"Pump It Up" (Elvis Costello)

Kind of sad to admit, but up until a few years ago, I had only a passing acquaintance with Elvis Costello's music from the late 70s.  I'd heard his reggae-tinged "Watching the Detectives" used on T.V. in various ways over the years.  (Never really cared for the song, actually.)  But all I really knew about the guy was that he'd recorded some stuff with Burt Bacharach in the late 90s and was married to jazz artist Diana Krall.
It wasn't until the mid-2000s when I was living in Charlotte that I sort of stumbled upon Costello's early New Wave stuff.
There's this classic rock/deep cuts station called 95.7 "The Ride" that broadcasts in the city.  The station is what FM radio should be: no stupid morning teams trying (and failing) to be funny, no dumb contests, and zero hype—even their station ID bumpers are just this dude with a weathered voice saying, "95.7: The Riiiiiide."  The disc jockeys simply play music, and they never talk over the tracks.  It's awesome.
One DJ in particular named Harriet Coffey always had a knack for playing stuff that I liked.  And she always seemed to enjoy and know a lot about the stuff she played, too, which made me a fast fan.
One afternoon, I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic in suburban Charlotte, watching the traffic lights ahead change from green to red at least 6 times without anyone moving an inch, when here came Harriet to save the day.  She announced that her next song was "Pump It Up" from Elvis Costello's album This Year's Model (1978), and this jam with thudding drums, throbbing bass, cranked up guitar, and squeaky Vox Continental organ came springing from my speakers.  I was floored.  This was definitely not the Costello who'd made a cameo in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, strumming his guitar and crooning mildly with a grinning Bacharach backing him on piano.  No, this was a manic punk with brains, come to shake us up and shimmy down.
Speaking of brains, it's a wickedly clever song from a wickedly good album.  On the surface, "Pump It Up" is a terse little rocker about hanging out with girls and listening to music with the volume cranked up.  But a closer read reveals a biting satire of the club scene of the late 70s: the pills, the powders, the booze, the sex.  Basically, the tableau he presents is one where everyone is looking for some sort of gratification but only gets frustration instead.
To expand on that, I recently ran across a quote from Costello from an interview with SPIN from 2008, where he was discussing his 70s image and songwriting.  
"I didn't feel like a rock 'n' roll star.  I was just some guy working in an office who'd written some songs.  And the fact that I had this absurd name and was posing like a rock 'n' roller with these splayed legs [on the cover of My Aim Is True]—it was a satire.  That's kind of the same thing in 'Pump It Up' [from This Year's Model]: If you listen to the lyrics, it kind of goes against the grain of hedonism."

"Dreaming" (Blondie)

Two things before we get started.
1. Clem Burke is one of the best drummers of all time.
2. I really need to start paying attention to the speakers/lecturers schedule at the 92nd Street Y.  
I just found out yesterday that I missed a candid chat with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein at the Y a few months ago.  I'm totally kicking myself right now.  For a measly couple of bucks and a 4-block walk from my apartment, I could have listened to two of my favorite people in rock yak about everything from CBGB to Fab 5 Freddy for an evening, and I frigging missed it.  (No doubt I was sitting at home, doing something stupid that evening, like watching Chopped while playing "Name That Toupée" on Sporcle.  **sigh**)
Anyway, if you need an explanation for item #1 above, just take a listen to the drums on "Dreaming" from Blondie's 1979 album Eat to the Beat.  They sound like rolling thunder throughout the entire track, and Burke just never lets up.  His energy level is as intense at the start as it is by the time the song fades out 3 glorious minutes later.  (His closest counterpart for sheer rhythmic intensity is the late Keith Moon.)
But props also have to go to Harry for her heartfelt lyrics and Stein for his tasty pop-punk melody.  (Seriously, why isn't anyone writing pop music with brains and muscle like this anymore?)  According to the Interwebs, Stein came up with the basic chord progression and the line Dreaming / Dreaming is free, and then he handed it off to Harry, who ran with the theme.
And based on a transcript of their conversation at the Y (did I mention that I missed it?), the song was inspired by a very unlikely muse.
Said Stein, "'Dreaming' is basically (ABBA's) 'Dancing Queen.'  It's a direct cop.  There's not enough (similar) notes to get sued, though."
I'm a pretty astute listener when it comes spotting the influence of one song on another.  (That's generally why things are sequenced the way they are on my list of favorites.)  But never in a million years would I have picked up on the influence of "Dancing Queen" on "Dreaming" had I not read that quote.  Consider me floored.

"Baba O'Riley" (The Who)

It's one of the most famous intros in all of rock.  The moment you hear that hypnotic synth sequence, there's no doubt that you're listening to "Baba O'Riley" from Who's Next (1971).
Part of Pete Townshend's abandoned rock opera Lifehouse (see my entry on "Won't Get Fooled Again"), "Baba O'Riley" is set in the future after mankind has turned the planet into a polluted dump—hence Roger Daltrey's repeated phrase teenage wasteland toward the end of the song.  More or less, the song is about poor farmers' kids tossing down their plows and making a pilgrimage across what's left of England to attend this massive electronic music concert, where they hope to rekindle some kind of connection with reality and humanity.  
So what's that story have to do with the song's title?  
Not much, really.
As Townshend states in this clip from VH1's Storytellers, the "Baba" part refers to Indian philosopher/spiritual leader Meher Baba, whose teachings about perception and spirituality heavily influenced Townshend during this period.  The "Riley" part refers to American avant garde musician and composer Terry Riley; Townshend's synth line is a clear homage to Riley's electronic experiments on the album A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969).  (Take a listen, and you'll instantly hear what I mean.)  Finally, because the violin jig at the end of the track sounded "a bit Irish," he added the "O'" to Riley's name.
The decidedly cerebral part of the song aside, it's a bruiser.  Between Townshend's windmill power chords and the late Keith Moon's rhythmic assault, it's impossible to hear this track and not want to take on the world.  (I've used it many a time to psych myself up for some task that I was dreading or scared to do.) 

"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen)

I first heard heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" from Queen's A Night at the Opera (1975) sometime in 1992.  I was watching Queen's concert film We Will Rock You (1982) on cable, and the song was kind of buried in the middle of the show's lengthy song set.  Considering that everything preceding and following it was equally hyper-dramatic and energetic, the song honestly didn't stand out to me.  (When you're going 150 mph already, speeding up to 200 doesn't feel all that different.)
Not long after, I saw the film Wayne's World (1992) and that scene everybody now knows, where Wayne and Garth lip sync to Freddie Mercury's vocals and headbang to the heavy section of the song.  I loved the movie and that scene.  Still, the song seemed like a gilded novelty to me; the lean, mean rock of 1977's News of the World appealed to me more than the extravagant A Night at the Opera.
It really wasn't until a road trip in the winter of 2001 that I warmed to the genius of "Bohemian Rhapsody."
I'd driven from Charlotte to New Orleans for a job interview at a publishing house.  The most bizarre interview I've ever had in my life.  The gentleman who owned the company was kind of like a cross between Boss Hog and Colonel Sanders; he had the all-white linen suit and everything.  The moment he asked me, "Who are your people, son?" and then let slip that their original headquarters on the other side of the Mississippi may have been set ablaze for insurance purposes, I started looking around for the hidden cameras.  It was all too Tennessee Williams to be real.
Feeling quite sure I was not the candidate that he and his HR henchwoman were looking for, I re-packed my bags the next morning and got on the road for North Carolina.  (The weirdest part was, six months later, after I'd already landed a job at a trade magazine in DC, the HR woman called my mother's house, asking if I'd found an apartment in New Orleans.  They hadn't seen me at work, and they wondered when I might be coming in.  Apparently, the old fella had hired me, but no one had bothered to tell me!)
So I was in the middle of the 11-hour drive from New Orleans to Charlotte.  I'd stopped off at a McDonald's on the west side of Atlanta to psych myself up for the traffic hell that is Georgia's capital and get a very large cup of much-needed coffee.  As you might have guessed, I promptly spilled about half of the coffee on myself/my seat as I was getting back into the car.  
Still deliriously tired, I get back on the expressway.  I'm zipping along I-20 with the strong smell of java and warm sugar wafting from my upholstery, when I hear Is this the real life?  Is this just fantasy? coming from the classic rock station on my car radio.
It was the perfect line to sum up the entire experience.  
By the time I started winding my way through the center of the city on I-85, I was belting out the opera section and not really giving a damn if other drivers could see me.
And that's when it hit me: that was Mercury's whole point.  He knew the song was going to raise some eyebrows.  But so what?  Why not put opera and hard rock together in the same song?  The people who understood that the world is bizarre would get it.
A Night at the Opera was a "now or never" moment for Queen, and Mercury boldly put what was in his head out there as if no one (and everyone) was listening.  And it paid off.
Anyway, when I listen to the song now, I not only think of that trip, but also I listen and marvel that Mercury pretty much had the whole 6-minute suite with all of its mood shifts and operatic vocals, mapped out in his head before the band had even started to record, as guitarist Brian May notes in this interview.
It's simply a work of art.

"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (The Stooges)

"I Wanna Be Your Dog" from The Stooges' eponymous, John Cale-produced debut album begins in a mangle of distortion and ends in a haze of wailing fuzz guitar.  In between, there's some clanging piano, jingling sleigh bells, and thunderous drums that sound like they're getting the daylights pounded out of them.
It's 3 minutes of primal perfection.
Quite simply, the song is Iggy Pop declaring that he wants to be objectified like a dog.  
Or as he put it to Howard Stern back in 1990, "It's the idea of 'I want to unite with your body.'  I don't want to talk about literature with you or something, you know.  I don't want to judge you as a person.  I want to dog you."
No more, no less.

"Rock the Casbah" (The Clash)

Even before I listened—I mean really listened—to the song "Rock the Casbah," I was a big fan of the music video.  I'm pretty sure I first saw a snippet of it on Casey Kasem's syndicated America's Top 10 T.V. show sometime around late 1982/early 1983.  Those famous shots of the Arab sheik and Hassidic limo driver, hanging out, dancing around, and chowing down on Whoppers outside an Austin-area Burger King, instantly made an impression.  I laughed myself silly the first time I watched it (you know, one of those "grab your feet and rock back-and-forth while trying not to wet yourself" little kid laughs).
I didn't really think much of the song itself until I started hearing it again in college.  In the mid-90s, G-105 (WDCG-FM) out of Raleigh, NC, went to an all alt-rock format.  So anything that even smelled faintly of angst got steady airplay, including certain songs from The Clash's Combat Rock (1982).  "Rock the Casbah" made at least a daily appearance amidst all of the various Third Eye Blind and Goo Goo Dolls stuff that was in constant rotation. 
Hearing it on its own, separate from the video (which is still a work of low-budget genius, by the way), I realized just how good "Rock the Casbah" is.  Unlike other songs from that era, there's little about it production-wise that screams "1982."  Its punk sneer, biting wit, and danceable groove all feel timeless.  It also still feels eerily relevant, considering that not much has changed with the political situation in the Middle East since the late, great Joe Strummer wrote his lyrics about religious fanatics banning the boogie.
But the real genius behind the song was the band's drummer, Topper Headon, who not only wrote the music but also performed drums, piano, and bass on the track.  The irony is, Headon got kicked out of the band just before "Rock the Casbah" became a hit.  Strummer fired him because he was in the throes of heroin addiction and was becoming more of a liability than an asset.  It's a battle Headon only recently won after years of self-destructive behavior.

"You Really Got Me" (The Kinks)

Two power chords, played over and over.  Save the key changes at the end of the verses, that's all there is to "You Really Got Me."  It's that simple, and it's simply amazing.
Every time I listen to this track from 1964, it's impossible not to hear the blueprint for everything from The Stooges to The Sex Pistols in that distorted guitar riff.  To me, it's the aural equivalent of Ben Franklin tying his infamous key to a kite in a lightning storm: he might not have known what the outcome was going to be, but he knew the future would make your hair stand on end.
Story goes, Kinks frontman/songwriter Ray Davies and his brother/sparring partner, guitarist Dave Davies, would listen to records on their home hi-fi with the volume turned all the way up, which caused the speakers to distort.  So they wondered if they could get the same crackle out of a guitar amp.  
Depending upon which Davies brother you choose to believe, Ray claims he stuck a knitting needle in the speaker cone of his brother's amplifier; Dave says he slashed up the cone of his amp with a razor blade so that the sound produced a "jagged roar."  Either way, a new sound was born.
What I find even more interesting, though, is where Ray claims he got the inspiration for the song.
In a 2014 interview with NPR's Terry Gross, he says he was studying fine art and filmmaking in art school and was just dabbling in music as a hobby, when a mentor of his encouraged him to starting writing his own songs.  So he began trying his hand at coming up with R&B riffs, drawing upon his affection of American country blues, particularly bluesman Big Bill Broonzy.  But then, he says his experience singing Gregorian chants in his school choir started creeping in, and that sound influenced the outcome of the verses: Girl, you've really got me going...
"So it evolves through a mixture of blues and my sort of English, quirky, subliminal influence of being in a choir doing Gregorian chant, which definitely comes through if you really think about it."

"What I Like About You" (The Romantics)

If one good thing has come out of the digital age and digital music distribution, it's not having to rely on radio or MTV to dictate when and how often you get to hear music.  If you want to binge watch every video ever made by some band on YouTube or listen to some new track 100 times at work on Spotify and then download it to your phone while riding the bus on the way home, you can do that.  No more sitting and waiting through a bunch of crap to hear the song/see the video that you really want.
Which brings me to my song of the day.
When I was a little kid, my family listened to pop/rock radio a lot.  Monday through Friday, it was on from about 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening.  So I soaked up every new thing that hit the airwaves.  I first heard "What I Like About You" from The Romantics' self-titled album on the radio sometime around 1980, and I loved it.  I wanted to hear the song all the time.  The chunky guitar riff.  The shouted hey! vocals.  The wild harmonica solo, which kind of reminded me of my mom's early Beatles records (I was obsessed with "Love Me Do" as a toddler).  
Radio obliged for a few months, and then the song totally disappeared.  It was as if the Caesars of the broadcast world decided that The Romantics needed to be thrown to the lions and Babs Streisand's "Guilty" should reign victorious and be played a thousand times a day.  (God, I hated that schmaltzy, disco-fied turd of a song even back then.)
It wasn't until years later that I heard "What I Like About You" again on a commercial (Wikipedia and the Interwebs seem to indicate it was a 1990 Budweiser spot, so we'll go with that).  Suddenly, the song was getting airplay again.  MTV even slipped it back into rotation in its late-day video blocks.  I remember seeing the video for the very first time in middle school and being surprised that the drummer, Jimmy Marinos, was also the lead singer on the track.  (Side note: Marinos along with the band's guitarists, Wally Palmar and Mike Skill, wrote the song.)
Anyway, "What I Like About You" was one of the first songs I downloaded from iTunes the moment I got an iPod, and it has stayed on my playlists for the past 10 years.  So now I can hear it anytime I please.  
Suck it, radio.

"Circle Sky" (The Monkees)

Like a lot of people my age, I grew up watching re-runs of The Monkees T.V. show on MTV as a kid.  Great thing was, I could appreciate the show for what it was: fiction.  I didn't have all of that "are they a real band?" crap overshadowing my enjoyment of it.  I got that they were comedic actors playing musicians in a struggling garage band.  And I also got that, although they might have been miming to someone else's backing tracks most of the time, each individual had musical talent.

Honestly, I've never understood the whole backlash against The Monkees.  Maybe that's because I grew up in an era where every cartoon character on Saturday morning T.V. had its own album, merchandising, and branding out the wazoo.  (I mean, you don't have to be in Mensa to grasp that "Papa Smurf" wasn't playing guitar on The Smurfs' album.)

Anyway, if you've never seen the movie Head (1968), it's worth watching.  The absurdist film by The Monkees creator Bob Rafelson and a young Jack Nicholson basically takes the whole concept of the T.V. show and puts a stick of dynamite in its mouth.  In short, the movie not only admits that the band is manufactured, but it also points out that everything else in pop culture is fake, too.  It's all a matter of how much of the lie you want to believe or buck.

In any case, the film has a damn good soundtrack that avoids any bubblegum filler.  Even the softer/sunnier fare has teeth.  (For example, the late Davy Jones sings the Harry Nilsson-penned "Daddy's Song," which is a poignant song about a man abandoning his family, disguised as an upbeat dancehall number.)

My favorite track, though, is Mike Nesmith's own composition "Circle Sky," an electric guitar-driven scorcher.  (It might even be the first, real instance of alt-country on record.)  Taking a glance at the lyrics, it's obvious the song is about The Monkees' career.  Using an economy of words, Nesmith paints a picture of studio executives calling the shots and the band having to sell the lie, over and over again.  At the same time, Papa Nez is asking listeners to suspend disbelief and simply appreciate the music.

Or as he told teen mag Flip back in December 1968, "It seems like we've gone full circle back to the beginning.  But I ain't standing for it.  I mean, I'm moving on.  I'm going to see what other career can happen."

"You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" (Spoon)

The thing I like about Spoon is that they're consistently consistent.  That's not to say they're predictable, though.  I just mean that, whenever a new Spoon album drops (or gets leaked), I know it's going to be a compelling listen.  They're one of the few bands that I actually get excited about these days.
Along with that, frontman Britt Daniel is one of the few artists who I'll still take 5 minutes to read about in the music press—particularly if it's an interview where he's discussing the creative process behind his songs.  Great thing is, I never get that "I'm an artist, dammit!" pretentiousness from him.  But I do sense that he truly works at his craft.  He also has a brain and isn't afraid to use it.
I definitely got that sense the first time I heard "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb" from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007).  I still love that entire album, but "Cherry Bomb" stuck out to me from moment one.  It was immediately poppy and catchy, yet it also hinted at its layers of deeper meaning beneath that accessible groove.  It reminded me of something that Elvis Costello would have put out, circa 1977—the tinges of punk and Motown/Spector give it that feel.  (Daniel told Salon.com in 2014 that the song was Spoon's attempt to sound like The Supremes.)
The intelligent lyrics also feel like My Aim Is True-era Costello.  Daniel doesn't beat you over the head with the fact that this is a breakup song.  Instead, he drops hints through fractured, metaphoric poetry.  (What better symbol than a smoldering cherry bomb could one use to describe love that's well past its sell-by date?)
As he told eMusic back in 2007, "That central image of the 'cherry bomb' came naturally.  Sometimes lines just come to you while you're singing, and you're not sure where they came from.  I came up with the cherry bomb being representative of a need to blow out this romantic flame."

Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) (The Hollies)

Revisiting my mother's collection of singles again.
She owned a number of 45's by The Hollies, one of the many British Invasion bands of the early/mid-60s.  (I tend to think of that era as "The Beatles, The Stones, and miscellany.")  
On that note, I never really thought much of The Hollies.  I find most of their songs to be painfully lightweight.  For instance, I remember my mom had this one frothy pop tune called "On a Carousel," which I heard again for the first time in many years on an episode of Mad Men last season.  I believe she also had another single of theirs called "Look Through Any Window," which I accidentally broke as a toddler*.  And don't get me started on their abysmal "Air That I Breathe" from the mid-70s.  Had she owned that single, I probably would have "accidentally" smashed it, too.
But then there was the 1972 track "Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)"—this taut, rocking number about an undercover FBI agent who falls in love with this tall, sexy lounge singer in the midst of some sort of Prohibition-era sting operation.  It was a helluva departure for the band and an interesting topic for a rock song.
That said, the G-man narrative isn't what grabs me.  To be honest, I couldn't understand half of the lyrics that frontman Allan Clarke was singing anyway.  (Earlier today, I learned the line that comes after She was a long, cool woman in a black dress is actually Just a 5'9" beautiful, tall, which refers to the woman's height.  I always thought it was something more poetic/metaphoric: Just a fine and beautiful song.  Who knew?)  
No, what draws me to the song is its bright, crisp Fender Telecaster sound.  That clean guitar tone simultaneously gives the track a bit of 50s throwback bop and early 70s crunch.
Poking around the Web, I've read various comments from actual music critics and armchair experts that Clarke was attempting to rip off Creedence Clearwater Revival's sound in order to score a hit.  And I suppose I hear the influence.  There's a touch of John Fogerty's "Green River" in the rhythm and riffing of "Long Cool Woman."  But I get more of a glam rock vibe, akin to T. Rex's "Bang A Gong (Get It On)," which came out the year before it in 1971.  Take a listen to them, back to back, and see what you think.

(*I broke a lot of my parents' 45's as a little kid.  Dozens.  But it was never done maliciously.
I would make up pop/rock songs of my own, and then I would pretend that my song was on one of those 45's.  I'd sit cross-legged on the floor, spinning the record on my knee—as if it were on a turntable, and use my index finger as the tone arm, all while imitating the sounds of an automatic record player, right down to the crackles, pops, and scratches of a vinyl record.
But the records didn't get broken just by me spinning them on my knee.  The destruction happened when I'd hop up abruptly, usually because my mom was calling for me or because I had to run to the restroom.  
It would go something like this: I'd attempt to stand up, one or both of my legs would be asleep, I'd lose my balance, and my knee would come smashing down on the record, cracking it in two.
...dozens.)

"Bang a Gong (Get It On)" (T. Rex)

I remember staying up really late one night in 5th grade, taping music videos off Night Tracks, this cheesy 80s show on Superstation TBS that played both new and old videos.
A little context for my geekery: my awesome 5th grade teacher was always doing fun projects with our class and giving us incentives to study hard.  There were the mammoth things she did, like the 300-mile field trip to a historical site that she organized, and the original rap that she wrote about the events leading up to the American Revolution so that we could remember key dates and names.  (Awesome, right?)  But there also were tons of smaller things.  For instance, this one time, she rewarded us with a free period to watch music videos because we'd all passed a big test (spelling, I think).  But because our elementary school didn't have cable T.V. and, therefore, no MTV, the only way to pull off a music video-viewing party was for someone to volunteer to bootleg stuff off T.V. at home and then bring the tape to school.  So I volunteered.  (Actually, it was more like "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Mrs. Wetli, can I do it, pleeeeeeeeeeeease?")
Anyway, it's May 1989, and I'm sitting in my living room with my parents at 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, filling up a videotape with all of this late-80s schlock off Night Tracks—stuff I can't believe we ever listened to (Debbie Gibson, Bobby Brown, Great White, Tone Loc, Bon Jovi, etc.).  Suddenly, here comes this video of an impish dude in bright pink pants with glitter on his face, tearing through this riff that sounded like something ripped from the Chuck Berry songs my dad listened to, only raunchier.  
I remember my mom drowsily saying, "Mike, this is from when I was in high school.  You probably want to stop the tape."  But I just let the tape roll as this diminutive rocker sang about teeth of the hydra upon you and hubcap diamond star halos.  By the time he reached that first chorus (Get it on / Bang a gong / Get it on!), I had no clue what he was singing about, but I was completely entranced.
In my gut, I knew that my classmates would want to fast-forward through it (and that premonition ultimately came true).  But I didn't care.  I knew I was an oddball with my own unique tastes*, and I wanted to have this song on tape.  Something about that glittery elf and his overdriven guitar resonated with me.  
Still does.

(*From about 1987-1991, I wore my hair in this mini-fro/pompadour thing.  God help me, I was trying for a MacGyver mullet.  My neighbor Ben had convinced me that all I had to do was wet my hair, brush it back, and then wait for it to air dry.  When Ben tried that, he ended up looking like a mini Richard Dean Anderson, for better or worse; however, when I tried it, I ended up looking like a cross between Eddie Munster and boxing promoter Don King.  But it made me 4 inches taller, so I wore my frizz with pride.)

"Moonage Daydream" (David Bowie)

I marvel at David Bowie's genius.  In 1972, he created a character—a rock & roll alien that was one part Iggy Pop and one part Warhol Factory misfit—and turned it into a vehicle to bring his music to the masses.  Granted, things got complicated when the line between the character, Ziggy Stardust, and the real David Bowie began to blur.  But I still think the basic idea of being able to step into character and act as wild, creative, and unfettered as you want and then step out of character and go home at the end of the day is brilliant.
I also think the entire The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) album is brilliantly executed—particularly the track "Moonage Daydream."  
The song actually was written by Bowie before the Ziggy concept ever took flight.  He recorded a version of it in 1971 for a short-lived side project called Arnold Corns, a "band" that basically consisted of Bowie and a fashion designer named Freddie Burretti.  The deal was, Bowie wrote and sang all of the words, and the meticulously dressed/coiffed Burretti played frontman and lip synced to Bowie's vocals.
Anyway, the Arnold Corns version failed to make any kind of commercial impact.  But it did plant the idea in Bowie's head of performing his songs as someone other than himself.
Also, it explains why "Moonage Daydream" doesn't really fit the narrative of Ziggy, unlike, say, the song "Starman" or the title track.  Nevertheless, it has that same brash and bold attitude that permeates the entire album.  And that vibe has as much to do with Bowie's delivery as it does with the guitar skills of the late Mick Ronson.
In fact, it's Ronson's guitar work that makes me love this song so much.  During the first half of the song, his playing is rhythmic yet melodic, punctuating Bowie's vocals perfectly.  During the last half of the song, when he launches into his extended solo, it's completely abstract and unhinged.  It wails and screams like the throngs of British teenagers who got glittered up and packed concert halls to catch a glimpse of The Spiders from Mars.  Apart from maybe John Coltrane's avant garde noodling on "My Favorite Things," I don't know of anything else on tape that sounds quite like it or that's packed with so much raw emotion.

"Sweet Emotion" (Aerosmith)

So another single from my mother's collection is "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith (from the band's 1975 album Toys in the Attic).  
It always struck me as an odd entry in her library.  Sure, she owned some rocking stuff by The Who, Zeppelin, the Stones, etc., but she also had equal amounts of mid-70s Neil Diamond schmaltz.  That's why the "Toxic Twins" from Boston didn't strike me as her cup of tea.
So I flat out asked her once, "Why do you own this?"
Obviously ticked off that I was questioning her sense of cool, she put the record on the turntable and started commentating.  I remember her pointing out three specific things about why she liked the song:
1) It began with a catchy chorus, and it was kind of unique to begin a song with a refrain.
2) She liked Joe Perry's riff on the bridges between verses and that woooosh sound underneath it (created by mega-producer Jack Douglas running taped handclaps and a hi-hat backwards).
3) She got a kick out of Steven Tyler's funny lyrics, which she said I'd understand when I was older.
It was interesting, hearing her break down the parts of the track that way.  Up to that point, music had been a tidal wave of sound to my ears; I'd never thought about zeroing in on the individual elements of a song to articulate why something resonated with me.  She kind of changed the way I listened to all music from then on.
Anyway, years later, I did finally understand the words to "Sweet Emotion," and, yes, they were pretty funny.  My initial assumption was that Tyler was writing about a gossiping groupie.  Turns out, he was writing about Perry's wife, Elyssa.  Both he and Perry had been competing for her affections, and the latter won out.  Suddenly, Tyler didn't care for her being around, particularly when she prevented them from writing or doing lots of heroin, so he penned this diatribe against her.  In it, he accuses her of everything from spreading rumors and stealing his booze to humping around (the droll pregnancy-scare reference You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died).
The other key element of this song that my mom didn't point out is Tom Hamilton's bassline.  (Could be because the single edit literally chops off the first :30 of the album version, omitting Hamilton's entire intro groove.)  It's easily the funkiest bassline ever in a rock song; it perfectly sets up the lowdown feel of the track and maintains its gritty pulse throughout.
Apparently, Hamilton had come up with the bass riff in high school, but it never really fit anything that Perry and Tyler had written.  So he pretty much kept it under his hat for years.  It was only when the band had extra studio time at the end of the Toys in the Attic sessions, and Douglas asked if anyone had any "spare riffs," that Hamilton finally had his moment in the sun.  Incidentally, "Sweet Emotion" is one of the very few tracks in Aerosmith's (varied) catalog that actually credits Hamilton as a co-writer.

"Cinnamon Girl" (Neil Young & Crazy Horse)

When I was a little kid, my mother owned many (many) 45 singles from the late 60s/early 70s.  She used to keep them in these old, round cookie tins because all of them had lost their paper sleeves years before.  Those tins were a treasure trove of randomness.  I'd often empty them out on our living room floor and pick about a dozen to listen to, usually based on their colorful labels.  This method of selection made for an odd mix of music: British songstress Petula Clark mingling with Harry Nilsson, The Rolling Stones, and countless one-hit-wonders.
One time, I recall spotting this record that had a colorful yellow-orange label with a riverboat on it.  I thought it looked cool, so I put it on the turntable.  Not sure what I was expecting exactly, but I was bowled over by the chunky electric riff that came blasting through the speakers.
I also remember my mother's reaction.  She got all flustered and asked me, "Geez, where did you find that record?"  I was probably five years old at the time, but even at that young age I could tell the song had some sort of nostalgic bond for her—something from her high school days that was far enough in the past to leave there but vivid enough to make her blush.  (I'm guessing it was a guy.)
Anyway, the song was "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, a track that Young supposedly wrote in an afternoon (along with "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" from 1969's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere) while delirious with a 103-degree fever, bedridden by the flu.  
Sonically, the track perfectly captures the late 60s in my mind, combining hippie/folkie melodicism with a searing hard rock assault—kind of an aural and metaphorical bridge between Woodstock and Altamont.
It also is a song that constantly reminds me that our parents are real people and not saints, thankfully.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Nirvana)

I kind of feel bad for including "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nevermind (1991) in my list, considering how tortured Kurt Cobain was by the song at the end of his short life.  (As he once told Rolling Stone, "On a bad night, I can barely get through 'Teen Spirit.'  I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away.  I can't pretend to have a good time playing it.")
But the song still means a lot to me.  And I'm not just saying that to jump on some generational bandwagon.  The moment I heard/saw the video for it on MTV, I felt like I was witnessing history: this was the antidote to all of the overblown rock and pop that had been shoved down our throats during the latter part of the 80s.  It was raw and intense in a way that revealed all of the bands riding the top of the Billboard charts in those days for the crap peddlers they really were.
But the most striking thing to me was that Cobain & Co. weren't merely telegraphing some tired sentiment like "it's cool to be uncool."  This song/band didn't give a shit about being cool.  "Cool" was some concept that advertisers had invented to make you feel bad about yourself so you buy stuff you don't need.  
No, this was a generational call to arms to stop being apathetic and stop blindly consuming bullshit.  And it rocked.
As soon as the video ended, I imagined everyone from MC Hammer to Axl Rose screaming at their agents on the phone, "What the f*** am I supposed to do after that?"
Quick side note about the song's origins: in 1990, Cobain was hanging out in Olympia, WA, with his friend Kathleen Hanna from the punk band Bikini Kill.  (She recounts the story in this great video from 2010, when she performed a cabaret act of sorts at Joe's Pub in NYC.)  In short, they got stinking drunk and wound up back at his apartment, where Hanna proceeded to write a bunch of stuff on his bedroom wall in Sharpie pen, including the taunt "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit."  (Apparently, her bandmate Tobi Vail, who was dating Cobain at the time, wore Teen Spirit deodorant.)  Six months later, Hanna got a call from Cobain, asking her permission to use the bit of graffiti for a song he was working on.
Said Hanna, "I hung up and I was like, how the f*** is he going to use 'Kurt smells like Teen Spirit' as a lyric?"

"Paranoid" (Black Sabbath)

I'm not even going to pretend that I'm a metal fan or know all that much about the band Black Sabbath.  As a music fan, I've heard the names Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi mentioned in passing for years, but I don't know enough to talk about their musical roots or playing styles, other than to use the word "heavy."  And the little I know about frontman Ozzy Osbourne (sadly) comes from The Osbournes 2000s T.V. show and the infamous, dubious lore about his stage antics.  It's still hard for me to imagine the shellshocked, soft-hearted patriarch of that reality show biting the head off any kind of bat/dove/porpoise/whatever it was he purportedly gnawed on stage.
No, my passing knowledge of the band comes from hearing their sledgehammer riffs flying at me through stadium speakers.  (Because nothing says "hit that home run" like the bludgeoning riff from "Iron Man" or "War Pigs.")
Same goes for the song at hand, "Paranoid," which comes from the 1970 album of the same name.  That riff is so chiseled in stone and full of adrenaline that it's undeniable.
Seriously, if you're not motivated to kick ass by the time Osbourne's voice erupts from the track, then you might want to go back and warm that bench.  Just saying.
I came across a 2010 interview with Butler via the Gibson guitars website (which is kind of interesting, considering Butler plays bass, but whatever), where he talked about how the track came about.  
In short, the song was an afterthought.  The album was essentially done, when their producer, Rodger Bain, told them they needed a short filler track to round things out.  Not having anything else in the bag, they came up with "Paranoid" in the studio, with Butler quickly writing some words for Osbourne to sing.  (The famously staccato manner in which Ozzy delivers the lyrics on the track is largely because he was still learning them.) 
Said Butler of the band's arguably most famous song: "Tony [Iommi] just played this riff, and we all went along with it.  We didn’t think anything of it."

"Immigrant Song" (Led Zeppelin)

That aaah-aaah-aaaaaaaah-aaah! banshee wail.  It's as jarring as it is invigorating.  
Case in point: I was sitting at a New York Rangers hockey game not too long ago.  It was second period, score still 0-0, and the Rangers were struggling to get momentum going.  To be blunt, the crowd was damn bored.  But the moment "Immigrant Song" and Robert Plant's vocal came blasting through the Madison Square Garden speakers during a T.V. timeout, you could feel the crowd perk up.  Not two seconds after puck drop, the crowd began yelling Let's go, Rangers! like their lives depended on it, and the guys on the ice finally woke up to earn their millions.
I bring this up because "Immigrant Song" was made for arenas.  In fact, it opened pretty much every one of Led Zeppelin's shows from 1970-1972.
As Plant notes in this video, the song was inspired by a gig the band played in Reykjavik in 1970.  Zep had been invited to Iceland as British cultural ambassadors and were set to play a concert arranged by the government.  Unfortunately, the band's arrival coincided with a massive strike by the nation's civil servants, so the concert was going to be scrapped.  But one of the universities in Reykjavik (Plant doesn't say which one) stepped in to save the day, calling off classes for two days so that faculty and students could prepare the city's Laugardalsholl Hall, an indoor sports venue, so that the concert could go on.  The warm welcome from the nation and outpouring of affection from these college students really struck the band, Plant in particular.
As he says in the clip, "We got off a plane, and we were given Iceland on a plate."
To capture the feeling of the Icelandic visit, Plant borrowed imagery from the small nation's Viking heritage, imagining Zep as modern day Nordic warriors coming to conquer new lands.
That said, the song is not the cock-rock manifesto for conquering the world that most people think it is; it's meant to be funny.  It's Plant and his pals making a joke about their public image as leaden metalheads.  Actually, quite a bit of Led Zeppelin III is a message to fans and the music press to "lighten up."  (Check out the tracks "Out on the Tiles," "Gallows Pole," and "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper" for further evidence.)

"Come Together" (The Beatles)

I wasn't always in love with "Come Together."  I hated it as a child, actually.  

More than anything, John Lennon's eerie, whispered Shoot me's followed by those echoey handclaps scared the hell out of me when I was little.  But there also were his lyrics: not one word seemed to be in its proper place.  It was as if he'd taken the language that my little kid brain was still trying to learn and chopped it up before also turning it inside out.  It bothered me profusely.

That's why for years when my mother would play Abbey Road (1969), I'd often ask her to start the album with George Harrison's "Something" instead of the Lennon-penned opener.

But then I hit puberty.  Half the time, my thoughts and feelings didn't make much sense, and even when they did, I wasn't all that interested in articulating them.  Suddenly, Lennon's bizarre, purposely inscrutable lyrics and twisted blues resonated with me, and all of my hormone-fueled moodiness and awkwardness—especially when it came to communication—had a theme song.

Today, I simply appreciate the song as an example of Lennon's genius and humor.  I mean, who the hell else could have gotten away with a line like Got to be good lookin', 'cause he's so hard to see?

I also feel this song is a perfect example of how this band was more than the sum of its parts.  Would the track be half as memorable without Paul McCartney's slinky bass?  Would it be half as sexy without Harrison's understated, upper-octave lead guitar?  Would it groove half as hard without Ringo Starr's thumping tom-toms and hi-hat work?

The obvious answer is "no" on all counts.

That's also the reason why no cover version of this song will ever come close to matching the rawness and animal magnetism of the original.

"Live and Let Die" (Paul McCartney & Wings)

Apart from the actual "James Bond Theme," "Live and Let Die" is the ultimate James Bond song.
It also, in my opinion, was James Paul McCartney's real return to form following the breakup of The Beatles.  (I don't count the cute-but-disposable single "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey."  Or, if we're talking album tracks, the highly overrated "Maybe I'm Repetitious Amazed.")  
To me, "Live and Let Die" captures both his penchant for balladry and ability to rock out like a madman when he feels so inclined.  The sentimental verses with their plaintive, cocktail lounge piano are the perfect foil for the crunch of Henry McCullough's guitar on the instrumental choruses.  And the brief bridge, which cleverly tosses in a little reggae flavor as a nod to the tropical setting of the film, provides a funky respite in the midst of the rock fire.
It is the perfect, dramatic opener for the only decent Bond film of the entire Roger Moore era.  (I mean, what the hell were they snorting when they made Moonraker?)
Story goes, ex-Beatles producer George Martin was asked to score the 1973 film Live and Let Die, so he offered the gig of writing the main theme to McCartney.  To get in composing mode, McCartney got a copy of the 1954 Ian Fleming paperback upon which the script was based, read it in an evening, and then wrote the song the next day.
In an article posted on the site of St. Louis radio station KHITS 96.3, there's a great quote from Wings drummer Denny Seiwell about how the song came together at McCartney's home studio.
"And we were up at the house one day, and he had just read the book the night before, and he sat down at the piano and said, 'James Bond...James Bond...da-da-dum!', and he started screwing around at the piano.  Within 10 minutes, he had that song written."
Just goes to prove what I've always suspected: McCartney can write some amazing music when faced with a challenge and/or has a fire under his ass.

"Paradise City" (Guns N' Roses)

When I was in 5th grade, Guns N' Roses was the biggest band on earth.  I remember our class taking a field trip to the Old Salem colonial historic district in Winston-Salem, NC (which was a big deal, because it was 300 miles roundtrip, and no class at our elementary school had ever done something quite like that before), and we played Appetite for Destruction (1987) on the bus at least 10 times, heading there and back.  So much fun.
There was something about GNR in those days that I liked, before the songs and Axl Rose's ego/waistline got bloated.  Although the band had formed in L.A., they didn't completely fit the mold of L.A. glam metal.  Even at age 10, I kind of knew that the majority of hair bands, like Poison and Warrant, were just a bunch of Led Zeppelin wannabes who'd raided their slutty sisters' makeup cases.  But GNR had an attitude that seemed more punk.  There also were shades of bluesy, raunchy rock à la Mick Taylor-era Rolling Stones.  (Granted, I wasn't able to express it that way at age 10.  But I still knew what I liked.)
And while all of my classmates were going nuts for "Welcome to the Jungle" or "Sweet Child O' Mine," I gravitated to "Paradise City."  To me, it had the perfect balance of a singalong, poppy chorus juxtaposed with gritty verses.  But it really was all about that unstoppable, monster riff by Slash—who is still the baddest mutha to ever pull off wearing a top hat.
I recently stumbled upon an interview with Slash where he was reminiscing about the song and one-for-all camaraderie of the band in its early days.  He notes that they were riding in a rented cargo van, making the 6-hour drive back to L.A. after playing a gig in San Francisco.  He was noodling around on his guitar in the back of the van, when he began playing the almost-countryfied, fingerpicked intro to the song.  His bandmates eventually fell in on their guitars, and the arena-ready chorus started to take shape on the spot.  (If you're interested in hearing what the original, totally un-PC lyrics were for the chorus, click on over to Slash's interview with Fuse online.)
Ultimately, the chorus became about Rose and bandmate Izzy Stradlin's memories of growing up together in Lafayette, IN (Take me down to the Paradise City / Where the grass is green, and the girls are pretty), whereas the verses became a snapshot of the band's struggle to succeed while not letting L.A. eat them alive.  Quite honestly, in an era that was not known for intelligent lyrics, "Paradise City" is a refreshingly smart song.
If I have one critique of the track, though, it's the obvious splice that happens in the coda (at around 4:42).  Even as a kid, it would drive the audiophile in me nuts when Rose hits that high note on Hoooooome, and then the track obviously cuts to a different take of him screeching the same thing before the band begins to thrash.  
Luckily, the unhinged final two minutes of the track more than make up for it.  
In fact, anyone feel like moshing?

"Sweet Jane" (The Velvet Underground)

"Accessible" isn't a word that one uses when talking about The Velvet Underground.  Lou Reed & Co. never aimed for the mainstream.  Gutters, alleyways, and anywhere where the light was dim—that was more their territory.
However, after years of not selling any records, the band made an attempt at a pop album called Loaded (1970).  On it, is the track "Sweet Jane," perhaps Reed's most effervescent, accessible composition of all time.  Unlike a lot of songs in the band's catalog, you don't really have to get acclimated to "Sweet Jane" before it reveals its charms.  It hits you in the gut from moment one with its lean, mean riff, which lets you know it's destined for rock & roll immortality the moment you hear it.  (It's my personal favorite Reed riff, edging out "I'm Waiting for the Man" by a hair.)  
Nevertheless, Reed can't help himself from getting a little gritty, throwing in the suggestion that seemingly buttoned-up protagonists of the song, Jack and Jane, like to try on each other's clothes  (Jack's in his corset / Jane is in her vest).  To me, it was his way of pointing out that the mainstream is just as freaky as the fringe, even though outward appearances might lead you to believe otherwise.

"Loser" (Beck)

I didn't know what to make of Beck's "Loser" when it first hit MTV in 1994.  Between the D.I.Y.-feel of the video and the bizarre lyrics, my gut reaction was that it was a parody.  But a parody of what?  It had a slight hip-hop feel, what with that funky breakbeat churning away on the track.  The acoustic slide guitar kind of put it in the territory of the delta blues.  But then there also was a "my dog died, and my wife left me" stoned Country Western vibe to it, too.
After hearing it a few (hundred) times, I realized that it wasn't poking fun at any one thing; it was poking fun at everything, and it was doing so using this grab bag of misfit motifs in a way that masked just how intelligent Beck was.  (More on that in a sec.)
Story is, the song came about by chance.  Back in the early 90s, Beck moved to L.A. after a stint in New York, where he'd spent several years trying to make it as a folk/punk musician.  He was living hand-to-mouth, working odd jobs for very little money and then playing acoustic shows at bars and coffeehouses in between, whenever someone was willing to let him on stage.  In order to get people's attention, he'd make up bizarre stuff on the spot, just to see if people were listening.
As he told Rolling Stone in 1994, "I would always sing my goofy stuff, because everybody was drunk, and I'd only have two minutes."
Anyway, in 1992, his goofing around caught the attention of Tom Rothrock of indie label Bong Load Records, who ended up inviting Beck to hang out with hip-hop producer Karl Stephenson.  Long story short, Beck and Stephenson came up with "Loser" at the latter's house by fooling around with different sounds, loops, and improvised lyrics.
The song sat on the shelf for well over a year (Beck didn't think it was particularly noteworthy), when Bong Load finally released it in 1993.  To Beck's surprise (and eventual dismay), it took off as a "slacker anthem" on West Coast indie radio, which drew the attention of music mogul David Geffen, who came calling with an offer to sign Beck to his DGC label.  In 1994, DGC re-released the single, and it famously became a hit across the country.
The feeling at the time (and I admit, I felt this way, too) was that Beck was some jokey one-hit-wonder who had nothing else to say.  Apparently, he also knew the public's perception, and it bothered him.  A lot.  
As he told Entertainment Weekly in 1997, "Being attached to a highly disposable segment of the popular culture—the one-hit wonders, the cartoon slackers, the video phantoms—it's a little troublesome."
He ultimately had the last laugh by releasing the unexpected, brilliant Odelay in 1996.  
In fact, if it weren't for Odelay and his consistently solid career since, I don't think I'd be able to look so fondly upon "Loser."  It's kind of like being able to go back and laugh at your old, awkward photos from 7th grade because you know that everything turned out okay.

"Shake Your Rump" (Beastie Boys)

"Shake Your Rump" from the classic album Paul's Boutique (1989) is the line between "the old Beasties" and "the new Beasties" for me.  All you have to do is listen to the first :30 of the track, and you instantly know that the frat boy shenanigans of 1987's Licensed to Ill are a thing of the past.  In fact, they'd had a highly publicized split with Russell Simmons, Rick Rubin, and Def Jam Records in 1988, the result of the band wanting a bigger cut of the profits and more creative control.  This ultimately led to the Beasties relocating from New York to L.A. and hooking up with the production team of John King and Mike Simpson (a.k.a. The Dust Brothers).  It also spawned weird rumors that the band was defunct because Michael "Mike D." Diamond had died from an overdose.  (I can't help but wonder if Rubin and Simmons might have had a hand in spreading those very rumors.)
Anyway, Mike D. wasn't dead, as he addresses in the second verse of the song (Well I'm Mike D., and I'm back from the dead / Chillin' at the beach down at Club Med...).  And the Beasties weren't kaput.  In fact, their tag-team flows were even more intricate and filled with pop culture references than ever before: they namecheck everyone from Fred Flintstone to The Brady Bunch's Sam the Butcher on "Shake Your Rump."  
On top of that, the song introduced the world to a whole new way of sampling recorded material.  No longer were the Beasties just copping some Black Sabbath riff and looping it over a single Led Zeppelin breakbeat; the track was one, big sound collage (there are at least one dozen identified samples on the track), culled from a vast library of vinyl and pieced together in completely unexpected ways.  It was as inventive as it was funky.
My favorite moment of this song is still that first instance when DJ Hurricane scratches in Afrika Bambaataa saying Shake your rump-ah! from his 1984 collaboration with James Brown, "Unity, Pt. 2," and then segues into that fantastic Moog synth growl from Rose Royce's "6 O'Clock DJ (Let's Rock)" from the Car Wash soundtrack.  It's still as fun and fresh as it was in 1989.

"Award Tour" (A Tribe Called Quest)

Midnight Marauders (1993) is one of those rare 90s albums that I can still put on without feeling silly or skipping a single track.  Even the little interstitial "skits" featuring the robotic, Siri-like guide still work for the most part.
If you're cherry-picking, the album contains several bonafide classics ("Oh My God" with Busta Rhymes, "Electric Relaxation," and "We Can Get Down").  My personal favorite, though, is still the lead single, "Award Tour."
Beyond the lyrical acrobatics (and Q-Tip and Phife Dawg spit some extremely clever verses), it was the production on the track that drew my ear years ago.  The backing instrumental is so melodic, so fluid that it's kind of hard to fathom that it's built from at least five different samples—the most prominent one being jazz keyboardist/composer Weldon Irvine's "We Gettin' Down."  It still sounds amazingly fresh 20+ years later.  
That's a testament to the creativity of this crew and the group's not-so-secret-weapon Ali Shaheed Muhammed, whose inventive, tasteful production work with everyone from D'Angelo to the short-lived Lucy Pearl continues to amaze and move me.

"Fu-gee-la" (The Fugees)

I think the thing about The Fugees that amazed me was their ability to take all of these different, disparate elements, throw them into the blender, and then come out with something crazy fresh that sounded like nothing else going on at the time.
The track "Fu-gee-la" off The Score (1996) is the perfect example.  The whole song is built on the famous drum break from Lee Dorsey's "Get Out My Life, Woman" and a 5-second sample from keyboardist Ramsey Lewis's "If Loving You Is Wrong."  Thing is, the samples are spliced and filtered in such a way that neither one jumps right out at you.  In fact, the Lewis sample is barely recognizable; it sounds like a merry-go-round calliope playing over the soundtrack to a Kung fu movie.  (And I love it.)
If that weren't enough, then you've got Lauryn Hill recasting the refrain from Teena Marie's 1988 single "Ooo La La La" as a hip-hop boast about her crew.  Not only is it clever, but her voice sounds like hot butter.
But what really makes this song a favorite of mine is Hill's verse.  Although Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel turn in decent verses, Hill's flow is in another galaxy.  The intricate internal rhymes ('Cause we fortified, I could never hide, seen "Cooley High," cried when Cochise died...) blow my mind every time I listen to this song.  It's evidence that Hill not only is one of the best vocalists of the past 20 years, but also one of the best emcees of all time.