"One"

Harry Nilsson / Al Kooper / Three Dog Night / Aimee Mann

Don't you just hate it / love it / go CRAZY when you find out that a song you know like the back of your hand is really another song by another artist who has even more of a claim to it?

Well, this particular tune keeps upping the ante for me.  First of all, like everybody else in my generation, I knew the Three Dog Night mega-hit from 1969.

What a great song, I thought. It may be the only Three Dog Night song I ever really liked -- no, wait, that's not fair.  I also liked "Eli's Coming" (until I discovered the Laura Nyro original).  In later years I'd also find out that "Try a Little Tenderness" was infinitely better when Sam Cooke sang it, and that "Mama Told Me Not To Come" should only have ever been sung by its original author, the incomparable Randy Newman. Sigh.

But I digress. The Three Dog Night "One" hit the charts in 1969 and it seemed so cool, those opening lines with their intriguing circular logic: "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do / Two can be as bad as one / It's the loneliest number since the number one." Heavy, man, like a Zen koan. But then  three years later when I hit my Al Kooper phase (a short but not negligible chapter of my fangirl story), I fell in love with Al's baroque and haunting 1968 version. It forever wiped the 3DNite single from my memory.

Now is that a thing of beauty or is it not?  I love those sawing strings, the sweet clarinet (or is it an oboe?) weaving in and out, the triple-tracked overlapped vocals -- even the (at the time not yet hokey) rainfall and thunder effects at the end.  For a song that's all about loneliness and disconnection, this elaborately concocted studio montage layers on the borderline schizophrenia, doesn't it?  Stay alone for too long and you too will go stark staring mad.

Delicious.

So anyway...the years pass, and DECADES later I encounter this existential version by the way-too-underrated Aimee Mann, used in the soundtrack of the seriously disturbing 1999 Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia.

(There are other YouTube versions. I picked this one because I still need to see images of Philip Seymour Hoffman whenever I can. RIP PSH, you genius.)

If Al Kooper's highly-wrought version was haunting, Aimee Mann's stripped-down version is equally haunting. Every bar of this song expresses existential loneliness.  How relentless is that electric piano, tapping out the repeated chords? And I love how Aimee's affectless yet melismatic voice curls knowingly around the phrase ends. Oh, yes, she is a lady in pain, and IT IS OUR COMMON PAIN TO WITNESS.

Now, we need to fast-forward just a few years to, okay, 2013.  Here I am, blogging away, and I dig up a tribute album called For the Love of Harry  -- the very same album for which Aimee Mann's "One" was originally recorded. For me, this album becomes a rabbit hole worthy of Alice in Wonderland, wherein I at last truly discover Harry Nilsson -- an artist of whom I had always been aware, through a handful of hit records and the fact that he was with John Lennon and May Pang on the Kotex Night. But now I REALLY discover Harry Nilsson, he of the glorious God-given voice and a songwriting sensibility that marries Beatlesque pop with Summer of Love California Dreaming and the American standard playbook.

A genius, pure and simple. And yet I NEVER BEFORE REALLY REGISTERED THAT HE WROTE "ONE."

And yet here it is, the one and only original "One," from Nilsson's 1968 album Aerial Ballet.

The story goes that Harry wrote this after phoning someone and getting a busy signal -- remember the obnoxious beep-beep-beep of a busy signal, back in the days before answer machines and call waiting and cell phones?  The whole song is underlaid with that off-putting busy signal, counterpointed with a yearning cello line that speaks volumes about the human desire for connection. But more than anything, it's Harry's pure and sincere vocal that sells this song.  I am here alone, it says, trying so hard to make a connection, and the technology won't let me in. And his heart is hurting -- "it's just no good anymore since you went away / Now I spend my time / Just making rhymes / Of yesterday." Major and minor and suspended chords overlap, and this poor schmuck is wading through it all, heartsore and hapless.

Is this a killer song or what?

So what's a girl to do? I'm willing to throw Three Dog Night under the bus, but how can I betray my decades-long loyalty to Al and my sister bond with Aimee?  But oh, Harry, my lost dark prince, how could I not love your original best?

I know, I know -- we don't have to choose, we can simply love them all. But for me, loving them all entails being hyper-aware of how Al and Aimee were nested in Harry's original.  A great song -- a truly great song -- enables great cover versions. So be it if my personal history ran through the cover versions first. Harry, you were worth waiting for.

"Coconut" / Fred Schneider

It must be fun to be a B-52.

Trawling around iTunes trying to find more songs by Victoria Williams, I discovered this adorable Harry Nilsson tribute album. So many artists on here that I love -- Marshall Crenshaw, Ron Sexsmith, Al Kooper, Aimee Mann, Randy Newman, Bill Lloyd, both Brian and Carl Wilson -- and smack dab in the middle of it is our very own Love Shack sherpa Fred Schneider of the B-52s. Now, if you'd asked me which Harry Nilsson song would be perfect for Fred Schneider to cover, I don't know if I would have come up with this one. But the minute I heard it, I realized it was PERFECT.

It's a raucously fun song even when Harry himself sang it, but Fred pushes it to a whole new level. "Coconut" was just a hair shy of a novelty tune; I've always imagined that Nilsson began singing it to himself in the middle of a colossal tropical-drink bender, and luckily remembered enough of it the next day to capture the lightning in a bottle. (So to speak.) There's not much to it lyrically -- mostly just the repeated mantra "you put the lime in the coconut / And drink 'em both up." To tell you the truth, sometimes I forget and think this song was written by Jimmy Buffett. Not that there's anything wrong with that, for all my Parrothead friends out there.

I have one major criterion for a great cover version: It has to bring something new to the song. And on that score, Fred Schneider succeeds brilliantly. (It was first recorded for his 1996 solo album Just Fred.) In the great B-52s tradition, he takes this amiable little tune and sends it off into outer space, with dissonant snarls of guitar, frantic drum smacks, and buzzy little synth riffs that sound like transmissions from Mars.

Besides putting the lime in the coconut, we're also supposed to call a doctor and ask him what to do -- and this is the motif that Fred really goes to town on. His voice comes out of one speaker, frantically begging the doctor to tell him what to do about his bellyache; out of the other speaker, he plays a particularly snide doctor, advising his patient to put the lime in the coconut and call him in the morning.  In true Rock Lobster-style, he unleashes layers of wails, growls, and shouts, weaving in and out of those messy instrumentals.  (Really, has anybody ever done more with less vocal talent than Fred Schneider?)  It's truly a party gone out of bounds.

Well, it's spring vacation and I have NOT gone to the Caribbean. In fact, the landscape outside my window is six inches deep in crusty snow and slush. But Fred Schneider has just delivered an umbrella drink to my lounge chair, and I'm lovin' it.

The Columbus Day Shuffle

Doncha just love 3-day weekends?  Started out with my birthday on Saturday, then John Lennon's birthday yesterday, and now we have yet another day to chill and hang out.  Time for music!

1. Fourth of July / Dave Alvin
From King of California (1994)
Another lonesome, plangent tune by the wonderful Dave Alvin, the King of Downey, California. Dave Alvin seems to have a pipeline into the weary lives of working-class Westerners.  "On the stairs I smoke a cigarette alone / Mexican kids are shooting fireworks below" -- shoot this in black-and-white and you'd have a California version of The Last Picture Show.  Devastatingly sad and tender, great stuff.

2. Rockin' the Suburbs / Ben Folds
From Rockin' the Suburbs (2001)
From the authentic to the deliciously snarky in one fell swoop. "Let me tell y'all what it's like / Being male, middle-class and white...All alone in my white-boy pain / Shake your booty while the band complains."  And those perky synths -- skewer 'em, Ben!

3. Don't Lose Your Grip on Love / Brinsley Schwarz
From Nervous on the Road (1972)
Authentic at one remove, the Brinsleys channel the Band, with Bob Andrews doing a quite respectable Garth Hudson homage.  They almost get it right -- "Why do you despise this travelin' man? /  Even though he's doing the best that he can" -- until Nick Lowe betrays his English boarding school roots: "Working for peanuts, as is his wont --"  SCREECH! Gotta love it. This is the same man who rhymes "bona fide" with "coincide" in "Cruel to be Kind," or who describes himself as "a feckless man" in "Hope For Us All" -- he's an English major's dream.  Well, this English major's dream, anyway...

4. Sole Salvation / The English Beat
From Special Beat Service (1982)
Oooh, great sax, and those earnest Dave Wakeling vocals -- these guys never fail to please. The ska revival of the early 80s was right up my alley; I fell in love with the Specials first, but the English Beat kicked in right after, adding a little pop honey to the mix.  Yeah, it's Sole Salvation or Soul Salvation, whichever you want, the groove goes on.       

5.  Shting Shtang / Nick Lowe
From Party of One (1989)
There are days when this neglected beauty is my favorite Nick Lowe album, even this throwaway rockabilly riffer.  These guys are just having so damn much fun -- who needs Rockpile?


6. The Story's Over / The Lodger
From Grown-Ups (2006)
I think iTunes is prejudiced towards this indie-pop band from Leeds, because their music cycles up SO OFTEN on my shuffle, even though I only have five tracks downloaded. (Thanks, Justin.) Not that that's a bad thing -- their stuff's fun. 

7. Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik / The Rutles
From Archaeology (1996)
The brilliant Neil Innes (he of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band) masterminded the Beatles parody The Rutles, along with ex-Python Eric Idle; a few years later, when the Beatles Anthology was all over the place, Neil jumped in with this wonderful take-off of Sgt. Pepper's. Except that it's not really a take-off, IMHO, just extending the Beatles' legacy with all the songs they would have written if they had had time.   

8. Back on My Feet / Al Kooper
From New York City (You're A Woman) (1971)
I am absolutely always delighted when an Al Kooper track cycles up on the old shuffle.  The first true rock chicks I ever knew -- two girls who called themselves Toots and Babs -- turned me onto this stuff at yearbook camp when I was maybe 15, and it runs insanely deep in my musical DNA.  (The full story here.) Truly, it's like going home for me.  I have a huge grin on my face right now. 

9. Loaded  / The Wood Brothers
From Loaded (2008)
You really must, really must, listen to the Wood Brothers.  Please? I just found them by accident and they're one of my great discoveries: I love them madly.  Put together blues and folk and jazz, and mix it up with top-drawer musicianship and mesmerizing vocals and sharp songwriting -- well, what's not to like? 

10. Space Oddity / David Bowie
From Space Oddity (1969)
Sigh.  One of the greatest tracks ever.

SUNDAY SHUFFLE


First of all, a belated happy birthday to psych-folk-punk troubador and all-around free spirit Robyn Hitchcock.  And now, let's welcome spring!

1. I Feel Fine / The Beatles
From Past Masters, Vol. 1 (compilation)
Ah, 1964 -- the Beatles were in their heaven and all was right with the world.  That jangly lead guitar riff, just slightly behind the beat; John's insinuating vocal, hovering chromatically above an uneasy 7th chord; that alternating backstop of harmonies, in lush major-key resolution -- it wasn't simple, but it was exciting. Does this guy really feel fine?  Maybe, but he doesn't trust it, which is why he keeps repeating "you know, she said so" and "I feel fine."  And what an opener: that single guitar note, warping into feedback (an early version of the "Hard Day's Night" chord strum?) -- they had us at hello.  

2. Good Vibrations / The Beach Boys
From Smiley Smile (1967)
Genius, sheer genius -- a scant three years after "I Feel Fine," and music had traveled light-years. As I said here, one of the great singles of all time. Forty-four years later, it still hits it out of the park. 

3. Alienation's For the Rich / They Might Be Giants
From They Might Be Giants (1986)
Proving once again that there is a place for accordions in rock music.  I love Flansburgh's drunken growl and howl here, the strangled cry of a common working stiff.  Watching Spanish TV, drinking Miller Hi-Life -- nope, he's not alienated or nothing.   

4. Seven Miles an Hour / Marshall Crenshaw
From Miracle of Science (1996)
I like to think of this as Marshall's answer to "Expressway to Your Heart" -- he's stuck at work, watching the clock, longing to get home to his girl (or at least someone he hopes will become his girl). Except when he leaves, the traffic jam he's caught in isn't on a Philly roadway, but on the crowded sidewalks of New York. Ever try to walk fast in New York at 5pm? I can manage about four miles an hour, tops; he's doing seven, AND playing a killer guitar riff.  Please, if you listen to only one song on today's shuffle, listen to this one.

5. Wintertime Blues / John Hiatt
From Master of Disaster (2005)
A jaunty little street-corner buck-and-wing from Johnny H., full of pickin' and grinnin'. But man, can I relate: "There's no spring, there was never any spring / Spring's a long gone thing, there won't never be a spring no more / At least that's the way it feels when your skin is cracked and peeled / And you've been livin' under 60 pounds of blanket and the snow's driftin' up to your window.."  

6. Spiderman / Jill Sobule
From California Years (2009)
Now here is a delicious little bit of Hollywood whimsy -- pair this up with the Kinks' "Hollywood Boulevard."  Our singer's dressed up as Spiderman, riding the L.A. subway to work (no one's ever on the train, of course), working the crowd outside Grauman's Chinese. I love the amiable guitar strum, like something out of a 50's Western.  A sweetly etched cameo about the death of American dreams, the sort of thing Jill does better than almost anybody.

7. Out of Time / Chris Farlowe
From Out of Time (compilation)
Now we're jumping back in time, to 1966, when Chris Farlowe scored a UK hit with this Stones song (lucky they shared a manager).  But oh, what a great blues voice he had. "You're out of touch, my baby / My poor old-fashioned baby / Oh, baby, baby, baby you're out of time."  Of course, in the end he's blowing her off (I told you it was a Stones song), but at least Farlowe sounds a little regretful. Dig the "Soldier Boy" strings in the intro.

8. UK Jive / The Kinks
From UK Jive (1989)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- even weak Kinks albums are full of gems.

9. Down Among the Wines and Spirits / Elvis Costello
From Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane (2009)
Elvis goes old-timey Americana, Dobro and steel guitar and mandolin and all.  What saves this is a tap dancing syncopation that helps him stuff in way more words than any bluegrass song would ever need.  But hey, it's Elvis -- Elvis always needs a lot of words. And it's worth it for a verse like, "Down among the wines and spirits / Where a man gets what he merits / Lives with the echoing words of their final quarrel / The vacant chamber / The empty barrel" -- well, there's a whole novel right there. 

10. Right Now For You / Al Kooper
From I Stand Alone (1968)
Starts with an exploding grenade and gunfire, then a swell of spooky orchestration, heard as if in the next hotel room -- a tasty sliver of this unjustly neglected masterpiece album by Al Kooper. I suppose this is the sort of record that led to the over-produced crap of 1970s prog rock; still haunts and mesmerizes me, though. 

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

All things considered, I've decided that Amazon is not really so evil -- which is why I'm adding a widget for you to sample, or even buy, the music I'm writing about here.  (Always looking for a way to post mp3s easily without ripping off the artists.)  Let me know what you think...

1.  No Baby I / The Old 97s 
From Blame It On Gravity (2008)
The twangy roots of this alt.country band keep drifting closer and closer to pop -- an intersection I love.  Rhett Miller has that husky good-boyfriend earnestness down just right. "Blame it on gravity, yeah / Blame it on being a girl" -- ooh, we ladies LOVE a man who understands. 

2.  "In My Life" / The Beatles
From Rubber Soul (Remastered) (1965)
This is one song I often forget to add to my Favorite Beatles Songs list -- why? Tender nostalgia for "people and friends that went before" might seem odd, coming from musicians in their early 20s -- but I bet their Liverpool past truly seemed like another lifetime by the time of this masterpiece album. Love that Bach-like twiddle in the middle eight!

3. "Ram On" / Paul McCartney
From Ram (1971)
Not more Beatles, but pretty damn close. I do love the lounging, slightly scruffy vibe of this song. Despite the naif mandolin strumming (or is a uke?), this song is layered, jazzy, hazy -- stoned, man. 

4. She Gets Me Where I Live / Al Kooper
From Easy Does It (1970)
This spangly, synthy soul-rock track swims in its own psychedelic haze, with some seriously cool-cat horns spinning out of control (not to mention oceans of strings, sometimes with spiky little plucked notes).  When Kooper was on his game -- and he was really on his game with this album -- he was like a painter, slapping sounds onto his canvas.  

5.  "Mr. Reporter" / The Kinks
From The Great Lost Kinks Album(1973)
Dave Davies' early stab at satire (the Kinks never did have an easy relationship with the press).  On this album of bootleg tracks, the tinny quality of this song -- not to mention Dave's quavery vocals -- are more like a demo, but it's still a spunky bit of fun.  

6. Elizabeth Jade  / Robyn Hitchcock
From Jewels for Sophia (1999)
Talk about music as painting -- sometimes Robyn Hitchcock's lyrics are almost like Cubist art, layering cryptic fragments of description onto a boppy track of bouncy punk-pop that is way too danceably fun to resist.

7. Steppin' Out / Joe Jackson
From Night And Day (1982)
Jeez, I love this album. Joe Jackson steered New Wave music daringly far in the direction of George Gershwin and Cole Porter. A gorgeous champagne cocktail tribute to Manhattan, and just about as far from punk music as you could get.

8. Stop / Lizz Wright
From Dreaming Wide Awake (2005)
A beautifully languid, deeply sexy track. Wright's voice has an almost Nina Simone-like richness, with all those dark tones underscoring the desire that simply saturates this song.

9. Hit The Road Jack / Ray Charles
From Genius -- The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection (2009)
Soon as you hear that descending riff from the horns, you know it's this sassy bit of R&B. Those finger-wagging back-up singers are half the show; I love their saucy interplay with Ray, his slightly craggy vocals full of exasperated pleading. 

10. This Is How I Know / Ron Sexsmith
From Exit Strategy of the Soul (2008)
With every album, Ron Sexsmith dares to get more and more explicitly spiritual, while his folk pop takes on more jazz tinges.  I suppose this track doesn't have to be about sensing God's presence (are you kidding?  that would be pop suicide), but that's the level where it works best for me.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Today's blog is dedicated to Rafaela Filippi, a fellow Kinks fan, who just passed away Monday night. So what if the shuffle isn't all Kinks music? That wouldn't have bothered Raf. With her generous smile and open heart, she was a music lover of wide enthusiasm. I'll miss you!

1. "Yakety Yak" / Phantom Planet
From The Mumford Soundtrack (1999)
When I was a kid, we inherited a box of 45s from our older cousins, one of which was the original 1958 "Yakety Yak" by the Coasters (written by Leiber and Stoller, I now learn). How cool, then, to find it covered on this excellent soundtrack to a sweet little 1999 indie film, and by Phantom Planet, one of my favorite alt bands. Back then, Phantom Planet had only one album out and Jason Schwartzman (yes, that adorable indie actor, one and the same) was still their drummer. I love how Phantom Planet stays true to that old platter's charm, including the cheeky sax and the stern baritone retort to "Yakety yak!" -- "Don't talk back."

2. "The Wreck of the Barbie Ferrari" / John Hiatt
From Perfectly Good Guitar (1993)
My pink plastic Barbie Sportscar wasn't a Ferrari, but I get the picture. "It ain't the end of the world, it's just the wreck of the Barbie Ferrari" -- Hiatt plays it for comedy, with the frustrated family man opening fire on a box full of toys while the wife and kids are off at church. Still, underneath that satire lies a lot of repressed rage -- a LOT. I love Hiatt, our great rock chronicler of the ebbs and flows of family life, but this song misses the mark for me.

3. "A-Punk" / Vampire Weekend
From Vampire Weekend (2008)
I guess there are words to this song, but I never catch more than a word here and there. The main thing is the tight collage of sounds, a frantic ukelele-like strum alternating with a surge of synths, dense as cotton-wool, punctuated with Ezra Koenig yelping "Ay! Ay! Ay!" It doesn't sound like it should work, but somehow, magnetically, it does.

4. "Next Time You See Me" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (2000 compilation)
A CD I picked up for $1 on a binge in a used-record store in Amherst -- and I'll never regret it. (Do we ever really regret those bargain-bin splurges?) In my opinion, Doug Sahm could do whatever he damn well pleased, and here we find various incarnations of his band whipping out note-perfect covers of old soul classics, with a lazy funky groove that just does not quit. On this track, they work their magic on a 1957 Junior Parker classic that's been covered by everybody from Frankie Lymon to the Grateful Dead.

5. "Western Union Man" / Al Kooper
From I Stand Alone (1968)
Must be Soul Covers Night. This was one of my most-played LPs in college, and I loved this track long before I ever heard Jerry Butler's honey-dripping original. In the grand old tradition of Letter Songs, this one's too urgent for standard delivery -- no, we gotta reach that girl now, and damn the cost. (Somehow a text message just doesn't have the same flair.) Al punches it up a little, but it's still a loose-limbed seduction, underlaid with a funky bass and steamy horns. My favorite part: When the back-up singers and Al rat-tat-tat, in offbeat staccato: "Send a tel-e-gram, send a tel-e-gram!"

6. "I Worry 'Bout You Baby" / Brinsley Schwarz
From What IS So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding? (1973)
Ah, the Brinsleys, bringing their conception of a lazy Nashville stroll to the pubs of North London -- blissfully genial and more than a bit stoned. This track is totally, and I mean totally, derivative, but it is nevertheless feel-good music of the highest quality.

7. "All In Good Time" / Ron Sexsmith
From Time Being (2006)
I highly recommend this album for times of trouble. Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith has a knack for philosophizing without sounding preachy, especially on this album -- a gently rocking meditation on mortality and acceptance. A perfect song for me to hear tonight.

8. "Both Ends Burning" / Richard Thompson
From Hand of Kindness (1983)
I love how Thompson grafts together bluegrass, Cajun swamp, and Celtic folk song in this rollicking two-step, a shaggy dog tale -- or rather shaggy horse tale, about a broken-down nag turned racehorse. The story's just a pretext, though, for this spicy gumbo of sassy guitar licks, chipper accordion, and finger-wagging sax.

9. "Man of a Fool" / Nick Lowe
From The Abominable Showman (1983)
Nick Lowe's commentary on the battle of the sexes: "For every woman who ever made a fool of a man / There's a woman made a man of a fool." If Nick hadn't yet gone full country, there's still a certain Nashvillian snappiness to this track. A forgettable Nick track, from an odd mishmash of an album -- but it's still a pretty fab, fun bit o' music.

10. "May You Never" / John Martyn
From Solid Air (1973)
Another album I played the grooves off of in college, and especially this jazzy acoustic track, Martyn's rueful take on a traditional Celtic blessing. "May you never lay your head down / Without a hand to hold / And may you never make your bed out in the cold." Words of wry wisdom, and a fitting benediction in memory of a dear friend lost.

Wednesday Shuffle

Okay, I've got 5000+ songs on my iTunes -- a carefully culled selection, thanks to the limits of my hard drive. So every time I do a shuffle, it should be only great songs, right? Well, we'll see. Every Wednesday, I promise I will honestly record what comes up on a shuffle of ten songs -- no matter how embarrassing it turns out to be . . .

1. "Someone's On the Cross Again" / Al Kooper
From New York City (You're a Woman)
Why didn't I keep up with Al Kooper through all the twists and turns of his career? For a few years there at the end of the 60s and dawn of the 70s, this guy's smart, snarky, restless albums so spoke to my heart. Hadn't listened to him for years; thank God iTunes put him back into my life.

2. "Gospel Night" / Dave Alvin
From Blue Blvd.
I love the weathered, real-guy quality of Dave Alvin's voice. I mostly know his post-Blasters work, and it's so appealing. Saw him live a couple years ago, and man, that guy can play his beat-up old geetar.

3. "Honey Pie" / The Beatles
From The Beatles (the white album) One of my Greatest Life Albums
Oh, Paulie. Like thrift shop clothes, when you haul out the vintage music hall sound it's somehow so cool. Dig the ukelele in the instrumental break, and Paul singing in his
Tiny Tim voice, "I like that -- ahh! -- I like this kinda, that kinda music, hot kind of music, play it to me, play it to me Hollywood blues!"

4. "Here For You" / Neil Young
From Prairie Wind
Middle-aged Neil Young is still better than most young guys. In fact, middle-aged Neil Young is the Neil Young I like best. Rumpled, wrinkled, and unrepentant.

5. "Uncle Son" / The Kinks
From Muswell Hillbillies
My favorite Kinks album, hands down. And this song tells you why -- that vintage blues shuffle (dig the steel guitar), mixed with Salvation Army earnestness and a heady shot of socialist politics. Bless you, Uncle Son.

6. "Question" / The Old 97s
From Satellite Rides
One of my great finds of recent years. It amazes me how consistent their catalog is. Rhett Miller has a great voice, and a real knack for catchy tunes. If only all alt-country was this good.

7. "Run" / Vampire Weekend
From Contra
There's a reason why these kids burst out of the gate with a hit record -- talent up the wazoo. They've got such a great sound, mixing Afrobeat and world music with crisp alt pop, and their songs are just so damn savvy. This is from their sophomore album -- such a relief to find that they lived up to their promise.

8. "Hope For Us All" / Nick Lowe
From At My Age
The silver fox ages like fine wine. The only thing that could make this song better would be if Nick were singing it about me.

9. "Come Again" / Billy Nichols
From Selected Hits
One of the lost voices of the British Invasion -- pure quality British Beat pop, and yet how few people know his stuff? Makes ya think.

10. "I Melt With You" / Modern English
From After The Snow
* blush* Really, honestly, I only put this onto my iTunes because I was doing that Eighties Cheese Week. . .

"Going Quietly Mad" / Al Kooper

One of the great unrecognized talents of rock music. This guy did everything: he played the organ solo on Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone," he wrote "This Diamond Ring" for Gary Lewis and the Playboys; he produced the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" ; he was a founder of the Blues Project AND Blood Sweat & Tears (with typical bad timing, he left both before they made it big). He also released three solo albums that were essentials in my 1970s record collection: I Stand Alone, Easy Does It, and New York City (You're a Woman). I really need to convert my vinyl to digital files; these albums don't show up on iTunes and they're available only at collector prices on Amazon -- and I miss listening to Al Kooper.

I finally landed a copy of New York City at an excellent used record store in Amherst, Massachusetts -- fitting, since the sticker on my vinyl LP tells me that I bought it at a long-defunct record store named Baggins' End (how 70s is that?) in nearby South Hadley. I played this record constantly back in the day; these songs saturate that stratum of my consciousness, lying underground waiting to be excavated. All it takes for me is to think "I'm going mad" and this song is back on my mental turntable.

I see it as a companion piece to the Kinks' "Complicated Life". The singer's in a pretty fragile state from the get-go -- "I am sitting here so softly / I can hear my wristwatch ticking / Wish someone would come and help me / I'm going quietly mad." He's singing at the high end of his vocal range, eeriely doubled, and his tone is whinier and more nasal than usual. There's more than a drop of self-pity here -- hear the electric organ moaning softly under verse two -- but I'm not tempted to write him off. I've had those days myself. Part of it's the build-up of modern life's stresses ("Tried to read the morning paper / Couldn't make it past page one"), but other things are piling up as well ("Lost my job and my wallet too").

In the end, over his flailing piano chords and a mocking wah-wah guitar and harsh pounding drums, the lonely stricken refrain is what matters: "Wish that you were here to save me, baby / I'm going quietly mad." It's the "quietly" that kills me -- nobody in the big city seems to notice how he's unravelling. As the track runs out he messes around the speed of the vocals, until it's low and distorted and warped . . . he's officially gone round the bend. (That is, until two tracks later, when he comes boogieing back with "Back On My Feet".)

My recollection is hazy, but I think I was turned onto Kooper at a high school journalism conference by a couple of extremely hip girls who called themselves Toots and Babs; they seemed like an Evansville, Indiana, version of the Banger Sisters. They knew so much more about rock music than I did, I just sat by their stereo and drank it all in. I wonder if they knew what important doors they were opening for me?

Maybe that's why I get passionate sometimes about turning someone else onto new music. I'm just paying forward my debt to Toots and Babs -- it seems like the right thing to do. Go thou and do likewise.