1. The Ghost Of You Walks – Richard Thompson – “At least we did it right, with all our souls and all our might”. Early to mid 90s Thompson were a THIRD golden age, Fairport, Linda, and then a height of his solo career. From a double -hours of music!!
2. September Grass – James Taylor – Off Taylor’s highly estimatable October Road, Taylor sees summertime slippin’ away, remembers a girl at a football game where memory is like the sweetest pain (and rhymes it) it with just an acoustic guitar and a melody, and so small in a large world, lays his love in the tall grass, and finds solace with in her in a world so vast.
3. The Longest Time – Billy Joel – Maybe Joel’s greatest moment, a doo wop that could have been written in of the 50s. Absolutely perfect melody. Gorgeous harmonies, moving lyric about the posibility of new love. “I’ll take my chances, I forgot how nice romance is”.
4. Hey Mama – Kanye West – The true king of hiphop’s true masterpiece of oedipal love “you never put no man over me, and I loved you for that Mama can’t you see”) before she died and drove West insane with sorrow.
5. Dig A Pony – The Beatles – A Lennon classic though Harrison’s guitar at the break steals the show, aurally persuading you on all of Lennon’s abstract declarations of love. Becauuuuse.
6. Fake Friends – Joan Jett – A ripper of an up yours to all of those friends who pretended to care.
7. Burning Photographs – Ryan Adams – Devastated Adams in New York: “If i had a car I’d drive straight into a bank I owe money to”. Small complaint? He plays the chorus once too often… shave maybe 45 seconds, Ryan.
8. Memo From Turner – Mick Jagger – This is what everybody claims “Sympathy For The Devil” is: a devastating look into the face of real evil. Have you seen the movie it comes from, “Performance”? Gender and role reversal starring Jagger as a hasb een rock star and James Foxx as a East End thug on the run from the local wideboys. Directed by Nicholas Roeg (the guy who did “The Man Who Fell To Earth” and got Bowie’s best performance on screen), the song is an acid trip at a meeting of gangsters filled with slide guitar and menace. “Come now gentlemen your love is all I crave” has never sounded as menacing.
9. You Won’t See Me – The Beatles – I once played this on my stereo with one of my speakers out and all I could hear was the harmonies. Try it. By the time you reach Lennon and Harrison singing “no I wouldn’t, no i wouldn’t” you wonder where Carl Wilson is hiding.
10. English Girls Approximately – Ryan Adams – The tall drink of water? Beth (he calls her Bethany) Orton.
11. Just Tell Her Jim Said Hello – Elvis Presley – A minor songer but damn does Presley nail all of it, listen for the “what” on “I’d like to tell her what” and the way his voices moves to falsetto for the bridge and then listen for the denouement at the end : “Don’t say I’m thinking of her, don’t tell her I still love..”
12. You Broke My Heart In 17 Places – Tracey Ullman – Those of you with me from the begining may remember me writing about the late Kirsty Maccoll -she wrote this song. Swimming with her two sons, a millionaire’s boat, where it shouldn’t have been, barrelled down. Kirsty pushed her son out of the and was killed instantly when the boat hit her. Justice was never done though at least MacColl’s family fought for a justice they never received. MaColl you may remember from her vocals on the Pogues “A Fairytale Of New York”. Tracey does a great job on this cover.
13. Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further – Allen Touissaint and Elvis Costello – It ding dongs.
14. Things Have Changed – Bob Dylan – Dylan’s unnoticed sequel to “The Times They Are A’changin'”. Here’s the chorus and now is the time for our tears: “People are crazy and times are strange, I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range. I used to care but things have changed”
15. Since I don’t have You – GnR – Yeah, we’re fucked.
16. Here Comes My Baby – Yo La Tengo – The Tremolos played it for kicks, Ira sings it for getting kicked.
17. Point Of No Return – Elvis Costello – A King-Goffin cover from the Spike days, but wow, what a cover. Did King ever sing this? I’d love to hear her do it.
18. Folklin’ Round – Panic At The discos – If love is not enough to put my enemies to sleep…