Singing the Blues - Marty Robbins

Singing the Blues - Marty Robbins

2:25

single, 1957

Written by Melvin Endsley

Fun fact: this is the song the Clash are referencing in the final line of "London Calling" when Strummer fades out stuttering, "I never felt so much like-a, like-a..."  A neat bridge between punk apocalypse and old-school heartbreak.  Anyway, this song's message is pop's most common, a lost love lament: "Well I never felt more like crying all night / Cause everything's wrong and nothing ain't right / Without you, you got me singing the blues."  The words are deeply maudlin, but the music is bright and effervescent, with a cheery piano bouncing along as Robbins pipes out the lyrics in his velvet voice, sounding pleased as punch.  I guess even despair can swing.

Sunday in New York - Bobby Darin

Sunday in New York - Bobby Darin
2:30

From Hello Dolly to Goodbye Charlie, 1964

Written by Carroll Coates & Peter Nero, 1963

This song was written for a romantic comedy film of the same name (which was itself based on a stage play).  Darin belts out the optimistic lines with his usual confident cheeriness: "If you've got troubles / Just take them out for a walk / They'll burst like bubbles / In the fun of a Sunday in New York."  The song assures us that love is just around the corner, that maybe you'll see the face of the love your life reflected in a shop window, that time will stop, your new life in love begins.  It's a vision of New York as benevolent matchmaker, bustling but tender, glamorous without menace.  The band is just fine, with bright brass accents punctuating the verses, but it's Darin's warm voice that carries the song and invites you to share its sunny outlook.

Zoot Suit - The High Numbers

Zoot Suit - The High Numbers

1:59

single, 1964

Written by Peter Meaden

The High Numbers are actually the Who, temporarily renamed by their first manager, Meaden.  The song is a copy of the 1963 song "Misery" by the R&B group the Dynamics.  After this tailor-made-for-Mod single failed to take off, the Who took their name back, fired Meaden, and then proved definitively that they didn't need him by writing "I Can't Explain."  So this is a justifiably forgotten dead end in the Who story, but it's not bad. The track rides a primitive, stomping beat with a noodling guitar break that hints at Townshend's restless energy, even if it's boxed in by the concept. Lyrically, it's nothing more than a celebration of a flashy guy's immaculate clothes: identity expressed entirely through cut, stripe, and swagger.  I'm charmed, though, by the slang. "So all you tickets I just want you to dig me / With my striped zoot jacket that the salts can plainly see." Is being a "ticket" an insult? Is a "salt" an authority figure, a square, or just any outsider?  The ephemeral fruit-fly life of this movement almost makes it worth bringing the jargon back.

Young Blood - The Coasters

Young Blood - The Coasters

2:23

single, 1957

Written by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, and Doc Pomus

I first came to this song through the Band's 1995 cover on Till The Night Is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus, and the contrast is instructive. The Coasters' original is a touch less wink-wink goofy, though it still revels in cartoonish exaggeration, especially in the vocal work: they stretch their range, slip into character voices, and turn the song into a miniature piece of musical theater.  Set against a slinking, burlesque horn line and echoing backing vocals, the lyric sketches a familiar teenage tragedy. A guy falls hard, only to lose the girl when her father steps in (his disapproval memorably delivered in Bobby Nunn's stern, bottom-of-the-well bass).  The humor keeps things light, grounded in something recognizably true: for those who burn with puppy love, the sting is real.  

X-Kid - Green Day

X-Kid - Green Day

3:41

¡Tré!, 2012

Written by Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool

The title of this initially serviceable power pop number is the first hint at the darkness underneath Armstrong's ebullient chords and sing-along chorus.  The "meaning" of a song is rarely very simple, of course, but most sources agree that this song commemorates a friend of Armstrong who committed suicide: "And you were searching your soul / And you got lost and outta control / You went over the edge of joking / And died of a broken heart."  That tension between bright, almost carefree music and deeply wounded lyrics is what lifts "X-Kid" a lot of its brethren on the oft-maligned trilogy.  The song works whether you hear it as a lament for a lost friend, a reflection on aging and the disappearance of youthful recklessness, or a broader meditation on transitional moments when identity fractures under pressure.  What might otherwise land as mid-tier Green Day gains weight and resonance through its emotional honesty, ultimately one of the band's more affecting late-career moments.

Ways To Be Wicked - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Ways To Be Wicked - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

3:26

Playback, 1995 [recorded 1987]

Written by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell

This is an outtake from the Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) sessions.  The narrator of this song, like that of so many old blues classics, has a low-down woman who knows just how to hurt him.  She knows so many ways to be wicked, but nothing about love.  The man knows he can take it, but she's just in it to hurt him.  "Yeah those cobra eyes / Light with a smile / You take pride / In that devil down inside."  It's a solid, no-frills rocker, and Petty sings it with conviction and attitude.  But the song never turns the corner.  There's no twist or final insight; I'm left wondering why the narrator is with this devil of a woman.  Also, while I know Petty's a hit machine with legions of fans, to me the majority of his material has a country-rock sameness to it.

Vanity - The Avett Brothers

Vanity - The Avett Brothers

2:48

Magpie and the Dandelion, 2013

Written by the Avett Brothers

This is an interesting folk-rock song, in that it neatly splits the folk and the rock.  It starts with some rather oblique lyrics that reference Ecclesiastes 1:2 and then go off in a different direction: "Call off the guards / Call off the search / Their heads are chopped off / They're running in circles."  Midway through, the song erupts into a thunderous rock riff that feels almost outsized for its brief runtime, before circling back to the earlier refrain. The structure recalls "Live and Let Die" in miniature: quiet reflection interrupted by sudden force. It doesn't hit the same dramatic heights at McCartney's song, but the contrast gives the song its charge, making this a compact, slightly strange, but ultimately satisfying listen.

Underneath the Streetlight - Joni Mitchell

Underneath the Streetlight - Joni Mitchell
2:18

Wild Things Run Fast, 1982

Written by Joni Mitchell

Joni goes pop!  Drawn to the sleek sound of early-’80s new wave, she trades acoustic introspection for bright drums, stacked harmonies, and urban sparkle.  Joni's vocal here is bright and cheery, the whole having a restless immediacy and energy conspicuously missing in much of her beloved folk oeuvre.  The song depicts an urban romance, maybe just a glimpse through a window or under a bar sign.  Amid the professions of adoration, the bustling and buzzing cityscape is painted in vivid images. "Yes I do I love you! / I swear on the buildings above I do / I swear on a billion yellow / And T.V. blue windows / Gayboys with their pants so tight / Out in the neon light."

Threat Level Orange - Earth To Eve

Threat Level Orange - Earth To Eve

2:33

single, 2025

Written by Earth to Eve

Over an industrial-lite beat comes a tight, furious rap about contemporary America that eschews metaphor in favor of names and images. The opening bars, calling out a "bitch in a toupee," juxtaposing anti-immigration rhetoric with Melania as a "mail-order bride," abuelitas and graduation ceremonies with masked ICE agents constituting a "foreign armed invasion," land hard because they're specific.  It's protest rap that understands clarity is sharper than cleverness.  While the rhetoric is furious and unleavened, the song is brief; it says its piece and gets out. The beat stays skeletal, almost deliberately underpowered, letting the words sit front and center like evidence laid out on a table. There's no radio hook begging for radio or ironic detachment.  If you want it more musical, or more abstract, this isn't that. But if you want a snapshot of 2025 that doesn't blink or hedge, Earth To Eve nails it.

Shakin' All Over - Johnny Kidd & the Pirates

Shakin' All Over - Johnny Kidd & the Pirates

2:21

single, 1960

Written by Johnny Kidd

Johnny Kidd is notable for being one of the few pre-Beatles English rockers to hit it big, and for wearing an eyepatch as a stage affectation.  This song, a sparse early rocker, is centered on Kidd's vocal and a modest, almost tentative guitar solo.  The song's premise is as basic as early rock gets: Kidd’s physical reaction to seeing a beautiful girl:: "Quivers down the backbone / I got the shakes down the knee bones / Yeah, the tremors in my thigh bone."  This is not by today's standards a thrilling song, lacking the raw drive of Eddie Cochran's contemporaneous primitive rockabilly, but it has its own cool restraint. There's something almost proto-mod about its clipped rhythm and lack of bombast.  It's an interesting historical artifact, a reminder of how British rock first learned to translate American excitement into something tighter, more self-conscious, and, oddly, more elegant.

Run-Down Neighborhood - Linda Ortega

Run-Down Neighborhood - Linda Ortega

3:06

Faded Gloryville, 2015

Written by Linda Ortega, Bruce Wallace

A country-swing number with a neo-rockabilly shuffle, gliding along on twangy steel guitar and Ortega’s honeyed, knowing vocals. It's a ballad about two people who know they're not quite right for each other, but since they're both a little wrecked, they might as well be wrecked together. Ortega sings with a sly wink, turning small-time aimlessness into something close to romantic.  "We hit that Seven-Eleven / Hang out in the parking lot / And feel like we're in heaven / With all that we ain't got." There’s humor here, but also tenderness. The song celebrates the charm of cheap lights and second chances without ever sliding into parody, a love letter to the beautiful losers of the honky-tonk world.

Quality - Paul Simon

Quality - Paul Simon

4:19

Songs From the Capeman, 1997

Written by Paul Simon and Derek Walcott

This song is from Simon's much-maligned Broadway show, The Capeman, about a Puerto Rican youth who killed two teenagers.  Taken out of its original context, it presents as a delightful doo-wop-infused '50s style pop song about teen love, a duet punctuated by buzzing brass lines.  "I need to know / Will you be my sorrow and my joy? / And maybe one day soon / Will I be your wife?" the girl asks the strutting young man who knows how fine he is.  The only hint of the tragedy hanging over this picture comes near the end, in Spanish: "Quiero saber / Nadie nunca sabe / En la vida."

Pauvre Martin - Georges Brassens

Pauvre Martin - Georges Brassens

1:35

Le Vent, 1953

Written by Georges Brassens

A brief song, and perhaps one of Brassens' grimmest. He sketches the whole life of a laborer who tills the soil without praise, breaks his back for others, and slips through the world almost without leaving a dent. Even in death he refuses to trouble anyone:  "Il creusa lui-même sa tombe / Et s'y étendit sans rien dire / Pour ne pas déranger les gens."  A dark joke, sure, but rather bleak, what?  J'suis accro à Brassens depuis longtemps, mais je préfère ses chansons humoristiques ou romantiques.  Celle-ci a bien sûr son pouvoir, une sorte de frisson austère, presque moralisateur, mais ce n'est pas le côté de Brassens qui me donne envie d'y revenir.

Open the Door To Your Heart - Darrell Banks

Open the Door To Your Heart - Darrell Banks

2:37

Darrell Banks Is Here!, 1967

Written by Darrell Banks

This song kicks off with a clash of brass and a chopping guitar chord before the vocals come in.  It's pure, high-octane soul, Motown in everything but label. Banks isn't a falsetto merchant or a volcanic shouter; his voice sits warm and steady in the middle, carrying a kind of earnest ache that fits the song's emotional pitch perfectly. You might dance to it, but the lyrics might give you pause: he's pleading for the woman he loves to finally let him in, the longing framed in vivid, gospel-tinged imagery.  And like too many great soul singles of the era, the authorship is messy. Donnie Elbert claimed Banks simply sped up and retitled a tune they had worked on together and released it without credit. Elbert eventually won a co-writer label, but the real story is probably lost to time. The record endures anyway, a desperate, joyful, irresistible plea set to one of the era's most propulsive grooves.

Nobody Knows Me At All - The Weepies

Nobody Knows Me At All - The Weepies

2:00

Say I Am You, 2006

Written by Deb Talan and Steve Tannen

This is tuneful, whisper-soft pop that leans on folk instincts, especially in the lovely, interlaced harmonies of Deb Talan and Steve Tannen. As the title promises, it's about the unbridgeable gap between our inner lives and the selves we present, even to the people closest to us. "Now I got lots of friends, yes, but then again, nobody knows me at all / Kids and a wife, it's a beautiful life, nobody knows me at all."  What makes it hit isn't the melancholy so much as the clarity: the sense of standing quietly at the edge of your own life, watching the weather roll over a garden, feeling the hush of a near-empty chapel. It's a gentle confession of solitude, rendered with grace.

My Next Door Neighbor - Jerry McCain and His Upstarts

My Next Door Neighbor - Jerry McCain and His Upstarts

2:12

single, 1957

Written by Jerry McCain

An energetic, funny boogie blues, in which the narrator complains about his mooching neighbor.  It's basically a running inventory of everything they've borrowed, which turns out to be whatever isn't nailed down.  "They want to borrow the broom, they want to borrow the mop / They want to know the time so they borrow the clock / They want to borrow some lard and a piece of meat / They want to borrow some sugar to make the coffee sweet."  McCain delivers it all with a grin and a stomp, the gripe coming off as good-natured, and it lands exactly the way a song like this should.

Life On a Chain - Pete Yorn

Life On a Chain - Pete Yorn

3:46

musicforthemorningafter, 2001

Written by Pete Yorn

Yorn handled most of the instruments himself on this galloping debut single, stitching together '80s new-wave pulse, alt-country melodicism, and his own raspy, slightly weary vocals. A rogue harmonica darts in and out of the mix, adding a scruffy charm to an otherwise sleek, guitar-driven arrangement. Filtered vocal effects fade into bright, hooky bursts of melody, giving the whole track a restless, start-stop energy.  Lyrically, he's sifting through the rubble of a marriage that's already collapsed, still tugged by leftover feelings: "I was waiting over here for life to begin / I was looking for the new thing / And you were the sunshine / I was alone / You were just around the corner from me."  It's confessional without being maudlin, carried by momentum rather than wallow. I remember the hype around this album when it dropped, and listening back, I still don't quite understand why Yorn didn't end up a bigger name; the material was absolutely there.

King Of Earth - Elf Power

King Of Earth - Elf Power
3:03
Back To the Web, 2006

Written by Elf Power

On this song, the rather recondite lyrics seem to point at a Jesus-like figure that the narrator relies on.  This mysterious, apparently omniscient, entity watches over the narrator and keeps him on the right path: "King of Earth has always known me / Always shown me all I've seen / Took my hand and lead me forward / Knowing what was meant to be."  It's not clear whether this is about God or a malevolent cult leader who has somehow enthralled the narrator.  Andrew Rieger's dry whispering vocals over layers of droning, lo-fi Middle Eastern rhythms, reeds and guitar, with a chanting background vocal all meld to make the song waver between an eerie, unsettling atmosphere and cosy, '60s-era raga vibes.