Surfer Girl – The Beach Boys – Brian wilson’s first composition ever and it is so strange that for a fun fun fun band he would think of a song almost swaying and aching with poignancy. It is in the very first couplet, “make my heart come all undone” -it is like he is begging for the sweet sensation of love: make and undone are the two words that come tumbling through and it captures her illsuiveness, his insecurity: the earliest sense of insecurity of love. Complete magic.
Can’t Take My Eyes Off You – Franki Valli – This is the late great Bob Crew’s work, along with Bob Gaudio and Franki of course, but it is the DNA that gave us all those great Four Season songs and this is better than most. It is the bridge that leads it into a whole other area, a jazzy smash of desire that is quietened into an all other desire.
Sweet Jane – The Velvet Underground – One of the greatest songs ever written about being in a rock and roll band, Lou Reed sings speaks the almost rap like slice of life track, it is like it is being improvised on the spot to you from him and then Reed throughs in one ofthe greatest aphorisms of all time.
Blue Sky – The Allman Brothers – when Dickey Betts dies this song will be his legacy, a pastoral dream of suburban Southern dream life, so gorgeous it remains Southern rocks greatest moment. Greater than “Freebird” it lives on as a hazy weedy dream of life, a beautiful drift.
