Mississippi Train - Fred Neil

Mississippi Train - Fred Neil

2:15

Bleeker & McDougal, 1965

Written by Fred Neil

Neil is best known as the writer of "Everybody's Talkin," made famous by Harry Nilsson, but he has some serious folk-blues chops.  This song starts with a Beatles-like harmonica into (by John Sebastian!), then moves into a shuffling blues with electric guitar.  Neil's low register makes the song seem straight out of the Delta swamp (deliberately: "She's going to the bayou / The bayou where the river flows"), when really he was a talented white guy from Cleveland.

Ferry Cross the Mersey - Gerry & the Pacemakers

Ferry Cross the Mersey - Gerry & the Pacemakers

2:24

Ferry Cross the Mersey, 1964

Written by Gerry Marsden

This song was produced by George Martin.  It's a soft, slow ballad and a love letter to the loves shores of England, where people are accepting and smiling.  Huh.  I guess maybe it was different back then?  "So ferry 'cross the Mersey / Cause this land's the place I love / And here I'll stay."  It's more than a bit corny, but the shimmering strings and woodwinds, no doubt arranged by Martin, give it a sweet and tender vibe.

Sunglasses After Dark - Dwight Pullen

Sunglasses After Dark - Dwight Pullen

2:08

single, 1958

Written by Jimmy Noble and Dwight Pullen

This is a terrific rockabilly single from Pullen, a guitarist for Gene Vincent who previously recorded under the name Whitey Pullen.  He changed it because he thought Dwight would sound better to the teenagers buying records.  The song, the spiritual grandfather to both "Sunglasses at Night" and "Cheap Sunglasses," extols the virtues of looking sharp when wearing sunglasses after dark.  It's tongue-in-cheek, describing a fight in which no one comes out on top because all the participants, in their cool shades, could barely see.

Hello Angel - Sandie Shaw

Hello Angel - Sandie Shaw

3:20

Hello Angel, 1988

Written by Sandie Shaw and Chris Andrews

The title track of Shaw's "comeback" album, spurred on by superfans Morrissey and Johnny Marr, this is a ballad that prompts an unnamed addressee to gain confidence and bloom: "You seem to lack that essential fight / If you want, I'll be your conscience / I'll push you upwards into flight." Shaw's smoky girl-group voice isn't a roof-raising belter, but she imparts the words with a low-burning intimacy.  "You should know better, kid/ Because you always did."

Harmony Hall - Vampire Weekend

Harmony Hall - Vampire Weekend

5:08

Father Of the Bride, 2019

Written by Ezra Koenig

This song is a shape-shifter, constantly reconfiguring itself without ever losing momentum. It begins in bright, crisp indie pop, all clean lines and forward motion, before loosening into a sunlit, almost loping country-rock groove. By the time the baroque touches of piano flourishes arrive, the song has quietly expanded into something more ornate.  Thus it keeps sparking my interest despite the length.  There's a clear lineage back to Paul Simon in the melodic phrasing and rhythmic buoyancy, but Vampire Weekend keep it restless; it never drags, each structural turn refreshing the ear.  As is often the case with Simon's best work, lyrical cynicism hides under the brightness here as well: "Anger wants a voice, voices wanna sing / Singers harmonize 'til they can't hear anything / I thought that I was free from all that questionin' / But every time a problem ends, another one begins."

Honey - Drugdealer

Honey - Drugdealer 

4:28

Raw Honey, 2019

Written by Michael Collins

Featuring the warm, golden folksinger vocals of Weyes Blood, this song is a warning to a wild, free spirit, possibly an artist, of charisma, surrounded by a coterie of people who whose love burns rather than warms.  It's a tale of lost innocence in the face of a corporate machine: "I know that you want to be free / And to be wild / And to be hugged just like a child / Money is the root of the game / The problem with fame / Is everyone going to lose their edge."  It's wrapped in a easy-going '70s soft-rock groove that belies the admonishing lyrics.

Hot Burrito #1 - The Flying Burrito Brothers

Hot Burrito #1 - The Flying Burrito Brothers

3:37

The Gilded Palace Of Sin, 1969

Written by Chris Etheridge and Gram Parsons

The Burritos came about after Gram parsons, who'd helped lead the Byrds into country-rock, refused to tour South Africa, and left the band with Chris Hillman.  This song is a bitter complaint about a breakup.  The line "I'm your toy" is famous (and even become the title of come later covers), but I think the first verse is some of the coldest spite this side of Bob Dylan: "You may be sweet and nice / But that won't keep you warm at night / 'Cause I'm the one who showed you how / To do the things you're doing now."  Over a drifting, almost narcotic groove, Gram Parsons sings with a bruised tenderness that never quite resolves into anger or acceptance.

Hallo Bimmelbahn - Nighttrain

Hallo Bimmelbahn - Nighttrain

3:22

single, 1973

Written by Jürgen Huth, Heinz Huth, Michael Holm

Nighttrain is a German rock duo.  This song, listed on the original single as simply "Bimmelbahn," is about a man who watches his lady get on a tram and leave him.  Translated from the German: "The tourist train, it hissed, my sweetheart wanted to ride along / And I called after her, don’t leave me all alone."  The narrator bemoans the loss of the tram as well as his love, adding a plaintive "bye bye bye" in English.  The song was covered and transformed by Boney M. in 1979; they left in the catchy "oooh oooh hoo" chorus, but changed the setting to the Caribbean.

I Killed Sally's Lover - The Avett Brothers

I Killed Sally's Lover - The Avett Brothers

2:37

A Carolina Jubilee, 2003

Written by Scott Avett, Seth Avett, and Bob Crawford

Featuring rapid-fire banjo picking that would make Del McCoury proud, this is an old-timey bluegrass murder ballad.  Finding the titular Sally in bed with another man, the narrator calls for his shotgun and pocket blade and slays the adulterer. Unlike in many of these songs, though, he doesn't then direct the violence toward his faithless paramour: "But I just ain't that mean / So I go and get my murder tools / I throw them in the lake / Gonna steal me an automobile / And drive so far away."  But he doesn't get far, ending the song, as is traditional, with advice to other poor sad sacks who may be moved to crimes of passion: "A bleeding heart is better than the penitentiary."  Avett screams the last lyrics, the anguish of a man breaking rocks while Sally lives it large with her new lover.

Dying Crapshooter's Blues - Blind Willie McTell

Dying Crapshooter's Blues - Blind Willie McTell

3:11

single, 1940

Written by Blind Willie McTell

McTell recorded this song three times, but this is the original version, as evidenced by the spoken-word introduction, in which he says it's a song "I made myself, originally this is from Atlanta."  Interestingly, he wrote it around 1927 and it was recorded in that era by several different women blues singers, but he didn't commit it to wax until 1940.  Over a sparse twelve-string, McTell lays out the hallucinatory dying wish of the funeral of a gambler who used "crooked cards and dice," shot by the police; the reason is not given.  The dying man demands, among other things, police in his funeral march, the high sheriff at the head playing blackjack. "One foot up, a toenail dragging / Throw my buddy Jesse in the hoodoo wagon."  A marked card on his hearse, the judge putting dice in his shoes.  "I want nine men going to the graveyard / But only eight mens comin' back."  It's an eerie, surreal vision, the revenge poetry of the damned, and it's easy to see how this ironic black humor inspired Dylan's later, similarly hallucinatory jeremiads.