Pretty Saro - Bob Dylan

Pretty Saro - Bob Dylan

2:16

The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971), 2013 (recorded 1970)

traditional

The narrator pines for his love, Saro, but since he has no land or money, he can't very well ask for her to stick around.  He's not even a dab hand with words: "If I was a poet / And could write a fine hand / I'd write my love a letter / That she'd understand."  But since he can't, he must bid her adieu and see her only in his dreams.  Dylan's using his crooner voice here, a subdued, haunting vocal that emphasizes the narrator's helplessness in the face of harsh reality.

Pretty Polly - The Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys

Pretty Polly - The Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys

2:48

single, 1951

traditional

This song's origins date back to the late 18th century; it developed from a murder ballad known as "The Gosport Tragedy."  A lot more information about the origins of this song and some of its interpreters can be found here.  It's a creepy tale, and Ralph Stanley's plaintive, nasal vocals are fittingly eerie.  In this version, the cold-blooded killer doesn't just stab Polly to death because he doesn't want to marry her — he makes a nasty remark about her "past reputation" before doing the deed.  

Pretty Boy Floyd - the Byrds

Pretty Boy Floyd - the Byrds

2:34

Sweetheart Of the Rodeo, 1968

Written by Woody Guthrie, 1939

I know this song from the Guthrie and Dylan version. This one has a brisk tempo and some mighty fine bluegrass banjo picking by John Hartford.  McGuinn's nasal vocals have an easy, semi-spoken pace, so you can make out the words easily.  It's not an earth-shaking cover, but pleasant to listen to.  I put it in the same category as the early Stones covers, where an artist does a slightly rockier version by an old master as an homage and a way to gain genre cred.

Pretty Little Baby - Connie Francis

Pretty Little Baby - Connie Francis

2:22

Connie Francis Sings Second Hand Love, 1962

Written by Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin, probably?

Wikipedia says this song is by Marvin Gaye, but it's clearly not; his song is totally different.  This song's lyrics are decidedly not Gaye's style: "Meet me at the car hop or at the pop shop / Meet me in the moonlight or in the daylight."  It's definitely a puppy love song of its time.  I find it quite charming, the spritely tempo, spritely organ, soft backing vocals, and Francis's cheery, bubbly voice urging carpe diem: "Now is just the time, while both of us are young."

The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis - Cory Branan

The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis - Cory Branan

3:11

12 Songs, 2006

Written by Cory Branan

Hard-driving alt-country rock Americana.  A story song of the kind Johnny Cash might sing.  The narrator, apparently a long-haul trucker, is enamored of a pretty waitress, but "she's only that way for a while."  The lyrics are surprisingly witty, the kind of funny that grabs you immediately.  "Well, there is only one reason I stop in this place / Let me stress that it ain't the cuisine."  And: "She's the prettiest waitress in Memphis and I think she's flirting with me / Readin' them specials extra special, slipped her finger into my sweet tea."  Of course, there's a clearly-telegraphed "surprise" ending.  "It's not what you're thinking."  Well, it is, but the song is terrific.

The Ten Commandments Of Love - Little Anthony & the Imperials

The Ten Commandments Of Love - Little Anthony & the Imperials

3:05

single, 1969

Written by Marshall Paul

I prefer this doo-wop version to the Moonglows' original version with its talking and lugubrious tempo.  The arrangement is stately but lush, and the harmonies swoop and soar.  It starts out with a hushed reverence, with some crystal-pure echoing backing vocals, then gets into a more intense, soul-singer pleading.  By the end, Anthony is screaming like James Brown or a preacher, though the song fades out there so the effect is somewhat diminished.  

Nine Pound Hammer - The Tony Rice Unit

Nine Pound Hammer - The Tony Rice Unit

2:55

Manzanita, 1979

traditional

Where Johnny Cash and Merle Travis play this song straight and slow, as a working song (takes that have failed to grab me), Tony Rice transforms it into a uptempo, fast-paced masterclass in dazzling flatpicking guitar, with clean, rapid, melodic runs, and a polished blend of bluegrass and jazz phrasing.  The mandolin, bass, and fiddle hum along with a light, fluid touch, blending bluegrass with jazz phrasing.  Rice's smooth, laid-back vocals ler the musicianship take center stage.

Beat Me, Daddy, Eight To the Bar - The Andrews Sisters

Beat Me, Daddy, Eight To the Bar - The Andrews Sisters

2:54

single, 1940

Written by Don Raye, Hughie Prince, and Ray McKinley

Pounding boogie-woogie piano and horns, with expert harmonies.  Supposedly, a pianist named Freddie Slack was nicknamed Daddy, and McKinley, a drummer, would ask for a boogie beat, or eight to the bar.  A couple of songwriters heard him, and a song was born.  The sisters' cheeky harmonies really make the song, bouncing effortlessly between playful syncopation and silky smooth blend.

7 Chinese Bros. - R.E.M.

7 Chinese Bros. - R.E.M.

4:14

Reckoning, 1984

Written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe

I'm much ore familiar with the "Voice Of Harold" version of this track.  It's still odd for me to hear this music and not hear the liner notes to the Revelaires album,.  Anyway, the actual song's lyrics are, surprise surprise, pretty abstruse.  Stipe said it was about him breaking up a couple and then trying to date them, but there's little in the song that might make that clear to an outsider.  It's possible I prefer "Voice Of Harold."  As a kid, I sure enjoyed the book the song title is somewhat based on, though.

Six Days On the Road - Dave Dudley

Six Days On the Road - Dave Dudley

2:14

Songs About the Working Man, 1963

Written by Earl Green and Carl Montgomery

I know this song through the Burrito Brothers version.  It's an original pill-poppin', scale-dodging, probably unsafe trucker's road anthem!  Funny lyrics, but with a universally relatable theme of wanting to get home after a hard day's work no matter what the obstacles.  The song really evokes the boredom, thrills, and careless corner-cutting that make up the long haul trucker's life.  Dudley's slurred bass sounds like a poor man's Johnny Cash impression off and on through the track, but it's that very tone of woozy masculinity that sell the song.

Five Long Years - Eddie Boyd

Five Long Years - Eddie Boyd

2:42

single, 1952

Written by Eddie Boyd

Buzzy sax and piano make this a barrelhouse blues classic.  The narrator has worked "five long years for one woman, then she had the nerve to put me out."  It took me a bit to realize that the woman wasn't his boss, but the lady he went home to after his job.  He worked on her behalf, but she dumped him anyway.  His lesson?  "The next woman I marry, she gotta have two jobs / And she gotta go out and work long and bring some dough home."

Four Winds - Bright Eyes

Four Winds - Bright Eyes

4:16

Cassadega, 2007

Written by Conor Oberst

I love this kind of song, with an avalanche of words tumbling one after the other, imagery and references whizzing by among the torrent.  "The Bible's blind, the Torah's deaf, the Qur'an is mute / If you burned them all together you'd be close to the truth, Still they're poring over Sanskrit under Ivy League moons." The message seems to be a fairly pessimistic one, of a violent and turbulent world where meaning and peace are hard to discern.  "And I was off to old Dakota where a genocide sleeps."  You got that right.

Three Hearts In a Tangle - James Brown and His Famous Flames

Three Hearts In a Tangle - James Brown and His Famous Flames

2:44

Tour the U.S.A., 1962

Written by Ray Pennington and Sonny Thompson, 1958

Apparently the first version of this song was country, but Brown turns it into a funk with a '60s go-go beat, percussion giving faint island vibes, and crooning background vocals.  It's not exactly a masterpiece or Brown's best work, but he's screaming it out like it might make or break him (and it did hit the R&B charts, so good for him!).

Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Queen

Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To...) - Queen

3:43

A Night At the Opera, 1976

Written by Freddy Mercury

This operatic kiss-off, remarkably caustic for being the opening track on an album, was directed at Queen's original manager and their label Trident Records.  The manager sued for defamation, thus establishing his connection to the song (the Streisand effect), and Queen settled out of court.  This track is superb both musically and lyrically.  It's starts with weird space-age noises, then brings in a gradually  more aggressive piano line, then guitars start up a sort of rock tango, until it's practically heavy metal.  And those wonderful Queen harmonies!  And those lyrics, up there with any Dylan hit job: "You're a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride / Should be made unemployed / Then make yourself null and void."

One Bad Stud - The Blasters

One Bad Stud - The Blasters

2:27

Streets Of Fire Soundtrack, 1987

Written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, 1954

An entry into the list of "big bad guy" songs that were popular in the early days of rock 'n' roll.  This guy has big muscles and looks like a bear.  He likes his rock 'n' rye.  And, of course, "the girls all love him like a schoolboy loves his pie."  And, unlike in, say "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," this bad stud gets no comeuppance.  In fact, he convinces the poor narrator's girl to come bail him out of jail.  The Blasters rattle through this one as straight rockabilly, updating the sound but not really adding anything extra.

Centauro - Il Pan del Diavolo

Centauro - Il Pan del Diavolo

2:32

Sono all'osso, 2010

Written by Pietro Alessandro Alosi and Alessio Fabra?

A hard-hitting acoustic punk song, in the vein of Against Me.   Dual male vocals give the song a driving, aggressive force.  It's a bit repetitive; there are two verses and a bridge, and the chorus is repeated four times.  The lyrics are rather abstruse, either decrying or affirming women who "dress like whores" and want to make someone happy.  Not sure who the centaur is supposed to be.  

La Chanson de Prévert - Serge Gainsbourg

La chanson de Prévert - Serge Gainsbourg

3:02

L'Étonnant Serge Gainsbourg, 1961

Written by Serge Gainsbourg

Gainsbourg wrote this song as a tribute to Jacque Prévert’s famous poem "Les Feuilles Mortes."  Draped in smoky, detached French cool and softly speak-crooning his baritone over an understated melancholy jazzy arrangement, he comes off here as the very model of a French Leonard Cohen.  Even the lyrics are extremely evocative of Cohen's work such as "Famous Blue Raincoat:" "Cette chanson était la tienne / C'était ta préférée, je crois" and "Les amours mortes / N'en finissent pas de mourir."

Les Champs-Elysées - Joe Dassin

Les Champs-Elysées - Joe Dassin

2:37

Joe Dassin, 1969

Written by Pierre Delanoë, Michael Wilshaw, Michael Deighan

Here's something I didn't know:  This song is a French-language cover of "Waterloo Road," a single released the previous year by the English rock band Jason Crest, which I have never heard of.   Another Wikitidbit: Dassin later recorded versions of the song in English, German, Italian and Japanese!  I assume he did this with varying degrees of fluency.  It's a feel-good ballad with a sing-along chorus, about meeting someone ("Je m'baladais sur l'avenue le cœur ouvert à l'inconnu / J'avais envie de dire bonjour à n'importe qui") who takes you on an adventure, and just enjoying the life on the street.  

Sommertag - Gisbert Zu Knyphausen

Sommertag - Gisbert Zu Knyphausen

2:42

Gisbert Zu Knyphausen, 2008

Written by Gisbert Zu Knyphausen?

What a name!  I've never heard of this German singer-songwriter, but this song is a great blend of melody and rock.  The lyrics, as far as I understand them, seem to be about how life can be overwhelming with all its heartache and noise, but it's fleeting and it can be beautiful ("es ist ein wunderschöner Sommertag"), so all we can do is try to grasp at togetherness, take a breath and move on.

Ganz klar gegen Nazis - Wizo

Ganz klar gegen Nazis - Wizo

3:30

Punk gibt's nicht umsonst (Teil III), 2014

Written by Wizo? 

I'm passingly familiar with this German punk band, and I'd say this is their best song by miles.  With a churning, aggressive drumbeat and blunt-force guitars, and lyrics decrying all manner of fascism and oppression, to me it's the epitome of what Teutonic punk should be.  It's the kind of song I would like to go on for another ten minutes. 

Corrine, Corrina - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

Corrine, Corrina - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

3:25

single, 1940

Single by Charlie McCoy and Bo Chatman, 1928

I thought this song was traditional, but I guess it's credited to the people who first recorded it.  Everybody and their brother has done this song, even Cab Calloway!  I've heard a couple, but am really only familiar with Bob's version.  Anyhoo, this is a great example of jaunty Western swing.  It's a honky-tonk blend of steel guitar twang, piano, and big-band shuffle styles.  The vocal is heavy on aw-shucks personality ("I love Corrina / You know darn well I do"), peppered with cowboy interjections.

California - Joni Mitchell

California - Joni Mitchell

3:50

Blue, 1971

Written by Joni Mitchell

The narrator is in Europe, but pines for California, despite the bad news in the States: "They won't give peace a chance / That was just a dream some of us had."  She says of France, "I wouldn't want to stay here / It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here."  The second verse, in which she sings of meeting "a redneck on a Grecian isle" is about some hippie she met.  She writes about him in "Carey" as well; here she calls him a rogue and says he stole her camera.  Mitchell's voice is the star, but James Taylor plays a subtle, springing acoustic guitar which sets the mood.

Grand Coulee Dam - Woody Guthrie

Grand Coulee Dam - Woody Guthrie

2:12

single, 1941

Written by Woody Guthrie

Based on the traditional tune "Wabash Cannonball," this is a rarely patriotic folk anthem by Guthrie, celebrating the scale and ambition of one of America's great New Deal projects. The feat of civil engineering is elevated into mythic frontier heroism, casting the dam as a symbol of progress and American power. "And there roars the flying fortress now to fight for Uncle Sam, / Spawned upon the King Columbia by the big Grand Coulee Dam."  Hearing an optimistic Guthrie singing not of hardship, but of good old factories humming, is a little odd.

Chantilly Lace - Nashville Teens

Chantilly Lace - Nashville Teens

3:09

Written by J.P. Richardson

single, 1964?

Despite their name, the Nashville Teens were English.  Here, they totally retool the Bopper's big hit and give it a glorious British Invasion garage rock makeover.  They use the telephone call conceit sparingly, upping the tempo and bringing in guitars, hard-hitting drums, and a blues-rock tone akin to Them or the Animals.  The piano is still there, giving it a boogie-woogie aspect, but the delivery is all rock snarl.

I Want Candy - The Strangeloves

I Want Candy - The Strangeloves
2:57
single, 1965
Written by Bert Berns, Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer

Some say this song was inspired by dancer Candy Johnson.  I have heard this hit over the years, of course (it's pretty inescapable, even if only in parody form), but I guess I always assumed it was literally about sugary confectionary.  But it's about a girl!  "Got everything that I desire / Sets the summer sun on fire."  Sung in a schoolyard chant Bo Diddley beat, with primitive-sounding percussion (deep toms, few snares) and only a few guitar lines.  No polish, all swagger and big dumb earworm.  The group pretended they were Australian sheep farmers to get publicity.  How odd.

When You Walk in the Room - Jackie DeShannon

When You Walk in the Room - Jackie DeShannon

2:38

Breakin' It Up On the Beatles Tour!, 1964

Written by Jackie DeShannon

The narrator of the song finds it hard to express her love: "I close my eyes for a second and pretend it's me you want / Meanwhile I try to act so nonchalant."  But the wistful lyrics are belied by her bright, uptempo alto vocal delivery and a surging, chiming guitar sound.  It's got girl-group energy, but the effect is more Merseybeat via singer-songwriter.  Sort of at a crossroads between old-school vocal pop and new rocking pop.  It could be a Carole King number.  

When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again - Elvis Presley

When My Blue Moon Turns To Gold Again - Elvis Presley

2:22

Elvis, 1956

Written by Wiley Walker and Gene Sullivan, 1940

A toe-tapping, catchy song of lost love and hope ("When my blue moon turns to gold again / You’ll be back within my arms to stay"), showing the King's early mastery of blending country, gospel, and rockabilly into something unmistakably his own.  Elvis electrifies the song with his smooth, yearning vocals and a light, swinging rhythm, not quite honky-tonk nor full-blown rock swagger, but definitely devlivered with confidence and talent.

When the Ship Comes In [live] - Bob Dylan

When the Ship Comes In [live] - Bob Dylan
3:05
The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack, 2005 (recorded 1963)

Written by Bob Dylan

One of my favorite early Dylan songs.  I love the insistent guitar that propels the song along, the melody and pitch rising and falling like waves.  It's like a gospel march wrapped in a folk protest song.  This version was recorded at Carnegie Hall on October 26, 1963.  It doesn't differ a great deal from the studio version (which runs at 3:14) — that live show prerequisite would come with later, grumpier Dylan — but it's such a terrific song, I'll hear it again only slightly tweaked, I don't mind.

When I Stop Dreaming - The Louvin Brothers

When I Stop Dreaming - The Louvin Brothers

2:25

single, 1955

Written by Charlie Louvin and Ira Louvin

An in-harmony country weeper, blending close brother-duet singing with deep Appalachian bluegrass and gospel and early honky-tonk influences.  Its aching, sorrowful style helped define the emerging genre of country heartbreak ballads: "You can teach all the raindrops to return to the clouds / But you can’t teach my heart to forget."  The song asserts unrelenting love and grief lasting beyond death, the message simple and devastatingly pure. It’s a cornerstone of the stylistic roots of modern country and Americana music.

When This River Rolls Over You - The Stands

When This River Rolls Over You - The Stands

2:58

All Years Leaving, 2004

Written by Howie Payne

This song is coated in vocal harmonies, harmonica breaks, gently jangling guitars, and it practically exudes nostalgia, especially the Byrds and early Bob Dylan.  Lyrically and in the guitar and nasal vocal delivery and imagery, Dylan is a towering shadow here.  "Ain't it a shame babe how your words fall in an empty place / No one to follow or to trace."  I like it, but I would not have been surprised to hear it was from the late '60s.