Baby Blue - Badfinger

Baby Blue - Badfinger

3:37

Straight Up, 1972

Written by Pete Ham

The only exposure to Badfinger's music I've ever had is though occasionally hearing it on classic rock radio.  This one was featured in the finale of "Breaking Bad," a show I love a lot, but I don't recall its use in the episode, either.  So, while I technically know this song, I didn't recognize it from the title, so I'm putting it in the playlist.  Ham wrote the song about a woman named Dixie Armstrong, whom he had dated during the band's last tour.  It's a lost love song, melancholic in lyric but couched in such a catchy melody and beautiful harmonies (even a very Beatles-esque "What can I do" plaint in the bridge) that it exudes contentment more than loss.

Negative Neighborhood - Salt Orchard

Negative Neighborhood - Salt Orchard

2:50

Salt Orchard, 2018

Written by Kieran Harris, Max Souders, and Ben Zamarron

This is some far-out, Zappa-tinged jazz rock.  The vocals are powerful, insistent if not operatic, a sort of half-talking, half-droning that commands the listener.  The lyrics begin in a very American-tinged French: "Qu'est-ce qu tu fais / Qu'est-ce que tu dis / Mon longue [langue?] était bon et tu es une rie."  The English part, when it comes, may not be any more intelligible to Anglophone ears: "Any day but you seem not to know my / And then there she stood / The helm of her negative neighborhood."  Whether these are genuinely surreal lyrics, deliberately garbled ones, or simply impossible to decipher, the effect is the same. Meaning takes a back seat to sound.  It's impressionistic, free-form, a fusion of bop and rock, and it grabs your attention, nonsense notwithstanding.