Character Flaw - They Might Be Giants

Character Flaw - They Might Be Giants

2:51

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Linnell and John Flansburgh

This song, about a terrible person, brings to my mind the Giants' "Icky," another catchy song about an unpleasant man who conveniently forgets obligations and gets all up in your face.  This one also, inevitably, evokes the current corrupt demented slug in the White House: "Tearing up the whole town / Breaking every law / People go out of their way to miss my character flaw / It's the flawiest flaw that you have ever saw / Everyone already knows about my character flaw."  I mean, if you were setting out to write a song about a human (technically) who's all of the seven deadly sins wrapped in a prancing, deluded, makeup-caked, obese pustule of a package, those lines would be pretty apt.  I have read that other people interpret the song wildly differently, even identifying with the narrator as some sort of transgressive rebel who owns his or her unique personality, but I think that requires some self-absorption and dismissal of the final verse about the carnage the narrator has created.

Outside Brain - They Might Be Giants

Outside Brain - They Might Be Giants

2:01

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell

This is a super catchy, '60s garage pop-influenced track held together by Marty Beller's frenetic drumming.  The rapid fire guitar riffs and the express-train drum line support the lyrics, a slideshow of images representing a wave of anxiety and mania that somehow you have done the wrong thing, that everyone is starting at you, that you've missed some invisible social cue.  "The panic of a blown-out fuse / I can't take much more bad news / Spinning in this busted chair / Headstrong and unprepared."

Get Down - They Might Be Giants

Get Down - They Might Be Giants

2:47

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell

The Giants just released their first album in five years, so I'm going to explore it.  TMBG is one of my top five bands of all time.  I remember clearly being entranced by the video for "Don't Let's Start" on MTV around 1986 when I was an impressionable youth of 15 or so.  Oh, there's more in the rearview mirror than in the road ahead at this point!  Anyhoo, this song's got a razor-sharp horn line and an urgent tone.  It's a call to get down.  The Johns have always had a knack for finding and exploiting words and phrases that can be interpreted more than one way.  There's value here, the lyrics aside, to the ambiguity of whether you take this phrase to mean ducking for cover or grooving to a beat.  In the lyrics, instructions come from space and baffle the world: "Just as we were hearing the news / The announcer's voice was cut off / The signal went dead and it cut to a different feed / A metallic and alien voice began speaking / Get down / I'm telling you for your own good / Right now you should."

Cryin' Heart Blues - The Del McCoury Band

Cryin' Heart Blues - The Del McCoury Band

2:59

The Family, 1999

Written by Lou Willie Turner, 1951

This song's credit goes to Big Joe Turner's wife, though probably he wrote it and credited her to give her an income stream in the event of his death.  Anyway, the song was recorded by honky-tonk duo Johnnie and Jack in 1951.  This version is a bluegrass gem, with leisurely banjo and mandolin picking interplay, high nasal tenor vocals, and high harmonies.  The Del McCoury Band really just has no close rivals in the bluegrass game.

Lucy Mae Blues - Frankie Lee Sims

Lucy Mae Blues - Frankie Lee Sims

2:27

single, 1953

Written by Frankie Lee Sims and Ishman Bracey

Sims was Lightnin' Hopkins' cousin, and only issued nine singles during his career.  The songwriting credit on this one goes to Sims and Ishman Bracey, who wrote the very similar "Saturday Blues" in 1928.  It's a slinky electric blues, in which the narrator has a lady for every day of the week, but "Better not let my, good gal catch you here / Ain't no tellin' what poor little Lucy Mae do."  Sims sings the lyrocs in a mush-mouth growl as his guitar does all the heavy lifting.  I like the line "She left one Christmas coming back that afternoon / Next time I see her, boy, it was the nineteenth of June."

Mother-In-Law Blues - Junior Parker

Mother-In-Law Blues - Junior Parker

2:35

single, 1956

Written by Don Robey

This is a straightforward, midtempo Mississippi blues about losing your baby.  Despite the title, the lady in question doesn't seem to be the source of the narrator's leaving; she seems to have made up her mind on her own.  "I could hear her tell her mother, 'That's one no good man!' / Well, I watched my baby leave, her mother had her by the hand."  Parker himself provides a strong harmonica break that adds to his plaintive voice in bewailing his loss.

Bad Luck Blues - Guitar Slim

Bad Luck Blues - Guitar Slim

2:54

single, 1954

Written by Guitar Slim?

Guitar Slim died at age 32 of pneumonia, which is a musical tragedy, because he could have been a legend.  He experimented with guitar distortion and when playing live, showed off such musical tricks and playing while perched on the shoulders of his assistant, with his guitar behind his back, or (as Hendrix would a decade later) plucking the strings with his teeth.  This is a slow electric Mississippi blues.  Slim bellows the lyrics with the gravitas that only those who shared his rough upbringing can muster.  Lyrically, it's standard blues phraseology: "My woman, she have quit me, baby / And all my womens have put me down / Yes, I’ve got no money in my pocket, baby / And my friends don't come around."

Stolen Blues - American Princes

Stolen Blues - American Princes

2:31

Less And Less, 2006

Written by American Princes?

This is a quiet/loud indie rocker that, in its full-throated, frantic explosion of angsty despair, reminds me of Les Savy Fav's "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn."  It's a message of disappointment and futility.  "They've been lying to you / They've been lying to you / Saying stay dumb and shut up, salt the old wounds / But that's just what they say / That namеless they."  It's a clever, hard-driven burner with twin guitars and passionate vocals.

The Rooster Song - Fats Domino

The Rooster Song - Fats Domino

2:08

This Is Fats, 1957

Written by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew

Confusingly, this New Orleans romp has a chorus of "Ain't That a Shame," his big hit of a few years earlier.  Never let it be said that Fats Domino didn't stick with a good thing.  The lyrics here are strictly first draft nursery-rhyme: "There was an old lady from Houston / She had two hens and a rooster / Her rooster died, the old lady cried / My hens don't lay like they used to!"  Someone else is happy playing in his corn (?), and some other lady has some stew.  I guess.... that's also a shame?

Without a Song - Perry Como

Without a Song - Perry Como

3:17

single, 1951

Written by Vincent Youmans, Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu

This song comes from a short-lived 1929 musical called Great Day, quickly forgotten except as the source of this tune.  Como's version is stately and expansive, a showcase for his smooth, unforced baritone. The arrangement swells around him, full orchestra rising and receding as he glides over it with an almost effortless control.  At the end, a male chorus sings the refrain, bringing the drama and passion to bombastic gradeur.  Lyrically, it's a declaration of music's necessity to heal and comfort, and indeed even as a life force: "That field of corn, would never see a plow / That field of corn, would be deserted now / A young one's born, but he's no good no how / Without a song!"  (That's the revised lyrics — the original said "a darkie's born," fortunately even in the era seen as inappropriate.)  It's not hard to understand why this is one of of Bob Dylan's favorite performances,  He called Como "the anti-Rat Pack" and this song "just downright incredible."