Ever Fallen In Love - Nouvelle Vague

Ever Fallen In Love - Nouvelle Vague

3:29

Athol Brose, 2016

Written by Pete Shelley, 1978

The album title refers to a Scottish drink made by mixing porridge, honey, whisky, and sometimes cream.  That's all well and good, although this laid-back, cool '60s Euro-bossanova cover of the Buzzcocks is maybe more of a mojito or Old Fashioned vibe.  The clave percussion and high, tinny strings offer up views of a beach side bar.  This song was also covered ten years earlier on the band's album Bande à Part, sung by Mélanie Pain; this version is sung by Cuban-French singer Liset Alea, whose vocal delivery is, to my ear, delivered with more of a come-hither smirk.

Everything's On TV - The Hellacopters

Everything's On TV - The Hellacopters

3:15

Rock & Roll Is Dead, 2005

Written by Nicke Andersson

This is a '70s-style revival rock track, with a guitar solo in the middle that could have come straight out of the Allman Brothers.  The Hellacopters are a Swedish rock band with enough swagger and glam to make you look past the serviceable, but hardly novel, attack on television culture.  There are a couple of witty lines here ("The world's in a hurry but I don't have to worry / I got my virtue and I got my vice / I got bedsores, aching ligaments galore / Now that's a tiny sacrifice"), but mostly it's taking potshots at an easy target.  Not that rock songs have to have syllogistic arguments.  Fist-pumping is sometimes enough.

Engine Joe - Slobberbone

Engine Joe - Slobberbone

2:26

Barrel Chested, 1997

Written by Brent Best

This is a story song, somewhat in the vein of Chuck Berry, about a guy who runs a barbecue stand, but he used to be a mechanic until he hurt his hand somehow.  "Why ya gotta talk about Engine Joe / Like he's some guy in a fairy tale book? / Everybody knows that he just cooks / Baked beans and brisket in a BBQ stand."  He meets a funny little lady who is also a rodeo clown, and they settle down together.  Best's terrific acoustic guitar work gives his tossed-off growling vocal a nice platform.  The band's name, by the way, is ostensibly from a dog toy, but every woman I have ever mentioned this band to reacted with disgust, immediately assuming the more vulgar meaning.  

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - Sonny Rollins

Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye - Sonny Rollins

3:23

The Sound Of Sonny, 1957

Written by Cole Porter

Sonny Rollins died yesterday at the ripe old age of 95.  What better send-off for the great tenor saxophonist than this terrific Cole Porter song?  Legendary drummer Roy Haynes, nicknamed "Snap Crackle," provides a terrific high metallic counterpoint to Rollins' fluid and conversational sax lines.  I like it when jazz artists don't play too many ideas and let the melody speak up.  Rollins gives Porter's beautiful melody some respectful space.

Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Lloyd Price

Lawdy, Miss Clawdy - Lloyd Price

1:51

single, 1952

Written by Lloyd Price

I didn't think all that much of Price's "Where You At?", but this song, which features Fats Domino on piano, is an R&B classic that popularized the New Orleans sound and helped shape rock and roll.  It was hugely influential.  Elvis covered it a few years later; Larry Williams' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" is said to be a reworking of it.  Price's vocals are impassioned, and Domino's rolling piano lines give it a solid groove.  Legendary drummer Earl Palmer provides the backbone, and there's a smooth sax solo at the midpoint. 

Lo And Behold! [take 1] - Bob Dylan & the Band

Lo And Behold! [take 1] - Bob Dylan & the Band

2:53

The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete, 2014 (recorded 1967)

Written by Bob Dylan

This take is fairly similar to the second, the one that ended up on the 1975 Basement Tapes, except for a few very minor alterations in the lyric, some (presumably stoned) laughing by Dylan, and fancier organ trills by Garth Hudson.  What makes these takes fascinating is not radical reinvention but the glimpse they offer into Dylan's process.  It's raw music, songs discovering themselves, a blend of old-timey Americana, parody, and folk archeology.   Even the laughter (as on the false start on "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream") becomes part of the music’s charm.

Locomotion - Carole King

Locomotion - Carole King

2:30

Pearls: Songs Of Goffin & King, 1980

Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King

This is the same song titled "The Loco-Motion," released first by Little Eva.  King's not the brash vocalist that Little Eva is (although, to my astonishment, I read that a couple of people allege that King is the actual singer of Eva's 1962 track, and I guess they do sound a little similar).  This is a more muted version, built on piano lines, with a cool '70s-style sax solo in the middle.  As everyone knows, the lyrics describe a dance ("Now that you can do it, let's make a chain, now / A chugga-chugga motion like a railroad train, now"), but contrary to popular opinion, the dance was inspired by the song, not the other way around.

Lord, Send Me An Angel - Blind Willie McTell

Lord, Send Me An Angel - Blind Willie McTell

2:55

single, 1933

Written by Blind Willie McTell

I really don't think there's anyone quite like Blind Willie McTell; there's no overstating his songwriting and influence.  In addition to being a great 12-string player with a unique voice, he wrote songs that mixed the profane, the lecherous, and the surreal in a brew sampled often in the later works of Bob Dylan.  This song begins with the narrator asking God for an angel; the best God can send him is a "teasin' brown."  Some verses boasting of his attractiveness to women follow, and then, in a whiplash-causing change of topic, some advice about not eating black hens' eggs, and: "My baby studyin' evil, and I'm studyin' evil too / I'm gonna hang round here to see what my babe gon' do."  He has three women after him!  "One is Atlanta yellow, another one Macon brown / But the Statesboro darkskin will turn your damper down."  So... now you're forewarned.

Luck Be a Lady - Willie Nelson

Luck Be a Lady - Willie Nelson

3:05

That's Life, 2021

Written by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon

I think it's fair to say that Frank Sinatra owns this song.  Willie doesn't exactly make it his own, but he has the skill of effortlessly inhabiting any song of any genre and making it fit.  As always, his vocal is impeccable, but I'm not sure I care for the arrangement.  It's brash and melodramatic, which is fine by itself, but juxtaposed with Willie's laid-pack singing style, it feels odd.  It's all Rat Pack-style big brass stabs and '60s-era orchestral stings, and the result is less intimate and authentic than I would have wished.

When I Write the Book - Rockpile

When I Write the Book - Rockpile

3:16

Seconds Of Pleasure, 1980

Written by Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, Nick Lowe, and Terry Williams

You can hear the Elvis Costello influence in this catchy Britpop song about a broken heart, or maybe you can hear Nick Lowe's influence in Declan's music?  I think they influenced and supported each other; why didn't they ever form a songwriting tea?  They would have given Lennon/McCartney and Difford/Tilbrook a run for their money.  Over a muscular drum backbone and towering organ lines, Lowe sings his literate lines of love: "And when I write the book about my love / It will be about a man who's torn in half / About his hopes and ambitions wasted through the years / The pain will be written on every page in tears."