Truckin' My Blues Away - Blind Boy Fuller

Truckin' My Blues Away - Blind Boy Fuller

3:08

single, 1936

Written by Blind Boy Fuller

Hey, I have a tiny suspicion that "truckin'" here might represent something more salacious than mere locomotion!  Oh Blind Boy Fuller, you rascal.  "Keep on truckin', baby, truckin' my blues away / Make a lame man run, make a blind man see, sure gets good when she truckin' with me."  It's classic blues double entendre, delivered with a grin.  A toe-tapping ragtime blues, it's got some sprightly fingerpicking that makes your head bob along.

Supernova - Liz Phair

Supernova - Liz Phair

2:49

Whip-Smart, 1994

Written by Liz Phair

A love song, the Liz Phair way.  "Your eyelashes sparkle like gilded grass / And your lips are sweet and slippery / Like a cherub's bare wet ass."  It's hardly Sonnet 18, but Phair's wry, deadpan vocals over sludgy, fuzzy guitar riffs and bendy, talking guitar lines make it sound immediate and important.  It's muscular, it's catchy, it captures young infatuation and lust, and it doesn't hurt that at the time of this release, I personally would have given anything I owned just to be in Liz Phair's presence for an hour.

Rain - The Beatles

Rain - The Beatles

3:01

single, 1966

Written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon

This excellent B-side features a slowed-down rhythm track, a droning bass line that evoking Asian musical stylings and, at the end, backwards vocals. Lyrically, it ostensibly extols the value of rain instead of complaining about the weather: "Rain, I don't mind / Shine, the weather's fine / I can show you that when it starts to rain / Everything's the same."  But the repeated line "I can show you," the later line "it's just a state of mind" and the Beatles' exploration of psychedelia at the time points to a deeper meaning, that of rain representing some sort of expanded consciousness that Lennon feels privy to.  

Beauty Queen Sister - Indigo Girls

Beauty Queen Sister - Indigo Girls

3:11

Beauty Queen Sister, 2011

Written by Amy Ray

This fast-paced title track, one of Amy Ray's best, reflects on a rough but free-spirited Southern childhood rendered in vivid, affectionate detail. Ray sketches a world of bikers, tattoos, and back-road survival with quick, evocative strokes ("Mama's got a friend named Monkeyman / With a two-seater bike / And a tattoo stand"), grounding the song in lived experience rather than nostalgia. A passing reference to The Outsiders ("Pony watched Johnny die / Nothing gold can stay") reinforces the sense of youthful reckoning and hard-earned awareness.  The overall theme of this song is one of loss ("But every day I gained, another fell apart.") but leavened by hope.  Cut live in the studio, the track shimmies with soulful momentum, buoyed by the Shadowboxers' warm, insistent backing refrain: "Hang on tight."   

Party Doll - Buddy Knox

Party Doll - Buddy Knox

2:15

Buddy Knox, 1957

Written by Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen

A simple but bouncy rockabilly number, this song expresses the most primitive urge in rock music: a guy's gotta have a gal.  "Every man has got to have a party doll / To be with him when he's feeling wild / To be ever-loving, true and fair / To run her fingers through his hair."  Knox sings in an affable twang that calls to mind the more famous, glasses-wearing Buddy who would very soon follow.  It's all very ramshackle, a vibe as if the fellas were putting on a show as a lark, not in a professional recording session.  An ambling guitar strums along, some enthusiastic young girls (Knox's neighbors, apparently) sing backing, blocky percussion keeps the beat, and a ringing cymbal adds brightness.

One Foot Before the Other - Frank Turner

One Foot Before the Other - Frank Turner

3:25

England Keep My Bones, 2011

Written by Frank Turner

Surely one of Turner's masterworks, this song finds him asking — rather, demanding — to be scattered into England's reservoirs after he dies. "And then specks infinitesimal of my mortal remains / Will slide down seven million throats and into seven million veins / And I will creep through their capillaries to the marrow of their bones."  Turner all but roars the lines.  It's brash, loud, muscular, cathartic, proud, victorious.  

Night Changes - One Direction

Night Changes - One Direction

3:46

Four, 2014

Written by Jamie Scott, Julian Bunetta, John Ryan, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Liam Payne, and Louis Tomlinson

Like many other crusty old Gen-Xers weaned on classic rock, I never thought I'd be listening to One Direction.  But my stepdaughter, who listens to a mix of '70s and modern music, was playing this, and ignorant of the artist, I was grooving to it.  That blind encounter matters: stripped of context and baggage, the song makes a quietly persuasive first impression.  This song has a sort of '70s yacht-folk rock vibe going, with lush harmonies and a light synth backbone.  Lyrically, the song explores the passage of time ("Just how fast the night changes / Everything that you've ever dreamed of / Disappearing when you wake up") and getting older.  It does outstay its welcome for me, relying on the repetition of the lengthy chorus, but it's a nice easy-listening song as long as you don't overplay it.

Made in Japan - Buck Owens

Made in Japan - Buck Owens

2:44

In the Palm of Your Hand, 1973

Written by Bob Morris and Faye Morris

The narrator of this song meets a girl in Japan who captivates him ("The beauty of her face was beyond my wildest dreams / Like cherry blossoms blooming in the mountain in the early spring"), but this intercontinental romance is not to be, and he must leave her: "That's when I left my heart with the girl made in Japan."  It's a short but sweet story-song, tastefully done (flipping the expected script about a one night stand by a touring musician), with the guitar lines bending to mimic the sounds of traditional Japanese music.

Little Things Mean a Lot - Bettye Swann

Little Things Mean a Lot - Bettye Swann

3:43

Don't You Ever Get Tired Of Hurting Me?, 1969

Written by Edith Lindeman and Carl Stutz, 1953

Recorded when Swann was just nineteen, this is a slow-burning soul song, a plea for attention that's packed with emotion.  The songs starts with Swann's delicate vocal, with the band a gentle accompaniment: "Blow me a kiss from across the room / Tell me I look nice even when I'm not / Touch my hair as you pass my chair / These are just little things, oh but they mean a lot." These gestures are mere tokens, but that's what gives the request its emotional power.  Gradually, dreamy backing vocals and horns build and build to a crescendo, and Swann's voice is longing, not overwrought but impassioned, until at the end it falls to a whispered plea again.  The delicate, intimate production has been cited as an inspiration for Aretha Franklin.

Kelly the Boy From Killan - the Dubliners

Kelly the Boy From Killan - the Dubliners

2:31

More Of the Hard Stuff, 1967 

Written by Patrick Joseph McCall, 1898

John Kelly was a real-life United Irish leader who fought in the Wexford Rebellion of 1798.  During the battle, Kelly was wounded in the leg. He was moved to Wexford to recuperate but after the fall of Wexford on 21 June was dragged from his bed, tried and sentenced to death.  As usual in Irish rebel songs, hagiography can rear its head: "Tell me who is that giant with the gold curling hair / He who rides at the head of your band? / Seven feet is his height with some inches to spare / And he looks like a king in command."  This rendition is a rousing anthem, proud even in the jaws of defeat, as only the Dubliners can belt it out.