Middleman – Bright Eyes – Lovely strings on a forgettable folk track.
Freedom Of Speech Won’t Feed My Children – Manic Street Preachers – From one of their best, Know Your Enemy, Nicky Wire lays it out on a fuzzy hard rock guitar riff.
No Intention (Acoustic) – Dirty Projectors – So pretty it might even change Brett Jensen’s opinion.
C-lebrity – Queen and Paul Rodgers – Paul has a great heavy metal soprano and Queen are Queen and put em together and you get Paul with Queen singing back up on the chorus. Pretty horrible.
Just One Of Those Things – Louis Armstrong – From the Verve era, maybe Armstrong’s greatest.
Doin’ That Rag – Grateful Dead – They ate the acid
Sugar Baby – Bob Dylan – Love And Theft may well be his greatest moment of all.
On Top Of Old Smokie – Hank Williams – This man can make anything sound beautiful and on this traditional he just aches and aches.
The Boys Of Summer – Don Henley – Never a big Eagles fan, I heard Henley singing this on SNL and went out the next day and bout the cassette single. The Dead line is a classic.
Sacrifice – Gudda Gudda – A horror story replete with howling in the wind.
Get Out Of Denver – Eddie and the Hot Rods – Sure, I prefer Dave Edmund’s version… except for the harmonica.
In Your Appointment – Charlotte Sometimes – Eerie, goth and weird… this chick is crazy.
The Rock – The Who – As rock operas go, Quadrophenia is the greatest ever by anyone. Including the Kinks.
I Was Made For You – She And Him – Very sixties girl group and I love Zooey’s voice but a little boring.
Flower – Liz Phair – So dirty and so tender -the line “I wanna be your blowjob queen” made her a star, I guess everybody missed “every time you pass me by I heave a sigh of pain”.
All The Younk Punks (New Boots And Contracts) – The Clash – From their second album and a little early to be “back in our daying” it.
I Saw Her Standing There – The Beatles – Sir Paul played it when I saw him last year at Citifield
Snake Hill – Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band – The worst song conor DIDN’T write.
Harlem Blues – Branford Marsalis Quartet – From the terrific jazz movie Mo’ Better Blues -smokey jazzy with a chick lead singer.