Ice Water - Glen Barber

Ice Water - Glen Barber

2:27

single, 1954

Written by Glenn Barber

Barber was also called Glenn in his career — apparently that's how he spelled his middle name — but he went with one N on most of his records.  This is a proto-rockabilly, still more in the honky-tonk country zone than rock, musically.  With twangy vocals over a rollicking piano and steel guitar, the song boasts of non-stop partying, with the titular water being a way to wake the narrator up so he can get out there again: "I never slept last night, the night before that / But I can't sleep if I'm a real cool cat / We'll both go crazy, if I drag don't bother / Wash my face in ice cold water."

It Mek - Desmond Dekker & the Aces

It Mek - Desmond Dekker & the Aces

2:32

single, 1969

Written by Desmond Dekker and Leslie Kong

The song's title is Jamaican patois meaning "that's why" or "that's the reason." The phrase was also used as a schoolyard taunt roughly meaning "that's what you get." This is the sense used in the song's lyrics, which tell of the problems that happens when someone goes too far: "You think I never see you when you jump over de wall  / You think I never see you when you accidentally fall / Me said a it mek, mek you pop yu bitta gall."  

I've Got a Need For You - David Ruffin

I've Got a Need For You - David Ruffin

3:19

David: The Unreleased Album, 2004 (recorded c. 1970)

Written by Cardi Peters and Johnny Bristol

David Ruffin was one of the lead singers of the Temptations from 1964 to 1968.  Here, on this posthumous release, he delivers an impassioned soul love song in his raspy but emotion-drenched tenor over smooth horns and a background chorus of female singers. "I melt from every kiss you give me / Oh, they warm me on each chilly night / Respect your sweetness brought to me / Has changed my outlook on life."  The raw power of Ruffin's voice is evident in every syllable; this could easily have been a soul classic.

I Love You, Suzanne - Lou Reed

I Love You, Suzanne - Lou Reed

3:17

New Sensations, 1984

Written by Lou Reed

After a murmured spoken word introduction: "You broke my heart and you made me cry / You said that I couldn't dance / But now I'm back to let you know / That I can really make romance," this song turns into a hand-clapping, catchy crooning rocker, with some very basic lyrics supporting the title, on repeat.  The crunchy guitar riff really makes the song, which makes it a real shame that the riff is the subject of a split between Reed and Robert Quine, who claimed Reed nicked it off him.

You Won't Have To Cry - The Byrds

You Won't Have To Cry - The Byrds
2:07
Mr. Tambourine Man, 1965

Written by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn

At first I thought this was a Beatles cover; it's definitely got a Lennon/McCartney vibe, from the stabs of guitar at the beginning to the lyric, which addresses a girl in the second person. "Oh you know it makes me sad to see you feel so bad / But it's happened to you many times before."  That could easily have been a Fab Four lyric.  Overall, it's a middling Byrds track, but the perfect harmonies and '60s pop jangle are pleasant enough.

Only Sixteen - Sam Cooke

Only Sixteen - Sam Cooke

2:03

single, 1959

Written by Sam Cooke

Luckily, this is not one of the innumerable songs of the era about a sweet young thing not a minute over seventeen, as Chuck put it.  It's about an age-appropriate puppy love that — of course — didn't last.  "Why did I give my heart so fast? / It never will happen again," the song's narrator asks.  Then comes the perfect punchline, delivered deadpan: "But I was a mere lad of sixteen / I've aged a year since then."  Now he knows better!  Cooke's warm and feather-light croon, augmented by a quiet male backing chorus, gives what might be a musical trifle a quiet dignity.

Walkin' with Mr. Lee – Lee Allen

Walkin' with Mr. Lee – Lee Allen

2:26

single, 1958
Written by Lee Allen

This song was frequently played on the television program "American Bandstand."  Allen has been praised as a pioneer of the rock and roll sound: indeed, he played sax on "Tutti Frutti."  This song isn't as fiery, but it's an instrumental that's full of personality.  Allen's tenor sax doesn't just solo; it talks, struts, teases, and even sighs. The groove is relaxed but confident, built on that unmistakable New Orleans second-line swing. You can practically see the sidewalk swagger in the phrasing: this isn't background music, it’s a stroll with commentary.  His tone is big and rounded, expressive without being showy, and he knows exactly when to lean into a phrase and when to let the marching band rhythm section carry him forward.  

Volare - Bobby Rydell

Volare - Bobby Rydell

2:26

Bobby Sings, Bobby Swings, 1960

Written by Domenico Modugno, Mitchell Parish

This was originally a song called "Nel blu, dipinto di blu" ("In the blue sky, I was painted blue") by Modungo and lyrics by Franco Migliacci.  Mitchell Parish wrote the English lyrics, which Rydell delivers in a bouncy big band style with no Old World languor or weariness, as strings swell behind him: "We can sing in the glow of a star that I know of / Where lovers enjoy peace of mind."  Rydell's version becomes less about suave romance and more about exuberant possibility. It's not definitive in the way Dean Martin's is, but it's got charm.

Underneath the Bottle - Lou Reed

Underneath the Bottle - Lou Reed

2:33

The Blue Mask, 1982

Written by Lou Reed

A first-person account of days filled with alcoholism, blacking out, and the DTs.  Reed rattles off images of having the shakes, bruises of unknown provenance, and suicidal thoughts, all the while sounding positively chipper ("Ooh ooh whee, son of a B / You get so down, you can't get any lower."  I love that "son of a B!"  There's no chorus, no flashy guitar solos, just a straightforward account of desperation, with guitar.

Truckin' My Blues Away - Blind Boy Fuller

Truckin' My Blues Away - Blind Boy Fuller

3:08

single, 1936

Written by Blind Boy Fuller

Hey, I have a tiny suspicion that "truckin'" here might represent something more salacious than mere locomotion!  Oh Blind Boy Fuller, you rascal.  "Keep on truckin', baby, truckin' my blues away / Make a lame man run, make a blind man see, sure gets good when she truckin' with me."  It's classic blues double entendre, delivered with a grin.  A toe-tapping ragtime blues, it's got some sprightly fingerpicking that makes your head bob along.

Supernova - Liz Phair

Supernova - Liz Phair

2:49

Whip-Smart, 1994

Written by Liz Phair

A love song, the Liz Phair way.  "Your eyelashes sparkle like gilded grass / And your lips are sweet and slippery / Like a cherub's bare wet ass."  It's hardly Sonnet 18, but Phair's wry, deadpan vocals over sludgy, fuzzy guitar riffs and bendy, talking guitar lines make it sound immediate and important.  It's muscular, it's catchy, it captures young infatuation and lust, and it doesn't hurt that at the time of this release, I personally would have given anything I owned just to be in Liz Phair's presence for an hour.

Rain - The Beatles

Rain - The Beatles

3:01

single, 1966

Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon

This excellent B-side features a slowed-down rhythm track, a droning bass line that evoking Asian musical stylings and, at the end, backwards vocals. Lyrically, it ostensibly extols the value of rain instead of complaining about the weather: "Rain, I don't mind / Shine, the weather's fine / I can show you that when it starts to rain / Everything's the same."  But the repeated line "I can show you," the later line "it's just a state of mind" and the Beatles' exploration of psychedelia at the time points to a deeper meaning, that of rain representing some sort of expanded consciousness that Lennon feels privy to.  

Beauty Queen Sister - Indigo Girls

Beauty Queen Sister - Indigo Girls

3:11

Beauty Queen Sister, 2011

Written by Amy Ray

This fast-paced title track, one of Amy Ray's best, reflects on a rough but free-spirited Southern childhood rendered in vivid, affectionate detail. Ray sketches a world of bikers, tattoos, and back-road survival with quick, evocative strokes ("Mama's got a friend named Monkeyman / With a two-seater bike / And a tattoo stand"), grounding the song in lived experience rather than nostalgia. A passing reference to The Outsiders ("Pony watched Johnny die / Nothing gold can stay") reinforces the sense of youthful reckoning and hard-earned awareness.  The overall theme of this song is one of loss ("But every day I gained, another fell apart.") but leavened by hope.  Cut live in the studio, the track shimmies with soulful momentum, buoyed by the Shadowboxers' warm, insistent backing refrain: "Hang on tight."   

Party Doll - Buddy Knox

Party Doll - Buddy Knox

2:15

Buddy Knox, 1957

Written by Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen

A simple but bouncy rockabilly number, this song expresses the most primitive urge in rock music: a guy's gotta have a gal.  "Every man has got to have a party doll / To be with him when he's feeling wild / To be ever-loving, true and fair / To run her fingers through his hair."  Knox sings in an affable twang that calls to mind the more famous, glasses-wearing Buddy who would very soon follow.  It's all very ramshackle, a vibe as if the fellas were putting on a show as a lark, not in a professional recording session.  An ambling guitar strums along, some enthusiastic young girls (Knox's neighbors, apparently) sing backing, blocky percussion keeps the beat, and a ringing cymbal adds brightness.

One Foot Before the Other - Frank Turner

One Foot Before the Other - Frank Turner

3:25

England Keep My Bones, 2011

Written by Frank Turner

Surely one of Turner's masterworks, this song finds him asking — rather, demanding — to be scattered into England's reservoirs after he dies. "And then specks infinitesimal of my mortal remains / Will slide down seven million throats and into seven million veins / And I will creep through their capillaries to the marrow of their bones."  Turner all but roars the lines.  It's brash, loud, muscular, cathartic, proud, victorious.  

Night Changes - One Direction

Night Changes - One Direction

3:46

Four, 2014

Written by Jamie Scott, Julian Bunetta, John Ryan, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson

Like many other crusty old Gen-Xers weaned on classic rock, I never thought I'd be listening to One Direction.  But my stepdaughter, who listens to a mix of '70s and modern music, was playing this, and ignorant of the artist, I was grooving to it.  That blind encounter matters: stripped of context and baggage, the song makes a quietly persuasive first impression.  This song has a sort of '70s yacht-folk rock vibe going, with lush harmonies and a light synth backbone.  Lyrically, the song explores the passage of time ("Just how fast the night changes / Everything that you've ever dreamed of / Disappearing when you wake up") and getting older.  It does outstay its welcome for me, relying on the repetition of the lengthy chorus, but it's a nice easy-listening song as long as you don't overplay it.

Made in Japan - Buck Owens

Made in Japan - Buck Owens

2:44

In the Palm of Your Hand, 1973

Written by Bob Morris and Faye Morris

The narrator of this song meets a girl in Japan who captivates him ("The beauty of her face was beyond my wildest dreams / Like cherry blossoms blooming in the mountain in the early spring"), but this intercontinental romance is not to be, and he must leave her: "That's when I left my heart with the girl made in Japan."  It's a short but sweet story-song, tastefully done (flipping the expected script about a one night stand by a touring musician), with the guitar lines bending to mimic the sounds of traditional Japanese music.

Little Things Mean a Lot - Bettye Swann

Little Things Mean a Lot - Bettye Swann

3:43

Don't You Ever Get Tired Of Hurting Me?, 1969

Written by Edith Lindeman and Carl Stutz, 1953

Recorded when Swann was just nineteen, this is a slow-burning soul song, a plea for attention that's packed with emotion.  The songs starts with Swann's delicate vocal, with the band a gentle accompaniment: "Blow me a kiss from across the room / Tell me I look nice even when I'm not / Touch my hair as you pass my chair / These are just little things, oh but they mean a lot." These gestures are mere tokens, but that's what gives the request its emotional power.  Gradually, dreamy backing vocals and horns build and build to a crescendo, and Swann's voice is longing, not overwrought but impassioned, until at the end it falls to a whispered plea again.  The delicate, intimate production has been cited as an inspiration for Aretha Franklin.

Kelly the Boy From Killan - the Dubliners

Kelly the Boy From Killan - the Dubliners

2:31

More Of the Hard Stuff, 1967 

Written by Patrick Joseph McCall, 1898

John Kelly was a real-life United Irish leader who fought in the Wexford Rebellion of 1798.  During the battle, Kelly was wounded in the leg. He was moved to Wexford to recuperate but after the fall of Wexford on 21 June was dragged from his bed, tried and sentenced to death.  As usual in Irish rebel songs, hagiography can rear its head: "Tell me who is that giant with the gold curling hair / He who rides at the head of your band? / Seven feet is his height with some inches to spare / And he looks like a king in command."  This rendition is a rousing anthem, proud even in the jaws of defeat, as only the Dubliners can belt it out.

Jack O'Diamonds - Lonnie Donegan and His Skiffle Group

Jack O'Diamonds - Lonnie Donegan and His Skiffle Group
2:52
single, 1957
Traditional

I know this song from its recording by folk-blues giant "Spider" John Koerner.   This rendition is a clattering express train that slowly gains tempo.  The rattletrap percussion and sharp picked guitar notes create a primitive beat.  Donegan's vocal starts stately, but is fairly shouting the lines by the end, his nasal yowl cutting through the din as the tempo edges ever upward.  The performance feels improvised not in structure but in momentum, as if no one involved is quite sure how fast it’s going to end up.

I'm Going To Give It To Mary With Love - Loudon Wainwright III

I'm Going To Give It To Mary With Love - Loudon Wainwright III

3:16

I'd Rather Lead a Band, 2020

Written by Cliff Edwards, 1933

Assisted by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, Wainwright takes on this song, which, like all the others on the album, is from the early American songbook.  This one's a winking, risqué-for-the-time song of sexual innuendo ("I'm going to let her take it right in the hand / 'Cause I know that she'll stroke it so grand")  Later, of course, he tosses out the joke: "I'm talking about a necklace!" Wainwright, with his long history of describing himself as a cross between a goofy dad, a hopeless husband, and a ladies' man who can't help himself, is the perfect voice for this novelty song.

Hope Is a Dangerous Little Thing - The Menzingers

Hope Is a Dangerous Little Thing - The Menzingers

3:12

Some Of It Was True, 2023

Written by the Menzingers

Raw, emotional yet muscular Americans punk, reminiscent of the Lawrence Arms and Gaslight Anthem.  The album title seems to come from the Clash's "London's Burning," which is at the least a sign the band has good taste.  Built on a fierce percussion backbone, this song is an arm-pumping, depressing anthem of not being loved by the one you love: "I passed a restaurant burned to the ground / And a dollar store with a burned out A / I laughed thinking that I relate / I'm the junk you buy then throw away."

Goodbye NOLA - Orgone feat. Kelly Finnigan

Goodbye NOLA - Orgone feat. Kelly Finnigan

2:42

single, 2017

Written by Orgone and Kelly Finnigan

A modern funk band, Orgone is an eight-piece that wears its Funkadelic and Stax Records influences on its sleeve proudly.  This song is pure '70s funk driven by a soul beat, with a note-bending guitar solo.  It's a tribute to New Orleans with odd, dream-like lyrics: "Mama Rule got the fever, fever for the second line / Cry in my heart while the water burst my mind / I was filled with the sound of a trumpet hound / And the flood run through the mud of every sacred ground."  It's got a Dr. John vibe, and guest Finnigan provides some swampy, gruff vocals.

Fugue For Tinhorns - Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin

Fugue For Tinhorns - Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin

1:30

single, 1963

Written by Frank Loesser

The opening number from Guys and Dolls, of course, redone by three of the greatest voices of the era.  Singing over one another, they create a cavalcade of words, overlapping so you hear first one snatch of lyrics, then another.  And man, could Loesser — whose songs have been featured on this blog twice —write patter!  "And just a minute, boys / I've got the feed box noise / It says the great-grandfather was Equipoise."  It's charming, it's funny, it's even a little sad when you think how these tinhorns are so convinced of their slim chances to win big,

End Of the Road - Jerry Lee Lewis

End Of the Road - Jerry Lee Lewis

1:48
single, 1956

Written by Jerry Lee Lewis

In this tough country rockabilly number, the narrator is eager to get things shaking with his love.  He's planted at the titular end of the road.  He doesn't care if he ever gets home!  In fact, he claims doesn't need anything.  "Well the stars may not shine and neither the moon  / What the heck, we don't want no moon."  I get a kick out of that line; it's funny, blunt, and slightly unhinged, much like the Killer himself.  The rolling piano lines interplay with surf-like guitar, but the piano is the star, of course.

Down On Bended Knee - Johnny Copeland

Down On Bended Knee - Johnny Copeland

3:24

single, 1962

Written by Charlie Booth and Johnny Copeland

This song comes with a bit of discographical confusion. Some sources list a "Down on Bending Knees," which may be the same song retitled somewhere along the compilation trail, or an unlikely second, slightly different song. Discogs muddies the waters by crediting both titles on different release. Either way, this is a rocking electric Texas blues.  Copeland has a big, soul-drenched voice and plays a dazzling, blistering guitar.  Stabs of brass punctuate the virtuoso guitar lines and add even more swagger.

Chimurenga del Guadiana - Perrofláuta

Chimurenga del Guadiana - Perroflauta
3:53

Perrofláuta, 1998

Written by Perroflauta

I have no context for this song. The band seems to be Basque or Spanish, with a name that translates literally to "dog flute" but apparently is a slang word meaning a vocal extreme leftist, what we might call a "social justice warrior."  As for the title, "Chimurenga" is a Shona word meaning “struggle,” most famously associated with anti-colonial resistance in Zimbabwe, while the Guadiana is a river marking the border between Spain and Portugal. The song itself is vocal-heavy, built around repeated "ley ley ley" chants, call-and-response singing, and long, bent notes that clearly draw on African musical traditions. The rhythm leans hard into African beats rather than Iberian folk, creating a deliberately hybrid sound. The final thirty seconds shift abruptly into a militaristic, chant-like rap delivered in what sounds like a Romance language I can't identify.  I may not fully grasp what Perroflauta are trying to synthesize politically or culturally here, but musically it works. The collision of styles feels earnest rather than gimmicky, driven by energy, rhythm, and communal voice.

Big Ten Inch Record - Bull Moose Jackson

Big Ten Inch Record - Bull Moose Jackson

2:15

single, 1952

Written by Fred Weismantel

This is the epitome of swinging bawdy blues.  You can guess, certainly, what the big ten inch record is referring to without even being told.  Punctuated by a slinky horn, Bull Moose's juicy baritone belts out the crucial lines: "When we're in a lover's clinch / And when she gets all excited / She begs for my big ten-inch" — And here there's a brief but pregnant pause — "Record of the band that plays the blues."  The comic precision leavens the innuendo, which ultimately elevates it and sets it apart from the ruck of other dirty blues of the '30s and '40s.

All New Minglewood Blues - Grateful Dead

All New Minglewood Blues - The Grateful Dead

4:16

Shakedown Street, 1978

Written by Noah Lewis, 1930

The Dead initially claimed credit for this song, and while it is definitely fleshed out and expanded, it's clear that it's Lewis' creation, at least the blues structure and lyrics.  (The original, "Minglewood Blues," was written before 1930 and has different lyrics; Lewis' "New Minglewood Blues" from 1930 is the one this was based off.)  But they do transform it.  The acoustic shuffle becomes a thick, swaggering bar-band groove, anchored by Phil Lesh’s roaming bass rather than a traditional blues walk. Bob Weir's rhythm guitar is all clipped chords and percussive accents, leaving space for Jerry Garcia’s lead lines, which mix stinging blues bends with his distinctly conversational phrasing.  It's swampy, gritty, and tailor-made for extended jams.