#1. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (The Rolling Stones)

It's December 1981, a few days before my 4th birthday.  I'm standing with my grandmother at the counter of the Record Bar music store in the Asheville Mall, trying to tell the teenage girl behind the cash register—who is nice enough, but obviously wishing she were someplace else—which singles I want.
The first is "Trouble" by Lindsey Buckingham.  (Out of stock.  She gives us a listless shrug.)  And the second is a song I'd heard on the radio about a week before that had stopped me in my tracks and now can't get out of my head.  Problem is, I don't know the song title or who performed it—you know, exactly what every disinterested record store clerk wants to hear from a customer.
The only thing I can articulate about the song: "It sounds like mean bees."
As I've mentioned in other posts, my late grandmother worked stocking records and tapes for Sky City, a former regional department store.  She was no stranger to kids shuffling up to her and mumbling lyrics to the latest Go-Go's single or wanting to know which Ozzy album had "Crazy Train" on it.
So my grandma makes a suggestion.
"Sing it to her, Mikey."
By "sing," I know exactly what she's driving at: I re-created music with my mouth all the time as a kid.  (Think: a toddler version of Michael Winslow from the Police Academy movies.)  My family referred to it as "singing" because beatboxing wasn't really a thing back then.  I'd usually make up my own songs and imitate the sounds of guitar, drums, bass, and synths—not to mention the pops and cracks of a vinyl record if I also was pretending that my song was playing on a turntable.  But I'd often imitate stuff from the radio, too.
So there, in the middle of Record Bar, I start "singing" the riff that had lured me away from playing with my building blocks the week before, imitating the buzzing "mean bees" guitar sound as best I can: uhn-uhn...uh-uh-uhhhhhh-uh-uhn-uhn...
"Does that ring a bell?" my grandma asks the girl, who is standing there dumbfounded.
Eventually, the manager (who is barely out of his teens himself) comes strolling over to take a listen.  He listens with a half-smile and then asks me to perform it one more time.  At this point, I'm starting to get a bit self-conscious.  He starts tapping his pen on his clipboard in time with my riff, and a look of recognition suddenly beams across his face.
"I'm pretty sure that's 'Satisfaction' by the Stones," he drawls.  "That's an old song, little man.  Where'd you hear that?"
At this point, I go into shy mode and hide behind my grandma's legs, where I convince myself that I am invisible to everyone...

Obviously, the store didn't have "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones available as a single because the song had been released 16 years earlier in 1965.  
But, to my ears, it didn't sound all that different from the punk rock and New Wave that was starting to get airplay in those days.  That Keith Richards guitar lick had the same attitude and primal crunch as the raw, unapologetic rock coming out of London and New York, circa 1981.
Mick Jagger's sneering anti-consumerism/vagabond lyrics did, too, even though I didn't understand a single word he was saying until I was a teenager.  Probably a good thing, because the words are raunchy.  Especially the part where he's trying to bed a groupie, but she rejects him because she's "on a losing streak."  Crass?  Absolutely.  But you can't argue with its honest snapshot of a performer's life on the road.
The story behind the song is the stuff of rock legend, too, meaning you have to take it with a grain of salt and a shot of tequila.
The Stones played Jack Russell Memorial Stadium in Clearwater, FL, on May 6, 1965.  They were four songs into the show when a group of young concertgoers got into it with local law enforcement, and all hell broke loose.  The show was shut down, and local politicians basically vowed never to let another rock band perform there again.
Back at the band's hotel that night (some sources say "motel"—probably because it sounds seedier), an exhausted Richards fell fast asleep with his guitar beside him and a tape recorder on the nightstand.  The next morning, he woke up to find the tape had spooled all the way to the end, even though he didn't recall turning the recorder on at any point.
When he ran the tape back, well, you might guess where this is going.
"So I put it back to the beginning and pushed play and there, in some sort of ghostly version, is [the opening lines to 'Satisfaction']," Richards told NPR's Terry Gross in 2010.  "It was a whole verse of it.  And after that, there's 40 minutes of me snoring.  But there's the song in its embryo, and I actually dreamt the damned thing."
As for the famous fuzz tone that makes the song the ugly, glorious thing that it is, Richards never intended to keep that guitar line on the final track.  Instead, he envisioned a Stax-style horn section, not unlike Otis Redding's late 1965 rendition of the song.  He only used his Gibson Maestro fuzzbox pedal in the studio to mimic the sound of saxophones, fully intending to overdub horns at a later date.
But as he noted in a video to fans from 2004, "The record company and management slipped it out.  They said 'this is a hit; why talk to them, they're on the road (promoting the album Out of Our Heads)?'  And I can't argue with that."

#2. "Here Comes the Sun" (The Beatles)

Have you ever had a song literally stop you in your tracks?  Where you're in the middle of something, and suddenly you hear a piece of music that commands your attention so completely you have to stop whatever you're doing and just listen?
I've had it happen three times in my life.  Once was in early 1982 when I was 4 years old.  
I remember it had been a cold, exceptionally damp winter, and it had overstayed its welcome by creeping into what should have been spring.  As much as I enjoyed snow, hot chocolate, and the smell of woodsmoke, I'd had it with frozen gloom.  The weather had been making every adult I'd encountered cranky, and it also had been keeping me from finishing an outdoors project that I'd started earlier in the fall, which made me cranky.  (A relative of ours in Western NC had a small creek running through her property, and I got it in my head that we should have a creek at our house, too.  So, I borrowed a little pickaxe from my dad's tool shed, and I started digging my own "creek" in our backyard: a 6-inch wide, 4-foot long mini-trench that I just assumed would fill with running water after a good rain.  It didn't quite work out like that.  And when my dad kind of stumbled upon it—or into it—while mowing the grass later that spring, he logically assumed some animal had destroyed a patch of his yard, and he filled it back in.)
Anyway, I remember getting up this one morning, and it was like someone had flipped a switch: it had been cold and disgusting the day before, but suddenly it was warm and sunny.  The South is notoriously fickle when it comes to March-April weather; however, this felt like spring had officially sprung.
My mom sensed it, too.  She opened every window in the house, turned on the radio, and started her spring cleaning routine while I finished watching my daily episode of Sesame Street over a bowl of Cheerios.  
Normally, I would have been glued to the set, watching Big Bird trying to convince the grown-ups that his pal Mr. Snuffleupagus wasn't imaginary.  But then I heard a song with this beautiful plucked guitar line coming from the radio, and I immediately turned off the T.V. so I could listen.  The DJ (the late Russ Cassell on WFBC-FM out of Greenville, SC) made a brief announcement about a listener requesting "the perfect spring song," and then came the refrain: Here comes the sun / Doo-doo-doo-doo / Here comes the sun / I say, it's alright... 
I sat in front of our stereo, transfixed as the verses unfolded.  Every time I thought the song had gotten as good as it could get, some new layer of vocals or strings would drop in, and it would get even better.  But nothing prepared me for the descending bridge section (Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...) with its syncopated handclaps and Moog synth buzzing away.  I think my jaw literally dropped.  It somehow was gorgeous, cheerful, and rocking, all at the same time.  I'd never heard anything like it.
I didn't budge until the very end.  After the very last droplets of guitar had faded, I ran into the kitchen where my mom was mopping the floor and started trying to describe it to her.  I sang a few bars of what I could remember, when she put down the mop and went right to her record collection.  
"Is this it?" she asked, dropping the needle on the B-side of Abbey Road (1969).
And there it was again, pouring out of the speakers in glorious, static-less stereo.
She gave me a kiss on my noggin.  "You have good taste in music, kiddo," she told me.
Years later, reading about what had inspired George Harrison to write "Here Comes the Sun," I discovered that his muse had been a spring day after a long period of dreariness, not unlike how I'd first experienced the song.
Apparently, winter in England had been particularly long in 1969.  Furthermore, Harrison and his bandmates had been mired in endless meetings with accountants regarding The Beatles' cash-bleeding venture, Apple Corps Ltd.  In short, Harrison was burnt out.  
So in the middle of the tedium, along came a pleasant spring day, and Harrison decided to blow off his business meetings and hang out at his pal Eric Clapton's house instead.  
As he stated in his autobiography I, Me, Mine (1980), "The relief of not having to go and see all those dopey accountants was wonderful, and I walked around the garden with one of Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote 'Here Comes The Sun'."

#3. "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder)

My entire world as a little kid centered around Sesame Street.  My day didn't officially begin until I was sitting in front of the T.V., singing Come and play / everything's a-okay with a mouthful of Cheerios.
Way back in the day, our local ABC-TV affiliate in Western North Carolina had some sort of arrangement with PBS to broadcast Sesame Street weekday mornings in the time slot after Good Morning America.  Occasionally, they would dig into the vaults and rebroadcast episodes from early in the show's run.  (As the MuppetWiki site reminded me, Sesame Street used to shoot 130 episodes a year, even though it aired 260 days a year, which meant you were going to see some re-runs along the way.)
I remember waking up one summer morning (pretty sure it was July 1981), and the humidity was already stifling.  I wasn't in the best mood anyway because my mom had signed me up for a week-long vacation Bible school retreat, and my enthusiasm for having to pack into my pastor's station wagon every morning with 10 other kids for the 30-minute drive to Camp Lutheridge was nil to none.  Actually, I remember days #1 and 2 of the retreat weren't too bad: I met kids from other towns, we sang songs, ate peanut butter sandwiches, and some nice adults helped us make artsy-fartsy shakers out of dried lima beans and paper plates.  But when I found out there was a day #3 (and a day #4, and a day #5), well, that just felt like overkill.
Anyway, I remember being "difficult" that morning.  I didn't want breakfast, and I definitely didn't want to get out of my pajamas.  So my mom told me to go watch some Sesame Street until I snapped out of it.
I grumpily played "One of These Things (is Not Like the Others)" and watched Big Bird and Mr. Hooper spin educational-comedy gold, and then suddenly, there was Stevie Wonder on the screen.
I sat there, mesmerized as he and his band launched into a gritty rendition of his song "Superstition" from the fantastic Talking Book (1972).  It was unlike anything I'd ever seen or heard before.  I mean, here was this cat, looking as slick and cool as axle grease on a snow cone, churning out some of the deepest funk ever broadcast at 9 in the morning on a Wednesday.  It blew my little mind wide open.  And it shook me out of my doldrums.
(Sidebar: this is the main difference I see between today's Sesame Street and the show that I used to know: the show that I fell in love with was a funky, try-anything endeavor.  It was a safe haven for children, but it wasn't sanitized to the point of being sterile.  It didn't totally ignore that the world is often a big, scary place; it just taught little ones how to be smart and brave in an adult-sized world.)

Years later, I learned that Wonder's performance had originally aired in 1973.  Watching it again online as an adult, it still feels as fresh and vital as the day I saw it at age 3 (and even back then, the footage was already 8 years old).  That's not only a testament to Wonder as a consummate musician and performer, but a testament to the universal and enduring power of this song.  

Lyrically, "Superstition" is pretty much just a string of allusions to nonsense beliefs: broken mirrors bringing misfortune, unlucky number 13, etc.  As he told NPR's Deborah Williams back in December 2000, he came up with the vocal melody and merely plugged in the first words that popped into his head.
"The first thing that I put down were the drums and then after that I put the Clavinet down, and really, I just started singing the melody.  Probably the first thing—the only thing I can remember that I said that I remember keeping was the line 'Wash your face and hands'."

Honestly, he could have sung any old lyrics to that groove, and it still would have been a hit.  The backing track on this song is a thing of marvel.  With the exception of the horn section, Wonder played every single instrument: the interweaving Clavinet lines that sound like dueling rock guitars (more on that in a sec), the agile synth bass, and those strutting drums.  It's an exercise in arranging and rhythm that I don't think Wonder himself has ever bested.

Bar trivia factoid: Wonder actually wrote "Superstition" for his buddy, guitarist Jeff Beck.  Beck had guested on Wonder's song "Lookin' for Another Pure Love," so to return the favor, Wonder came up with "Superstition" for Beck and his new group (Beck, Bogert & Appice) to include on their upcoming album.

But then Motown/Tamla chief Berry Gordy heard the song, and he urged Wonder to record it himself instead, envisioning it as the centerpiece of the upcoming Talking Book.  So Wonder acquiesced and recorded his own rendition, using his Clavinet to recreate the chunky riff that he'd written with Beck's guitar in mind.

In short, there was a delay in the release of Beck, Bogert & Appice's album, so Motown/Tamla seized the opportunity to push out Wonder's "Superstition" in October 1972 before his pal's version could drop.  As you might imagine, there were some hurt feelings.  But considering Wonder guested on Beck's album Blow by Blow a few years later, I'd say all was forgiven and forgotten.

#4. "Good Vibrations" (The Beach Boys)

At age 10, I was obsessed with the song "Good Vibrations."  The watery-sounding organ, the buzzsaw cellos, the eerie Electro-Theremin, and those sunny layers of signature Beach Boys vocals.  
Actually, I still can't get enough of that moment before the last chorus, where the group hits that ahhhhhh! and it hangs in the air like mist, just before the hook comes exploding back in.  Gives me chills, every time.
Throughout our 4th grade year, my buddy Bill and I would trade mixtapes, sharing whatever we were listening to at the time.  Usually, it was stuff like The Fat Boys, Beastie Boys, or Run DMC.  But, this one time, Bill got really into surf music right before Spring Break, and he brought me this mix of Jan & Dean and Beach Boys songs, dubbed from his mom's old vinyl.  I remember he kind of front-loaded the tape with their early 60s "party songs" ("Surfin' Safari," "Surfin' USA," "Surf City").  But then sitting in the middle of the mix was also the 1966 single "Good Vibrations."
Now, it's not as if it was the first time I'd heard "Good Vibrations"; it was a staple on oldies radio.  But there was something about hearing it in context of those other songs.  It was richer, deeper.  Important.  It seemed so out of place, I even wondered if Bill had let the tape run and recorded it by accident.  
In fact, the more I listened to the track (and I listened to it/analyzed it dozens of times that Spring Break), the more it reminded me of a slightly-psychedelic reimagining of my favorite piece of classical music as a kid: George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."  Both songs seemed to be built from carefully constructed segments, which, taken on their own, were stunning in their level of detail.  But when the pieces were assembled, end-to-end, the result was even more astounding.
It didn't surprise me at all when the mastermind behind "Good Vibrations," Brian Wilson, recorded a solo tribute album to Gershwin in 2010 and had this to say about "Rhapsody in Blue" to NPR's Audie Cornish: "(When I was 4) my grandmother put on 'Rhapsody in Blue' for me, and had me lay down by the record player.  I just remember I loved it so much…The arranging, the impetus, the excitement, the beauty.  It was just an absolute work of art."
After hearing that conversation on All Things Considered, I started looking for more articles and interviews about Wilson's process.  And I discovered that my observations at age 10 weren't that far off.
Wilson worked on "Good Vibrations" in modules, breaking the song down into small bits, which he'd pore over with his group of choice studio musicians ("The Wrecking Crew"), sometimes recording a section a dozen times at one of four different recording studios around Los Angeles before they achieved the sound he heard in his head.  Then, when all of the individual pieces were recorded to his liking, he connected them all into what he called his "pocket symphony."  
In all, it took seven months of work and $50K—the most ever spent recording a "pop" single at that point—before "Good Vibrations" saw the light of day in October 1966.  But, in the end, who really cares about facts and figures when you're talking about something this timeless and priceless?
All I can say is, the world will always be a little better off because of the genius of Brian Wilson.

#5. "What's Going On" (Marvin Gaye)

It was 1970.  Marvin Gaye was on a self-imposed hiatus from recording following the death of his friend/singing partner Tammi Terrell, and apart from occasionally producing the vocal group The Originals, he didn't even want to set foot inside the studio.  
In the meantime, he was receiving letters from his little brother, Frankie, who was fighting in Vietnam.  In the correspondence, he'd tell Marvin about the unsettling things he was experiencing.
As Frankie Gaye told biographer David Ritz for the liner notes of The Best of Marvin Gaye anthology (1995), "The war sickened me.  It seemed useless, wrong, and unjust.  I relayed all this to Marvin."
Around the same time, Renaldo "Obie" Benson of The Four Tops had witnessed a crowd of young protestors get roughed up by cops in Berkeley, CA, where the group had just finished performing a show.  Benson told songwriter Al Cleveland about what he'd seen, and Cleveland started writing a new composition about social ills with the intent of having The Four Tops perform it.
But the other members of Benson's group shied away from doing a "protest song."  So while hanging out with Gaye during a round of golf, Benson and Cleveland decided to pitch him the song instead.  Gaye initially thought it might be a good vehicle for The Originals.  But after a lot of cajoling from Benson, Gaye ultimately decided to record and produce the single himself.
Along the way, Gaye added additional lyrics, pulling inspiration from his little brother's letters, and embellished the melody to fit his own style.  The result: one of the most soulful commentaries on the Vietnam era ever recorded.  In fact, it's less of a protest song (he's not really pointing fingers at anyone), and more of a rhetorical question to humanity: what are we doing to one another?
It's a favorite of mine because the message and the music come together so perfectly.  Its deeply funky groove perfectly captures the reality of the young soldier who comes home to his inner city neighborhood, looking for comfort, only to find unrest at every turn.  At the same time, the lush orchestration and the multi-tracked vocals, which create a whole chorus of Marvins, almost border on the sacred.  It's simply one of the most moving, heartfelt pieces of popular music ever recorded.
Regarding Gaye's vocals, the whole idea of him harmonizing/duetting with himself came about as a happy accident.  As recording engineer Ken Sands notes in a July 2011 article in Sound on Sound online, they had recorded two, separate takes for the lead vocal, and Gaye wanted to listen and evaluate which one he thought was best.  Instead of outputting each take as a separate demo track, Sands just created a single stereo track, with Take #1 in one channel and Take #2 in the other, giving Gaye the ability to pan back and forth between speakers and/or listen to both takes simultaneously for easier comparison.  It was when everyone heard the playback with two Marvins sharing the lead that they realized they'd stumbled upon something magnificent.
Said Sands, "As it turned out, singing against himself worked, but I'm not going to take credit for thinking things through and saying, 'This is what I want to happen'...A lot of brilliance is bred of happenstance."

"Instant Karma!" (John Lennon)

When I first heard John Lennon's 1970 single "Instant Karma!" as a little kid, I had no clue what karma was.  (I'd venture that was true of most listeners.)  But, my God, the sound of this song.  It was my first introduction to producer Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" and unlike anything I'd ever heard.  There was so much reverb and yet so much punch—particularly Alan White's drums.  (His drum fills alone make the song a classic.)  
But you also can't ignore that vital piano line and ardent chorus of singers backing Lennon's throat-ripping vocal: Well we all shine on / Like the moon and the stars and the sun.  There's a galaxy of beauty in that sentiment.  
It's impossible not to feel fantastic after hearing this rallying cry for humanity to get its act together.

"Hungry Heart" (Bruce Springsteen)

I've always respected Bruce Springsteen.  I hear the blue collar poetry of an album like Born to Run or even Born in the U.S.A., and it makes me realize how intelligent and important to American music he is.
But I have a really hard time getting into (most of) his music.  His bordering-on-Broadway productions, like "Thunder Road" or "Jungleland," or stripped-to-the-bone numbers, like the title track from 1982's Nebraska, just never resonated with me.  And that has always frustrated me.  Because when I consider his musical pedigree, it's all stuff I like: Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie...  I think he loses me when things take a turn for the Bernstein.  (I just prefer my leather jackets and knife fights without the choreography, I guess.)
In fact, I've often wondered what Springsteen's populist lyrics would sound like in the context of punk.
Speaking of, the one Springsteen song that I really love has a punk rock connection.  In 1979, Springsteen saw The Ramones play his hometown of Asbury Park, NJ, and met frontman Joey Ramone after the show.  Ramone asked him to write a song for The Ramones, and Springsteen came up with "Hungry Heart."  But when Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, heard the composition, he convinced him to keep it for his next album, 1980's The River.  Pretty good advice, considering it was Springsteen's first Top 5 single.
Anyway, there's no risk of anyone confusing "Hungry Heart" for The Ramones.  The feel is very 1960s "Wall of Sound," which creates the perfect backdrop for Springsteen's portrait of a guy who is torn between wanting to settle down and wanting to roam.  
Musically, it walks a fine line between elation and frustration for three taut minutes with its insistent piano, soaring soul organ, and thundering, reverb-y drums.  And then there's Springsteen's fervent vocal, which seems as indebted to Ronnie Spector on "Be My Baby" as it does Roy Orbison on "Running Scared."  
In short, it's dramatic and stirring with a hefty helping of melancholy.  It's the stuff of French art films, set in working-class America.

"I Saw the Light" (Todd Rundgren)

I remember hearing "I Saw the Light" from Todd Rundgren's double album Something/Anything (1972) on the radio as a kid and loving the sound of the song.  It wasn't just the melody (even though it is the perfect R&B-inflected, power pop confection); it was the literal placement and separation of the instruments on the track.  Everything felt like it was in its proper place: the tom-toms in the right channel, the slide guitar in the front-middle, the piano and maracas way over to the left, the bass just left of center, Rundgren's lead vocal dead center, and the backing vocals in perfect stereo.
I knew the terms "arranger" and "producer" from reading the backs of album covers.  So I knew whoever had been at the helm of arranging/producing this track was on their game.
It wasn't until years and an Internet connection later that I discovered Rundgren had done it all himself.  And when I say all, I mean all: writing, arranging, producing, playing every instrument, and singing every vocal—even those high falsetto backing harmonies.  
Somehow, knowing that makes it more than just some catchy pop song to me; it's art.

"Chain of Fools" (Aretha Franklin)

Aretha Franklin's sessions with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (a.k.a. "The Swampers") in 1967 produced 3 albums-worth of material and a string of hit singles, including a little song called "Respect."  And while music historians and other list-makers rightfully cite "Respect" as a landmark recording, not only for its deep groove but also its cultural impact, I prefer her gritty take on soulster Don Covay's "Chain of Fools," a funky R&B workout that began its life as a song about field laborers until Covay changed the lyrics for Franklin, turning it into a song about a woman who realizes her man is two-timing her.

From moment one, Franklin sets this track ablaze.  The fact that the verses are as hot (or hotter) than the hook itself is a testament to her ability to interpret and own a song completely.  

But, for me, it's her riveting delivery on the breakdown that makes it the best Franklin track of all time.  With just a kick drum and some backing singers, clapping and ooh-ing in time behind her, she easily could have let the energy level drop.  Instead, she testifies like her life and love depend on it.  And it's gripping. 

And as I've said before, The Swampers can do no wrong.  Alongside Stax's house band Booker T. & The MG's, they were the tightest soul musicians of the late 60s.  I mean, just listen to Jimmy Johnson and Joe South's greasy tremolo guitars, Tommy Cogbill's thumping bass, and Roger Hawkins on drums.  It doesn't get funkier than that groove.

In fact, next to Franklin, Hawkins completely steals this show.  His steady, thumping heartbeat on the bass drum and the crack of his sticks against those snares are the stuff of Highway 61 roadhouses.  But then his lively fills and swinging sixteenth notes on the ride cymbal after the breakdown are like an aural signature, letting you know who funkafied the track.

"Hold On, I'm Comin'" (Sam & Dave)

I loved the original Blues Brothers movie (1980) as a kid.  Cable would run it (chopped up and censored, of course), and I'd be there, glued to the set, soaking up every minute.  It's where I first heard Stax soul: Elwood and Jake, driving around in their converted police cruiser, listening to The Best of Sam & Dave on their tape deck.  It made quite an impression on me.
It's where I heard the Sam & Dave track "Hold On, I'm Comin'" (1966) for the first time—a track that never wears out its welcome for me.  Along with featuring the entire Stax rhythm engine (i.e. Booker T. & The MG's + the Mar-Keys horn section), the song boasts the anointed vocals of Sam Moore and the late Dave Prater.  Although Moore and Prater often didn't get along outside the studio, when their voices came together, it was harmony.  The perfect high and low/fire and ice/yin and yang to stir the soul.  There's nothing quite like their blend on the hook: Hold on, I'm comin'...  Pure church.
And I'll even assert that Moore's final verse (When the day comes, and you are down / In a river of trouble and about to drown) is one of the best vocal performances ever recorded.  It's rare to hear that kind of unbridled emotion come through on a studio recording.
Incidentally, I've found that a lot of people don't realize "Hold On, I'm Comin'" was written by Isaac Hayes with lyricist Dave Porter.  (Before Hayes was a star in his own right, he and Porter wrote a number of legendary songs for Sam & Dave at Stax: "When Something is Wrong with My Baby," "I Thank You," as well as the ubiquitous "Soul Man.")
Years ago, I heard Hayes tell Conan O'Brien an anecdote about how "Hold On, I'm Comin'" came about.  And, God bless the Internets, I found the clip on YouTube!
I'll let you watch the video for yourself, but I'll set it up: Stax Records was located in an old movie theater that hadn't been changed or renovated all that much.  Whereas other studios in those days would have had specially-built echo chambers to capture reverb on vocals, Stax just ran mics into the theater's (working) restrooms, which were covered in ceramic tile.  As you might imagine, this made for great reverb on vocals, but maybe a little awkwardness whenever someone needed to use the facilities.
Long story short: Hayes and Porter were working on new music one evening, when Porter excused himself to use the restroom.  Porter was taking longer than his writing partner thought necessary, so Hayes hollered for him to hurry up.  
You might guess Porter's response.

"Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" (Stevie Wonder)

Stevie Wonder's 1970 hit single "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" was a landmark: it was the first time Motown chief Berry Gordy had allowed him to both write and produce on his own.  (Thankfully, it wasn't the last.)  It also was his first Grammy nomination—not to mention the first Grammy nom for his mother, Lula Mae Hardaway, who is credited as a co-writer on the track.  Apparently, after she heard him play the melody on piano for the first time, she exclaimed, "Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours!" giving him the idea for the hook.

The first time I heard the track was in summer 1987.  My family was packed into my mom's Oldsmobile, heading down I-26 to the South Carolina coast.  I was crammed into the backseat with a cooler full of Sunkist and enough snacks to feed five families.

Back in those days, there used to be a radio dead zone between suburban Columbia, SC, and the junction of I-95, where all you could pick up were faint signals, all bleeding together in a garble of incoherent static.  It always was my least favorite stretch of the trip: the topography was flat, skinny pine trees and sweltering asphalt were the only things to look at outside the car window, and there was no music.  Not even the crappy adult contemporary stuff my parents often chose to listen to in those days.  It was very "are we there yet?"-inducing for a 9-year-old kid.

So the moment I began seeing billboards and road signs indicating that we were about 50 miles from Charleston, I started lobbying my parents to turn the radio back on.  Nothing was coming in all that well, except for this one station (I believe out of Orangeburg, SC) that was playing vintage R&B.  I was going through a phase at the time anyway of wanting to hear nothing but oldies, largely because my friend Bill had been sharing mixtapes of his mom's old vinyl with me.  So throwback soul was right up my alley.

Anyway, crackling through the static, came this funky electric sitar riff, followed by this sanctified howl and barrage of drums.  Although I wasn't familiar with the song itself, the moment the vocal kicked in, I instantly knew it was Stevie Wonder.  And by the first chorus, I was jamming: Oooh, baby, here I am / Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours.

Then a curious thing happened: about halfway through the track, the right channel suddenly dropped out.  The song kept playing, but it felt lopsided—the bass, the backing singers, and the tambourine all had vanished.

The moment the song had finished, the DJ came on with an announcement.  "Ladies and gentlemen, we had some technical difficulties on that last one.  So I'm going to play it again.  Because Stevie deserves to be heard in stereo."

And he immediately played the song again, in its entirety.  It was one of the coolest things I've ever heard a DJ do.  I think about it every time I play this track.

(And Stevie does deserve to be heard in stereo, by the way.)

"Dust" (Van Hunt)

"Neo-soul."  Such an uninspired term.  It means nothing.  When you consider that everyone from Musiq to The Roots have been lumped into that genre (and I use the term "genre" loosely) at some point in their careers, it's clear that "neo-soul" is little more than greasy record exec-speak for "we don't know how to pigeonhole you."
Case in point: Van Hunt. 
I heard the song "Dust" from his self-titled debut for the first time at a Starbucks in suburban Charlotte back in 2004.  At the counter, they had the CD for sale with a description beneath it—something pulled from an online review that referred to Hunt as "a neo-soul crooner."
I had to wonder if the reviewer even had ears.  "Neo-soul crooner?"  If anything, I heard tinges of Funkadelic's raw, twisted funk, circa Maggot Brain.  A little of Sly Stone's Fresh.  Station to Station-era Bowie.  Maybe even a bit of post-punk (note the jittery crunch of the rhythm guitars backing him on the track).
What I did not hear was some "crooner" on a quest to make panties drop.
The lyrics alone to "Dust" reveal a deeper ambition than that.  Hunt's carefully chosen words convey someone in a tenuous mental state.  Whether it's the product of personal anxiety or chemical-fueled paranoia is not clear.  Lines like So you see, it's no blow to my sophistication / That I've gone crazy again could go either way.  Even the title and chorus leave you wondering.
And that's the intrigue of the song.  That's the complexity of this artist.  That's pure soul.  No "neo" to it.

"Come As You Are" (Nirvana)

Even now, when I hear Kurt Cobain's burbling, underwater riff that opens "Come As You Are," it stirs something within me.  (Forget the fact that he subconsciously lifted it from post-punk band Killing Joke.  Besides, there were no hard feelings in the end.)  That intro reminds me of the simultaneous relief and exhilaration I felt as a teenager when there was a worthy successor to "Smells Like Teen Spirit."  It signaled that Nirvana wasn't some flash in the pan, and the over-produced schlock that had passed for rock for half a decade was finally dead.  
I just wish Cobain would have hung around a bit longer to embrace and enjoy what he'd helped create.
Over the past few days as I was poking around the internet, brushing up on the facts of "Come As You Are," it became clear that the song (like many others that Cobain wrote) is a mosaic of personal experiences—not blatantly autobiographical, but still intensely intimate.
The most enlightening thing I stumbled across was an article from early 2014 about the possible origin of the song's title.  When Cobain was in his teens, his father kicked him out of the house for bad behavior.  For a brief time, he stayed with his alcoholic mother but then took off when the two had a falling out, which rendered him effectively homeless.  Apart from occasionally crashing with friends, he spent most of his nights seeking shelter in old/abandoned buildings around his hometown of Aberdeen, WA.  According to biographer Charles R. Cross, Cobain also occasionally crashed at a flophouse in Aberdeen called The Morck Hotel, which advertised using the slogan: "Come as you are."  (By the looks of the Morck's website, it's currently going through a major renovation to become some kind of upscale boutique hotel.  Figures.)  
When I think about the lyrics of the song (which involve people contradicting themselves by saying one thing but really meaning/expecting another) in the context of Cobain's experience as a teenager, the pieces begin to fall into place.  His experience also sheds light on the use of the word memoria, which gets repeated throughout the song.  Memoria is one of the elements of the art of rhetoric.  Basically, it means recalling a bit of knowledge or experience to support your argument.  (The fact that he puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable, making the word rhyme with "diarrhea," also isn't an accident, in my opinion.)
In short, he's questioning whether you can take people's rhetoric at face value.  (Would you be inclined to believe someone who claims they don't have a gun?)
Along with that, it's about actions speaking louder than words.  Or as the late Maya Angelou put it: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

"Get Together" (The Youngbloods)

Mid/late 60s folk-rock has always been a hot or cold proposition for me.  For every profound and bold statement like "The Sound of Silence" or "Maggie's Farm," there's a bit of vapid fluff like "Sunshine Superman" that serves as a reminder of how dippy, pale, and stoned the purveyors of the genre could sound.

The Youngbloods' rendition of the song "Get Together" by singer/songwriter Chet Powers (a.k.a. Dino Valenti) falls into the former category for me.  The song is a poetic plea for humanity to choose love instead of fear, and it has some truly deep lyrics:

Love is but the song we sing,

And fear's the way we die

You can make the mountains ring

Or make the angels cry

To me, that single stanza is as powerful as a hundred protest songs put together, because it's not really "anti" anything; it's pro-compassion.
The sincerity of the message keeps the song from being just some hippie curio, even though the sound of the track—the close vocal harmonies, the Roger McGuinn-esque guitar, and the steady/poppy rhythm section—sets it squarely in the 60s.  (If I had to pick a favorite part of the song, it would be lead singer/bassist Jesse Colin Young's simple-yet-grooving bassline on the break, just after the guitar solo.)

A few bar trivia facts: The Youngbloods weren't the first ones to cover the song.  The Kingston Trio actually did the first version in 1964, titled "Let's Get Together."  Jefferson Airplane also did a version on their first album in 1966.  

The Youngbloods' version was first issued as a single from their eponymous debut album in 1967, but it was ignored upon release.  It wasn't until February 1969, when the National Conference of Christians and Jews (now known as the National Conference for Community and Justice) used "Get Together" in a commercial to promote its annual National Brotherhood Week, that the music-buying public began to pay attention.  By August of that year, "Get Together" had become a Top 5 hit—nearly two years after its original release.

"Smokestack Lightning" (Howlin' Wolf)

At some point, I went from being a Muddy Waters fanatic to a Howlin' Wolf fanatic.  Might have been around the time I got a Muddy Waters cassette stuck in the tape deck of my car in college, so every time I turned on the radio, there was always Muddy belting out "Hoochie Coochie Man," live from the Newport Jazz Festival, 1960.  Or maybe it was around age 20, when I bought a Chess Records compilation and heard Howlin' Wolf for the first time and was instantly mesmerized by that voice.  It sounded like liquor, buckshot, and razor blades, thrown in a blender on high speed.  
I loved it.  Still do.
But more than just the sound of Wolf's voice, there was a real earthiness and pain in his delivery.  Unlike Waters, Wolf's songs were less often about boasting or proving his virility and more often about being down on his luck in love: women cheated on him, left him, stole from him, and gave him gasoline instead of water when he was thirsty.  There's something inherently reassuring about a man of Olympic stature (he was 6'3" and nearly 300 pounds) who was as vulnerable as the rest of us mere mortals.
My all-time favorite bad luck song of his is the 1956 single "Smokestack Lightning"—a greasy recasting of his own 1951 song "Crying at Daybreak," which is a lament about his woman leaving him.  
In short, Wolf is watching a locomotive passing in the night, and he's wailing at the sight of the golden sparks coming out of the smokestack (i.e. "smokestack lightning"), knowing that his baby hopped that train and left him for good.  Or, to look at it another way: his woman found a flashy, new man willing to carry her.
Wolf's voice is mournful and haunting throughout the track.  I love his literal howls after each verse; they're as spine-tinglingly lupine as they are train-like.  Also, lead guitarist Hubert Sumlin's prototypical electric blues riff sounds as lonesome and lowdown as Wolf's moan itself.
In short, feeling this bad never sounded so damn good.

"Mystery Train" (Elvis Presley)

Before the song "Heartbreak Hotel" made him a household name, Elvis Presley had cut several sides for producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis between 1954-55.  His final recording for Sun and his first #1 charting single was the country song "I Forgot to Remember to Forget."  
But I want to discuss the flip side of that single: "Mystery Train."
I'll start by saying, as a child of the late 70s, the image of Elvis that was burned into my brain at an early age was the puffy, sweaty Elvis in sequined jumpsuits who struggled to remember lyrics.  You know, the kind of caricature that you'd find some two-bit impersonator with a beer gut and pair of mutton chops trying to pull off at a drive-thru wedding chapel a couple of miles off the Strip.  Even as a kid, I had no time for that kind of Lost Wages kitsch, so I kind of turned my nose up at Presley's whole catalog and career.
It wasn't until I got a bit older and started exploring my dad's record collection that I first heard a couple of Presley's early recordings, and they blew me away.  They were raw and boundless in their fusion of country and R&B.  Not what I'd been conditioned to expect at all.
What surprised me most was that nothing sounded contrived.  
(Slightly derivative?  Maybe.  Insincere?  Not in the least.)
I guess the cynic in me was expecting the music to sound transparently money-grubbing—kind of like when producers in the 2000s started tossing together the hottest rapper of the moment with the hottest pop-country star of the moment on duets that played to the lowest common denominator of both fan bases.  (I'll let you, dear reader, do a Google search for yourself to find examples.)
But what I heard instead was three blue-collar guys from Memphis, jamming on their favorite country tunes in the style of their favorite R&B tunes, and vice versa.  And it not only worked, but it was electrifying.
Which brings me to 1955's "Mystery Train," a straightforward blues tune that was originally written and performed by blues artist Junior Parker for Sun Records in 1953.  Presley, lead guitarist Scotty Moore, and bassist Bill Black take the basic structure of Parker's song and then "countrify" it with that galloping rhythm/riff, which worms its way into your core within the first 3 seconds of the intro.
What I love about this track overall is the recorded-live feel—not to mention that glorious 1950s slap-back reverb on all of the instruments.
But Presley's vocal truly steals the show.  From effortlessly hitting those high notes on Train! Train! down to the low notes that cap every stanza, it's a helluva performance.  The icing on the cake is the little oooh-woo! he lets out at the end, sounding like a train whistle trailing off into the night.  It's obvious he was having the time of his life.

"Up On Cripple Creek" (The Band)

"Funk" is not necessarily what comes to mind when one thinks of The Band.  Yet, it's hard to characterize "Up On Cripple Creek" from 1969's The Band as anything else but funk.  Between Levon Helm's syncopated drum licks and Garth Hudson's inventive use of a wah-wah pedal on his clavinet to create a jaw harp sound, the song is rooted in rhythm.
The astounding part to me is that Helm was able to put down his soulful, Southern-fried vocal while simultaneously kicking that beat.  It's the musical equivalent of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
But as the ever-humble Helm (RIP) noted in the Classic Albums: The Band documentary from 1997, he actually preferred to drum when he sang.
"People give me good credit, and I appreciate it.  They think it's harder to play when you sing, but it's actually easier because you play along and you leave holes, and there's where you sing."

"Tell Me Something Good" (Rufus feat. Chaka Khan)

Time was, Stevie Wonder was bubbling over with so much unbridled creativity that, not only was he churning out his own awe-inspiring albums every few months, he was giving away a ton of music to other artists, too.  Aretha Franklin, The Spinners, and the band Rufus, to name but a few.
Wonder became a fan of Rufus after hearing their 1973 cover of his song "Maybe Your Baby," which features a searing lead vocal from Chaka Khan.  To express his admiration, he decided to write Rufus an original song with Khan's voice in mind.
So one afternoon, he surprised them by dropping by their recording studio in L.A. and unveiled his new composition, a funky, upbeat song called "Come and Get This Stuff."
Khan (being Khan) flat out told Wonder that she didn't care for it.
As you can imagine, the band was mortified.  But Wonder (being Wonder) laughed it off and whipped up the sultry "Tell Me Something Good" in response.  
(He ultimately gave "Come and Get This Stuff" to his ex-wife, Syreeta Wright, for her second album, Stevie Wonder Presents: Syreeta.)
Like every Wonder composition, everything on "Tell Me Something Good" from 1974's Rags to Rufus is in its right place: the slinky verses with their descending clavinet lines, the noteless bridges with their heavy-breathing vocal percussion, and the fiery choruses with their rapturous exclamations of Tell me something good, punctuated by "talkbox" and distorted lead guitars.  It all serves to make your hips move like...well...y'know.
But it's Khan's performance that seals the deal.  She promises that she's gonna set your stuff on fire, and then she delivers, tenfold.  Her vocal is so naughty yet so sublimely sweet, I'm sure it's why radio programmers in 1974 couldn't resist keeping this paean to good nookie in constant rotation.

"Real Love" (Mary J. Blige)

I'd heard Mary J. Blige's debut single, "You Remind Me," on the radio back in 1992, and I liked it well enough.  It was a pleasant R&B ballad with a nice hook.  But it didn't bowl me over.
And then her second single from What's the 411? dropped.
I'd never heard anything quite like "Real Love" before.  
Before 1992, if a song came at you with that kind of streetwise beat, you pretty much knew someone was going to be rapping, not singing, over it.  But here was this beautiful, young voice, singing about her quest for true affection with this hip-hop backdrop (sampled from the classic track "Top Billin'" by Audio Two, which itself is built on a cleverly chopped up sample from "Impeach the President" by the Honey Drippers.)  Her delivery was warm and sincere, yet it also had a ton of grit; it was like listening to a hip-hop Etta James.
Although I think Blige truly came into her own on 1994's My Life, which is a stronger collection of songs overall compared to What's the 411?, "Real Love" is still the touchstone that defines the career of the "Queen of Hip-Hop Soul" for me.

"They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)" (Pete Rock & CL Smooth)

My favorite hip-hop album of all time is Mecca and the Soul Brother (1992).  The record is the perfect specimen of intelligent lyrics and creative production coming together to create something timeless that transcends genre.  CL Smooth's flows are as natural as breath, while the inimitable Pete Rock's production makes the familiar fresh and the obscure familiar.  That's true of every song, verse, bridge, intro, and outro on the entire album.
But my favorite cut (and my favorite hip-hop single of all time) is the reverent and profound "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)."
I first heard the song late one night while channel surfing in spring 1992.  I wasn't sleeping too well back in those days because my dad kept having these Parkinson's-related episodes, where he'd wake up in the middle of the night, freaking out because he couldn't move or breathe properly.  That year, there was a 6-month stretch where my mom and I were loading him in the car at least once every 10 days to take him to the emergency room.
The first few times, I went with them to the hospital and tried to sleep in the waiting area, which was nearly impossible.  As you might imagine, getting ready for school the next morning was a bitch, and after getting reprimanded for being late to school a number of times, my mom decided that, for all future incidents, I should stay home and rest.
Anyway, I first saw the video for "They Reminisce Over You" late one night, a few days after one of my dad's episodes.  (I've found that, after a jarring event like that, you often don't feel the full effects mentally and physically until a few days later.)  I was exhausted but couldn't shut off my brain, so I wound up watching a broadcast of Yo! MTV Raps.  In the middle of a video block, hosts Ed Lover and Doctor Dré started telling a story, which I wasn't following too well, that somehow involved Salt-N-Pepa and Rock's cousin, Heavy D. (RIP).  From the somber tone, I could tell they were talking about someone's passing, which was even more obvious as soon as the video started to roll.  What I witnessed was a heartfelt, cinematic eulogy set to one of most haunting jazz breaks I'd ever heard.
The story behind the song, as Rock recounted in a 2011 interview with Complex magazine, is that his childhood friend, Troy "Trouble T-Roy" Dixon, had been a dancer/rapper with Heavy D. & The Boyz, who were touring in 1990 with Kid 'n Play and Salt-N-Pepa.  After a show in Indianapolis, Dixon was having fun and clowning around, when he slipped from an elevated ramp and fell 20 feet to his death.  His sudden passing devastated his family and friends, but it hit Rock especially hard and caused him to fall into a lengthy depression.
In short, he and CL Smooth created the song as a way to heal.
"CL came up with the lyrics even before I came up with the beat…The beat made me emotional so I figured it would work.  When the lyrics came together with the music, that was the match made in heaven.  Thank God it matched the way it did.  It was a great outcome."
The song resonated with me because I found CL Smooth's lyrics comforting at a time of turmoil in my own life.  He was rapping about his own family persevering through less than ideal circumstances, and it made me feel that I could persevere, too.  
But, more than anything, it was Pete Rock's music that reached right into my soul.  His brilliant treatment of jazzman Tom Scott's cover of Jefferson Airplane's "Today" is the most beautiful, sincere sample in all of hip-hop.  The soulful saxophone, the choir backing vocals drenched in reverb, and that Motown-meets-acid jazz beat were/are capable of suspending reality for me, if even for 4 minutes.

"So Fresh, So Clean" (OutKast)

There are so many songs in OutKast's catalog, including quirky/obscure album tracks, that I love.  But I can't help but choose the single "So Fresh, So Clean" from Stankonia (2000) as one of my favorite tracks.
Basically, it's just André 3000 and Big Boi spitting freaky deaky come-ons over a tasty, tricked-out Organized Noize beat for 4 minutes.  But the scenarios they sling are just so wrong that they're right: they call up everything from Noah's Ark to Anne Frank in their quests to get some luvin'.
My favorite pick-up line of all comes from Big Boi: Teddy Pendergrass / Cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin' a milkshake in a snowstorm.
Game doesn't get colder than that.

"Check the Rhime" (A Tribe Called Quest)

"Check the Rhime" from 1991's The Low End Theory was my first introduction to A Tribe Called Quest, even though the group already had several singles and an album, 1990's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, under its belt.
I was in 8th grade when "Check the Rhime" dropped—a time when the likes of Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer were still being crammed down our throats (you couldn't turn on MTV without seeing the latter's gaudy, unintentionally hilarious "2 Legit 2 Quit" video every 20 minutes).  The whole pop-rap craze was really off-putting to me, especially when I knew there were groups out there (who didn't have Saturday morning cartoon shows) making intelligent hip-hop that acknowledged the genre's roots in blues, jazz, and funk.
Anyway, in the midst of all the "2L2Q"-ing, here was a group out of Queens with this unflashy video, where no one was wearing parachute pants or flashing lame hand gestures.  They traded rhymes like crews from the early 80s, only with flows that were so much smoother and more cerebral.  Plus, the backing track was funky.  It didn't surprise me at all when I found out they were compatriots of De La Soul and Jungle Brothers.
Incidentally, my favorite verse of the song is still Q-Tip's quip at the very end of the track:
Proper.  What you say, Hammer?  Proper.
Rap is not pop, if you call it that, then stop.

"Devil's Pie" (D'Angelo)

There had been definite tinges of Marvin Gaye on Michael "D'Angelo" Archer's debut album, Brown Sugar (1995).  But I felt an even stronger kinship between Gaye and D'Angelo on the song "Devil's Pie," which was released as a single in 1998 and eventually appeared on his second album, Voodoo (2000).  It wasn't so much D'Angelo's vocal approach, per se, or the sound of the song that made me think of Gaye.  In fact, the song was more indebted to hip-hop than the 70s-influenced jazz-soul found on Brown Sugar, courtesy of the brilliant production work of Gang Starr's DJ Premier.  (Why brilliant?  Just check out the bassline of the track.  It's built from a two-second sample from the ballad "And If I Had" by Teddy Pendergrass, which Premier chopped and looped to create the foundation of the whole song.)  Rather, it was the inherent human struggle in the song: the challenge of living in the material, physical world tempered with a need for deeper, spiritual fulfillment.  That theme pops up throughout Gaye's entire catalog and life story, just as it does D'Angelo's.
Think about it: both were the sons of charismatic preachers, both grew up singing/playing in the church, but then both got a taste of fame and its trappings at a fairly young age, and overindulgence in the material world led to negative consequences for them both.  
All I can say is, thank God D'Angelo is still with us and making music.
Anyway, "Devil's Pie" is about trying to maintain perspective in the face of materialism and what can happen when you let the acquisition/consumption of stuff run your life.  He acknowledges that things like "bread," "cheddar," and "dough" are everyday necessities; however, they can become the ingredients in the "Devil's Pie" if you let them.  Clever little metaphor, I think.
Going back to the music/production on the track for a moment, the earthly/spiritual dichotomy is present there, too.  The beat and samples have the raw feel of hard-edged hip-hop, yet the choir of D'Angelos intoning the verses and refrains sounds like a congregation at a dirt floors chapel.  It reminds me of going to my great aunt's Pentecostal church in rural Western NC and hearing her, pounding away at an out of tune piano, while old women who could barely stand shook tambourines and sang/shouted to the rafters in hopes of catching the Ghost.  I hear that sound come through in D'Angelo's layered vocals on "Devil's Pie," particularly toward the end of the track.  
(My take is that he channels Prince as much as the choir from his dad's old church on every song he sings.)
I also go back to Premier's bassline, where the contrast is present, too: the bassline isn't even in the same key as what D'Angelo's singing; but it's tenacious and sincere, just like my great aunt playing her gospel song on that busted upright piano.

"He Can Only Hold Her" (Amy Winehouse)

Amy Winehouse was a tortured, talented soul whose star burned out much too soon.  Years from now, I have a feeling that her second album, Back to Black (2006), will be widely regarded one of the best pop albums of the 2000s—and not just because the decade was otherwise filled with Auto-Tune garbage; the disc stands on its own merits.  Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson's 60s throwback production gave the songs an air of familiarity, but then Winehouse flipped the tunes on their heads by giving them witty, irreverent lyrics that set them squarely in the 21st century.

If I had to choose a signature song for her, it wouldn't be the cheeky Ray Charles-indebted "Rehab," or the heart-wrenching addiction tale (disguised as torch song) "Back to Black."  I would choose the lesser known album closer, "He Can Only Hold Her."
To the casual listener, the vintage Stax-flavored track (which features members of the Dap-Kings, replaying portions of the obscure soul nugget "(My Girl) She's A Fox" (1966) by The Icemen*) might seem to be about Winehouse feeling torn between two men: she's pining for an old flame, and neither she nor her current boyfriend really know how to quell those feelings.  However, if you put the song in the larger context of the album and look at the narrative arc (she starts out by refusing rehab and then, along the way, confesses that she always falls back on bad habits whenever she gets her heart broken), it becomes clear that this song is about addiction.
Unlike every other song on the album, she sings "He Can Only Hold Her" in third person.  Curiously, she's able to acknowledge for the first time on the album that she's not merely a victim of circumstance but an active participant.  As an objective observer of her own situation, she finally realizes that clever quips, sex, and/or her old Donny Hathaway records aren't going to save her.  But the truly heartbreaking thing is, she doesn't know how to save herself.  
At the risk of sounding completely morbid, she wrote her own obituary.
The day she passed away in 2011, I listened to this track over 100 times, disappointed that she had become yet another entertainer to die before age 30.  As a fan, I'd sincerely hoped that, by recognizing her demons, she could exorcise them.  But that simply wasn't the case in the end.  Still, she left behind a solid (albeit brief) legacy of pithy, soulful music that will surely endure.

(*If you take a listen to the linked track, you might recognize the guitar playing of the late Jimi Hendrix.  The single was recorded about a year before Are You Experienced? would drop.)