hide under the sofa; this band is dead to me: 0 points."
Admittedly, though, I've been turned on to a lot of bands via Pitchfork and discovered music that I might not have found elsewhere.  Case in point: The Dodos, an indie folk-rock duo out of San Francisco, which consists of vocalist/guitarist Meric Long and percussionist Logan Kroeber.  Back in 2008, I came across a really glowing review of the band's full-length release Visiter.  The gist was: the album was like a mix of Animal Collective (minus the hallucinogens) and Magnetic Fields (plus caffeine) with the addition of a kick-ass, one-man rhythm section.  Obviously, I was intrigued.
The praise turned out to be well deserved; Visiter is inventive from start to finish with melodies that twist, turn, and bend in prickly, punky ways.  Case in point: the track "Red and Purple."  At its heart, it's a poppy ballad about love and war with lush vocals, sparkly acoustic guitar, and droplets of both grand and toy piano.  Yet it tromps along on this unstoppable trajectory of percussion like a crazed marching band that’s out for blood.  It's an unexpected mix of sunshine and thunder that works amazingly well.
My favorite moment comes after the second chorus, when this gnarled, distorted riff suddenly comes out of nowhere and grunts its way through the brief instrumental break.  It's a nice bit of grit that makes me think Long and Kroeber listened to Machine Gun Etiquette as much as they listened to Rhythm of the Saints growing up.  And, on both counts, I wholeheartedly approve.

"Mannequin" (Wire)

I only stumbled upon Wire's 1977 album Pink Flag about a year ago.  Just one of those nights where you can't switch your mind off from the day, so you go poking around YouTube at 1 am, watching old clips of The Clash, and then you get one of those "other insomniacs and poor bastards like you watched..." recommendations.
Pink Flag is an interesting album because it's right on the line of punk's first wave and post-punk.  The chords are limited, the vocals are sneered, and the running times are short: nothing lasts longer than 3:59, and most tracks are 1 minute or less, which means it takes almost no time for the album's 21-song suite to unfold.  But its covert subject matter and artsier flourishes, like dabbling with ambient noise, make it more akin to, say, Joy Division or Gang of Four than Sex Pistols.
There are lots of great moments on this album.  But I gravitate to the melodic pop-punk of "Mannequin," a mocking indictment of the fashion industry that basically calls emaciated models "wastes of space."  You might think that kind of vitriol wouldn't make for a pop song, but check out the chorus: the oooo harmony vocals behind vocalist Colin Newman sound as sunny as The Beach Boys, circa 1966. 
It's just an infectious song from an album that somehow remains fresh and revelatory, no matter how many times I play it.

"American Music" (Violent Femmes)

I was in high school the first time I heard Violent Femmes.
A bunch of us were on a school trip to Boone, NC, for some sort of music workshop at Appalachian State University.  Somewhere along the way, one of the guys in our group popped a copy of Add It Up (1981-1993), the band's 1993 retrospective compilation, into the boombox* we brought with us.  (*For those born after 1990, a boombox [n. bōōm•bäks] was a clunky plastic box powered by D batteries that played cassette tapes.  We'll have to save our discussion about cassettes for another day, though.)  
As we cycled through a few quirky songs about tossing children down wells and racial stereotypes, a bunch of us began to wonder what the hell we were listening to.  After ten minutes, the grumbles and jeers began to grow louder.  After twenty, people started shouting for him to play something else, and our normally unflappable director/bus driver finally ordered him to turn it off and put on the rehearsal tape for that afternoon's workshop.
It was strictly Brahms and Handel for the rest of the trip.
Hate to admit it, but I was one of the people making snide comments.  At the time, I guess I just didn't know what to make of Gordon Gano's adenoidal warbling and the angular, acoustic punk-fury of Gano's then-cohorts, Victor DeLorenzo and Brian Ritchie.
So a couple of weeks later, the same classmate and a buddy of his were noodling around on their acoustic guitars after lunch, when they fell into this rocking little song.  The lyrics were witty, poking fun at pop clichés (e.g. musicians taking too many drugs), and the hook, which kept inquiring if we liked American music, was insanely catchy.  Although it got cut short by the bell, it was a great impromptu performance, and I commented on how good I thought the song was, thinking it was something new they had written for their band.
Without missing a beat, he said, "It's Violent Femmes.  It's the stuff you were making fun of on the bus."
It was just an offhand comment, but it really made me stop and think about how much interesting music I might be missing.  It made me wonder what else I'd written off as "weird" that might be really creative and unusual.  Even worse, whom had I written off?
Might sound hokey, but it was kind of a turning point for how I listened to music and looked at the world from that point forward.
So I credit not only "American Music" and that entire Add It Up album by Violent Femmes for opening me up to stuff like Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, The Velvet Underground, and Ornette Coleman, but also I credit my classmate for the needed reality check.  Thanks, Dylan.

"Maggie May" (Rod Stewart)

I'll begin this entry with a question: what the hell happened to Rod Stewart?  
I mean, I know what happened to Rod Stewart.  I just can't figure out how he went from being a blues-rock screamer to a tepid crooner singing watered-down pop on adult contemporary radio.  I look at an artist like Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant: although he's not screeching out "Whole Lotta Love" like a banshee anymore, he's at least doing some interesting stuff with roots rock and folk.  He's sure as hell not groaning his way through Cole Porter songs or recording some tripe that sounds like it was pulled from Celine Dion's scrap heap.
That's why it almost hurts hearing a song like "Maggie May" from 1971's Every Picture Tells a Story.  Even though the song isn't a barnburner like some of his work with the band Faces, its rustic folk-rock still has spirit and raw soul.
"Maggie May" is kind of a curious song because it doesn't really have a chorus.  It's just string of really well-wrought verses and bridges that tell the story of a doomed May-December romance—purportedly an autobiographical account of a relationship Stewart had with an older woman at the age of 16.
Despite featuring a scorching vocal performance by Stewart and some fine playing by his backing band—especially Ronnie Wood's restless bassline and that famous mandolin line, played by session musician Ray Jackson, his record label thought it "lacked a melody" and regarded it as filler.  It was relegated to the B-side of his "Reason to Believe" single, until DJs flipped it and turned it into a #1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

"Leaving on a Jet Plane" (Peter, Paul & Mary)

I was never a fan of John Denver.  As a kid, my reaction to watching his Christmas special with the Muppets was, "Why are the Muppets hanging out with this guy?"  He always seemed two tokes from meeting Jesus.  (It wasn't the Aspen altitude or sunshine that were making him "high," that's for sure.)
Nevertheless, I liked his composition "Leaving on a Jet Plane" as interpreted by folkies Peter, Paul & Mary—a rendition that was played pretty frequently in my household growing up.
Denver wrote it in 1966, the group recorded it in 1967, but it didn't become a hit for them until 1969, when they released it as a single.  Even though it's not about the Vietnam War (Denver supposedly came up with the song while sitting in an airport, feeling lonely), its story of being whisked away on a jet to some unnamed destination for an indeterminate length of time and hastily making amends/making promises of marriage surely made it sound like it was about a young soldier saying goodbye for the last time.  (It would explain why a random folk song suddenly rocketed to the top of the charts in December 1969.)
As I've said before, I'm often drawn to the sound of a song.  And there's something so pure and true about the alto voice of Mary Travers against the backdrop of acoustic guitars and upright bass.  She unwraps the emotion in the lyric without having to be melodramatic (count that as another reason I never cared for Denver), and the result is just the right mix of beauty and sadness.

"A.D. 2000" (Erykah Badu)

On February 4, 1999, four plainclothes officers in the Bronx shot an unarmed immigrant.  The police were on late night patrol, looking for a serial rapist.  They spotted a man who purportedly fit the suspect's description.  When they attempted to stop him, he got scared and ran.  As he reached the vestibule of his building, he pulled a wallet from his jacket pocket.  The police thought it was a gun, and they shot him.  41 times.
The victim's name was Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old aspiring computer programmer from Guinea.  He sold trinkets on 14th Street in Manhattan to raise money for college.  He'd saved up about $9000 toward school, when his visa was about to expire.  Not wanting to be shipped back to Guinea after having come so far, he misrepresented himself when reapplying; he claimed he was an asylum-seeker from Mauritania, a country infamous for human trafficking and myriad human rights violations.  So when the officers stopped him in the wee hours on February 4, 1999, Diallo apparently thought that he'd been found out, and he panicked.
Whatever the case, he was still just an unarmed man who ended up losing his life unjustly.
Understandably, the incident sparked an outcry, particularly when the four officers were acquitted a year later in February 2000.  Joining the dissent, musicians from Wyclef Jean ("Diallo") to Bruce Springsteen ("American Skin") recorded songs about the incident.
So did Erykah Badu.
But her track, which she co-wrote with soul legend Betty Wright and named "A.D. 2000" (the A.D. referring to Amadou Diallo's initials), was less of an indictment of police or a retelling of the story and more of a reality check for society.  Apart from the title being an homage to Diallo himself, it silently asks the question: "How is this kind of injustice still happening in the year 2000?"
The answer is inherent in the lyrics:
No, you won't be namin' no buildings after me
To go down dilapidated
No you won't be namin' no buildings after me
My name will be misstated, surely
On the one hand, she's pointing out that our society really only values and protects those who are wealthy or powerful (i.e. the people with their names on buildings).  On the other hand, she's singing from Diallo's point of view in the afterlife, rejecting any hollow gestures to memorialize his life—i.e. naming some building after him, knowing that his name will be mispronounced in perpetuity and his spirit will be neglected, just as the building will be neglected.
It's a powerful, powerful lyric.
It's also musically rich.  Its singer-songwriter feel kind of surprised me the first time I heard it.  In fact, it still reminds me of early Roberta Flack, where there's some acoustic guitar, Fender rhodes, and a voice—pure and simple.
I particularly love how the track builds ever so subtly, every chorus adding another layer of harmony vocals and another layer of smooth Minimoog counterpoint, contributed by the gifted keyboardist James Poyser.
"A.D. 2000" is the true centerpiece of the album Mama's Gun (2000).

"The Boxer" (Simon and Garfunkel)

"The Boxer" is one of those songs that I've pretty much known since infancy.  Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970) made at least a monthly appearance in our household, and I always looked forward to this track (side 2, band 1) every time it was on the turntable.  Even though the verses were much too complex and poetic for me to grasp as a toddler, I had no problem with the easy-singalong lie-la-lie vocals in the chorus.  In fact, I remember feeling a certain ownership of the song.  It was as if by knowing that chorus, the song had become mine somehow.  I've thought about that a lot over the years: how we all take possession of others' songs and make them part of the fabric of who we are.
Paul Simon wrote "The Boxer" in 1968, almost a year and a half before Bridge Over Troubled Water was released.  Lyrically, it draws from the immigrant experience: the promise of success pitted against the harsh reality of survival, where your only real choice is to persevere or die.  Likewise, it draws from Simon's weariness with his detractors.  He and Art Garfunkel had gone from critical darlings to so-called "sellouts" and "squares" in a matter of a few short years.  The imagery of a boxer getting pummeled but not giving up the fight was a metaphor for Simon himself as an artist.
From a musical standpoint, it's also quite the composition.  And quite the recording.  It begins simply and sedately enough, with Simon fingerpicking along with guest guitarist Fred Carter, Jr.  But by the time you reach the first chorus, where the melody suddenly dips into a minor key, reflecting the self doubt and perils of the protagonist, you get a foretaste of the epic crescendo that occurs in the final chorus.
And the sound of that final chorus owes a lot to the expertise of Simon and Garfunkel's engineer/co-producer, Roy Halee.  For example, it was Halee who decided to record session drummer Hal Blaine's kit in the hallway of Columbia studios, right in front of the elevator bank, to get that huge, shotgun-like boom that erupts after each lie-la-lie.  
(In the 2011 documentary The Harmony Game, which explores the making of Bridge Over Troubled Water, Halee and Blaine tell an anecdote about an elderly security guard who'd come down to check on the commotion.  Says Blaine, "I was smashing these two drums—humongous explosion.  All in perfect synchronization as my hands were coming down, the elevator door opened. There was probably an 85-year-old security guard standing there, who thought he’d just been killed.")
There are more subtle touches on the track that Halee concocted, too.  For instance, one of my favorite moments comes after the third verse, where there's this little Bach-like instrumental interlude.  For years, I'd assumed it was a Moog synthesizer playing the majestic-sounding line.  Turns out (as Simon recounts in the aforementioned documentary), Halee paired a piccolo trumpet with a pedal steel guitar, played without the attack for a more violin-like sound, and then mixed them down to sound like a single instrument.  Stroke of genius.
Anyway, it's a song that I can never listen to just once.  I usually have to play it one time to soak in the words, another time to soak in the instrumentation, and a third time to absorb it all together.  And it really is more than just a song; it's the unbridled creativity and the ugly brutality of the American experience, set to music.

"Adagio for Strings" (Samuel Barber)

Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" is the first ray of sunlight after a hurricane.  It's that moment of solace when your world is in shambles.  A glimmer of hope when all seems hopeless.
No matter how many times I've heard it used in films or on T.V., I refuse to let it become some Hollywood cliché in my mind.  It's too deep, too heartfelt, and too important in the scope of modern music to reduce it to that.
Barber, a Pennsylvania-born composer who had been writing music since age 7, was studying abroad in Austria in 1936 when he first came up with the melody.  It actually began its life as the second movement of his "String Quartet, Opus 11."  Apparently, when he debuted the "String Quartet" in Rome that same year, the audience was so moved by the second movement that they gave him a standing ovation before the finale.  Realizing the power of what he'd written, Barber arranged it for full orchestra as "Adagio for Strings."
Considering the events going on at the time—namely, the rise of Nazism and Fascism in Europe, it's pretty clear that Barber was channeling the sense of loss and unease felt by the entire continent in this work.  At the same time, he also captures a spirit of perseverance; it's there in the perpetual motion of the piece, as it continuously ascends upward in stepped intervals, the strings shifting from harmony to discord and then back to stunning resolve every few measures.  Even at its darkest moments, it keeps moving.  Even when the path is unclear, it keeps moving.  It's the human condition, set to music.
It's just amazing to me how he was able to capture the gravity of the world situation so maturely at the age of 26.
Incidentally, "Adagio for Strings" made its American debut 76 years ago this week.  It was performed under the direction of famed Italian-born conductor Arturo Toscanini on NBC Radio on November 5, 1938.  Toscanini, who'd fled Fascist Italy only months before, no doubt chose the piece as a statement of defiance and strength in opposition to Mussolini and Hitler.
On a lighter side note, Barber had sent Toscanini a copy of "Adagio for Strings" in early 1938, hoping that the conductor would perform it at some point.  A few months later, Barber received the sheet music back.  No notes.  No comments.
Needless to say, Barber was ticked.
Although he was slated to visit Toscanini later that spring, Barber asked his partner, composer Gian Carlo Menotti, to meet with the conductor instead.  The moment Toscanini saw that Barber hadn't accompanied Menotti, he realized that Barber had misinterpreted his gesture.  So he delivered the message through Menotti: he'd only returned the sheet music because he'd already memorized it.

"Sunken Treasure" (Wilco)

I was not a huge Wilco fan when the band first came on the scene.  Back in high school, a friend had played me a tape of Uncle Tupelo, frontman Jeff Tweedy’s old band with Jay Farrar, and I liked it well enough; it had a definite “punks playing country” feel to it.  But I felt like Wilco’s debut A.M. (1995) was a bit faceless.  There were hints of Exile on Main St. and Flying Burrito Brothers, and the songs were decent.  But Wilco sounded like the type of band you'd hear at a dive bar, half-drunk on PBR.  Really, nothing about the album signaled that Tweedy was some kind of alt-country Thom Yorke. 
Then in college, I was talking music with this kid from my psych class.  (Actually, we were waiting to participate in a mandatory study about anxiety and social behavior.  It was some deal where the researchers came in every few minutes and told us, “We’re delayed; it may be 5 more minutes before we begin,” and then after 30 minutes, they finally clued us in that it was all part of the study.  The fact that the two of us struck up a conversation while we were "delayed" proved their hypothesis, I guess.)  Anyway, he ended up lending me the second disc of Being There (1996).  Actually, he kind of forced it on me like the overzealous Hare Krishnas on Franklin Street who would shove flowers in your hand as you walked to class, whether you wanted withered a daisy or not. (“Visualize world peace, MOFO!”)
I reluctantly took it and gave him the copy of The Best of Booker T. & The M.G.’s that was in my Discman (yeah, it was the 90s), just to show him that I wouldn’t flake and hock it at one of the gajillion used CD shops that were in downtown Chapel Hill in those days.
Sitting in a study carrel in the library later that evening, I decided to give the CD a spin, because I knew I’d run into him in lecture the next day.
When the first few chords of “Sunken Treasure” washed through my headphones, my very first thought was, “This is Wilco?” 
It was quirky and gorgeous, and Tweedy sounded like George Harrison on quaaludes—but in a good way.  And just about the time I was getting cozy in the jangly etherealness, suddenly there was this burst of noise-rock guitar that absolutely exploded the melody wide open and left me struggling to find its shards among the wreckage.  The moment everything felt like it was going to dissolve into nothingness, the storm retreated as fast as it had erupted, and the song was back, floating on serene waters. 
I had chills.
By the time Tweedy sang the closing lines (I was maimed by rock and roll / I was tamed by rock and roll / I got my name from rock and roll), my opinion of what this band was/is had totally changed.  This wasn’t some one-note outfit, destined to play shoebox-sized venues; this was a band that had an opportunity to push the boundaries of alt-country and drag rock out of the dustbin.
I’ve been a fan ever since.

"What Is the Light?" (The Flaming Lips)

The first time I heard The Soft Bulletin (1999), it felt strangely familiar.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  The album's lush, dramatic psychedelia didn't really sound like anything else going on in rock at the time.  But by the second spin, I was humming along to the songs with a feeling of childlike wonder; it was as if I'd known the record my entire life.
Eventually, it hit me: every song feels like it could have been written by Paul Williams for the Muppets.  (And I mean that in the most loving, sincere way.)  Strip away the synths, drum machines, and atmospherics from any of the songs on The Soft Bulletin, and what you have are rich, memorable compositions about life and loss that feel like companions to "Rainbow Connection."  I actually can't listen to the album anymore without picturing Kermit the Frog strumming his banjo in the middle of a swamp.
"What Is the Light?" also has that joyous yet bittersweet feel.  (If we're still talking Muppets, it's a little more Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem than Kermit, though.)  The track begins in an almost embryonic state with a heartbeat-like thump and then builds to a crescendo of anthemic proportions, complete with a fanfare of synth brass and distorted church organ.  It's nearly impossible not to sing along with Wayne Coyne as he intones Looking into space, it surrounds you / Love is the place that you're drawn to. It is one of the best hooks that the Lips have ever written.

"'Heroes'" (David Bowie)

David Bowie had gotten his fill of fame and its vices.  So he left the glitz and drugs behind and relocated to Berlin in 1976, drawn by the city's Cold War-era austerity.  In time, he was joined by longtime collaborator/producer Tony Visconti and musician Brian Eno and, together, they created a trilogy of challenging, groundbreaking albums (Low, 'Heroes', and Lodger) that still sound unbelievably fresh today.
All three records, incidentally, were recorded at Hansa Studios, which sat within view of the Berlin Wall, or the "Wall of Shame" as it had been dubbed by the West.  One afternoon while staring out the window of the studio's control room, Bowie happened to catch Visconti passionately kissing a young woman (who wasn't Visconti's wife) beneath a guard turret on the Wall.  On the one hand, Bowie saw their act as heroic: they weren't allowing the very real danger of being shot by guards deter them from freely expressing their very real affection for one another.  On the other hand, he surmised that they were meeting in such a dangerous place because they felt guilty about the affair, and they were psychologically justifying their rendezvous as an act of "heroism."
The incident inspired Bowie to pen "'Heroes'", an intensely emotional, complicated portrait of ill-fated love winning a victory over oppression for a fleeting moment (hence the ironic quotation marks in the song's title).  
Although every note of this song is electrifying, my favorite moment comes in the second verse, as Bowie nearly cries the words And the shame was on the other side.  It's such a smart bit of wordplay, referring not only to the lovers' literal location in the shadow of the "Wall of Shame" but also the feelings of self-reproach that they're attempting to put aside.
In short, this is the song that made me a Bowie fan for life.

"Such Great Heights" (The Postal Service)

The Postal Service's Give Up (2003) was such an unlikely record that came together in an unlikely way.  Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello just happened to meet Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard through a mutual friend; Tamborello asked Gibbard to contribute vocals to what became the Dntel track "(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan" for 2001's Life is Full of Possibilities; and they found the process of working together so effortless that Gibbard suggested they collaborate again in the future.
So between working on new Dntel music, Tamborello (who's based in L.A.) began creating backing tracks and sending them to Gibbard (who's based in Seattle) on CD via the U.S. Mail.  And when Gibbard wasn't busy working on music for Death Cab for Cutie, he'd take a few days to absorb the backing tracks, write lyrics, and then cut vocals/make edits, eventually mailing his contributions back to Tamborello.
In the 2013 documentary Some Idealistic Future, which commemorates the 10 year anniversary of Give Up's release, Tamborello describes the ease with which the project came together over the course of 2002.
"We really didn't send stuff back and forth very many times.  I'd send him the basic idea, and then he'd cut little bits out or move parts around or repeat parts that he wanted to sing on, and then send me back a guide track with his vocals."
Such was the case with the track "Such Great Heights."  One of the last tracks written and recorded for the album, the song arguably is the big "hit" from Give Up (even though it only topped out at #114 on the Billboard charts).  Thing is, it sounds like the kind of tune they would have pored over for hundreds of hours, getting every harmony, guitar lick, and synth blip just right before calling it "done."  So it's amazing to me that they created this intelligent, cliché-avoiding love song with its Lennon-McCartney-worthy melody by casually swapping ideas via snail mail.  For that reason alone, it's one of the most noteworthy singles of the 2000s.  But I'd also go so far as to call it the best pop song of that decade.