"You Solve Me" / Marti Jones
  
Just popped into my head. As songs inexplicably sometimes do.

What's not to love about this song?  There's that bossa nova beat, which I've loved ever since hearing the Beatles sing "And I Love Her" (actually this entire album, You're Not the Bossa Me, is bossa nova).

Then there's Marti Jones, 80s chanteuse and wife of Don Dixon; she's recorded tunes by so many of my faves, from John Hiatt to Elvis Costello to Graham Parker, not to mention touring with the ever-wonderful Amy Rigby in 2005.  How is she not my best friend?

And then, this particular track is written by songwriters Kelley Ryan and Bill Demain.  I don't know much about Kelley Ryan but Bill Demain is one of my songwriting heroes.

On a rainy early spring Monday, it's such a blessing to sink into the warmth of Marti Jone's contralto and the laidback Brazilian rhythms of this song. Yeah, life is stressful for her too -- "I'm all messed up and there you go" -- but love somehow makes the equation work: "But everything is easy 'cause you solve me."

Verse two is the one that gets me -- she compares herself to a jigsaw, a crossword, a Scrabble game, all of which I love to play. And isn't that what we all want in life -- someone to guess our clues and fill in the empty spaces?

52 GIRLS

"Sweet Virginia" / Bill Lloyd

I first heard of Bill Lloyd via a Kinks tribute album -- might have been his cover of "Picture Book" on This Is Where I Belong, though I think it was his "This Is Where I Belong" on Mojo's The Modern Genius of Ray Davies. (Following that?) So from the very beginning, I've known him as a kindred lover of 1960s British Invasion Pop. Nowhere is this more evident that on his 1999 album Standing On the  Shoulders of Giants, packed with his own backbeat melodic beauties. That's where I found this charmer, co-written (bonus points!) with fellow Nashvillian Bill DeMain.

Right away, we experience the effect this girl has on him: "I can feel my insides / Take that elevator ride / Sweet Virginia, everytime that you're around." We've all felt that way -- I believe the cliché is "weak in the knees." He's so nervous, he starts babbling: "Well I can't think what to say / But I say it anyway" -- yup, been there, done that.

Yet this song isn't tense or anxious; it has a relaxed, cheerful, almost jaunty spirit, with that jangly guitar and skipping tempo. He's energized by this girl, his heart fluttering. I love how the next mini-bridge sighs into its short lines, as if our hero is stammering: "Ooh girl / It's you, girl / My heart beats for / And I'm / Too shy / To say much more."

In verse two, the story starts to fill out. "When I first saw your face / I was trying to erase / The memory of someone I had lost / And it felt like I'd died / Till you warmed me up inside / With a smile that could melt a winter's frost." Ah, so this is a Replacement Girlfriend Song -- a close cousin to "If I Fell" or "Help Me Rhonda." Yet the upbeat sound of this song tells us that he's already moved on a bit; he's not feeling so bruised, so wounded, anymore. 

There's an echo of the Beatles, both "Good Day Sunshine" and "The Word," in the next stammering mini-bridge, as he carries on the theme of her frost-melting smile: "Sunshine, / So fine, / You radiate / So why / Do I / Hesitate?" Wha? In fact, it seems she isn't even properly a Replacement Girlfriend yet -- she may not even have any idea how he feels. In both "If I Fell" and "Help Me Rhonda," the guy was already in command, demanding that the new girl heal his heart. But this Virginia has already done that with one tossed-off smile.

In fact that smile is all we actually see of Virginia -- everything else is her impact upon our hero. As the chorus repeatedly vows, he'll do anything for her, adding in the final bridge, "I'll be here for you /Now till ever after / Long as I can hear /The music of your laughter." Oh well, then, add the sound of her laughter to her presence in this song. Sketch in the rest -- hair color, eye color, shape, dress, voice -- in whatever form makes you happy.

Of course he won't be there forever; if he can't get up the nerve to talk to Virginia, another girl will eventually come his way. But this is how he feels right now -- and, man, is he grateful for the light at the end of heartbreak's tunnel.

34 DOWN, 18 TO GO

52 GIRLS

"Joey" / Jill Sobule

Now let's hear from the ladies.

I remember watching Joey Heatherton on variety shows when I was a kid. In black tights, an oversized sweater, and that short tousled blonde hair -- well, even at age 9 I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I'd ever be able to pull off that particular sex kittenish look, but man, was it appealing. Put her right up there with Ann-Margret and Connie Stevens (a.k.a. Cricket on 77 Sunset Strip) and they defined the 1960s idea of a Sexpot. An impossible standard for us little girls to live up to.

Yet for all her tomboyish charm, you knew that Joey was fragile, and more than a bit needy. Ann-Margret seemed like a tiger compared to Joey, Connie Stevens like a scrappy toy poodle. But Joey? I worried about Joey.

Turns out I wasn't the only one . . . .

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jill Sobule is one my favorite singer-songwriters. On Jill's delicious 2004 album Underdog Victorious there are a lot of personal songs about the various zigs and zags of her own coming of age, but this one character study fits right in.  Written with co-writer Bill Demain, the sensibility is seamlessly in line with the rest of the album. I can just picture little Jill or little Bill watching Joey go-going away on The Dean Martin Show or The Hollywood Palace and developing a kidlet crush on her.

The plush tones of that opening "Joey," sung with a Joey-like breathiness -- it lays down a cushion of retro 1960s movie music sound.  But then the song breaks into a perky bossa nova -- the other side of the 60s sound -- as Jill fills in the bio. The first part of the story is all glamour and success: "Joey was the It Girl at just fifteen," "Joey got a start in the night club scene / Even though she studied ballet under Balanchine." (That next line, "She could take a swan dive if you know what I mean" is a cool little in joke, since Bill Demain is one half of the wonderful duo Swan Dive.) She's on the Rat-Pack cool Dean Martin show, she's wowing the troops in Vietnam with Bob Hope and the USO, she's marrying Dallas Cowboys star receiver Lance Rentzel. She's the golden girl, to be worshipped from afar.

It's in the bridge where Jill starts to make it personal. The melody goes higher and more legato, as she wistfully reflects, "All she ever wanted was your love and respect / Isn't that the same thing that we all want, Joey, Joey?" Yes, and that human need -- that hunger to be loved -- can sometimes lead us into dark alleys.

And the second chapter of this American life is not so golden. "I remember Joey in a mattress ad/ I guess around this time was when things got bad / When her husband got arrested she looked so sad." Those Serta commercials played up Joey's sexpot image, as she seduced you into her bed -- nod, nod, wink, wink -- with an unbearable cheesiness. And then her all-star husband turned out to be a mess, arrested in 1970 for exposing himself to a 10-year-old girl. Stuck in her 60s go-go girl image, Joey saw the acting roles dry up, the variety shows disappear, the records stalling on the charts. Is it any wonder that she began to slide into substance abuse?

I love how every verse ends with a pair of dance steps, thrusting off-beat rhythms inviting us to dance like Joey, doing the frug, the monkey, the jerk, the Watusi, the pony. I regret to say that I know how to do every single one of those dances and can demonstrate them upon request.

Now Jill/Bill enters the picture. "Yesterday in line at the A&P / I saw Joey on the back of Star magazine / They said she's using again and she still won't de[tox]." That verse hits me with such poignancy. And the capping line: "She's got the jerk, she's got the monkey." I picture a jerking addict in the throes of withdrawal, I remember the slang term for addiction "got a monkey on his back." And my heart breaks for the It Girl at the end of the line.

 "You can stay at my place if you want to, Joey," Jill/Bill shyly offers in the final chorus. Because those childhood crushes? We never get over them, one way or another.

7 DOWN, 45 TO GO 

Looking For A Place to Live / Bill Demain

God forbid this should happen to any of us. But it happened to Bill Demain: a devastating flood washed out his condo in Nashville, only to be followed a few months later by a second tragedy, a house fire that wiped him out completely. For more than a year he lived out of a suitcase, in limbo, waiting to find a new home.  Now, Bill's not your average homeless person. He's a fairly successful singer-songwriter, not only as one-half of the duo Swan Dive, but also as a songwriter who's collaborated with the likes of Jill Sobule, Bill Lloyd, and Marshall Crenshaw. On top of that, he's a well-respected music journalist, writing for mags like MOJO and Classic Rock. Which just underscores that a misfortune like this could befall anybody.

But as luck would have it, this homeless period had a silver lining; it inspired Bill to write a collection of songs that he has now released as his first solo EP.  And -- no surprise -- it's a truly winning album, offering an eclectic range of pop styles, well-crafted lyrics, and charming vocal performance. More than that: it's got heart.  When you think about it, that only makes sense -- that a brush with tragedy would call out wistfulness, nostalgia, soul-searching, and mordant humor.

I'm going for the lead-off track here, although you really must check out the entire album (it's finally up on iTunes and Amazon's mp3 store now; or you could order your very own copy here).  And why not? "Looking For A Place To Live" kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Acoustic folk seems just the right style for a displaced troubador; it's as if he hasn't got much but his guitar case to lug around (one of the few things Bill had time to grab when fleeing the fire was his 1937 Martin). That gentle rambling strum is perfect pavement-pounding music. But leave it to Bill to face his dilemma with wry humor: "I know how Columbus felt / Sailing round in circles / His coffee in a cardboard cup / And the Sunday classifieds." That sense of being an explorer -- that's probably the only way to face house-hunting and still stay sane.  And if, along the way, you gain some sympathy with the dispossessed of this world ("Out with the refugees / Dreaming of vacancies / For what seems eternities...") -- well, that's a good thing, too.

Of course, good songwriting never stops with the obvious.  In the process, he comes to understand what's really important:  "Maybe home is nothing more / Than where you hang your hat." I like the fact that this song works even if you don't know Bill's story: maybe it's just about a young couple searching for a place to move in together, or maybe it's about a guy being thrown out by his girlfriend / wife and having to find himself a new lonely bachelor pad.

What matters is the wistfulness, the existential sense of dislocation. (Does anybody else hear a bit of Bookends-era Simon and Garfunkel here?) It's a song that treads lightly and takes nothing for granted.  A song about stripping your life down to essentials.  So self-effacing, so artlessly charming -- and so haunting.  In a good way.