This list could change - and tomorrow.  But I'll put them down anyway, plus a short argument as to their impact or significance to me or the world.

WICHITA LINEMAN (Glen Campbell) - one of the "Cities Trilogy" of songwriting great Jimmy Webb (with BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX and GALVESTON), I heard Webb do it on solo piano last year.   It's good at capturing a universal perspective: missing someone is a condition we all understand.

STATE STREET STRUT (traditional) - I was in a quartet in high school band that practiced this Dixieland thing for over a month; I can still remember whole stanzas.

FREE MAN IN PARIS (Joni Mitchell) - ostensibly about the music business, it rings true for all lines of work, and about the longing to escape pressure if only for a bit.

TANGLED UP IN BLUE (Bob Dylan) - If Kerouac's "On The Road" has a folk rock equivalent, this would be it.  It's autobiographical but not specific to being a musician, so the story rises to the best universal levels.

BORN TO RUN (Emmylou Harris) - not the Springsteen number but one which simply and directly waxes optimistic about the future.  I don't often recommend Country music but few categories are capable of the optimism of this one (when it chooses to be optimistic).

TIBETAN SIDE OF TOWN (Bruce Cockburn, live version) - The evocative travel lyrics are charged by the most capable acoustic guitar solos one will hear this side of Montoya or Chet Atkins.

AMOS MOSES (Jerry Reed) - More guitar virtuosity plus Reed's clever joke lyrics, although this one could be about somebody real.  

LISTEN TO HER HEART (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) - The speaker here is pretty sure that he knows the girl better than the schmuck trying to barge into the arrangement.

24 HOURS AT A TIME (Marshall Tucker Band) - The significant other at the end of the journey makes the journey seem shorter.

THE VULTURES FLY HIGH (Renaissance) - This progressive rock band benefited from Annie Haslam's range of either 4 or 5 octaves and she was expressive on top of it.

 I'M MOVIN' ON (Hank Snow) - Snow's version and Emmylou's later one as well capture the upbeat mood of postwar prosperity in the USA and elsewhere.

STOP DRAGGIN' MY HEART AROUND (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Stevie Nicks) - One of those cases in which you just had to go with the idea even if you didn't know if it would work.  The two singers' alto-ish voices were matched well, plus the back-and-forth perspective developed character with little time in which to do it.

MOJO BOOGIE (Johnnie Winter) - The whang of that solid metal lap guitar is even more powerful when miked, then turned way up.  One of the cuts on Winter's first album for Alligator Records.

SWANEE RIVER BOOGIE (Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson ) - a recording made during the original Boogie Woogie period of the late forties and early fifties.  Fast, fast, fast.

GIVE UP THE FUNK (George Clinton and Parliament) - The old Jack In The Box spot with this behind it is classic.  Clinton wrote the book on contemporary funk with this one; there's no improving it.

MYSTERY TRAIN (The Band with Paul Butterfield) - This would be the version from the concert film "The Last Waltz".  This Winterland Arena performance for me tops all versions of this song, and there must be hundreds.

WHITE LIGHT, WHITE HEAT (David Bowie live at Mitchell Pavilion) - I heard him do this three years ago; it's not recorded.  I'm sorry I caught onto this guy late in the game.

DOWNTOWN TRAIN (Rod Stewart) - It would take someone with the pipes of Stewart to make a Tom Waits song palatable (Waits is a good actor but as a singer he's like me... an acquired taste).  This one'll take you back to NYC quick.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK AND ROLL STAR (Patty Smith Group produced by Todd Rundgren) - Without a full orchestra, it's difficult to get this level of intensity (which some have dismissed as noise). The Byrds' hit is launched into the stratosphere, not the least by the accurate lyric.  It's rough making a living and some trades are rougher than others.

April 2009