"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."

"Don't You Evah" (Spoon)

"Don't You Evah" from Spoon's 2007 album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is one of those songs that doesn't seem like anything particularly special the first time you hear it.  Then you catch it again on the radio while vacuuming fast food debris out of your car or over the speakers while waiting in line at the ubiquitous green mermaid for your daily dose of caffeine, and it suddenly hits you how perfect it is in its straightforward, rocking simplicity.  
For the longest time, I didn't realize the song was a cover/reinterpretation of "Don't You Ever" by defunct NY band The Natural History.  Britt Daniel's lyrics are a little different from the original, but the theme is the same: it's a guy talking to a buddy who is bound for the altar, and he's trying to get the friend to reconsider not only marriage but the whole relationship.  
Apart from the lyrics, the biggest difference between the two songs is that Spoon sheds the jam band vibe of the original and takes it squarely into New Wave territory.  Spoon's rhythm section is bouncier and more buoyant with its thuds of bass guitar and perfectly-placed compressed handclaps.  In fact, it's careful touches like the percussion and blips of studio chatter that propel it past the original into greatness.