"The Man Who Sold The World" (David Bowie)

To my detriment, I didn't really get into Bowie until high school.  
I was in this experimental geometry class, where the students were supposed to work in groups and help one another learn theorems and whatnot, and the instructor was only there to babysit.  As part of the "learning and discovery process," we were allowed to play music.  It was a misguided disaster that reeked of hippie kum ba yah-ness.  No one knew what the hell was going on.  Redneck football players who could barely write their names were trying to learn about Pythagoras from homegirls who just wanted to talk about nails and hair.  
But at least there was the music.  And this one girl kept bringing in old Bowie albums on CD, and each one was like some new door opening.  It was the first time I'd heard Ziggy Stardust and that raunchy little awwwww wham bam thank you, mam! chant in the middle of "Suffragette City."  There also was the album The Man Who Sold the World (1970), and I instantly recognized that Mick Ronson riff from Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York set.  When that special aired on MTV, I had just assumed that it was some obscure Pixies or Meat Puppets song that Kurt Cobain had decided to cover.
In all, it's a song about searching for your true self.  Bowie uses the concept of a man who meets his doppelganger and then spends the rest of his days simultaneously running from/searching for him as a metaphor for self exploration/self-acceptance. 
It was a perfect and chilling cover for Nirvana, considering Cobain's personal struggles and death by his own hand a few months later, and a very telling, personal tale from a young David Bowie, who would continue to explore his real identity (David Jones) in light of his public and stage persona(s) (David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, etc.) for many years.

"Tonight" (Iggy Pop)

The better known version of this David Bowie-Iggy Pop composition is from the Bowie album of the same name.  He recut the song in 1984 as a reggae-flavored duet with Tina Turner during his "I want to be a mainstream pop star" period.  It's about as cringe-inducing as you might imagine.  (Not quite as bad as his "Dancing in the Street" debacle with Jagger from '85, but it's close.)
Pop's version from the album Lust for Life (1977) is worlds apart.  It begins with a chilling monologue, which has Iggy watching his girlfriend turn blue from a heroin overdose as he emphatically vows to her that everything will turn out okay (even though all signs indicate it won't).
His delivery is incredibly poetic and tender--crooning even, and his incomparable band (which consists of Bowie on keys and backing vocals, crack guitarists Carlos Alomar and Ricky Gardiner, and the rhythm assault team of brothers Tony and Hunt Sales on bass and drums, respectively) backs Iggy with an urgency that belies the gravity of the subject matter, tinged with a heavy dose of romanticism.  It's like a majestic yet visceral update of a 1950s "teenage tragedy" ballad.
Everything I love about this track comes to a head on the song's bridge, with Alomar's guitar wailing over Tony Sales's hyper-melodic bassline (which refuses to hang out on the same note for more than a second; it's one of my favorite performances on electric bass) and Hunt Sales's thunderous drumming (lesser drummers could only dream about the syncopated stuff he's doing with his double bass pedal on that bridge).

"Captain Jack" (Billy Joel)

My grandmother (RIP) used to work in the record department of a regional department store in Western NC when I was a little kid.  Her job was to inventory and stock all of the records and tapes and post the latest Billboard chart reports for the top singles of the week.  She often would know about new artists and songs before they ever got any airplay on local radio or MTV.  Pretty frequently, she would bring me home a new 45 of the next breakthrough artist or, at the very least, the sampler tapes they would play in store to promote that week's Top 20 singles.  It was so cool.
And even though she knew the difference between Debbie Harry and Madonna or knew that Sting had gone solo before the rest of the world got the news, she rarely liked any of the music that she had to stock.  The one exception was Billy Joel.  She took notice of Joel's music around the time An Innocent Man came out in 1983 and ended up buying several albums (tapes, actually) of his back catalog, including his breakthrough album from 10 years before, Piano Man (1973).
In particular, she liked the title song and played it quite a bit.  However, I gravitated to the very last track at the end of side two: "Captain Jack."  
I was probably 5 years old at the time I first heard "Captain Jack."  I had no clue (and neither did my grandma) that Joel was singing about bored, rich teenagers from Long Island coming into New York City to hang out and score heroin.  (Apparently, Joel got his inspiration for the song watching suburban kids come and go from a housing project across the street from his home, where they were buying heroin from a dealer named "Captain Jack.")  But you can about imagine the look on my grandma's face when I sang the line And you just sit at home and masturbate... one afternoon while she was babysitting me.  (Yeah.  That look.)
But it wasn't about the subject matter for me.  (Although, when I was older, I did come to appreciate Joel's frank and brutal approach.  It's a ballsy song lyrically.  It's definitely as nasty and cynical as Bob Dylan's best snark songs.)  It was all about that crushing riff, which snuck up and bombarded you via a twin bass-and-guitar attack, not to mention that soaring church organ that sounded like it was lifted right out of a piece by Bach or Beethoven.  I still can't help but crank up the volume on this song, especially on the last chorus before the fadeout.
Joel might have churned out radio-friendly hits and a bunch of multi-platinum albums after this.  But he never got this real and this close to Lou Reed-like commentary ever again.

"Armagideon Time" (The Clash)

"Armagideon Time" was the b-side to the single "London Calling," a song which always gets heaped with praise.  Granted, it's not unfounded praise.  After all, it's the title track to one of the most kick-ass double albums of all time.  
But I think the cover of reggae artist Willi Williams's "Armagideon Time" actually delivers palpable feelings of late Cold War-era paranoia and fear better than "London Calling" does.
Maybe it's because "London Calling" paints a picture of a post-Armageddon world; the bomb has already dropped, and the deed is done.  On the other hand, "Armagideon Time" anticipates the turmoil that's coming.  It's that sense of impending doom that makes the song send shivers up your spine.
It's also just a great groove with a rocksteady beat and sick dub effects.  It also has the distinction of band manager Kosmo Vinyl breaking in at the 3:00 mark over the recording studio intercom and telling the band, "Ok, boys, let's have you out!"  (Joe Strummer had told Vinyl to stop them at 3:00 because he believed most radio-friendly singles were 3:00.)  But then Strummer responds to Vinyl "Ok, ok, don't push us when we're hot."

"Monkey Man" (The Rolling Stones)

It's funny.  I've been a fan of the song "Monkey Man" from Let It Bleed (1969) for years.  But every time I hear that intro with Bill Wyman's bass and vibraphone, I think that my iPod has shuffled to a song by The Temptations or Marvin Gaye.  It happily fakes me out every damn time.
But from that pseudo-Motown intro, Keith Richards's guitar suddenly snarls with distortion and rips into that unmistakable riff as Charlie Watts's drums smack in you the head from stage right.  It's a raunchy, funky groove from moment one.
"Monkey Man" also is one of my favorite Stones songs lyrically.  The late 60s / early 70s saw Mick Jagger crafting lyrics that were witty, literate, honest, and complex.  On "Monkey Man," he's using blues and drug slang to wryly comment on the public's/media's perception of him and the band, which was that he obviously was a junkie and an STD-ridden womanizer who was constantly bed hopping from one skank to another.  He also addresses the odd dichotomy of fans practically worshipping them and the establishment deriding them as agents of evil, while they themselves were just interested in rocking a little.  (Well, I hope we're not too messianic / Or a trifle too satanic / We love a bit of blues).
In and of itself, all of this would add up to a great song.  But then there's that instrumental bridge that comes out of nowhere and shifts everything into a sunny major key, with Keef's nice slide guitar work and Nicky Hopkins's glorious piano, which somehow borrows as much from honky tonk bordellos as it does from Viennese concert halls.  That bridge just puts the whole tawdry, sack-of-broken-eggs affair into the category of "instant classic."

"Four Sticks" (Led Zeppelin)

Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album simply is one of the greatest discs in rock and roll.  And although not quite as famous as "Stairway to Heaven" or a perennial classic rock radio favorite like "Misty Mountain Hop," the song "Four Sticks" is one of the most unique, risk-taking tracks on the album.  Unlike most rock or blues songs, which are in 4/4 time, the song is based on a North African folk rhythm that oscillates between 5/8 and 6/8 time every few bars, creating a hypnotic pattern that is extremely difficult to count out, much less play.

In fact, drummer John Bonham was having a helluva time keeping time during the recording session because of the tricky shifting time signature.  After a few failed takes, he picked up an additional set of drumsticks (i.e. two in each hand) out of sheer frustration and proceeded to pound out another take, which was flawless.  Because he drummed with four sticks, the band called the track "Four Sticks."

I've also read that music journalists back in the day had labeled the band "four sticks in the mud" because they didn't care for talking to the press.  So "Four Sticks" also was a proverbial "f you" to journalists and critics.   (I've read this explanation several times over the years, but have yet to find an article from the 70s where a critic specifically uses the phrase "four sticks in the mud.")

Anyway, it's Jimmy Page riffing at his raunchy and majestic best.  Robert Plant ripping his vocal cords to shreds.  John Paul Jones doing double duty on electric bass and VCS3 synthesizer.  And, of course, Bonzo drumming like a madman from start to finish.

"There Was A Time" (James Brown)

The next song on my list falls strangely enough on the 7th anniversary of the passing of James Brown, another legendary artist who, in my opinion, has been unfairly reduced to a pop caricature.  Granted, that's at least partially Brown's own fault, what with his misguided support of Richard Nixon in the 1970s, various drug- and assault-related arrests in the late 80s, and his association with rap pop train wreck MC Hammer in the 90s.  But for all of those questionable choices, he more than earned the crown of "the hardest working man in show business" several times over.  No one (not even Michael Jackson in his prime) set a stage ablaze the way Brown could.  Also, few can lay claim to inventing a whole new genre of music.  
Brown started out as an R&B crooner / doo-wop performer with The Famous Flames in the 50s.  By the 60s, he had moved away from ballads and pursued a more rhythm-driven approach, which blended elements of R&B, soul, gospel, and African polyrhythms to create what came to be known as "funk."  (Some music historians point to "Cold Sweat" as the first funk song.  Personally, I think it began with "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag."  The syncopation, the horn riffs, and that onslaught of 16th note strums on the guitar--that's proto-funk.  The song title even signals that Brown knew he had something fresh.)
But the song I want to focus on is "There Was A Time."  Recorded live in 1967 at Harlem's Apollo Theater, it is a prime example of Brown as an electrifying performer and bandleader.   (The full track from Live at the Apollo, Vol. II (1967) is actually a medley of the songs "Let Yourself Go," "There Was  A Time," and "I Feel Alright; but the performance is commonly called "There Was A Time" because the riff that underpins the whole sequence comes from that song.)  
In all, it's basically a showcase for Brown to show off his dance moves and get the crowd involved in the show.  At the end of each verse, he introduces the next dance (the boogaloo, the mashed potato, the camel walk, and his own eponymous dance), and then proceeds to bust that move while the band funks out.  
And, Lord almighty, that band.
They are locked into a tight groove, instantly reacting every time Brown gives them a cue.  (They knew better than to miss a cue, otherwise it meant paying one of Brown's infamous fines, which he levied for anything from sour notes to one's shoes not being properly shined.)  And if you're wondering, Brown's uhn's! heeey's! and oww's! weren't just random punctuation; they were directions to his band to play louder/softer, play a fill, play a vamp, hit the snare, lay back and let someone solo, etc.
I'm posting two versions of this monumental track: the first is from the aforementioned Live at the Apollo, Vol. II album.  The second is a recording of his 1968 performance at the Boston Garden.  This recording is significant not only for capturing Brown's raw, no-holds-barred performance.  But it also is known as the night Brown saved Boston from riots in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination.  Boston city officials feared violence in the streets if Brown was allowed to perform a scheduled show at the Boston Garden the day after King's murder.  However, Brown not only convinced officials to let him perform the show, he also convinced local TV to record and air the show.  The result?  While other cities erupted in violence, there were no riots in Boston the night of Brown's concert.  Just goes to show how influential a performer and voice the man was.  And that should not be forgotten.
(P.S. I also added a little bonus.  Merry Christmas!)

"Crosseyed and Painless" (Talking Heads)

There was no band in quite the same league as Talking Heads from 1977 to about 1984.  If you've never seen it, watch the concert film Stop Making Sense (1984).  Fair warning: if you don't already own every album in the band's discography before watching the film, you will purchase every album subsequently.  (It's worth your bank account taking a hit and you having to eat Ramen for a few weeks.  Trust me.)
My favorite Talking Heads album, Remain In Light (1980), falls smack-dab in the middle of that golden period of output.  The album is a non-stop tour de force of memorable melodies, polyrhythmic percussion, highly abstract yet highly literate lyrics, and producer Brian Eno's experimental sampling and tape loops.  It sounded like nothing else in 1981, and it still sounds otherworldly today.
Although it's difficult to pick out individual faves from the album, "Crosseyed and Painless" is a track that definitely shines.  The song is built around an Afrobeat rhythm, with cowbells and various percussion loops creating this undulating groove behind Chris Frantz's relentless drums and Tina Weymouth's gulps and slaps of fat bass.  (Side note: that woman must have callouses on her thumbs the size of grapes.)  It also features a guest spot by King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, who releases a buzzbomb guitar attack in the middle of the song.  (It's not a showboating type of guitar solo; nevertheless, it soars and wails in all the right places.)
Then there's frontman David Byrne's characteristically nervous vocals and a somewhat surprising "rap" at the end of the song (Facts are simple and facts are straight / Facts are lazy and facts are late...), which was inspired by Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" (1980).
The song was released at the time as a promotional single with an accompanying video by choreographer Toni Basil (of one-hit-wonder "Mickey" fame), who used a Fresno, CA-based breakdance troupe known as Electric Boogaloos for the shoot.  I remember seeing the video ONCE on MTV2 sometime in the late 90s at like 2 am, and I didn't want it to end; it was like being zapped back to my childhood. 
I finally found the original video again on the interwebs for your (and my) enjoyment.
(P.S.  Dig the guy doing the moonwalk--a.k.a. the "backslide"--at the 3:30 mark, almost three years before Michael Jackson "debuted" it on the Motown 25 TV special!)

"What Cha' Gonna Do For Me?" (Chaka Khan)

Chaka Khan could sing her damn ABC's, and it would be a hit.
But give her the right context, the right song, and the right producer, and she will create a classic every time.  "What Cha' Gonna Do For Me?" from the 1981 album of the same name is a perfect example.  Here, she had a song penned by Hamish Stuart of Average White Band plus superstar producer Arif Mardin (who had a golden touch for bringing out the groove or soul in any track) at the helm.
Every element of this song is in its right place.  Chaka's lead and backing vocals (as always) are on point.  The twin guitars are playing these tasty, dueling riffs, split into separate channels for maximum rhythmic effect.  There are synths that strategically underpin parts of the track, but they're tastefully used.  (The same can't be said for a lot of other R&B tracks of this era, which overused synthesizers.)  And then the legendary Steve Ferrone (who has been full-time drummer for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers since 1995) locks in this funk groove, a millisecond behind the beat; it's the same way the late Al Jackson, Jr., from Booker T. & The MG's used to drum: just behind the beat, but as consistent as a metronome.  It's a technique that gives the track a swinging, funky feel.
Also, I'm typically not a fan of keyboard bass.  It always sounds a little wan and cheesy to me compared to electric or upright bass.  But everything else on the track is so organic--including how the drums are miked (you hear the perfect separation of the hi-hats and ride cymbals in each speaker, the way you would hear them played live)--that the keyboard bass not only is passable, but it lends a nice little thump and another layer of texture to the whole affair.  (In actuality, there's electric bass on the track, too.  It's most prominent in the breakdown around the 3:12 mark.)
Just a great, feel-good groove from Queen Chaka.

"Wordless Chorus" (My Morning Jacket)

My Morning Jacket is a curious band.  The moment you have them pegged for a hippy-shake jam band, they do a 180 and delve headfirst into experimental electronica.  That's until they swerve off-road into alt country territory before ditching the pickup truck for a Jeep Wrangler to cruise down the Sunset Strip with America and The Beach Boys blasting from two busted speakers.
Oh, and did I mention they also have an affection for Prince and post-punk, too?  
Yeah, well.  They do.
Out of all of their tours and detours, "Wordless Chorus" from the album Z (2005) may be the best song that MMJ's frontman Jim James has ever penned.  
It's a song about the creative process.   He's trying to write something new, and he checks with his spirit to see where it should take him.   He wrestles a bit with whether or not going with his instincts/feelings will pay off--probably both literally and figuratively.  But in the end, he decides that there's no other choice but to go with his spirit; that's the promise he made to himself long ago and the only way to keep moving and innovating.
And the final lines are James making a direct reference to the first track off their first album The Tennessee Fire (1999), "Heartbreakin' Man":
Come on, hey don't you know how we started
We forgot about love, but weren't brokenhearted
As the title of the song implies, the refrain of the song is indeed without lyrics.  It's simply James's multi-tracked voice, singing the most angelic ahhhhhhs and oooooohs, which sound like they were transcribed straight from the mind of a 21-year-old Brian Wilson.  That's before James suddenly channels Earth, Wind & Fire's Philip Bailey for a moment, jumping into an unbelievably high falsetto, before ending the song with a sly little reference to Sir Elton's "Bennie and The Jets."
As a songwriter myself, it's the MMJ/Jim James song that speaks to me most.

"Pleasant Valley Sunday" (The Monkees)

Call The Monkees the "Pre-fab Four" if you will.  But, in my opinion, Micky Dolenz is one of the best, most instantly-recognizable voices in all of rock and roll, and "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is an excellent Carole King-Gerry Goffin composition.
I've thought so ever since MTV resurrected re-runs of The Monkees sitcom in the late 80s and introduced my generation to the music. 
In short, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is a commentary on post-World War II American suburbia, where everyone looks the same, sounds the same, has first-world problems, and is happy to wallow in their collective ignorance of the real outside world.  In the bridge of the song, the lyrics lament how "creature comfort goals / they only numb my soul," and expresses a need for a change of point of view.
Now, compared to what The Beatles or Jimi Hendrix were doing in 1967, "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is tame stuff.  (Although, there are nods to psychedelia--like the reverb-thick, echoey ending of the song, where producer Chip Douglas and recording engineer Hank Cicalo basically just started cranking every knob on the console to "11" to create the murky effect.)  But for as poppy as the song is musically, the subject matter of the song is pretty subversive.  It actually bites the very hand that fed The Monkees--i.e. suburbanite kids and their parents who were keeping the band's weekly TV show on the air and buying the band's records.  It also signals the shift in their identity and mentality: they were a band with something to say and not just puppets for NBC and Colgems.  
And, yes, by 1967 they were a band.  The four had wrested a fair amount of control over their output from the studio honchos, and not only were they writing some of their own material, but they also finally were allowed to play on their own records.  (Mike Nesmith plays that indelible lead guitar lick, and Peter Tork plays electric piano on the track, too.)    
It's a great vocal from Dolenz, a great groove, but--in it's own small way--it's also trying to say something about our society.  And that makes it a perennial favorite of mine.
  

"Feel Good Inc." (Gorillaz)

The concept of a fictional band playing pop music is nothing all that new.  For one, there were The Monkees.  Or, if we're talking about a band without a pulse, The Archies.
In a way, Gorillaz is nod to both of those bands--only with a knowing wink.  
Gorillaz basically was formed in the late 90s after former housemates Damon Albarn (formerly of Blur) and Jamie Hewlett (the graphic artist behind Tank Girl) had spent marathon hours one afternoon watching MTV.  Feeling as if they had entered some meaningless, vapid netherworld, they hatched the idea of a cartoon band that would address such crass commercialism and insipid drivel.
Like Parliament/Funkadelic's comic book mythology, I don't claim to know the elaborate backstories of Gorillaz four cartoon members: Russel, Noodle, Murdoc, and 2D.  But they appear to be mutated primates at the center of a dystopian nightmare, searching for some kind of meaning or escape.  Whatever the characters' mythology might be, those two themes pop up quite a bit on Demon Days (2005), which, despite some minor flaws, is a well-crafted, highly creative album from start to finish.
"Feel Good Inc." is one of my favorite cuts from the album because it's a total synthesis of what Gorillaz is about: part hip hop, part alt rock; part glam, part gloom; part dance floor, part meditation room...  "Feel Good Inc." is an art rock piece that's commenting on isolation and the emptiness of feel-good culture, only it's dressed up as a funkified pop song.
But really, who would have thought that a song that sounds like a hybrid of The Dazz Band's "Let It Whip" and some long lost track from Ray Davies and The Kinks circa 1975 would jam this hard?  Or that you could have De La Soul (!) spit on the track and have it automatically transport you to the halcyon days of Stakes Is High?
(I think the answer to both questions is Damon Albarn.  Or maybe 2D?) 

"Gimme Some More" (Busta Rhymes)

This song is some weird shit (with a freaky, cartoonish video to match).
Let's start with the sample from Bernard Herrmann's score for the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho.  Any song that opens with the same swirling, frantic strings that introduced the world to Norman Bates is going to be...quirky.
Then DJ Scratch's thumping, galloping beat falls in, and it meshes insanely well with the sample.
And then there's Busta Rhymes' flow.  
Holy.  Shit.
The lyrics are pretty much an old skool boast (my crew is better than yours; my stacks are bigger than yours; my flows are better than yours; etc).  But he delivers every word at breakneck speed.  I don't think he takes a breath the entire song.
It just is one of the sickest, most fluid flows ever.

"B.O.B." (OutKast)

Not unlike hip hop contemporary CeeLo, OutKast produced some of its best music long before members Andre Benjamin (aka Andre 3000) and Antwan Patton (aka Big Boi) became household names and "Hey Ya" could be heard everywhere from the grocery store to your dentist's office.
Just before the superstardom, the dynamic duo dropped Stankonia (2000) along with the track "B.O.B." ("Bombs Over Baghdad")--prophetically named, considering that a couple of years later the US marched into Iraq (again).  The song even was banned from commercial radio in a lot of markets because of the perceived glorification of war and violence.  (Way to miss the point, idiots.)
Forgetting all that for a moment, it's just a SICK track.  It's one piece in the larger puzzle of Stankonia, a project on which they set out to create something that didn't sound like anything else in hip hop, which at the time Benjamin and Patton felt had grown stale and predictable.  They not only had a brand new recording studio of their own, which gave them the freedom to experiment and push their sound in new directions without feeling like someone was constantly watching over their shoulders, but they also set out to capture the chaos and feelings of uncertainty at the turn of the millennium.  
So what better way to do that but spit lyrics at 155 beats per minute over a breakneck drum-n-bass beat with wailing Eddie Hazel-flavored electric guitar?
And then there's that chant: "Bombs over Baghdad...yeah.  Bombs over Baghdad...yeah."  It sounds like the cheering section at the Thunderdome.  (It's frighteningly catchy, even though it makes you feel like someone won't be leaving the arena alive...)
It's one of the best songs of its decade.  (Kind of hard to believe that clusterfuck of a decade is already years past.)

"Sexx Laws" (Beck)

My high school friends and I made up a word to describe when someone was trying too hard to be sexy and/or was purposely being overtly kinky for comedic effect: snexxy (as in, "so not sexy.")
Our creation of that word actually pre-dated Beck's "Sexx Laws" and the tongue-in-cheek album Midnite Vultures (1999) by about 4 years.  But if there ever were an anthem for "snexxiness," this track is it.
As usual, Beck doesn't disappoint with his abstract, Magnetic Poetry-esque lyrics.  (I'm not exactly sure what a "hepatitis contact lens" is, but those words alone somehow conjure up images of obese American salesmen in cheap suits traveling on business in Southeast Asia, looking for weirdo nookie once the sun goes down--which I am pretty sure is what the song is about...)  But it's the backing track that really sells the whole affair.  It's one part 1960s hippy shake and one part Jerry Reed-style countrified swamp rock à la the Smokey and the Bandit soundtrack, tumbled vigorously in a neon pink cocktail shaker, and then poured into a "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" keepsake plastic tumbler.
No one but Beck could pull off a song that sounds like a coked-up Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass joining the cast of Hee Haw for a key party.  And make you want to listen to it, again and again.  
(Plus the video was absolute genius, too.)

"Rush" (Big Audio Dynamite II)

I remember hearing "Rush" by Big Audio Dynamite on the radio in mid-1991.  It was in heavy rotation on John Garabedian's Open House Party radio show that summer, which--for my pre-pubescent friends and I--was the closest thing we were getting to "nightlife" in those days.
The song was just so odd and clever: ex-Clash member Mick Jones singing over a pastiche of samples that ranged from the organ intro on The Who's "Baba O'Riley" to the breakbeat from "Sweet Pea" by 70s bubblegum pop star Tommy Roe.  It also strangely had the beat stop right in the middle of the song for this comedic interlude featuring Peter Sellers before suddenly kicking this funky sample from comedian Pigmeat Markham's "Here Comes the Judge" (ostensibly the first ever rap song, recorded in 1968).
The song had "summer party" written all over it, despite some pretty reflective and personal lyrics (Jones basically is looking back on his career).  In any case, it remains a favorite example of a mood-boosting song with sampling done well.

"Intergalactic" (The Beastie Boys)

By the time "Intergalactic" dropped in 1998, The Beastie Boys had already covered quite a bit of ground musically.  They had gone from being a punk band to becoming a tongue-in-cheek frat boy hip hop outfit, and then explored new dimensions in sampling with the Dust Brothers.  They also dabbled in D.I.Y. funk and acid jazz.  Then when the boys' quirky amalgam of hard rock and hip hop, which comprised a good chunk of the music on Check Your Head and Ill Communication, woefully spawned shitty imitators like Limp Bizkit and 311, they changed things up and reinvented themselves again on Hello Nasty as alt rock/hip hop futurists.  (And the future apparently had b-boys breakdancing on the moon in vintage Adidas track suits and smoky Martini bars, where the servers all were Rosie from The Jetsons...)
But little prepared the world for the vocoded robot voice dropping science in "Intergalactic's" intro.  Or the quirky sample of Les Baxter's Moog rendition of Rachmaninov's Prelude in C# Minor burbling under the track.  Or the ol' skool tag team vocal approach that felt fresh off a Sugar Hill Records joint (or just altogether fresh).
Nobody else could have pulled off a song that mixed nostalgia for 1960s budget sci-fi flicks and the Boogie Down Bronx circa 1979 with Year 2000 fervor like The Beastie Boys.
Nobody.

"Brand New Colony" (The Postal Service)

I don't care for Death Cab for Cutie or Dntel.  Death Cab is a little too navel-gazey and precious, and Dntel is a little too "background music for a shoe store in the Meatpacking District" for my taste.

But, take vocalist Ben Gibbard from Death Cab and producer/writer Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel, and put them together, and somehow I'm an instant fan.

It's funny, because the formula for The Postal Service contains elements that define Gibbard's band and Tamborello's project: introspective (almost too clever for their own good) lyrics, wispy vocals, electronic beats, and layered textures.  But there's a bouncier feeling to The Postal Service's music overall.  I think the buoyant feel on Give Up was born of the novel way that Gibbard and Tamborello worked on the album: Tamborello writing and recording music tracks, sending the tapes to Gibbard through the US Mail, and then Gibbard adding his contributions and vocals before mailing the tapes back to Tamborello. 

There's a kid-on-Christmas-morning kind of feel to every track that makes Give Up so compelling and makes you want to revisit it, time and time again.

One of my favorite tracks is "Brand New Colony."  From the Nintendo-nostalgia 8-bit synth that opens the track to the skittering drums that drive the first half and the heart-on-sleeve vocals from Gibbard (and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis) over perfectly-placed ambient loops and samples, the song leaps from your speakers with innocent abandon.  (These days, every time I hear them singing about running away to start a "brand new colony," I can't help but picture the wide-eyed misfit kids from Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom for some reason.)

I also love the shift to the slinkier trip hop beat on the latter half of the track.  It ends the song on an unexpected, yet perfect, funky note.

"One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21" (The Flaming Lips)

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.  It may be one of the most ridiculous titles ever for one of the best albums of all time by one of the oddest, left-of-center rock bands of all time. 
Somehow, The Flaming Lips crafted a work of art that blends Brian Wilson's "pocket symphonies" (as he called them) with electronica, owing as much on that front to Wendy Carlos as it does to Timbaland.  It defies genre.  It feels of, yet outside, its time.  Childlike in its playfulness, yet simultaneously poignant and adult, tackling themes of depression, war, and death in the context of sci-fi fantasy.  Just a great album overall.
One of the standout tracks from the album is "One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21."  The song is ostensibly about a robot that learns how to feel emotion, and, by the same token, an individual who begins to develop emotions for the machine, yet ultimately questions if the feelings are mutual and real.  
The song also easily could be about any human relationship, where one party is consistently emotionally unavailable but occasionally expresses signs of love toward the other, leading that individual to question the legitimacy of the relationship.   Or, it could be an examination of the place of emotions and love in an increasingly digitized world.
Whatever the case may be, the song begins in a gray haze of synthesized hums and static before a skittering, drum-n-bass-y electronic beat takes over, underpinned by rumbling keyboard bass.  Next, Wayne Coyne's voice appears, sounding filtered and processed, giving it an appropriately artificial texture.  As the song moves from the verse to the chorus—the point at which the robot begins to exhibit human feelings, the filters fall away from Coyne's voice, and the beat thumps into double-time, like a heart coming to life for the first time.  The key also shifts higher, underlining the growing hope that maybe the robot can feel real emotions.  The pattern repeats again before dissolving into a lush, cinematic synth-symphony in the coda, which replays the melody from the chorus.  
It's simply beautiful.

"Thank You For Talkin' to Me, Africa" (Sly & The Family Stone)

Most people are probably more familiar with the radio-friendly 1969 version of this track that appeared on Sly & The Family Stone's Greatest Hits (1970) album, where it was called "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)."  That version itself is a great song.  For one, it is the first real showcase of the incomparable Larry Graham's slap bass technique, which uses the slap of the thumb against the strings to mimic the sound of a kick drum and a finger pop to mimic a snare drum.  It also has some funky syncopated guitar interplay between Freddie and Sly Stone over Greg Errico's airtight drumming.
But nothing quite compares to the 7-minute version sitting sprawling at the end of There's A Riot Goin' On (1971)--an album that signaled the shift of Sly Stone's music away from the 1960s vibe of groovy togetherness to 1970s paranoia and gritty, drug-fueled decay.  There's A Riot Goin' On is essentially the soul/funk companion to The Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers for slamming closed the coffin lid on the hippie dream.  It's an album that everyone should have in his/her collection: deeply funky, scary, gloomy, angry, funny, and innovative, all at the same time.  It's as much a tongue-in-cheek reply to Marvin Gaye's album What's Goin' On? as it is one frustrated artist's prophetic reply to Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem (Dream Deferred)."
The version on Riot is titled "Thank You For Talkin' to Me, Africa," and it has a very different groove from the original.  I've heard it described as a dirge--a funeral march, if you will.  But I wouldn't go that far.  I hear a slinky, confident, irreverent strut that thumbs its nose at pop charts, album sales, A&R people, and even Sly's own back catalog.
And it's Errico's in-the-pocket drumming and Graham's bass that anchors the whole thing--especially the bass.  Graham creates this hypnotic bassline with his slapping technique, and then every few bars, he sneaks in these raunchy little slides up and down the neck of his bass.  There is nothing funkier on tape.  Period.  Nothing the JB's, P-Funk, or Ohio Players ever recorded got this damn stanky.  This is/was the back door and the kitchen floor.

"Poison" (Bell Biv Devoe)

I hated this song when it came out.  With a big ol' passion.  And it was for one reason alone: that cheesy beat.
Every time I heard it, it reminded me of this crappy late 80s toy called Hit Stix.
If you're not familiar with said toy, it was an electronic "instrument"--I use the term loosely--with two drumsticks attached to a mini amplifier.  The selling point was that you didn't have to strike anything to make a sound; the drumsticks somehow sensed when you waved them around, which meant you could drum in mid-air if you wanted to.  Pretty cool, right?
Ah, if only they had worked as well as the awful commercials claimed they would.  Instead, the "drum" sounds more closely resembled blips of static from a CB radio rather than a real electric drum kit.
So you can see how my ire for this crappy gyp of a toy might have colored my opinion of the song a little bit...
But after hearing "Poison" a few (thousand) times on MTV and radio throughout the spring of 1990, I began to see how genius it was: it was essentially an R&B song with smooth vocals, yet it had this Public Enemy/Bomb Squad production style that felt hip hop, right down to the Kool G. Rap "Poison" sample that repeats throughout.  It really didn't sound like anything else at the time.
Anyway, I think it was a calculated move on the part of producer Elliot Straite (aka Dr. Freeze) to create a rhythm track that sounded like a kid's toy.  The song itself is about being wary of gold-digging groupies and skeezes, but it's delivered with a knowing wink and wry sense of humor.  I mean, you can't take a song too damn seriously with lines like:
So she's a winner to you, but I know she's a loser
(How do you know?)
Me and the crew used to do her...
I think the cheesy beat and laugh-out-loud warnings about not trusting "a big butt and a smile" were all part of the formula to create something that made everyone from radio programmers to kids (like me) watching MTV say, "Yeah, it's those three guys from New Edition, but you've gotta hear this song."
Even now, when you hear this song come on--be it at a club, wedding, bar mitzvah, funeral, etc--you can guarantee that everyone and your grandma is eventually going to be on the dance floor, doing the running man.
Classic.

"I'll Be There for You / You're All I Need to Get By - Razor Sharp Mix" (Method Man feat. Mary J. Blige)

Generally, I'm not a fan of remixes.  I feel that, if an artist and/or producer conceived a track a certain way, they don't need some DJ screwing with their vision after the fact.
Then again, there are certain songs that are exponentially improved by a remix.  "I'll Be There for You / You're All I Need to Get By - Razor Sharp Mix" is one of those cases.
The original track, titled "All I Need" on Method Man's solo debut Tical (1994), was solid: it has his raw verse over the breakbeat from Melvin Bliss's "Synthetic Substitution" (think: Ultramagnetic MC's "Ego Trippin'" and Naughty By Nature's "O.P.P.") and a synth replaying the descending cadence from Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's "You're All I Need to Get By."  And then there was Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs's mix of the song, which used a clip from Notorious B.I.G.'s "Me & My Bitch" over a smooth, R&B-flavored rhythm track, and also added to the equation Mary J. Blige on backing vocal.  
But the "Razor Sharp Mix" by Wu Tang's RZA takes this song to a new galaxy altogether.  It uses Method Man's original lyric from "All I Need" but sets it to a gritty, thumping beat and hypnotic bassline over these weirdly dissonant samples of sax and organ.  Once again, Blige provides backing vocals throughout and vocals on the hook.  But this time out, she alters Gaye and Terrell's refrain by shifting it to a minor key.  Against the backdrop of the beat and bass (which, by the way, is playing in a slightly different key), the original sweetness of the lyric takes on a dangerous, almost ominous, quality.
Taking each piece individually, it shouldn't work.  
It's like the horns on James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)": the song is in D major, yet Brown has the horns slipping into notes that aren't even in the same key signature!  On paper, it should sound like the aural equivalent of day-old garbage baking curbside in the New York City summer sun.  But in reality, it blends perfectly.  
Such is the case here.  RZA took a calculated risk, and it paid off with one of the rawest, best-ever collaborations/remixes/tracks in the history of hip hop.

"Give It Away" (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

"Give It Away."  
The video for this song freaked me the hell out when I first saw it in 1991.  A bunch of shiny dudes in the desert, jumping around like they were tripping balls.  
WTF?!
I couldn't deny, though, that these guys sounded like nothing else in the late 80s/early 90s (except maybe Jane's Addiction).  MTV was just beginning to realize that hair metal sucked, yet they still dutifully put Warrant, Poison, and their ilk in rotation with no apologies--music that I never warmed to.  But here came these freaky-styley cats who sounded like the sons of Sly Stone and Patti Smith and not some glammed-out, boozed-out Led Zep wannabes.  (That's not to say they didn't have their vices or abstained from anything.  A number of their songs, including a few from Blood Sugar Sex Magik, deal with this.)  But these were punky funkateers who just didn't care about appealing to the same mulleted audience that was pumping its fingerless leather-gloved fists to "Cherry Pie."  Which suited me just fine.
Chad Smith and Flea grooved harder than most any rhythm section out there.  John Frusciante's guitar attack was equal parts thrash and funky chicken scratch.  And Anthony Kiedis spit lyrics like an ol' skool hip hopper but could also slide into a soulful wail at will.
"Give It Away" was a perfect synthesis of each of those elements, held together by a tight groove and an infectious lyric that might have been about sex, charity, or a little of both, capped off by that mantra-like refrain: Give it away, give it away, give it away now. 
Shit is still my jam.

"Tahitian Moon" (Porno for Pyros)

I feel like the track "Tahitian Moon" from Good God's Urge (1996) never really got its due.
It's a mosaic of interweaving textures and emotions that naturally shifts from crunchy 1960s surf rock to elegiac folk every few bars.  It perfectly captures the character of the Pacific Ocean: its gigantic waves with crushing, destructive power, and its simultaneous tranquil, healing power, constantly changing from moment to moment.
I never knew what had inspired the song until I ran across a video of Farrell at his Lollapalooza fest, giving his audience a synopsis: he was vacationing in Tahiti with friends.  His buddy went out to surf, and (Farrell thought) he hadn't come back, even though it was getting dark.  So Farrell took a kayak out to find him and got very lost.  The kayak capsized, and he had to swim back with only the moonlight above him.  Treading water in the middle of nowhere, he quickly came to grips with the fact that he might die.
So that's why the song is manic one moment and zen-like the next.
It's one of those wildly creative, evocative tracks I just never tire of.

"Moonlight Mile" (The Rolling Stones)

Sitting at the end of the second side of The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers (1971) is "Moonlight Mile."  It basically began as a throwaway riff, tentatively titled "Japanese Thing," that Keith Richards had recorded to tape and promptly forgot about.  That is, until Mick Taylor resurrected it with Mick Jagger's help, the two of them reworking it into a full-fledged song during an all-night recording session.
(Yet somehow the song was only credited to "Jagger/Richards."  Crappy move on their part.)
Compared to the other songs on Sticky Fingers, which mostly romp and rave through topics ranging from interracial nookie to rock and roll excess, "Moonlight Mile" is decidedly sweeter and more poetic.  That's not to say it doesn't have its thinly veiled drug references.  (Who is Jagger kidding with the line "a head full of snow"?)  But in the context, they're less celebratory or cautionary (see "Sister Morphine") and more road-weary.
It's one of those rare Stones songs where Jagger isn't strutting like a rooster in a henhouse.  Instead, it's as if he's reciting a private letter to a loved one, revealing that the on-stage persona and bravado are all part of the show.  Deep down, he's grown weary of the constant touring and its accoutrements.  In fact, it's almost a confession that he wanted out, which actually is consistent with what he was telling the media in 1971-2: he'd grown bored with rock and roll.
Consider the lyric:
Made a rag pile of my shiny clothes
Gonna warm my bones
Gonna warm my bones
I got silence on my radio
Let the air waves flow
Let the air waves flow
It's one of the band's few ballads that looks forward to a place of solitude and comfort rather than reflecting upon loss.

Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27: No. 2, aka "Moonlight Sonata" (Ludwig van Beethoven)

I wouldn't consider myself a classical music aficionado by any means.  I'd probably fail miserably playing "name that tune" if you played me 10 different songs by different classical composers, back to back.  To be brutally honest, I think a lot of classical music is overblown, vanilla background music that's only suitable for doctors' offices or snobby shopping centers.
Nevertheless, I like what I like: compositions tinged with passion (either romantic or spiritual), interesting interplay among instruments and/or parts, and a strong rhythmic feel.
That's probably why I like Beethoven.
My favorite song of Ludwig's is what is commonly known as "Moonlight Sonata."  Beethoven himself never referred to it as such.  It was "Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27: No. 2, Movement 1" to him.  It only was after Beethoven's death that German music critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab likened the composition to watching the moon shining down on Switzerland's Lake Lucerne.  Hence "Moonlight Sonata."
In actuality, it's more of an aching expression of love from Beethoven to his piano student, Austrian countess Julie Guicciardi, than an ode to the moon.  
According to the site Classic FM, sometime around 1797, Beethoven became quite ill with typhus--a bacterial infection spread by lice, fleas, and other vermin.  (Ahhh, the 18th Century...)  It's believed that this illness is what caused Beethoven to gradually lose his hearing.
Even before the illness and hearing loss, the poor guy had a tough time of it.  He finally got to meet Mozart in 1787 and was poised become his student, but he suddenly had to return home to Bonn, Germany, because his mother was dying of tuberculosis (or "consumption" in 1700s parlance).  Then Mozart died before Beethoven could return to see him.  Furthermore, Beethoven's father was a raging alcoholic, who spiraled out of control after the death of his wife, leaving Ludwig to look after his younger brothers.
So when he met Guicciardi in 1801 and fell for her, it provided a respite from the preceding years of strife.  
But in true romantic fashion, the story wasn't over there.
He eventually realized that nothing could come of the relationship because she was of a higher social strata, and she went on to marry someone else. 
So "Moonlight Sonata" is the sound of a tortured soul, deeply in love, realizing that it just can't be.  It's delicate yet profoundly powerful, and deceptively more complex and inventive than its arpeggios and rumbling left hand chords might betray.
Just absorb those chord changes through your headphones and have your Kleenex at the ready.

"Little Wing" (Jimi Hendrix)

Of all Jimi Hendrix's compositions, "Little Wing" from Axis: Bold as Love (1967) always affected me most.  This is going to sound cheesy, but there's something inherently Native American about the song that speaks to my own Cherokee heritage.  In my mind, Little Wing is the benevolent, pure spirit of an Indian princess who splits her time between the physical world and the afterlife--a guardian angel of sorts. 
Or at least that's what I like to think.
All of the elements come together on this track perfectly.  For one, it's a perfect example of Hendrix's uncanny ability to play both rhythm and lead guitar at the same time.  Just listen to the verses: he's hitting the downbeat and then improvising around the melody, all without overdubs.  (Nevertheless, the overdubs on the chorus are gorgeous as they warble and ripple through the rotating Leslie speaker.)
It's also one of Hendrix's most soulful and nuanced vocals.  It's like he's channeling Ron Isley--which actually might not be far fetched, considering Hendrix toured with the Isley Brothers early in his career.
Also, I never really cared for Mitch Mitchell's drumming on almost every other Jimi Hendrix Experience song.  It always was too damn busy--too many fills, not enough groove.  Although, I like what he does here.  He keeps things subtle and uses his fills sparingly.  Also his work on the glockenspiel is solid.
Last but not least, Noel Redding does his thing on bass.  It's nothing groundbreaking, but it's not distracting either.  Just like his contributions to every other JHE song.
Anyway, whatever or whomever Little Wing represents, it is such a positive, expressive (albeit brief) song.

"One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (John Lee Hooker)

One of the most memorable recordings to come out of 2120 South Michigan Avenue in the mid-1960s was John Lee Hooker's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer."

If you were alive in the late 70s/early 80s, you no doubt heard George Thorogood's stomping roadhouse boogie rendition of the song from 1977 on rock radio.   There's also the original version by Amos Milburn from 1953, which has a slightly different title ("One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer") and a very poppy feel.  (It also sounds like the musicians had one take to stumble their way through the chord changes.)

Hooker's version strips Milburn's original down to the floorboards with his stinging guitar licks over a grooving South Chicago blues shuffle beat and walking bassline.  Hooker also changes the lyrics from the original a bit: like Milburn, he's drinking because his lady left him.  But unlike Milburn who vows to go find his woman, Hooker accepts that she's long gone and is just looking to drink her off his mind!  He also marks his time at the bar by letting the listener know what the clock on the wall reads each time he orders another round.

The bite of Hooker's version reads like a crib sheet for The Rolling Stones in their golden period (see: Exile on Main St.), not to mention gritty blues-rock outfits like The Faces.  It's just a great performance from one of the best blues men ever.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" (The Beatles)

I remember watching the Beatles Anthology on TV back in 1995 and hanging on every word that George Martin and the surviving Beatles said regarding the creation of "Tomorrow Never Knows" from the 1966 album Revolver.  
(Of any song from the psychedelic era, it really holds up to repeated plays, even now.  I'll even go so far as to say that its innovative use of loops and rhythm were a direct precursor to hip-hop and trip-hop.)
According to George Harrison in the interview, John Lennon had read a copy of Dr. Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, which is basically a how-to guide for tripping, based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.  Apparently the notions of "turning off one's mind and floating downstream" came from the book and made their way into Lennon's lyrics.  
Lennon also envisioned the music having a transcendental vibe, with the entire song remaining on a single chord, much like an Indian raga, and his voice being treated in such a way to make it seem as if he were singing from a mountaintop.
On each take of the song, the boys lock in on a C chord.  Likewise, Lennon's vocals are sent swirling through a Leslie speaker to give them that far off effect.
But everything else about Take 1 and the final take that appears on Revolver are vastly different.  The original take is like a funeral dirge with this murky, underwater feel and Ringo Starr drumming in this march pattern, not the hypnotic groove everyone is familiar with.
As for the ambient noises on the final track, Paul McCartney explained that these were tape loops that he'd chopped up/spliced at home and brought to the studio in a plastic bag.  (For instance, the famous "seagull loop" heard on the song is actually a recording of McCartney laughing, sped up.)  Being that these were actual loops of recorded tape, they had to be spooled onto machines throughout the studio for playback, with people holding pencils, jars, their fingers, etc. in place so that the loops would spool properly and play at the desired speed.  Then the loops were fed into the mixing board, and everything was mixed live--meaning each sound on the final recording is the result of The Beatles pushing the faders spontaneously.
As a music geek, it just gives me chills thinking about the unbridled sense of creativity and collaboration in the studio that gave rise to this track.  

"The National Anthem" (Radiohead)

I have to be in the right mood to listen to Radiohead's Kid A (2000).  It's not an album I just put on for background music.  It demands a certain level of attention.  There's a lot going on, even though many of the tracks are stripped bare to very basic elements--spare acoustic guitar here, computerized blips and bloops there.  There are elements of Eno, but nothing that feels blatantly derivative.  There also are elements of free jazz, particularly in "The National Anthem."
The song begins with Philip Selway's drums and Thom Yorke's bassline, laying down an angular funk groove.  For about two minutes, it lulls you into thinking that maybe the electronica of the first two tracks on Kid A were a fluke and they're returning to alt rock form, à la OK Computer.
Then the horns come in.
There's this controlled chaos, with everyone going in his own direction, trying to be heard over everyone else.  You hear tension build as each soloist gets louder and louder.  Sonically, tempers flare.  Things calm down momentarily, and order breaks through.  Then all hell breaks loose, and it ends in a shouting match.
I think there's the obvious interpretation of the song, which is the chaos of trying to maintain a civilized society.  (Rather prophetic, considering the world events that transpired  in the years after Kid A's release.)
But I also think it's a sonic reenactment of Yorke's personal struggles and his long recovery  from a mental breakdown after OK Computer.  Amidst all of the noise and chaos going on around him, he tried to keep "holding on" to rediscover the reason why he became a musician in the first place.

  

"Stay (Faraway, So Close)" (U2)

I've never been a huge fan of U2.  That's not to say I don't like a lot of their music or think they're talented tunesmiths.  It's just that I don't belong to the Saint Bono of Hewson fan club like some people do.  I think that the boys veer into territory that feels a little too self important, too bombastic at times to swallow the communion wafer whole.
Other times, though, they come up with something that is just so unique or so beautiful that it can't be denied.
"Stay (Faraway, So Close)" from the underrated Zooropa (1993) is one of those compositions.  It feels like it wasn't written for shouting throngs, packed into a stadium built for World Cup finals.  Instead, it feels like something improvised in a smoky club late at night with only three, down-on-their-luck barflies listening.
The Edge (see what I mean about bombast?) plays a riff that doesn't so much rely on heavy amounts of reverb and effects.  It's a very clean 1960s sound.  In fact, it is almost reminiscent of something George Harrison or John Lennon might have played on Rubber Soul; it has an "In My Life" kind of folk-rock feel.  
Bono's vocal delivery also is much more nuanced than usual.  For once, he's not crying like a man in the wilderness the entire track.  He only lets loose on the chorus, which makes the sense of longing in the verses that much more poignant.  Dare I say, it's almost more of a Frank Sinatra or Mel Torme kind of delivery.  Just listen to the line where he sings Miami...Newwww Orleeeeans... and tell me that there's not a jazz influence there.  (Apparently, when they began writing the song during the Achtung Baby sessions, they had used the working title "Sinatra," because they had set out to create a track that had the feel and chord progression of classic Frank Sinatra songs!)