Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - Stick McGhee & His Buddies

Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - Stick McGhee & His Buddies

3:15

single, 1949

Written by Stick McGhee and J. Mayo Williams

I was first exposed to this song, I am ashamed to admit, by the loathsome Kid Rock's execrable evisceration of it.  Jerry Lee Lewis' 1973 version is best known, but this is the original.  It's a cheery jump blues about the joys of drinking.  "Down in New Orleans, where everything is fine  / All them cats is drinkin' that wine / Drinking that mess to their delight."  There's a chorus of "wine, wine wine," reminding me of the 1959 song of the same name by the Nightcaps.  Oh, and this is another song that mentions Rampart Street, for anyone keeping track.  

Dairy Queen - Indigo Girls

Dairy Queen - Indigo Girls

3:47

All That We Let In, 2004

Written by Amy Ray

A song about a love that went awry somewhere; the addressee found being true "hard to do."  Ray muses on how love can flicker and fade: "Ain't it funny how we lose one day / And a lifetime slips away."  But what sets this apart fro other lost love song is Ray's empathetic, humanistic view.  The love is still there; parts of you are always in the one you once loved.  The memories are good enough for a lifetime. "At least you were mine / If not for all time / Enough to hold / Or at least enough for me to hold you."  I am always enthralled by Ray's poetic and rational worldview.

Drinking Muddy Water - The Yardbirds

Drinking Muddy Water - The Yardbirds

2:53

Little Games, 1967

Written by Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty, Jimmy Page, and Keith Relf

With Jimmy Page on guitar and Relf on main vocals, the Yardbirds are a swampy blues-rock quartet here, aided by piano and harmonica lines.  The song is credited to the band, although it's clear that this is an old blues riff from "Rollin' and Tumblin'" and earlier, a not-quite-original of the type that that Page and co. would later claim in the Led Zep days.  But it's high-energy, and it's a powerhouse lineup, so this ends up a pretty satisfying blue-eyed R&B rocker.

Chattahoochee - Alan Jackson

Chattahoochee - Alan Jackson

2:28

A Lot about Livin' (and a Little 'bout Love), 1992

Written by Alan Jackson, and Jim McBride

This song contains the album title, which I always like to find.  It's a song about being young, growing up, taking risks, and maybe learning something in a small town.  The Chattahoochee River flows in Georgia and forms part of the border between it and Alabama.  For a modern pop country song, it's fairly risqué: "Well way down yonder on the Chattahoochee / It gets hotter than a hoochie coochie."  Supposedly that's a dance, but come on.  In the song, the narrator is ready to get down with his lady, but she's not ready, so he "settled for a burger and a grape sno cone."  So wholesome!

Can't Stop - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Can't Stop - Red Hot Chili Peppers

4:29

By the Way, 2002

Written by Flea, John Frusciante, Anthony Kiedis, and Chad Smith

This funky nu-regaae, with fuzz petal effects on a clipped guitar riff and an archetypical Peppers beat, makes a case for being the Peppers' best song.  With its stuttering, staccato groove, it promotes a neo-stoner positive energy, with lyrics that are a little deep than they first appear.  "Can't stop the spirits when they need you / Mop tops are happy when they feed you / J. Butterfly is in the treetop / Birds that blow the meaning into bebop/"  I take this to refer to the positive vibes of the art and work of the Beatles, the environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill, and Charlie Parker, respectively.  "This life is more than a read-through" is a good slogan, one that would fit on a bumper sticker, maybe not profound but effective.

California Soul - Marlena Shaw

California Soul - Marlena Shaw

2:57

The Spice Of Life, 1969

Written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, 1967

Originally recorded by the Messengers, this is a funk-soul song with big bold sound centered around Shaw's slinky but commanding vocals.  It's one of those meta songs about the power of the groove itself.  It'll get you dancing, and even more: "They had the melody and the beat, y'all / But the scene still didn't seem complete / Until they saw two lovers kissin' / They knew just what was missin'."  The song is a symphonic wave of strings, handclaps, bass, and horns, all swirling together into an ethereal yet funky sound.  Shaw sings it not like she's on the beach with the dancers and lovers, but as if she's above it all, on a mountaintop proclaiming it as gospel truth.

The Cobbler - Tommy Makem

The Cobbler - Tommy Makem

2:28

single, 1956

traditional

There are several versions of this tune by the Clancys with and without Makem, including a rousing live rendition, but I like this recording, which is brightened by female vocals.  This song is typically an a capella performance, so it helps when more than one voice joins in.  The date given here for recording is just a guess; this website says that Makem's version appeared on a compilation album of folk tunes called The Lark in the Morning, but he probably recorded it as a single earlier.  Interestingly, the titular cobbler is sometimes called Fagan, but in the version I know he's Dick Darby.  It's an interesting litany of Irish plaints, ending with the cobbler dumping his yapping wife ("Me wife, she's a divil, she's black / No matter what I do with her / Her tongue it goes clickety-clack") into a river.

Chip Away - Duff McKagan

Chip Away - Duff McKagan

3:21

Tenderness, 2019
Written by Duff McKagan

In an interview, Bob Dylan called this a song that has "profound meaning" for him, seeing it as a analogy for creative acts like Michelangelo revealing the statue inside the marble block.  The lyrics show anger at then-current (and ongoing, really) political trends, the "chip away" implying that progressives should fight steadily against this encroachment.  I could see Dylan singing this, actually.  "Talking heads are making dollars / It's like doing crack day after day / Dropping taxes on business ballers / It'll work this time, they say / Gotta rise up, gotta keep fighting."  I like when Duff calls MLK and FDR "badass motherfuckers" and says they would put a stop to all this.