Rattle Them Bones - The Pine Hill Haints

Rattle Them Bones - The Pine Hill Haints

2:37

The Magik Sounds Of the Pine Hill Haints, 2014

Written by the Pine Hill Saints

Evoking the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Devil Makes Three, and C.W. Stoneking, the Alabama-based Haints play the old weird folk traditions, everything from rockabilly to folk-punk to Celtic folk.  This song is a shuffling Gothic folk-blues on a Caribbean beat with echoed vocals and a shambling percussion that sounds like chains clattering rhythmically on a bucket.  It's a contained chaos, a crazy Gothic jazz, like if the Ramones started in the 1920s.  It takes skill to craft such a joyful noise.

Randy Scouse Git - The Monkees

Randy Scouse Git - The Monkees

2:33

Headquarters, 1967

Written by Micky Dolenz

This song has the distinction of being banned by the BBC under its title, released instead as "Alternate Title," due to Dolenz not realizing that "randy" and "git" were Britishisms not quite ready for prime time.  The song was inspired by Dolenz hanging out with the Beatles ("the four kings of EMI. are sitting stately on the floor") and Cass Elliott, as well as his own future wife ("She's a wonderful lady / And she's mine all mine").  What's fascinating is how this song is split in two: the verses and chorus are counterpoints to one another.  The verses are whimsical party reportage, while the chorus is a series of condescending lines typically aimed at the younger generation of the time ("why don't you cut your hair?" and "why don't you be like me?").  Musically, it's all manic drumming, booming timpani, and melodic chaos.  It's one of the Monkees' best moments, brimming with intelligence and frustration under the pop gloss.

Running - Pearl Jam

Running - Pearl Jam

2:19

Dark Matter, 2024

Written by Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Eddie Vedder, and Andrew Watt

I like Pearl Jam when they're slow and introspective, but I like it even better when they take the wheels off and embrace their punk sides.  Sounding like a meaner, leaner Bad Religion fed through a Seattle amp stack, they tear through the song, which features some of Vedder's most rapid-fire vocals and intense, machine gun drumming.  The lyrics are similarly thrashing and urgent, the pleas of a drowning man.  "Got me diving, got me diving / Got me deep, I get the bends / When I'm summoned, or too late coming."  Vedder is intense even in a low growl, but here he and the band are playing like their lives depend on it.  It's desperate, it's alive, it's immediate.

Railroad Man - Anna Lynch

Railroad Man - Anna Lynch

3:39

Anna Lynch, 2013

Written by Anna Lynch?

This is a stately country-folk song narrated by a young man who feels the pull of the railroad, tiring of the coal mines and farmland.  While just a teen, he jumps a car, but runs into a man who's been defeated by the rail life.  "There's more than broken bodies on this side of the tracks / Dreams come here and they never come back."  Lynch, who has lived in California, Alaska, and North Carolina, channels the wide geography of Americana into her writing. The arrangement is spare but confident: brushed percussion, bluegrass-style picking, and a steady vocal that feels both tender and resigned as it carries the emotional heft of folk tradition.

Rainin' In My Heart - Slim Harpo

Rainin' In My Heart - Slim Harpo

2:32

Slim Harpo Sings "Raining In My Heart...", 1961

Written by Slim Harpo

As the Wikipedia article admonishes, this song is not to be confused with the Buddy Holly song of the same name.  It's been covered by Tom Jones, Neil Young, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, among others, but I haven't heart any of those versions.  It's a slow New Orleans blues, a plea to an absent lover, sung in a gentle, high croon, accompanied by simple guitar lines.  It's punctuated by a couple of warbling harmonica solos and an Ink Spots-style spoken invocation in the middle, the voice pitched a shade deeper so you know he's serious: "Honey, I need your love / Darlin', you know why."

Rally - Phoenix

Rally - Phoenix

3:16

It's Never Been Like That, 2006

Written by Thomas Mars, Deck d'Arcy, Laurent Brancowitz, and Christian Mazzalai

This is a catchy indie pop-rock song about hooking up with someone the narrator met at a show, a commonplace topic in rock, but in this French band's hands it's a somewhat philosophical musing on longing itself.  "Remember the time we talked about everlastings? / Don't you know we'll both fall to pieces too? / April 22nd at the Avalon, you teased me / Hook up with me, meet at the rally."  The simple, repetitive riffs, slick production, and Thomas Mars' detached but impassioned vocals give the band a "Strokes doing New Wave" vibe.  I don't know much of Phoenix's catalog, but this is one of the favorites I have heard.

Super 8 - Jason Isbell

Super 8 - Jason Isbell

3:27

Southeastern, 2013

Written by Jason Isbell

This song is slightly reminiscent of "The Prettiest Waitress in Memphis," at least in terms of riff and vocal delivery, but Isbell's is a darker, grittier alt-country story-song.  Despite the brisk tempo and vocals, this is a rather harrowing tale of a lost weekend in the titular motel, a bender with an ending that can only be described as good because the narrator survives.  "Girl starts screaming and the maid starts screaming and it looks like it's all she wrote / Well, they slapped me back to life and they telephoned my wife and they filled me full of Pedialyte / Saw my guts, saw my glory, it would make a great story if I ever could remember it right." It's funny until it isn't.  The production leans a bit too glossy and clean for the story (the guitars should sound hungover too), but Isbell's band manages to infuse it with jagged urgency.

Stormy Weather - The Spaniels

Stormy Weather - The Spaniels

2:30

single, 1958

Written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, 1933

A standard from the Great American Songbook about lost love ("Life is bare / Gloom and misery everywhere / Stormy weather, stormy weather") gets refracted through the prism of doo-wop and early R&B. It’s very different from the torch-song lineage of Ethel Waters, Lena Horne, or Billie Holiday.  Here, the Spaniels turn a cabaret lament into a toe-tapping shrug. In recasting the tune as a peppy doo-wop, they replace the orchestral polish with with jumping sax lines and cheery echoing backing vocal.  Instead of a sad woman with a martini glass, you get a man who doesn't seem all that worried, honestly, as he recounts a recent breakup to his jovial pals.

Secret Life - Soft Cell

Secret Life - Soft Cell
3:36
Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, 1981

Written by David Ball and Marc Almond

David Ball, half of Soft Cell, died yesterday.  Again, I never spent much time with the band — I know “Tainted Love,” and it’s fine — but this track from the same album caught my ear.  It's a story song, walking a fine line between poignant and sleazy, about someone being blackmailed for something tawdry.  "You've got photographs to prove it / And I swear to God it's not me / You've got a hard heart / Being hard is your art."  It's going to destroy his reputation, titillate the neighbors, destroy his wife, the lot.  It seems his tormentor might even be a former love ("What have I ever done to you / But leave you?").  It's like a troubadour's song in disguise, the kind of quiet tragedy you might find in a Hold Steady vignette, just hiding in the shadows of neon and strobe lights instead of a cigarette-strewn bar.  The protagonist lives an outwardly normal life, but hides behind masks, compromises, and the dull ache of routine.  Musically, it's all restrained menace: looping, hypnotic rhythm, and minimal, pulsing, slightly claustrophobic synth lines creating a sinister tension.

Salty Dog Blues - Flat & Scruggs

Salty Dog Blues - Flat & Scruggs

2:27

single, 1950

traditional

I know this song from Blind Willie McTell's version.  Apparently someone named Zeke Morris claimed he wrote it; it had been recorded before the Morris Brothers, but perhaps he wrote the specific lyrics that Flatt & Scruggs sing here.  "Standing on the corner with the lowdown blues / A great big hole in the bottom of my shoes."  The hillbilly lyric and rapid-fire fingerpicking make this a catchy, light romp worth revisiting.

Sixteen Blue - The Replacements

Sixteen Blue - The Replacements

4:25

Let It Be, 1984

Written by Paul Westerberg

A ragged, yet tender ballad about the difficulties of adolescence.  "Your age is the hardest age / Everything drags and drags / You're looking funny / You ain't laughing, are you?"  A later, nearly inaudible, line about the youth of the song wondering if he might be gay has most listeners thinking it's about bassist Tommy Stinson, the young one of the bunch.  I don't know anything about any of the Mats' personal lives, so this is news to me and I don't know how it relates, if at all.  The meandering drums and guitar lines keep with the theme of being lost and uncertain.  It's one of those Replacements songs that manages to sound both tossed-off and utterly sincere.

London Homesick Blues - David Allan Coe

London Homesick Blues - David Allan Coe

3:00

Invictus (Means) Unconquered, 1981

Written by Gary P. Nunn, 1973

This country singalong, about a Texan getting pretty sick of London's chill and reserve, was made famous by Jerry Jeff Walker, but his version is live and nearly eight minutes.  Coe's version is easier to get down and keeps the easygoing swing and the catchy chorus ("I want to go home with the armadilla / Good country music from Amarilla and Abilene").  Nunn's lyric is witty and full of fun internal rhyme: "And I’ll substantiate the rumor that the English sense of humor / Is drier than the Texas sand." Coe leans into the humor without overdoing it, his drawl half-complaining, half-charmed.  My favorite line is a quietly clever one: "And where in the world is that English girl / I promised I would meet on the third floor?" It reveals a Texan lost in translation, counting floors American-style and winding up one level off.  It's a small joke, but a perfect one: homesickness rendered as cultural confusion.

Chi Town - Jerry Butler

Chi Town - Jerry Butler

3:00

Jerry Butler, Esq., 1959

Written by A. Wiley

Butler, cribbing a bit from some other celebrated songs about cities ("no California here I come"), used his rich baritone to put down other geographical locations ("I like living without palm trees") and exults his hoemtown, Chicago.  State Street is mentioned, as in Sinatra's song.  The spoken invocation at the beginning ("I've seen the Great White Way / And Herald Square / And foggy old London town...") reminds me of Jonathan Richman's similarly-phrased intro to "New England."  I'm amused by how at the end he quickly interjects "and the Prudential Building!" before "Hey, that's for me!"

Sous le ciel de Paris - Edith Piaf

Sous le ciel de Paris - Edith Piaf

3:33

single, 1954

Written by Hubert Giraud and Jean Dréjac, 1951

This torch song is a love letter to Paris.  The song begins by evoking a song born out of a young man's heart, as Paris, of course, means romance.  There are impressionist sketches a stereotypical Parisian scene. "Quelques rayons du ciel d'été / L'accordéon d'un marinier / L'espoir fleurit au ciel de Paris."  Philosophers, lovers, tramps and beggars, all playing their part in the great city.  In the end, Piaf apostrophizes the sky, saying the sky itself is in love with the city; indeed, rain is the sky's tears, due to its jealousy of all the lovers inhabiting Paris.  But, "Quand elle lui sourit / Il met son habit bleu."  It's quite mawkish and twee, but somehow, between Piaf's powerful voice and the history of Paris itself, the song works.

L.A. County - Lyle Lovett

L.A. County - Lyle Lovett

3:19

Pontiac, 1988

Written by Lyle Lovett

A ballad of the road: a man and a woman travel to California.  "Well he did not say much / But one year later / He'd ask her to be his wife."  The lights of L.A. twinkle like diamonds, romance is in the air.  Isn't that sweet?  Well, no.  Apparently, the "she" of the song is the narrator's wife, and he comes to tell them goodbye with a sweet black .45 by his side.  Grim!  It's a jaunty, bouncy tune, the music belying the murder ballad that hides beneath.

New York Groove - Ace Frehley

New York Groove - Ace Frehley
3:03

Ace Frehley, 1978

Written by Russ Ballard, 1975

Ace Frehley died today!  While Kiss cannot be said to be a good band, and Gene Simmons' philosophy of life ranges from insufferably smug to repellent, one can't deny their musical impact.  Still, they're not a band I care at all about, so I thought I'd pick this hit from Frehley's solo album (the only one of the four released that year that was commercially successful).  This song, which is pure glittery '70s glam rock in the vein of Sweet, was originally performed by a band called Hello.  It's a pleasant, catchy number, riding on a syncopated, almost Bo Diddley-style stomp beat, all handclaps and swagger, with chunky rhythm guitar and a dry, close-miked drum sound giving it that sheen glam feel.  It's fun, albeit slick and mechanical, a bit repetitive in its chorus, but that's to be expected from music that leans more toward product than art.

New York City Cops - The Strokes

New York City Cops - The Strokes

3:31

single, 2001

Written by Julian Casablancas

This song was written in response to the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo by four plainclothes police officers, although aside from the chorus, you would not know that from the abstruse lyrics ("Here in the streets so mechanized / Rise to the bottom of the meaning of life / Studied all the rules and I want no part / But I let you in just to break this heart").  If this refers in any way to injustice in the streets of the Big Apple, I am at a loss as to say how.  Regardless of what Casablancas might mean by them, hiswords are delivered in an angry roar — a change from his typical detached drone — backed by the usual minimalist, machine-tight drums and twin guitar lines.

1933 - Frank Turner

1933 - Frank Turner

3:07

Be More Kind, 2018

Written by Frank Turner

One of Turner's angrier songs, born of the rise in neo-fascism that began around 2016.  It's a hard-hitting slice of fiery punk.  "If I was of the greatest generation I'd be pissed / Surveying the world that I built slipping back into this / I'd be screaming at my grandkids, 'We already did this.'"  It relies a little too heavily on the chorus for my taste but Turner's energy and sincerity keep me hooked.

Naive - The Kooks

Naïve - The Kooks

3:23

Inside In / Inside Out, 2006

Written by Luke Pritchard, Hugh Harris, Max Rafferty and Paul Garred

Seven hundred ninety-eight million plays for this song alone, and I've never heard of the band.  I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of a certain kind of music, but there are also knowledge gaps the size of libraries.  Anyhoo, the song is about a relationship that seems to have run its course.  The songwriter says it's not about infidelity, but with the repeated line "How could this be done / By such a smiling sweetheart?" it's easy to believe that it is.  Musically, it's a catchy, midtempo indie rock shuffle, with hints of funk, ska and Merseybeat.

Norgaard - The Vaccines

Norgaard - The Vaccines

1:38

What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?, 2011

Written by Justin Young, Árni Árnason, Pete Robertson and Freddie Cowan 

I've never heard of this indie rock band, even though they had the biggest selling debut of the year and they have sold two million records.  This song is about Danish model Amanda Nørgaard; specifically, the model as seen by a hormone-addled young boy who falls in love with her picture.  "Great Danish cheekbones / Teenage hormones / Young complexion."  Luckily, at least a semblance of sanity comes through: "Her mind's made up, she don't want to go steady / She's only seventeen, so she's probably not ready, "  Performed at whiplash speed, all franic energy like the Buzzcocks or the Libertines.  Great stuff!

North Carolina - The Devil Makes Three

North Carolina - The Devil Makes Three

2:40

Longjohns, Boots And a Belt, 2003

Written by Pete Bernhard, Lucia Turino, and Cooper McBean

This is a fairly straightforward porch-folk Americana tune from the band, who usually mix jug-band rowdiness, bluegrass drive, and punk edge into their sound. Here, though, they dial it back for something more traditional. The song evokes "demon North Carolina" for introducing the narrator to a girl who knocked him for a loop: "Well if I'd a known that things woulda ended up this way / I would have never left my happy home anyway." The performance leans on old-timey harmonies that feel half-soused and half-sorrowful, the kind that sound like they could've been recorded on a back porch in 1932. Beneath it all, deft, adroit finger-picking keeps the tune rolling along with a loping, backcountry rhythm. 

It Isn't Nice [live] - Judy Collins

It Isn't Nice [live] - Judy Collins

3:09

Fifth Album, 1965

Written by Malvina Reynolds and Barbara Dane

This is a defiant folk ballad, sung live in New York with note-holding gusto by Collins.  The song proclaims that when you're fighting for freedom, you can't be "nice" or play by the usual rules.  "It isn't nice to block the doorway / It isn't nice to go to jail / There are nicer ways to do it / But the nice ways always fail."  The song mentions the injustices and crimes inflicted on those fighting for rights, like the killing of Medgar Evers and the Mississippi Three.  "Now you say that we're not nice / But if that's freedom's price / We don't mind."  These are sentiments that are sadly, relevant sixty years later.  You can't fight intolerance with tolerance.  You can't play nice with Nazis.

It Said Something - They Might Be Giants

It Said Something - They Might Be Giants

3:12

Phone Power, 2016

Written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell

A lunatic hears a voice and is astounded to find that the thing is talking, and not only that, what it's saying matches exactly what he was thinking!  He also protests too much, defeively asking why he might be recording, and "It said something new / That wouldn't come out of me / And I don't even dream about that kind of thing." He has to lay down and think things over, and also set some monkeys free.  A repeated keyboard beat, sounding something like an alarm, is a recurring motif, which I find a bit annoying, but gives the song an appropriately insistent, cramped, delusional vibe.

It Will Be - Mighty Mighty Bosstones

It Will Be - Mighty Mighty Bosstones

3:22

Pin Points and Gin Joints, 2009

Written by Dicky Barrett and Joe Gittleman

This song is a note of commiseration to a heartbroken friend.  Hope is gone, words were said that can't be taken back, the whole universe is dismal now, all the usual scenes.  But the narrator assures us that love will come again if you wait patiently.  "It will be when you least expect it / Electricity and then / Wait and see, it'll be electric again."  I do prefer my Bosstones to be more frenetic and guttural, but the more restrained vibe here fits the message.

It Ain't Far to the Bar - Johnny Tyler and The Riders of the Rio Grande

It Ain't Far to the Bar - Johnny Tyler and The Riders of the Rio Grande

2:45

single, 1949

Written by Jonny Tyler?

With a nasal twang akin to that of Webb Pierce or Chubby Parker, Tyler belts out this novelty swing number with gusto and some theatrical fake hiccuping.  The narrator is a drunk who pleads with the bartender to let him in ("I'll settle for a beer"), noting that a woman's perfidy led him down the road to inebriation.  The punchline of the song is that he was once the train engineer!  Ha ha!  He probably caused a terrible crash!

It Never Rains In Southern California - Albert Hammond

It Never Rains In Southern California - Albert Hammond

3:53

It Never Rains in Southern California, 1971

Written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood

There's a sizeable category of songs about leaving home to shoot for the stars in the big city, only to fail (and either return in shame, or yearn to return although unable or unwilling).  This soft-rock song, which was a huge hit, is the same old sad story ("It never rains in California / But girl, don't they warn ya? / It pours, man, it pours"), with the narrator pleading with his interlocutor to lie to the people back home about what a big shot he is.  The mellow tone of the song is punched up by Hammond's backing band, made up of members from Wrecking Crew.

Kings Road - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Kings Road - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

3:23

Hard Promises, 1981

Written by Tom Petty

In this song, the narrator is an American in a foreign and exotic place (storied King's Road in West London) who feels very self conscious from the clothes and looks of the people around him ("There were people all around wearin' funny lookin' clothes / Some boys, some girls, some I don't know").  A Pakistani man tries to get him to buy some nameless article he can't get even in America's big cities.  The narrator remains skeptical.  It's an odd choice of lyric for this standard southern-rock anthem, which Petty belts out with gusto, burying the story behind layers of rock.

King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O - Chubby Parker

King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O - Chubby Parker

3:09

single, 1928

traditional

This song, a primitive version of "Froggie Went A-Courting," dates back in various forms to the 1500s.  In Parker's version, the frog has to kill three other suitors before he can wed Miss Mouse, and then they go on their honeymoon and live in a hollow tree.  Parker's reedy, nasal tenor suits the antique fairy-tale weirdness of the song, and the chorus' nonsense syllables trip off his tongue into a toe-tapping, catchy refrain.  It's a spirited slice of American folk surrealism, where violence, humor, and romance mingle in the way only the oldest ballads do.

Knockin' On Your Screen Door - John Prine

Knockin' On Your Screen Door - John Prine

2:20

The Tree Of Forgiveness, 2018

Written by Pat McLaughlin and John Prine

The narrator of this song is busted, destitute, and alone.  But it's a story told, of course, with Prine's brilliant deadpan winking wit: "If you see somebody / Would you send em' over my way? / I could use some help here / With a can of pork and beans."  After adumbrating his troubles, the narrator shifts gears, and the song becomes wistful, as images of good times and of a long-gone love, perhaps, flit by.  Whose screen door is it he dreams of knocking on?  Who was once out there, climbing the trees?  There's a sailboat and "sweet potato wine."  Sounds nice.  It's a testament to Prine's genius and delivery that he could take a song of poverty and loneliness and turn it into something beautifully sad.

Kansas City Star - Roger Miller

Kansas City Star - Roger Miller

2:16

The 3rd Time Around, 1965

Written by Roger Miller

From the title, I thought this would be a song about a newspaper, but it's about a celebrity, a star!  Well, a local TV celebrity.  They treat him just fine in Kansas City, so he turns his nose up at offers from big city Omaha.  He's got it made in his hometown: "I got credit down at the grocery store / And my barber tells me jokes / I'm the number one attraction every supermarket parkin' lot / I'm the king of Kansas City, no thanks, Omaha, thanks a lot."  It's a very funny song, sung in a brisk, rollicking style, with even a little genuine yodeling thrown in.

Kissing At Midnight - Billy Boy Arnold

Kissing At Midnight - Billy Boy Arnold

2:23

single, 1957

Written by Billy Boy Arnold and Sylvester Thompson

This is a light blues shuffle with Arnold's harmonica punctuating the standard twelve-bar Chicago-style blues licks.  It's a fine song, although the groove is somewhat repetitive.  Arnold is known primarily as a harmonica player, and he's definitely very good, but not quite showcasing any virtuoso skills on this track.  It's a positive love song, the narrator recounting how good he feels talking to his love on the telephone, walking around with a smile on his face.