The First Cut Is the Deepest - P.P. Arnold

The First Cut Is the Deepest - P.P. Arnold

3:05

The First Lady Of Immediate, 1968

Written by Cat Stevens

Although Stevens recorded his own version of this song of a love gone wrong, Arnold beat him by a couple of months.  Steven's lyrics hit like an arrow to the heart, accurately capturing that peculiar mixture of loneliness and heartbreak in the wronged: "I still want you by my side / Just to help me dry the tears that I've cried." describing the feeling of heartbreak and Arnold's soulful vocal, full of pathos and regret, matches the helpless feeling of the lyric. The song was a hit single for six different artists: Arnold, Stevens, Keith Hampshire in 1973, Rod Stewart in 1977, Papa Dee in 1995, and Sheryl Crow in 2003.

Those Were the Days - Cream

Those Were the Days - Cream

2:54

Wheels Of Fire, 1968

Written by Ginger Baker and Mike Taylor

Showcasing everything that made Cream more than just a blues-rock power trio, jazz, psychedelia, and hard rock all mingle here.  Each member has room to shine without showboating. The lyrics drift through a haze of psychedelic hippie mysticism ("Tie your painted shoes and dance, blue daylight in your hair / Overhead a noiseless eagle fans a flame / Wonder everywhere"), though the title and mood hint at nostalgia (for Atlantis?) beneath the acid-colored surface.  Jack Bruce sings the verses in an unusually high, almost fragile register; Clapton lays down one of his fiercest guitar solos, while Baker pummels out a series of restless fills that propel the song forward.  Despite the opaque lyrics, it's hard not to hear a trace of melancholy in its title, knowing the band would splinter only months later.

I've Got Dreams To Remember - Otis Redding

I've Got Dreams To Remember - Otis Redding

3:15

single, 1968

Written by Zelma Redding, Otis Redding, Joe Rock

A deeply soulful R&B about that most common of subjects: the jilted lover.  "I know you said he was just a friend / But I saw him kiss you again and again."  What elevates this song beyond heartbreak cliché is the sheer emotional authority of the performance. Released after Redding's death, the song showcases his incredible vocal power, his voice moving from wounded restraint to ragged pleading without ever losing control.  I believe that Steve Cropper is playing electric guitar with Booker T. on the keyboards.  The horns and backing vocals maintain the dignity of Memphis soul, but Redding increasingly sounds as if he's barely holding himself together, especially when he mutters "rough dreams" and "bad dreams" beneath the refrain.  It's the sound of a man trying to sing himself through betrayal.

Psycho - Eddie Noack

Psycho - Eddie Noack

3:36

single, 1968

Written by Leon Payne

This eerie song, with its taboo subject for the time and its spooky deadpan delivery, is a confession to the narrator's mama: "Don't you think I'm psycho, Mama? / You can pour me a cup / If you think I'm psycho, mama / Better let 'em lock me up."  The narrator relates how he killed and buried his ex and her new man, as well as a little girl in the park with a wrench.  It's the conversational tone that really gives the song its chilling effect.  At the beginning of the song, he warns that he might handle the puppy too roughly if she hands it to him, and in a later verse, casually mentions he just killed it.  Near the end, as his confession winds down, it's apparent that the mama he's talking to is also dead.  It's wild that this 60 year old, calm portrait of homicidal insanity is so much more vivid and disturbing than all the glossy, affected "shout at the devil" shock rock that would come later.

Fist City - Loretta Lynn

Fist City - Loretta Lynn

2:13

Fist City, 1968

Written by Loretta Lynn

Stung by her husband's philandering while she was on tour, Lynn wrote this song as a warning for other women to stay away from him if they do not want to be physically beaten by her.  Though I do wonder why she wouldn't direct her anger toward him more than the ladies.  While I have to admit that "go to fist city" is a terrific euphemism for fighting, she does mix her metaphors in the line "You better move your feet if you don't wanna eat a meal that′s called Fist City."  Still, you have to admire Lynn's way with words.  She paints a vivid picture:  "If you don't wanna go to Fist City you better detour around my town / 'Cause I'll grab you by the hair of the head and I'll lift you off of the ground."

Move On Alone - Jethro Tull

Move On Alone - Jethro Tull

3:23

This Was, 1968

Written by Ian Anderson

Mick Abrahams, the original guitarist of Jethro Tull, died yesterday.  In honor of his passing, I'm turning to a side of Tull I've long neglected — their debut album, and this song, the only track not sung by Ian Anderson in the Tull catalog.  It offers a glimpse of an alternate Tull, one in which Abrahams's voice and influence might have shaped a different Tull.  This song is stately, more soft-rock than folk-blues, much gentler than the harder rock direction they went in that improbably won them Best Heavy Metal album in 1989.  Lyrically it sticks to reliable blues tropes: his baby done left him, nothing makes him happy: "I feel so sad now that she's gone / I've been loving that woman too long / There's no place to go because my friends have all moved / Got nothing but sit in the sun."  The music, however, sidesteps the hard blues sound of the rest of the album, and even ventures into a sprightly British dance-hall coda.  In the wake of Abrahams' death it feels like a quiet, fitting reminder of what he brought to the band, and what Tull briefly was before moving on without him.

Hey Boys - the Dillards

Hey Boys - the Dillards

2:26

Wheatstraw Suite, 1968

Written by Rodney Dillard, Mitch Jayne, H.R. Pedersen, and Dean Webb

This is a sprightly, fingerpicking bluegrass folk-rock number, defiantly throwback.  It concerns an old homesteader and moonshiner, reflecting on the successes of his youth and how he's content to just sit around talking and drinking with his friends.  He's reached the age where he's a contended, largely indifferent epicurean.  "Rear back, talk about your politics / Fight about religion and worry about war / I'll sit, a-spittin' in the fireplace / Pour a little cider when your throat gets sore."  The lyrics are light, but the band is serious about playing genuine bluegrass with skill.

If I Can Dream - Elvis Presley

If I Can Dream - Elvis Presley
3:09
Elvis, 1968
Written by Walter Earl Brown

This song was based on Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech and its passionate rendition by Elvis was partly inspired by King's assassination just two months earlier.  "If I can dream of a better land, where all my brothers walk hand in hand / Tell me why, oh why, oh why can't my dream come true?"  Presley delivers it like a man singing for redemption, his voice straining against the lush orchestration and gospel-style backing vocals.   The arrangement swells from quiet reflection — it bemoans a world "troubled by pain," shadowed by dark clouds — to an impassioned crescendo, mirroring the ache and aspiration in the lyrics.  It is said that Elvis never channeled so much grief and yearning into a song, and that after he recorded it, vowed he would never again sing a song he didn't believe in.

One Hundred Years From Now - The Byrds

One Hundred Years From Now - The Byrds 
2:34
Sweetheart Of the Rodeo, 1968
Written by Gram Parsons

This song captures Parsons' vision of country rock (if by rock you mean softer 1970s rock) at its purest crossroads, where twang meets jangle, and Bakersfield meets Laurel Canyon. Lloyd Green's pedal steel provides the track's keening hook, while Clarence White adds clean, understated guitar lines that dance around the melody without ever intruding. The result feels like the missing link between The Everly Brothers and Hank Williams, music that belongs equally to country and rock, proof those genres twine their roots in the same soil.  Equally, its sound could just as easily be heard drifting from a crackling, century-old shellac 78 as from modern headphones..  The song's message is enough to give one pause: nearly sixty years later, we're nowhere near to any answers to the questions it poses.  "Nobody knows what kind of trouble we're in / Nobody seems to think it all might happen again."  It keeps on happening.

The Fool On the Hill - Bobbie Gentry

The Fool On the Hill - Bobbie Gentry

3:49

Local Gentry, 1968

Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

My first impression is this is not on the whole a successful cover.  At times, Gentry's voice seems over-taxed and rough, and the production overall is a thin tinny sound, with off-beat and distracting instrumentation (is that a mouth harp making that quacking sound?).  Luckily, it's such a great song that even this occasionally desultory performance still has something to offer.  

Classical Gas - Mason Williams

Classical Gas - Mason Williams

3:04

The Mason Williams Phonograph Record, 1968

Written by Mason Williams

What's with that title?  The song was originally named "Classical Gasoline," as in metaphorical "fuel" for the classical guitar repertoire.  It peaked on the charts at number two, behind the Doors' "Hello, I Love You."  Those were the days when the charts were more organic and had a lot of variety, and music was warm and real and the streets were paved with gold.  This is an orchestral pop based around fingerpicked guitar, with lush arrangements and rhythmic urgency.  There are even hints of what would later be called disco (some of more intense flourishes on this song would be at home on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack).   

Everybody Crying Mercy - Mose Allison

Everybody Cryin' Mercy - Mose Allison

2:42

I've Been Doin' Some Thinkin', 1968

Written by Mose Allison

Like a lot of singer-songwriter fans of my generation, I was introduced to this song by Elvis Costello on his 1995 covers album, Kojak Variety.  (The only other thing I know about Mose Allison is that Greg Brown wrote a song about revering him.)  The original is a slow burn, with Allison's nightclub piano lines giving his quiet vocal delivery a sparse but apt accompaniment.  The song itself is a complaint about the hypocrisy of our times ("Everybody's crying peace on earth / Just as soon as we win this war").  The title is usually cited as "Everybody's Cryin' Mercy," but on the original album it is given without the verb; why did subsequent covers change it?  

Blue Canadian Rockies - The Byrds

Blue Canadian Rockies - The Byrds

2:01

Sweetheart Of the Rodeo, 1968

Written by Cindy Walker, 1950

The Byrds go full country on this cover, which has a tried and true subject: the man misses both a revered geographical place and the girl who still resides there, and now he's coming home.  "Now, oh, how my lonely heart is aching tonight / For that girl I left behind / And oh, what I'd give if I could be there tonight / With the sweetheart who's waiting for me."  It's a wonderfully crafted, delicate song that perfectly evokes nostalgia and yearning, and the Byrds handle it with skill.

Be Careful What You Do - John Brim

Be Careful What You Do - John Brim

2:41

Tough, 1968

Written by John Brim

An electric Chicago guitar blues, warning some lady to be careful about all that talking about his business that women be doing.  This one gets pretty grim fast: "Now come here baby look here and dead in the eye / And you know if you tempt to quit me / That's when you're gonna die."  Lyrically it's pretty trite, if not off-putting, but the blazing guitar and harmonica licks are terrific.  Brim is best known for writing "Ice Cream Man," which was covered by both Van Halen and Martin Sexton.

I Got a Sure Thing - Ollie & the Nightingales

I Got a Sure Thing - Ollie & the Nightingales

2:36

single, 1968

Written by Booker T. Jones and William Bell

This soul group was also known as the Nightingales and the Dixie Nightingales.  This song was also recorded by William Bell, but I prefer this version; it's got a little more punch.  It's a mid-tempo shuffler, restrained despite Ollie's impassioned, sometimes screaming vocal. The horns and the rising organ lines keep it bright.  I like how he yells "ha ha ha!" at about 1:50.

I Thank You - Sam And Dave

I Thank You - Sam And Dave

2:54

I Thank You, 1968

Written by Isaac Hayes David Porter

I'm quite familiar with the ZZ Top version of this song; if I heard the original before, it was long ago and I don't remember it.   This is pure soul Memphis groove: punchy horns, syncopated rhythms, and a vocal interplay that feels urgent, joyful, and distinctly communal rather than solitary or cool..  As Sam says in the intro, "And give me some of that old soul clapping." I like how Sam sings the first verse and Dave sings the second.  The gospel-infused call-and-response vocals make the contrast between Sam's smooth soul delivery and Dave's rawer, preacher-like intensity.   

Pretty Boy Floyd - the Byrds

Pretty Boy Floyd - the Byrds

2:34

Sweetheart Of the Rodeo, 1968

Written by Woody Guthrie, 1939

I know this song from the Guthrie and Dylan version. This one has a brisk tempo and some mighty fine bluegrass banjo picking by John Hartford.  McGuinn's nasal vocals have an easy, semi-spoken pace, so you can make out the words easily.  It's not an earth-shaking cover, but pleasant to listen to.  I put it in the same category as the early Stones covers, where an artist does a slightly rockier version by an old master as an homage and a way to gain genre cred.

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah - Louis Armstrong

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah - Louis Armstrong

2:22

Disney Songs the Satchmo Way, 1968

Written by Ray Gilbert & Allie Wrubel

This album marks the last recordings of Armstrong on trumpet.  Apparently, Walt Disney himself requested that Satchmo record this album, and he did, even though he was in ill health.  (Sad to think how just four short years before he was at the top of the charts with the perfect album Hello, Dolly!.)  You wouldn't know he was ailing, however, from listening to this song or its album.  His joyful vocals and bright trumpet make this already Oscar-winning song lively and fun.