Delta Dawn - Tanya Tucker

Delta Dawn - Tanya Tucker

2:58

Delta Dawn, 1972

Written by Alex Harvey and Larry Collins

Between 1972 and 1973, three talented divas had hits with this song: Bette Midler, Helen Reddy, and Tucker.  The song has a grim history. Alex Harvey said he wrote the song about his mother, who was an alcoholic and lived "as if she had a suitcase in her hand but nowhere to put it down."  Ten years before Harvey wrote the song, he was performing but told his mother not to come, fearing she'd get drunk and embarrass him. That night she died in a car crash.  For years Harvey suffered from guilt over the incident, until a cathartic incident the night he wrote the song.  The title character is a faded former Southern belle who remains obsessed with the long-ago memory of a suitor who jilted her. 

California Cottonfields - Merle Haggard and the Strangers

California Cottonfields - Merle Haggard and the Strangers

2:46

Someday We'll Look Back, 1971

Written by Dallas Frazier and Earl Montgomery

In this story-song, the narrator recalls his childhood in Oklahoma, when his father moved the family for greener pastures: "California was his dream, a paradise, for he had seen / Pictures in magazines that told him so."  The second verse tells of the preparations and the neighbors gathering to say farewell.  There is no third verse that depicts their life in California, but aside from a line about his father's hair turning grey, the chorus says it all: "California cottonfields / Where labor camps were filled with weary men with broken dreams."

Big Boys - Chuck Berry

Big Boys - Chuck Berry

3:06

Chuck, 2017

Written by Chuck Berry

Released posthumously just after Berry's 90th birthday, this song features Tom Morello providing some thunderous guitar riffs.  Lyrically, it's familiar Berry territory, with very youthful attitudes tinged with subtle innuendo.  The narrator recalls being a little kid and wondering what those older boys are up to.  Are they drinking?  Getting their drivers' licenses?  Registering for the draft?  No, of course!  It's at a high school dance that he realizes it's girls that make the world go around: "Till the school dance when I first met you / And I learned to party like the big boys do."

Autumn Almanac - The Kinks

Autumn Almanac - The Kinks
3:13
single, 1967

Written by Ray Davies

Ray Davies said of this song that the words were inspired by a man who swept up the leaves for his family, and he wrote it in autumn.  An ornate, orchestral, subdued pop gem, it's a song of mundane British life.  "Friday evenings, people get together / Hiding from the weather / Tea and toasted buttered currant buns / Can't compensate for lack of sun."  As hinted at in that last line, there's an ambiguity in the attitude toward the quaint existence depicted in the song.  The narrator was born and will die on this street, everyone he knows is from the neighborhood, and though the scenes evoked are pleasant, there's a hint at longing: "And I can't get away / Because it's calling me."  A charming bit of prosaic paradise, or a suburban trap, crushing an adventurous spirit?  Maybe both.

Feel a Thing - Meet Me @ the Altar

Feel a Thing - Meet Me @ the Altar

3:26

Model Citizen, 2021

Written by Edith Victoria and Téa Campell

For my money, Meet Me is the best power-punk trio going.  This song, among their best, is as raucous as it is catchy.  I love the muscular chant-chorus in the break: "Am I stuck? Can I defeat this? / With my luck, would I be complete then?"  The tempo never flags, especially that machine-gun drumming.  I read a review that called this "Nintendo-core;" my teenaged daughter said it sounded like a rock band you might hear in a Disney movie.  That's fair; it is pretty polished.

France - Grateful Dead

France - Grateful Dead

4:03

Shakedown Street, 1978W

Written by Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, and Robert Hunter

To commemorate, even if obliquely, Bastille Day, today we have this overlooked gem from the Dead.  Built around a steel drum line and handclaps and sung by Donna Jean Godchaux and Bob Weir, this is one of the few Grateful Dead songs the band never performed live. Fans have long regarded it as a low point, and apparently so did the band.  According to Robert Hunter, it started out as a Latin jam, but was changed and abbreviated for the album.  Mickey Hart later wrote of this song, "We were trying to sell out."  I get the objections, but I don't care for all this gatekeeping of the jam vibe, man.  It might be poppy, for a certain 1970s definition of "pop," but I dig it, myself.  

Five Minutes More - Frank Sinatra

Five Minutes More - Frank Sinatra

2:37

Come Swing With Me!, 1961

written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, 1946

Sinatra originally recorded this song in 1946, but re-recorded it for his last swing album for Capitol.  It's written from the point of view of a suitor who begs his inamorata for just a few more moments together, unwilling for the evening to end: "All week long I dreamed about our Saturday date / Don't you know that Sunday morning you can sleep late?"  Sinatra remains in strong vocal form, and Billy May's orchestra wisely gives him the spotlight, while still turning that classic big band sound, with full brass stabs, all the way up.

Fernande - Georges Brassens

Fernande - Georges Brassens

3:40

Georges Brassens, 1972

Written by Georges Brassens

Cette chanson franchement grivoise traite, disons, des érections. La Fernande du titre est une femme que le narrateur trouve attirante, comme bien d'autres : « Quand je pense à Fernande / Je bande, je bande / Quand je pense à Félicie / Je bande aussi / Quand je pense à Léonore / Mon Dieu, je bande encore. » Une femme nommée Lulu, pour des raisons qui demeurent mystérieuses, ne produit pas cet effet sur lui. Qui peut dire pourquoi ? Brassens prétend qu'il s'agit du refrain de tous les vieux célibataires, qu'ils soient gardien de phare, gardien de prison ou séminariste ; même le Soldat inconnu finit par s'en faire l'écho.

The First Cut Is the Deepest - P.P. Arnold

The First Cut Is the Deepest - P.P. Arnold

3:05

The First Lady Of Immediate, 1968

Written by Cat Stevens

Although Stevens recorded his own version of this song of a love gone wrong, Arnold beat him by a couple of months.  Steven's lyrics hit like an arrow to the heart, accurately capturing that peculiar mixture of loneliness and heartbreak in the wronged: "I still want you by my side / Just to help me dry the tears that I've cried." describing the feeling of heartbreak and Arnold's soulful vocal, full of pathos and regret, matches the helpless feeling of the lyric. The song was a hit single for six different artists: Arnold, Stevens, Keith Hampshire in 1973, Rod Stewart in 1977, Papa Dee in 1995, and Sheryl Crow in 2003.

Silver and Gold - Noah and the Whale

Silver and Gold - Noah and the Whale

3:24

Heart of Nowhere, 2013

Written by Charlie Fink

This is a song that wears its influences on its sleeve.  The very first line references Neil Young's classic albums: "Well, I was looking for harvest, but I only found silver and gold."  The song is structured around a repetitive simple percussion line, but when the chorus kicks in, the synth riff, vocal delivery, and even the lyric strongly evokes the Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place."  It's a song that asks for faith in love in a time of confusion and uncertainty, but doesn't offer any promises.  "And you’re just hanging on to a glimmer of hope / Of the life you had before / But it's too late."