"Coyote" (Joni Mitchell)

So let's get the gossip portion out of the way: when Joni Mitchell released Hejira in 1976, there was speculation that one of its tracks, "Coyote," was about a famous figure that Mitchell had schtooped.  And according to former Beatles/Stones/Dylan groupie/tour manager Chris O'Dell in her 2009 autobiography, Miss O'Dell, this is true: "Coyote" purportedly is about playwright Sam Shepard (Buried Child, True West), who was having an extramarital affair with not only O'Dell but Mitchell, too, around that time.  Classy.
Whether or not "Coyote" is really about Shepard, this story-song is definitely about a fling Mitchell had while traveling across country.  Although she acknowledges from the start that she and her beau are from different worlds, she gives in to his advances.  Yadda yadda yadda.  They see a farmhouse ablaze and decide to go boogie at a roadhouse.  Blah blah blah.  Her hunk o' man candy stares at his plate of eggs and the waitress's legs at a diner.  Mitchell packs up and hits the road again.  No hard feelings.  The end.
The triumph here is not only that Mitchell makes this steaming heap of "me-gen" infidelity sound so damn poetic--with her fluty alto painting vivid tableaus and sepia-colored metaphors of wild dogs chasing prey in the whisker wheat.  It's that the musicianship is so mesmerizing.  
Everything is pure syncopation and rhythm, with Mitchell and Larry Carlton strumming along, tossing off these jazzy, cluster chords that Bill Evans or Dave Brubeck would appreciate.  Each strum has this unique sense of spaciousness, creating a soundscape that evokes a ribbon of lonely asphalt, snaking its way through a vast wasteland under mammoth open skies.  Then you feel Ms. Bobbye Hall's congas insistently driving the rhythm like pavement seams rumbling beneath the tires of your car.  But ultimately it's Jaco Pastorius's thumps and "plings!" on his fretless bass that literally provide the heartbeat of the entire affair.  In fact, there's something about that heartbeat that brings out the humanity and sense of longing in the song in spite of Mitchell's nonchalant "no regrets" lyrics.  Sonically, it clues you in that this isn't a song about celebrating a one night stand and a vagabond life; it's a frank confession about needing a home and needing to be needed.  
One of Mitchell's best, I think.

"Common People" (Pulp)

I never really got into the Britpop movement of the 90s.  I think it's because its poster boys, the Gallagher brothers of Oasis, always came off as self-important pricks who had fashioned themselves as the second coming of Lennon/McCartney.  (They wish.)
Likewise, other members of the movement seemed to revel in a "it's British or it's crap" attitude, which felt less akin to what was happening in Seattle at the time and more like the "proud to be an Amerrikkan" vibe that always permeated mainstream country music--a genre that I just have no time or patience for.  (Pap for people with pablum brains.)  
Britpop purposely didn't feel like it was made for me.
Sure, college radio played "Wonderwall" until it made me want to find a so-called wonderwall and jump off it.  Same with the irritatingly jaunty "Parklife" by Blur (although, I now have a fair amount of respect for Damon Albarn).  I couldn't hear that track without picturing Dick Van Dyke as Bert in Mary Poppins, dancing around the park with those damned penguins.  Only, in this case, Bert was wearing purple-tinted shades with round frames, lifted straight from the pics of the Fab Four in Revolver's liner notes.  
Although, none of the music felt very Beatles-esque to me.  At best, some of the more clever lyrics and tuneful melodies recalled lesser invasion bands, like Herman's Hermits.  Or, at best, the Stones circa 1966-8, when Jagger/Richards were chasing the Fabs and churning out songs that sounded like Lennon/McCartney's jetsam instead of perfecting their own funky soul-blooze stew.
Anyway, one of the other bands that frequently gets lumped into the Britpop genre is Pulp, even though its leader, Jarvis Cocker, never really embraced that label.  Back in college, a friend once commented that Pulp's "Common People" was her all-time favorite song.  She played it for me a couple of times, and I kind of glazed over--to my detriment.  It wasn't until years later, sitting at a karaoke bar in suburban Washington, DC, listening to a group of people caterwauling through Cocker's brilliant lyrics, that I realized she was right: it is an awesome, monumental song.
And it's not really Britpop in my opinion.  It's totally devoid of self-importance; it's a very humble and humbling song (more on that in a sec).  It is distinctly British, though, with its classic exploration of division of the classes: a working class schlub meets this upper class art school chick, who only is interested in him because she wants to have a fling with someone "common."  So what does our hero do?  He takes her to a supermarket for a first date.  (Brilliant, as the Brits would say.)
The song continues to wittily explore this fated relationship over the course of the next few minutes with our hero eventually realizing that the girlfriend can always run to daddy once she tires of her faux Bohemian lifestyle, whereas he's pretty much stuck being "common."  
It's at this point our hero stops seeing the humor in the whole affair and unleashes a scathing indictment that people like her will never understand what it means to truly struggle or fail in life.  Suddenly, the music ramps up and hits you with this Spector-like wall-of-sound, and Cocker shifts from his understated near-whisper that he uses for almost the entire song to an operatic cry that sounds simultaneously triumphant and anguished.   It sends chills down my spine every damn time.
And however you want to classify it (Britpop, alternative, whatever), it is simply one of the best songs written and recorded in the past 20 years.

"Marquee Moon" (Television)

Speaking of Tom Verlaine, my next featured song is "Marquee Moon," the title track of the 1977 debut by the group Television.
Often, Television gets labeled as a post-punk or New Wave band.  In my humble opinion, it's difficult to comfortably pigeonhole the band into either genre.  Sure, there's a DIY, do-it-yerself aesthetic to their music that fits the punk/post-punk mold.  But even with the punky crunch, there's a lot less sneer and much more melodicism and groove, not unlike Television's New Yawk contemporaries Talking Heads and Blondie, not to mention Brits Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello.  There also are obvious nods to the Velvet Underground and, if you want to reach even further back, Buddy Holly, too.
But, so much for genre.  To hell with genre.  
"Marquee Moon" is a sprawling track that, on the surface, should turn stale after a few minutes: it's built on a repeating riff that modulates every two bars and then cycles, again and again, for pretty much the entire song.
But it's what happens along the way that makes you wish it could go on twice as long.
First of all, the groove on this song is airtight.  Fred Smith (bass) and Billy Ficca (drums) lock in from moment one and don't let go the entire time.  Then there's the strategic, twin guitar attack of Verlaine and Richard Lloyd throughout--it's particularly compelling on each bridge leading into the chorus.  Plus there's Verlaine's voice--a nasal whine with genuine honesty and sincerity that grabs you from the moment it arrives out of nowhere and announces, "I remember!"  
But the crown jewel of the song is Verlaine's guitar solo from about 4:50 - 9:10.  It's not a flashy solo; he doesn't fly across the fretboard like some Django Reinhardt or Jeff Beck disciple.  Instead, he weaves this impressionistic thread that calls to mind John Coltrane's modal experiments.  In fact, there are parts of the solo that have the same feeling as Coltrane's inspired noodlings from "My Favorite Things."
Finally, when it's all over, the song quietly dissolves into these droplets of piano, like beams of moonlight shining through the trees.  
It's enthralling.  All 10:40 of it.

"Spiders (Kidsmoke)" (Wilco)

You're either in the camp that every note of its sprawling 10 minutes and 46 seconds is hypnotically perfect and integral to the flow of Wilco's A Ghost is Born.  Or you find it painfully repetitious, pretentious, and boring.
You love it or hate it.  There is no middle ground.
The elements are one part Krautrock.  One part Sonic Youth circa "Bull inthe Heather."  One part Brian Eno's early stuff.  And another singular part that only could come from the brain and soul of Jeff Tweedy. 
Lyrically, it's a hard nut to crack.  Tweedy casually tosses off lines about spiders and tax returns and private Michigan beaches between angular gulps and wails of distorted guitar, à la Television's Tom Verlaine, all atop Glenn Kotche's and John Stirratt's locked-in groove.
My best guess, though, is that it's a song about the pains of making Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the album that preceded A Ghost is Born.  As is documented in Sam Jones's film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, the process of making Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was a highly creative but extremely uncomfortable affair for the band as a whole.  Tweedy was struggling with panic attacks and stress-fueled, nausea-inducing migraines.  He was constantly butting heads with bandmate Jay Bennett (RIP) over creative decisions in the mixing and editing of the album, which ultimately led to Bennett's firing.  And to cap things off, Wilco's then-label (Reprise) unceremoniously rejected the finished album in 2001 and suddenly dropped the band from its roster, despite years of expressing its supposed support for the group.  The album basically lingered in limbo until 2002, when it finally saw official commercial release by Nonesuch--a sister label of Reprise.
So here's my take: the A&R people, lawyers, accountants, and other dutiful "spiders" were busy doing what was supposedly in the band's best interest.  In the meantime, Tweedy goes along with all of the press junkets and endless days of being carted from one appearance to another, feeling he's being a dutiful "spider" himself, only to get mixed messages about what the label wants and expects from the band creatively.  Then, when the project and band get dumped and everything turns into a pissing contest over legal rights and ownership, he wishes he could simply retreat to his bed and forget it all.  
The final lines of the song "there's no blood on my hands / I just do as I am told" could be from Tweedy's own perspective (I did what I was told to do, I made the album I wanted to make, and I'm not to blame for this mess).  Or, it could be the reaction he was getting from people at the label (I was behind you all the way, man; if it were up to me, you'd still be here).  Or, maybe it's a bit of both.  
All of the bursts of distortion and sudden breakthroughs of the main riff over the relentless rhythm reflect the headaches (literal and figurative) and constant tension of the entire period.  
Yet every few minutes, there's an acknowledgment that all of the frustrations are just "kidsmoke," and there's something suddenly liberating about being cut loose.
"It's good to be alone."
Or something like that.
Listen, and see what you think.

A Note about My 500 Favorite Songs

Being a lifelong music fan and a musician myself, I decided (out of boredom on a rainy day a few months back) to make a playlist of my favorite songs.  And although the songs are not "ranked" in any particular order, the running order was carefully considered, based on theme, genre, era, key signature, as well as knowledge (or inference) that one track influenced the creation of another.

I'll say upfront that there are number of influential/popular bands and artists that are not featured on this list or are very sparsely represented here.  It doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike their music.  In some cases, it was impossible to extract a favorite track from an album.  (Which is why you won't find any Pink Floyd on the list, for instance.  "The Great Gig in the Sky" always sends chills up my spine.  But it's part of a larger, cohesive structure.  It's like trying to pick your favorite dot of color on a Seurat painting.)

So this is not some comprehensive list, where I pored over the social or cultural significance of a particular song.  It's simply a catalog of my thoughts, feelings, musings, memories, and initial gut reactions to songs that bring me pleasure, and that hopefully mean something to others out there, too.

"Caroline, No" (The Beach Boys) & "A Day in the Life" (The Beatles)

So it's common knowledge that The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and--to a somewhat lesser extent--Revolver were influenced by The Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds, which itself was influenced by The Beatles' Rubber Soul.  
The Beach Boys' resident genius and primary songwriter Brian Wilson had been impressed by the cohesive nature of 1965's Rubber Soul, considering that most pop albums of the day were typically a loose collection of singles and "filler," slapped together by record company execs without any real regard to continuity.  (Although, it could be argued that the American version of Rubber Soul still bore the heavy-handed imprint of Capitol execs, who replaced 4 songs from the official British release with selections from the Help! soundtrack to cash in on the growing popularity of folk-rock in the States...)  
In any case, Wilson sensed that Rubber Soul had exploded the boundaries of what rock and pop music could be: The Beatles had written every song themselves, played every note themselves, and had expanded the sonic palette of pop music, throwing in everything from sitars to Baroque piano.  It triggered such a reaction in Wilson that he immediately set out to create "the greatest rock album ever made."  Thus commenced the great creative rivalry between The Beach Boys and The Beatles from 1965-7, each trying to best the other on the charts while also racing to the top of a creative Everest.  
Paul McCartney and John Lennon heard Pet Sounds for the first time at a party in London in 1966, where The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston (who took over Brian Wilson's vocal and bass-playing duties on the road when Wilson stopped touring in 1965) played the album for them in its entirety.  Twice.  The album instantly inspired McCartney to create "Here, There, and Everywhere," a track found on Revolver that pays tribute to Wilson's compositional style and The Beach Boys' close vocal harmonies. 
Fast on the heels of Revolver's release, The Beach Boys' single "Good Vibrations" hit the airwaves in October 1966, followed in February 1967 by The Beatles' single "Strawberry Fields Forever."  Although Wilson's mental state was already fragile--largely the result of record company pressures, creative disagreements within the band, increasing drug use, and his own perfectionism/self-doubt, "Strawberry Fields Forever" might have been final coffin nail.   
In Director David Leaf's 2004 documentary Beautiful Dreamer, Wilson's friend Michael Vosse recounts riding in Wilson's car in early 1967 and hearing "Strawberry Fields Forever" on the radio for the first time.  The song so affected Wilson that he pulled the car to the side of the road and rather cryptically said, "They did it all already.  They did what I wanted to do with SMiLE."
Ultimately, SMiLE was shelved until 2004, and The Beach Boys/Beatles rivalry came to a close with the final, thundering piano chord at the end of "A Day in the Life."

So, with that, I present "A Day in the Life" and "Caroline, No" for your consideration.
There are a few small similarities between the two songs.  In addition to being the final track on each of their respective albums, both feature observational lyrics about relatable aspects of life: Lennon/McCartney wryly recounting headlines from the newspaper, which range from shocking to the mundane; Wilson/Asher exploring the topic of running into an old flame after many years, only to find that she has lost her spark and innocence.  Then there are the sound effects that close each track: snippets of random Beatle chatter, chopped and spliced into a mishmash of noise, running ad infinitum in the runout groove; Wilson's dogs, Banana and Louie, barking at the sound of a passing train.
In other aspects, the songs are vast worlds apart.  "A Day in the Life" is epic, dramatic, and orgasmic.  Its gradual sonic swell and Lennon's cheeky sex/drugs double-entendre, expressing his desire to "turn on" anyone within earshot before the whole affair erupts in a cacophony of horns and strings, is the aural equivalent of stoned coitus in the middle of Piccadilly Circus at rush hour.
"Caroline, No," on the other hand, is a guy sitting in his dusty attic, leafing through an old yearbook with a dim flashlight that's about to run out of battery power.  In the way "A Day in the Life" beckons the world to tune in and turn on, "Caroline, No" quietly asks the world to go away.  It's an intimate lament for fleeting beauty.
In many ways, I think these 2 songs underpin the psyche of the late 1960s: a simultaneous desire to shed the old while also pining for innocence and simplicity of bygone days.  (From a musical standpoint, it's that bi-directional pull that eventually spawned the heavy/light dichotomy that is heard on The Beatles' "white album" and that characterized the entire aesthete of bands like Led Zeppelin at the turn of the decade.)