Hello Angel - Sandie Shaw

Hello Angel - Sandie Shaw

3:20

Hello Angel, 1988

Written by Sandie Shaw and Chris Andrews

The title track of Shaw's "comeback" album, spurred on by superfans Morrissey and Johnny Marr, this is a ballad that prompts an unnamed addressee to gain confidence and bloom: "You seem to lack that essential fight / If you want, I'll be your conscience / I'll push you upwards into flight." Shaw's smoky girl-group voice isn't a roof-raising belter, but she imparts the words with a low-burning intimacy.  "You should know better, kid/ Because you always did."

Harmony Hall - Vampire Weekend

Harmony Hall - Vampire Weekend

5:08

Father Of the Bride, 2019

Written by Ezra Koenig

This song is a shape-shifter, constantly reconfiguring itself without ever losing momentum. It begins in bright, crisp indie pop, all clean lines and forward motion, before loosening into a sunlit, almost loping country-rock groove. By the time the baroque touches of piano flourishes arrive, the song has quietly expanded into something more ornate.  Thus it keeps sparking my interest despite the length.  There's a clear lineage back to Paul Simon in the melodic phrasing and rhythmic buoyancy, but Vampire Weekend keep it restless; it never drags, each structural turn refreshing the ear.  As is often the case with Simon's best work, lyrical cynicism hides under the brightness here as well: "Anger wants a voice, voices wanna sing / Singers harmonize 'til they can't hear anything / I thought that I was free from all that questionin' / But every time a problem ends, another one begins."

Honey - Drugdealer

Honey - Drugdealer 

4:28

Raw Honey, 2019

Written by Michael Collins

Featuring the warm, golden folksinger vocals of Weyes Blood, this song is a warning to a wild, free spirit, possibly an artist, of charisma, surrounded by a coterie of people who whose love burns rather than warms.  It's a tale of lost innocence in the face of a corporate machine: "I know that you want to be free / And to be wild / And to be hugged just like a child / Money is the root of the game / The problem with fame / Is everyone going to lose their edge."  It's wrapped in a easy-going '70s soft-rock groove that belies the admonishing lyrics.

Hot Burrito #1 - The Flying Burrito Brothers

Hot Burrito #1 - The Flying Burrito Brothers

3:37

The Gilded Palace Of Sin, 1969

Written by Chris Etheridge and Gram Parsons

The Burritos came about after Gram parsons, who'd helped lead the Byrds into country-rock, refused to tour South Africa, and left the band with Chris Hillman.  This song is a bitter complaint about a breakup.  The line "I'm your toy" is famous (and even become the title of come later covers), but I think the first verse is some of the coldest spite this side of Bob Dylan: "You may be sweet and nice / But that won't keep you warm at night / 'Cause I'm the one who showed you how / To do the things you're doing now."  Over a drifting, almost narcotic groove, Gram Parsons sings with a bruised tenderness that never quite resolves into anger or acceptance.

Hallo Bimmelbahn - Nighttrain

Hallo Bimmelbahn - Nighttrain

3:22

single, 1973

Written by Jürgen Huth, Heinz Huth, Michael Holm

Nighttrain is a German rock duo.  This song, listed on the original single as simply "Bimmelbahn," is about a man who watches his lady get on a tram and leave him.  Translated from the German: "The tourist train, it hissed, my sweetheart wanted to ride along / And I called after her, don’t leave me all alone."  The narrator bemoans the loss of the tram as well as his love, adding a plaintive "bye bye bye" in English.  The song was covered and transformed by Boney M. in 1979; they left in the catchy "oooh oooh hoo" chorus, but changed the setting to the Caribbean.

I Killed Sally's Lover - The Avett Brothers

I Killed Sally's Lover - The Avett Brothers

2:37

A Carolina Jubilee, 2003

Written by Scott Avett, Seth Avett, and Bob Crawford

Featuring rapid-fire banjo picking that would make Del McCoury proud, this is an old-timey bluegrass murder ballad.  Finding the titular Sally in bed with another man, the narrator calls for his shotgun and pocket blade and slays the adulterer. Unlike in many of these songs, though, he doesn't then direct the violence toward his faithless paramour: "But I just ain't that mean / So I go and get my murder tools / I throw them in the lake / Gonna steal me an automobile / And drive so far away."  But he doesn't get far, ending the song, as is traditional, with advice to other poor sad sacks who may be moved to crimes of passion: "A bleeding heart is better than the penitentiary."  Avett screams the last lyrics, the anguish of a man breaking rocks while Sally lives it large with her new lover.

Dying Crapshooter's Blues - Blind Willie McTell

Dying Crapshooter's Blues - Blind Willie McTell

3:11

single, 1940

Written by Blind Willie McTell

McTell recorded this song three times, but this is the original version, as evidenced by the spoken-word introduction, in which he says it's a song "I made myself, originally this is from Atlanta."  Interestingly, he wrote it around 1927 and it was recorded in that era by several different women blues singers, but he didn't commit it to wax until 1940.  Over a sparse twelve-string, McTell lays out the hallucinatory dying wish of the funeral of a gambler who used "crooked cards and dice," shot by the police; the reason is not given.  The dying man demands, among other things, police in his funeral march, the high sheriff at the head playing blackjack. "One foot up, a toenail dragging / Throw my buddy Jesse in the hoodoo wagon."  A marked card on his hearse, the judge putting dice in his shoes.  "I want nine men going to the graveyard / But only eight mens comin' back."  It's an eerie, surreal vision, the revenge poetry of the damned, and it's easy to see how this ironic black humor inspired Dylan's later, similarly hallucinatory jeremiads.

Fixin' To Die Blues - Bukka White

Fixin' To Die Blues - Bukka White

2:48

single, 1940

Written by Bukka White

This song is a prime example of prewar Chicago blues.  I know the version from Bob Dylan's first album, which has many of the same lyrics but is as transformed as Led Zeppelin's reinventions of blues standards.  This one is just an insistent bottleneck guitar riff with backing from Washboard Slim, a counterpoint to White's worn but forceful vocal.  The lyrics circle familiar blues themes of death and loss, but without delving into melancholy.  It's bleak but realistic, all motion, rhythm, and the stubborn insistence on going with dignity ("Mother take my children back, 'fore they let me down / I don't need for them to be screamin' and cryin' on the graveyard ground").

I Don't Intend To Die In Egyptland - Josh White

I Don't Intend To Die In Egyptland - Josh White
3:03
single, 1933

Written by Josh White

The title is also sometimes listed as "Egypt Land," with a space.  This is a placid but catchy spiritual, the lyrics citing Pontius Pilate, the Garden of Eden, and Moses.  "The Pilate's wife, she had a dream / I don't intend to die in the Egypt land / That an honest man she seen / I don't intend to die in the Egypt land."  White's smooth voice, accompanied only by his sparse, eerie guitar, make this a compelling mix of dirge and gospel.  White was also an activist who recorded anti-segregation songs.  White also enjoyed a long and close relationship with the family of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and he became the first African-American artist to give a command performance at the White House, in 1941.

I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag - Country Joe and the Fish

I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag - Country Joe and the Fish

2:54
Songs Of Opposition, 1965

Written by Country Joe McDonald

Okay, first, I always assumed, probably like many other people, that the Fish was the backing band, like the E Street Band.  Well, it's actually meant to be one guy, Barry "The Fish" Melton, the guitarist.  This version of the famous protest rag isn't the one most often played, the live version preceded by "The Fish Cheer."  It's an earlier, more folky version, released before the band even recorded their first album.  Well, this is a fantastic protest song, and I can't believe I never sat down and gave it a proper listen over the decades.  It summarizes the jingoistic industrial-military-Wall Street complex that got the United States mired in Vietnam, encapsulates the nihilistic bleakness of the era ("Whoopie, we're all gonna die!"), with black humor and dark irony.  "Come on fathers don't hesitate / Send your sons off before it's too late / And you can be the first one on your block / To have your boy come home in a box."  Now that the enlistment age has been raised to 42, this song's even more applicable today.

What You Get - They Might Be Giants

What You Get - They Might Be Giants

2:48

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Linnell and John Flansburgh

This song was originally written for the 2009 animated film Coraline, but was shelved and remained unreleased until 2026.  It's a classic Giants track that would have fit well on John Henry.  Lyrically, the song is a message of carpe diem (exhorting us to "make hay in the sun"), to experience life in all its vagaries, even though "you'll never know" what the mystery is all about.  I love the internal rhyme in the verses: "Xylophones made of bones / That you loaned from a boneyard / Play you out with a galliard / Whistle along by the boneyard."  The galliard is an athletic dance, characterized by leaps, jumps, and hops, popular in Renaissance Europe.  

Hit the Ground - They Might Be Giants

Hit the Ground - They Might Be Giants

2:30

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Linnell and John Flansburgh

This is a song about a lost love, framed with the imagery of the stage magician.  He's dragged off by his assistants, mumbling apologies.  His heart is broken and he can't (with all his power?) turn back the clock.  He feels powerless, drugged.  "Sim-sala-bim, everything's so dim / But my saucer eyes don't blink / My pencils are lined up like a firing squad / And there's something in my drink."  Sim-sala-bim is a phrase used by magicians, akin to abracadabra, originated or perhaps just popularized by Danish-American illusionist Dante the Magician.  It's delivered in a sort of neo-soul croon, crossed with eerie '60s keyboard frills.

Character Flaw - They Might Be Giants

Character Flaw - They Might Be Giants

2:51

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Linnell and John Flansburgh

This song, about a terrible person, brings to my mind the Giants' "Icky," another catchy song about an unpleasant man who conveniently forgets obligations and gets all up in your face.  But this one also, inevitably, evokes the current corrupt demented slug in the White House: "Tearing up the whole town / Breaking every law / People go out of their way to miss my character flaw / It's the flawiest flaw that you have ever saw / Everyone already knows about my character flaw."  I mean, if you were setting out to write a song about a human (technically) who's all of the seven deadly sins wrapped in a prancing, deluded, makeup-caked, obese pustule of a package, those lines would be pretty apt.  I have read that other people interpret the song wildly differently, even identifying with the narrator as some sort of transgressive rebel who owns his or her unique personality, but I think that requires some self-absorption and dismissal of the final verse about the carnage the narrator has created.

Outside Brain - They Might Be Giants

Outside Brain - They Might Be Giants

2:01

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell

This is a super catchy, '60s garage pop-influenced track held together by Marty Beller's frenetic drumming.  The rapid fire guitar riffs and the express-train drum line support the lyrics, a slideshow of images representing a wave of anxiety and mania that somehow you have done the wrong thing, that everyone is starting at you, that you've missed some invisible social cue.  "The panic of a blown-out fuse / I can't take much more bad news / Spinning in this busted chair / Headstrong and unprepared."

Get Down - They Might Be Giants

Get Down - They Might Be Giants

2:47

The World Is To Dig, 2026

Written by John Flansburgh and John Linnell

The Giants just released their first album in five years, so I'm going to explore it.  TMBG is one of my top five bands of all time.  I remember clearly being entranced by the video for "Don't Let's Start" on MTV around 1986 when I was an impressionable youth of 15 or so.  Oh, there's more in the rearview mirror than in the road ahead at this point!  Anyhoo, this song's got a razor-sharp horn line and an urgent tone.  It's a call to get down.  The Johns have always had a knack for finding and exploiting words and phrases that can be interpreted more than one way.  There's value here, the lyrics aside, to the ambiguity of whether you take this phrase to mean ducking for cover or grooving to a beat.  In the lyrics, instructions come from space and baffle the world: "Just as we were hearing the news / The announcer's voice was cut off / The signal went dead and it cut to a different feed / A metallic and alien voice began speaking / Get down / I'm telling you for your own good / Right now you should."

Cryin' Heart Blues - The Del McCoury Band

Cryin' Heart Blues - The Del McCoury Band

2:59

The Family, 1999

Written by Lou Willie Turner, 1951

This song's credit goes to Big Joe Turner's wife, though probably he wrote it and credited her to give her an income stream in the event of his death.  Anyway, the song was recorded by honky-tonk duo Johnnie and Jack in 1951.  This version is a bluegrass gem, with leisurely banjo and mandolin picking interplay, high nasal tenor vocals, and high harmonies.  The Del McCoury Band really just has no close rivals in the bluegrass game.

Lucy Mae Blues - Frankie Lee Sims

Lucy Mae Blues - Frankie Lee Sims

2:27

single, 1953

Written by Frankie Lee Sims and Ishman Bracey

Sims was Lightnin' Hopkins' cousin, and only issued nine singles during his career.  The songwriting credit on this one goes to Sims and Ishman Bracey, who wrote the very similar "Saturday Blues" in 1928.  This one's a slinky electric blues, in which the narrator has a lady for every day of the week, but "Better not let my good gal catch you here / Ain't no tellin' what poor little Lucy Mae do."  Sims sings the lyrics in a mush-mouth growl as his guitar does all the heavy lifting.  I like the line "She left one Christmas coming back that afternoon / Next time I see her, boy, it was the nineteenth of June."

Mother-In-Law Blues - Junior Parker

Mother-In-Law Blues - Junior Parker

2:35

single, 1956

Written by Don Robey

This is a straightforward, midtempo Mississippi blues about losing your baby.  Despite the title, the lady in question doesn't seem to be the source of the narrator's leaving; she seems to have made up her mind on her own, based on his drinking.  "I could hear her tell her mother, 'That's one no good man!' / Well, I watched my baby leave, her mother had her by the hand."  Parker himself provides the wailing, pleading harmonica lines that meld with his plaintive voice in bewailing his loss.

Bad Luck Blues - Guitar Slim

Bad Luck Blues - Guitar Slim

2:54

single, 1954

Written by Guitar Slim?

Guitar Slim died at age 32 of pneumonia, which is a musical tragedy, because he could have been a legend.  He experimented with guitar distortion and when playing live, showed off such musical tricks and playing while perched on the shoulders of his assistant, with his guitar behind his back, or (as Hendrix would a decade later) plucking the strings with his teeth.  This is a slow electric Mississippi blues.  Slim bellows the lyrics with the gravitas that only those who shared his rough upbringing can muster.  Lyrically, it's standard blues phraseology: "My woman, she have quit me, baby / And all my womens have put me down / Yes, I’ve got no money in my pocket, baby / And my friends don't come around."

Stolen Blues - American Princes

Stolen Blues - American Princes

2:31

Less And Less, 2006

Written by American Princes?

This is a quiet/loud indie rocker that, in its full-throated, frantic explosion of angsty despair, reminds me of Les Savy Fav's "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn."  It's a message of disappointment and futility.  "They've been lying to you / They've been lying to you / Saying stay dumb and shut up, salt the old wounds / But that's just what they say / That namеless they."  It's a clever, hard-driven burner with twin guitars and passionate vocals.

The Rooster Song - Fats Domino

The Rooster Song - Fats Domino

2:08

This Is Fats, 1957

Written by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew

Confusingly, this New Orleans romp has a chorus of "Ain't That a Shame," his big hit of a few years earlier.  Never let it be said that Fats Domino didn't stick with a good thing.  The lyrics here are strictly first draft nursery-rhyme: "There was an old lady from Houston / She had two hens and a rooster / Her rooster died, the old lady cried / My hens don't lay like they used to!"  Someone else is happy playing in his corn (?), and some other lady has some stew.  I guess.... that's also a shame?

Without a Song - Perry Como

Without a Song - Perry Como

3:17

single, 1951

Written by Vincent Youmans, Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu

This song comes from a short-lived 1929 musical called Great Day, quickly forgotten except as the source of this tune.  Como's version is stately and expansive, a showcase for his smooth, unforced baritone. The arrangement swells around him, full orchestra rising and receding as he glides over it with an almost effortless control.  At the end, a male chorus sings the refrain, bringing the drama and passion to bombastic gradeur.  Lyrically, it's a declaration of music's necessity to heal and comfort, and indeed even as a life force: "That field of corn, would never see a plow / That field of corn, would be deserted now / A young one's born, but he's no good no how / Without a song!"  (That's the revised lyrics — the original said "a darkie's born," fortunately even in the era seen as inappropriate.)  It's not hard to understand why this is one of of Bob Dylan's favorite performances,  He called Como "the anti-Rat Pack" and this song "just downright incredible."

The Whiffenpoof Song - The Statler Brothers

The Whiffenpoof Song - The Statler Brothers

1:48

Flowers On the Wall, 1966

Written by anonymous author, c. 1909

This is the theme song of the Yale singing group the Whiffenpoofs, whose most famous alumnus is probably Cole Porter.  Bing Crosby has a well-regarded version of the song, but I prefer the Statlers' uptempo rendition, with its tinkling piano, handclap percussion, high harmonies, and the bass vocal coming in for counterpoint.  The song begins with a toast to "Mory's," referring to Mory's Temple Bar, and Louis, a former owner of Mory's, Louis Linder.  Then the song describes the singers themselves, how they will become part of an undying tradition.  "We will serenade our Louis / While life and voice shall last/ Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest."  Et in arcadia ego, except cheery.

Possum Song - Johnny Mercer

Possum Song - Johnny Mercer

2:58

single, 1947

Written by Terry Shand and By Dunham

A cursory search failed to unearth an answer as to whether this song was ever released by Mercer before appearing on a compilation in the modern era.  But no matter. This is a classic big band vocal, if the singer grew up as a Louisiana hillbilly.  It seems a possum is laughing at the narrator from its hiding place in the trees, but not being a fancy city-boy, the narrator plans his revenge: eating it.  "Possum on the loose / He's been stealing all of my chickens / Now I'll cook his goose / Possum knows he's in a jam / He'd go good with candied yam."

Song Of the Future - U2

Song Of the Future - U2

3:55

Days Of Ash, 2026

Written by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr.

This song pays tribute to Sarina Esmailzadeh, a 16-year-old Iranian schoolgirl who was beaten to death in 2022 by authorities for participating in the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.  "Sarina Sarina / She's the song of the future / Playing in my mind."  The song imagines a better world, or least the start of one: "All the classroom prophets gone to ground / Schoolgirl says everyone knows / Love is a verb and not a noun / Or so it seems."  Nevertheless, Bono compares his lyrics to be "running [his] mouth off."  Definitely any kind of art protest seems like empty talking compared to the unimaginable bravery of these protestors' very real actions.  Jesus Christ, if I had a hammer...

Goodbye California - Jolie Holland

Goodbye California - Jolie Holland

3:28

Escondida, 2004

Written by Jolie Holland

Holland is unrelated to Squeeze keyboardist Jools Holland, but is a founding member of the Be Good Tanyas.  This song is an old-timey Americana plaint.  Her sometimes quavering vocal reminds me a bit of Gillian Welch, except Holland sings here with a unique (albeit compelling) Southern accent, vowels all stretched and distorted.  The song struts along at an easy shuffle, a spare but evocative arrangement, with guitar, maybe a mandolin, and what sounds like a singing saw.  The lyrics tell of someone burdened by all the ills of the world — "Now folks that know what's good for 'em / Are good at ignoring 'em / But I just can't put these thoughts down / I'm harrowed and abused and broken and pursued" — before veering off into a quasi-mystic picture of postmortem dissolution into the natural world, a Californian, less defiant, take on Frank Turner's "One Foot Before the Other."

Moon Hop - Derrick Morgan

Moon Hop - Derrick Morgan

3:09

single, 1969

Written by Derrick Morgan

Wikipedia tells us that this riddim reggae beat was written to commemorate the Apollo moon landing, but there's nothing in the lyrics to suggest this.  It's more that the title reflects how the world was caught up in space race fever at the time.  The lyrics consist of "yeah, yeah, yeah" and some instruction to dance: "Put your right foot out now," "Shake your hip," "Come on and jump and prance," and, somewhat confusingly, "mix it with the Kangaroo," this last I can only imagine is a Jamaican dance of the era.  It's silly but joyous and catchy; sometimes that's all you need.

Sloop John B - The Real McKenzies

Sloop John B - The Real McKenzies

3:51

Songs Of the Highlands, Songs Of the Sea, 2022

traditional

Paul McKenzie sings this straight, using the same verses as the famed Beach Boys version, with minimal accompaniment, just a guitar and some soft harmonica.  It's a nice version, but I can't help but wondering why the band didn't go full Celtic punk with bagpipes to give it their own whiskey-soaked spin.  Oh well.  "For of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

Good Thing - Fine Young Cannibals

Good Thing - Fine Young Cannibals

3:22

The Raw & the Cooked, 1989

Written by Roland Gift and David Steele

I was a senior in high school when this album came out, but I only ever heard the huge singles; I didn't seek it out.  Now, hundreds of years later, I'm finally ready to accept the popular music of my youth.  A bouncing piano line by Jools Holland gives this funky song a nice groove.  It's got a fairly sparse sound, and Gift sings it in a sort of yearning yelp.  The song is retro-soul, but layered onto the production of the time — the programmed, high percussive backbeat is very '80s — and the fusion works.

Fools Are Not Born - Clarence Reid

Fools Are Not Born - Clarence Reid 

2:14

Dancin' With Nobody But You Babe, 1969

Written by Willie Clarke and Clarence Reid

This is a smooth soul crooner about a man who's made a mistake or two in love.  Once he was a wise man.  But now he knows, he's just a fool, blinded by lies.  "Friends look at me with pity in their eye / They know that I'm a fool / But they just don't know why / I haven't always been like this / But you gave me something that I just couldn't resist."  Punchy horn stabs and Reid's expressive voice make this song one of those that leave you wondering why it wasn't a hit.  But enough about that!  Hilariously, Reid also released many albums as Blowfly, a raunchy parody of other genres of music with titles like ""If Eating You Is Wrong, I Don't Want To Be Right" and "R. Kelly in Cambodia."