#85 "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley

There have been a few times when hearing a song stopped my heart. One of them was when I first listened to Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah."

Buckley's debut album "Grace" had been out a while before I heard it... probably a good six years or so. Once I got into his music, I realized I'd seen him on MTV before but it didn't click the first time around. He was definitely a unique performer. His music combined everything from Led Zeppelin to jazz music to Indian raga. It's hard to put your finger on a genre for Jeff Buckley. He was hard to categorize and that might account for why I couldn't absorb him at first.

I downloaded some of Buckley's work after hearing about "Grace" in a number of places. Any time you see a list of Best Albums of whatever the time frame, "Grace" always appears on them. I guess after seeing it a few times I decided to check it out. I remember hearing a few tunes and thinking "ok... ok... next" and then coming to this one... song #6. It starts off very slowly. There are no vocals for over a minute or so. Then this soft voice comes in and takes you on this fragile lyrical journey. The song, originally written by the legendary Leonard Cohen, is so poetic... yet I really have no idea what it's about. There are lots of references to love and relationships and religious imagery, but in the end I'm not quite sure what the meaning of it is. For once, though, it really doesn't matter that much to me. Buckley's performance is absolutely incredible. So beautiful and emotional. You almost want to cry by the time you get to the last verse when he starts "Well maybe there's a God above..." I honestly don't see how anyone could listen to this song and not be moved by it.

Be sure to pay close attention to the song the moment it begins. There's this audible exhale at the very beginning. It always strikes me and goes wonderfully with the feel of the rest of the song... some hint of exhaustion or of wondering "Can I conjure up the strength to deliver this?" Boy, does he ever.

"Hallelujah" is from the album "Grace." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#84 "Good Golly Miss Molly" by Little Richard

Little Richard is one of those 50's Rock-n-Roll icons that you just have to listen to. He's crazy! His music is so energetic and fun. Some time when you're tired of the depression of Nirvana and Staind, throw in Little Richard. "Tutti Fruity" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" are just great happy songs.

To me, Little Richard reminds us of the importance of performance. Yes, hearing his songs on the radio will get you jumpin', but seeing him playing his songs is where he really shines. He whoops and hollers. That crazy hair of his flies all around. He stands up, then sits down, then plays the piano with his feet or behind his back. He's a real showman. Some artists believe they need to be all about the music, but Little Richard knew that people didn't pay to just come and listen to him. I would've loved to have seen one of his concerts back in the 50's. What a great time that would've been.

Among other things, Little Richard is credited with being one of the early pioneers of rock-n-roll. His music was said to have bridged the gap between r&b, blues, and popular music. His influence was so strong that he was one of the inaugural inductees into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. That's quite an honor.

"Good Golly Miss Molly" can be found on compilations like "The Very Best of Little Richard" and "The Greatest Gold Hits." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#83 "Gold" by Interference

A year or so ago, a great treat of mine was watching the movie "Once." I almost reluctantly gave it a chance one night when my wife and I had nothing to watch, and we both ended up loving it. It's a love story of sorts about two musicians whose songs make up the soundtrack. The performances of the leads Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are just wonderful... sincere, passionate, and heartfelt. Even without the great music it would still make an excellent movie. Check it out some time.

Most of the tunes on the soundtrack are from Hansard and Irglova, but there's one song on it from an Irish band named Interference. The song come at a part in the movie when the main character sadly walks into a local pub, all confused and forlorn over love. Interference just play a bunch of local musicians who offer their advice to Hansard through the song "Gold." It's absolutely beautiful.

"Gold" is built around the simple lines "And I love her so... wouldn't trade her for gold." It's nothing fancy but I just love it. What's also killer is the incredible violin that plays throughout the song. A violin has to be one of the most emotional instruments in the world. Played right, it can absolutely break your heart. I love its inclusion here. There's also a lot of good twelve string guitar and mandolin. Just a beautiful tune, but ironically enough as much as my wife also loves this film and soundtrack, this is the only song from it that she doesn't like!?! Funny how that works some time.

"Gold" is from the "Once" soundtrack. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#82 "Going to Acapulco" by Bob Dylan and The Band

Bob Dylan and The Band's "Basement Tapes" is exactly the kind of collection I enjoy. It's loose and laid-back. The recording quality is sub-par at best, but it feels totally real... free of studio wizardry and over-dubs and multiple takes to get it right. The performances on "The Basement Tapes" sound like ones you could do yourself, and in that sense they're tremendously inspiring.

Originally I thought Bob Dylan's collaboration with The Band up in Woodstock, NY was nothing more than some guys jamming around. There were covers, some silly one-offs that were interrupted by the tape running out or the guys breaking into laughs, and some excellent originals too. I later read that the bootlegged versions of these sessions were really influential on the music that was released by a variety of artists in its wake. If you look at the recordings of The Beatles and The Stones and a lot of other popular musicians of the day prior to The Basement Tapes coming out, a lot of it is over-the-top psychedelia with tons of experimentation as the various players tried to expand the art form. But apparently when guys like George Harrison and Mick Jagger heard The Basement Tapes, they were completely transformed. The Stones suddenly went from "Her Majesty's Satanic Requests" to the stripped down rootsy blues of "Exile on Main Street" and "Let It Bleed." The Beatles went from the studio laboratory of "Sgt Peppers" to the more basic "Let It Be." It's fascinating to trace the connections, but these little numbers in the basement of the house called "The Big Pink" were much more than just casual listening material.

One of my favorite songs off the collection is "Going To Acapulco." It's really nothing more than a dirty little tune about going to visit a prostitute, but I like the backing job The Band do for Dylan here. You can snicker at the innuendos about "pumping the well" and "scratching my meat," but I love the extended "yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" in the chorus after Dylan sings "Going to have some fun." It's just cool and sounds like real artistic peers working together and having a good time.

"Going to Acapulco" is from "The Basement Tapes." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#81 "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys

When I was younger, I regularly heard about how Brian Wilson was such a genius. I didn't really get it. I mean... what's so brilliant about "California Girls" and "I Get Around"? It's not like they're lyrically deep. And because I was such a word guy, I just never really understood the brilliance. As I got a little older though, and was exposed to their more daring recordings like "Pet Sounds" and the bootlegs of "Smile," I started to understand what people were talking about. Wilson's layered vocal harmonies and musical compositions were really cool. There was definitely a lot more to the Beach Boys than just guys singing about waves and girls.

"God Only Knows" is from the landmark album "Pet Sounds." Gone are the do-woppy party songs, which got replaced by acid-induced sound collages. The great harmonies are still there, but the subjects of the songs are different... or at least presented differently. "God Only Knows" is essentially a love song, but it's unlike anything else of its day.

Paul McCartney has repeatedly called "God Only Knows" one of his favorite songs, and one of the most beautiful ones he's ever heard. I also read that it's the first song to be played on popular radio that featured the word "God" in the title and lyrics. What I like about it is how the lyrics are almost kind of negative, but still very devotional. The first line is "I may not always love you." Who says that to win the girl? Later Carl Wilson sings "If you should ever leave me... life would still go on, believe me." Again, it doesn't come off as sweet as "I'll love you 'til the day I die" or anything like that. Maybe that's because it goes on to say "the world could show nothing to me so what good would living do me?" Again, I just like the unconventional nature of that. The lyrics, by the way, were written by Brian Wilson collaborator Tony Asher. Wilson is responsible for the music and arrangement.

"God Only Knows" is from the album "Pet Sounds." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#80 "Giving Up" by The Darkness

The first time I heard The Darkness was in the early fall of 2003. I happened to catch their video for "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" on MTV one afternoon. I saw long-haired dudes in leather pants, long after hair metal had died. The bass player recalled Freddie Mercury's gay biker-look days. The singer had this ridiculous falsetto and the video showed him blasting lasers out of his guitar at some sort of giant space alien. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. I just kept thinking, "What the hell is this?"

A few weeks after that introduction, I happened to read a quote from my hero Jack Black saying that The Darkness' debut album "Permission to Land" was the greatest rock record he'd heard in a long time. Then a student with a proven taste in good music ( he was the kid who loaned me "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" ) asked me if I'd heard them. I kind of turned my nose up, but these two comments and some other press I'd seen about The Darkness made me think that maybe I'd dismissed them too quickly. I gave them another chance and ended up becoming a fan.

Here's the thing about The Darkness' first album: it IS bad. It's campy. It's ridiculously over the top. They've got lyrics like "Get your hands off my woman, motherfucker" and a song called "Growing On Me" about... venereal warts!?! The closer on the album is called "Holding My Own." Giving their other lyrical content, I can only imagine what the tongue-in-cheek title is a reference to. They're a whole lotta Queen, a little bit of AC/DC, and took just about every rock cliche they could, gave it a Mardi Gras meets ABBA make-over, and turned it all into a pretty entertaining debut. And part of why it ultimately works is because I don't think The Darkness took themselves very seriously. I think they know this is pretty corny, but they have a lot of fun with it. It's kind of like the first Charlie's Angels movie. It was ridiculously stupid, but to me it was obvious that Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu knew that. They sure looked like they had a good time doing it though, with all of their crazy outfits, outrageous stunts, and bad jokes. Laughing at yourself can be incredibly successful.

"Giving Up" is a song about a heroin habit. It's got some pretty graphic lyrics about the perils of addiction. At one point, singer Justin Hawkins yelps "I'd inject into my eyes if there was nowhere else to stick my skag." Later he says "I've finally ruined all of my veins sticking that f*cking shit into my arms." The thing is, I don't think the song is about giving up heroin. When the chorus says "Giving up giving a f*ck," I think it's just explaining why a person gets INTO the brown junk. But you know what? Why am I analyzing the lyrics of The Darkness? These guys are goofballs.

Oh... but one last thing. Seriously, guitarist Dan Hawkins is a real treat to listen to. His riffs are catchy... heavy and rockin' but great to jam to. His solos are fantastic. He really got the Brian May harmonizing guitar sound going in a lot of the songs. Despite all the silliness of The Darkness, Dan Hawkins is a legit talent.

"Givin' Up" is from the album "Permission to Land." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#79 "Girlfriend in a Coma" by The Smiths

Just a few months after I turned fifteen, I got my first job at a local Baskin Robbins. I was so psyched to be making my own money. I remember when the manager told me that she could only pay me the then minimum wage of $3.35, I enthusiastically said, "Great!" I couldn't wait to get a paycheck. Of course, at that high salary I'd probably have to work for a month before I cracked three figures, but I didn't care. It seemed like I was making my first steps toward adulthood and independence.

One of the cool things about that B&R job was the fact that everyone who worked there was a lot older than me. I was barely fifteen, but most of the other kids working there were seventeen or eighteen. It certainly doesn't seem like much now, but when you're in high school a few grades are ages apart. I felt supercool working with mostly seniors. Luckily, I got along with them really well. They took me under their wing and taught me the tricks of the store, brought me to parties, introduced me to girls from other schools... they even took me cow-tipping one night! I thought that jobs were the greatest thing ever invented.

One of the many new things I was exposed to in my first year on the job was music. These guys I worked with listened to different stuff than my brother, different than my parents, and certainly different than the circle of friends I rolled with. Whereas I was more used to classic rock, these guys were listening to the new sounds of the mid-eighties. It wasn't called Alternative back then. We called it Progressive. One of the guys used to bring in his old boom-box and when we were allowed to, we'd listen to tapes of all kinds of stuff. One song I'll always associate with this time is "Panic" by The Smiths. I just remember a bunch of us belting out "Hang the DJ. Hang the DJ. Hang the DJ!" It's funny how songs literally become a soundtrack to your life's movie.

To be honest with you, I really don't worship at the altar of The Smiths. A LOT of people think they were the greatest thing to come out of the 80's, one of the most influential bands, that Morrissey is a god, etc, but I'm not that person. I really didn't like a lot of that early alternative stuff. I've said many times that the recording trends of that decade were just not very good. Many cite the jangly nature of Johnny Marr's guitar work as being so fresh sounding in the Reagan Era, but a lot of the tunes by The Smiths, Depeche Mode, New Order, and all of their peers sounds very "light" to me. It's as if the bass is turned off, the treble turned way up, and synthesizers tried to replace that missing weight. There's definitely no Zeppelin thump there. Jane's Addiction and Nirvana definitely reclaimed that later, but the earlier part of the 80's was a little too clean for me.

"Girlfriend In a Coma" was the first Smiths' single to kind of go mainstream. I never heard "Panic" or "The Boy With the Thorn in his Side" on the radio, but my mom probably heard this song on several different stations that she tuned in. It's nice and short and remains for me as a good tribute to those middle years of my teens.

"Girlfriend in a Coma" is from the album "Strangeways, Here We Come." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#78 "F*ck Her Gently" by Tenacious D

"You don't always have to fuck her hard. In fact, sometimes it's not right to do." Have truer words been spoken? That's what I like about The D. No parlor tricks. No fancy metaphors. No disguised messages. What you hear is what you get.

A lot of what makes some comedy great is how something absurd can be delivered so seriously. That's a huge hallmark of Tenacious D. They talk and act like they're serious rock stars, but their lyrics are absolutely ridiculous. I mean... come on... you've got a ballad that claims "This is for the ladies" in the very beginning and is called "Fuck Her Gently"!?! And to hear Jack Black croon lines like "I'm gonna hump you sweetly... and then I'll fuckin' bone you completely" over some sappy strings is just great. Hysterical! Enjoy.

"Fuck Her Gently" is from Tenacious D's self-titled debut. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#77 "Frankie's Gun!" by the Felice Brothers

I first encountered The Felice Brothers at a Bright Eyes concert I went to a few years back. Though I was there to see Conor Oberst and co., I ended up beind enthralled by this ramshackle group of performers who opened the show. They looked like a bunch of street corner hobos who been pulled into the venue to put on an impromptu performance, but man... they were great. No bullshit. No show. They were just sincere musicians clearly getting lost in the songs. I remember thinking, "This is what The Band must've been like back in the day."

The Felice Brothers are made up of three actual brothers from upstate New York and another member, a big accordion player named Christmas. Despite playing on a large stage with a lot of room, the brothers occupied an intimate space the size of a closet. They danced and stomped around. They banged on their instruments, dropping drumsticks and bumping into one another along the way. They whooped and hollered through a bunch of songs that sounded like good-ole whiskey-soaked sing-a-longs from some Irish bar. And actually, one of the tunes was called “There’s Whiskey In My Whiskey.” Three of the four guys sung lead at one point or another, and they all chimed in throughout their set.

The thing that struck me about the Felice Brothers was how much fun they were having. They smiled through every song and just genuinely seemed to be enjoying what they were doing. They were real musicians too. It seemed like they were playing for the playing, not for the money or the crowd or for anything else. The music just banged out of them, echoing through their limbs with every note and beat of the drum. I don’t know that I’d say they were great musicians or guys who were adroitly skilled at their instruments, but they were obviously swept away by their songs and their enthusiasm was infectious. I loved them. LOVED them!

The Felice Brothers' albums have never, for me, lived up to the joy of that show I saw. Their records are usually slower, more mellow tales of sadness and desperation. They tell a lot of great stories in their songs though, and I've always found something on their recordings that I loved listening to and could visualize in my mind. One of those tunes is "Frankie's Gun!"

"Frankie's Gun!" is a little romp about drug-running, but it's got this heart of gold when the singer talks about his love for his mom and his little sister. What I like about The Felice Brothers' lyrics are their very natural conversational lines. In the beginning, Ian Felice says "I think I know the bloody way by now, Frankie, so turn the god-damned radio down... thank you." I love the thanks in the end of that. And even though they're singing about drugs, crime, and shooting people, it's hard not to admire them for the lines, "I saw a man hit my mom one time, really. I hurt 'im so damn bad, I had to hide in Jersey." Every mother will beam at that line. I really like the first three lines of the last verse too. I use it in class to teach internal rhyme.

"Spit makes a fender shine. Frankie's a friend of mine... helped me off a bender after long-legged Brenda died." That's just fantastic. There's a lot to like about The Felice Brothers. Check 'em out!

"Frankie's Gun!" is from the Felice Brothers' self-titled debut. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#76 "Follow Through" by Gavin DeGraw

I don't listen to the radio very much. I'm not saying that I'm some snobby dick who thinks he's too cool for the mainstream. It's just that most of the stuff I like doesn't really have mass appeal. I mean... look at this list. What radio station would I tune into to hear these songs? Unless it was some satellite station that I refuse to pay for, I don't have many options there. Occasionally, however, I'll be in the car with my wife or will flip across VH1 and hear something new. That's how I discovered Gavin DeGraw.

You might remember DeGraw's song "I Don't Wanna Be" all over the radio a few years back. It was a pretty cool anthem of independence, but it was actually his second single. The first was "Follow Through," but it didn't really take off. I don't know about the chronology, but I'd gather that there was a good four months or so between those two songs coming out, or at least between the one coming out and the other being embraced and played all over the place. I really liked "Follow Through" though and thought that Gavin DeGraw showed some promise. For one reason or another I brought up his name in class one day and a student ended up giving me a copy of his album. Yes, that is one of the great perks of teaching. I have over 100 hookups every year.

So anyhow, when I listened to DeGraw's debut, "Chariot," I really liked it. He plays multiple instruments on it, writes the songs, and has a solid voice. He showed a good range in his songwriting too. I was pretty convinced that this guy was just beginning what could be a long and popular career. I wasn't the only one either. Aerosmith's Joe Perry was a big admirer too and performed with DeGraw a few times. Here we are now, a few years later, and I wouldn't say his career has taken off like I might've guessed though. His second album was a lot more guitar-oriented and the one song I heard from it just didn't hit me at all. You never can tell how a person's gonna go.

"Follow Through" has a great message in it too. It's basically a song from one guy to his lover saying "Look... if you want to do this, just be the person you claim you are. Put your money where your mouth is. Follow through." I like that a lot.

"Follow Through" is from the album "Chariot." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#75 "Fly By Night" by Rush

When I was in tenth or eleventh grade, my older brother asked me if I wanted to go to a Rush concert with him and some friends. Being invited into the world of post-high school guys was something you just didn't pass up. I was excited to be included. And though I'd seen one show before when my buddy's sister gave us free tickets to a Genesis concert, this performance was by Rush... bound to be infinitely cooler than the "Invisible Touch Tour."

My brother had been listening to Rush for a number of years. I'd heard the strains of "Tom Sawyer," "2112," and "Limelight" many times coming out of his stereo. Rush was definitely an acquired taste, but the grandiose tales of fantasy and futuristic narratives mixed with philosophical underpinnings... all filtered through Geddy Lee's shrieking voice made Rush quite unique. Throw in three of the most incredible musicians you'll ever hear and you have quite a combination. For me, I think those lyrics just always made Rush interesting. They weren't singing about getting wasted and banging chicks. They were throwing out these epics suites about spaceships, mythical battles, witch-hunts, and all kinds of other crazy things. I felt a lot smarter listening to Rush than I did hearing all of the hair-metal garbage coming our way in the mid-eighties. My tastes have changed a lot over the years, but I always get a little nostalgic whenever I hear the opening notes of one of their songs.

Prior to going to that first concert, my brother gave me a bunch of Rush's albums and said, "Study these." One of the first songs that really stuck out to me was "Fly By Night." Listening to it now, I still think it's their most radio-friendly song. It's short, which is not something you say about many Rush tunes, and has an almost catchy melody and chorus. I love Alex Lifeson's guitar solo in it too. He gets totally overshadowed by Geddy Lee and Neil Peart, gods of their respective instruments, but Alex would be a guitar god in any other band. There's a cool percussive part right near the beginning of it... three tinny hits on something. Knowing Neil Peart, it could be a 2x4, a metal plate, a glass tube... who knows, but everytime I get to that part I have to air-drum those three hits. It's a great song. Thanks, big brother, for the introduction.

#74 "Danger" by Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside

Alert! Alert! There's an alteration in The 300! A new discovery has required me to insert a cool artist I just heard for the first time and now the organization of the list is a bit out of whack. That's alright. If you want to hear the song, however, the widget jukebox displays everything alphabetically. You'll have to go back a little ways to find it.

I went to an Avett Brothers concert on New Year's Eve in Ashville, North Carolina. One of the opening acts was Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside. Ford, an Ashville native, was clearly excited about being in front of her home crowd. She even gave a shout-out to her old high school classmates!

Ford and her band are part of this new/old sound kind of thing that a lot of cool bands are doing these days. She's got a stand-up bass player, a drummer who occasionally pulls out the jazz brushes, and a voice that wouldn't sound out of place alongside the Andrews Sisters in the 1940's. My wife and I both just really liked her style. It's classic, retro, and strangely fresh all at the same time. And no... I have no idea what the hell she's saying in this song, but it sure does sound cool.

"Danger" is from the EP "Not An Animal." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#73 "The Flame" by Cheap Trick

"The Flame" is probably on every major compilation of 80's classics, along with other late-era gems like "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again." But you know... I like it. I always have.

Cheap Trick had disappeared from the American music scene a number of years before this song came out. At one point, their Live at Budokan album was practically government issue and every kid in suburbia was singing "I Want You To Want Me." But some tepid releases followed that 1979 high mark and musical tastes in the 80's were just all over the place. We had the remnants of disco in the beginning... we had The Pointer Sisters and "Axl F," the theme from Beverly Hills Cop. Hair metal was all the rage as were the cheesy power ballads of Richard Marx and Whitney Houston. Where do rockers like Cheap Trick fit in? The answer was nowhere, until they were resurrected with their 1987 album "Lap of Luxury."

"The Flame" was the single that got Cheap Trick back on the radio. For them, it was apparently bittersweet in the beginning because they were forced to record the song, one not written themselves, by a record company who had tired of their dwindling attempts at hits. Apparently they only liked performing their own tunes live, but "The Flame" just took off and reintroduced them to America. Hard not to perform your big homecoming number.

"The Flame" is a pretty basic ballad, but what distinguishes it to me is the performance of singer Robin Zander. The cracking of his voice in lines like "You'll always be the one" and "You were the first you'll be the last" was always very affecting to me. I've said a million times that it's not how clean or perfect your voice is. It's how you use it. Ask Bob Dylan.

"The Flame" is from the album "Lap of Luxury." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#72 "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Johnny Cash

I feel like it's become a bit cliche to like Johnny Cash. In the past decade, for one reason or another, he's become a real rebel icon. He was lost in the wilderness for quite some time, but some interesting records with producer Rick Rubin and a popular and award-winning bio-pic of his life made Johnny Cash part of the mainstream again. Shoot... even my mom claims to love him!

I'm not saying that Johnny Cash wasn't good. He was cool. He was angry. His voice was so recognizable. He was "The Man in Black"... more of a character than an actual man. He sang outlaw ballads about murder and revenge. He staged some really great concerts at a few maximum security prisons that furthered his legend. There are an awful lot of bad Johnny Cash recordings though. Everyone thinks of "Folsom Prison Blues," "Ring of Fire," and "I Walk the Line," but there was a lot of crap in the late 70's and 80's. A lot of music was bad during that time, but Cash's was filtered through that awful Nashville cheese that made it even worse. To me, those albums he did with Rubin starting around 1994 brought Cash to what he should be remembered for: an iconic storyteller with a chilling voice and a simple guitar.

"The American Recordings" that were supervised and produced by Rick Rubin are really powerful. They're an interesting assortment of originals, gospels, and unique covers of songs by everyone from Sting to Danzig to Leonard Cohen to Nine Inch Nails to U2 and Tom Petty. I don't know what possessed Rubin to suggest some of the songs he did, but Cash's renditions of many of them are simply haunting. His cover of Nine Inch Nails "Hurt" will stop your heart.

One of my favorites is Cash's cover of "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." Though originally written by folk singer Ewan MacColl in 1957, the song was popularized in 1972 by disco queen Roberta Flack. Cash's version always strikes me as a late homage to his wife June Carter, who would die just a few years after this recording. Their love was well-documented and the lyrics to this song, though not written by Cash, sound like they could've been a tribute to the woman who had meant so much to him. Some of the lines are just beautiful. I particulary like "The first time ever I kissed your mouth, I felt the earth move in my hands." Cash's delivery is so powerful. The emotion is literally tangible. When my grandfather passed away a few years ago, after over sixty years of marriage to my grandmother, I thought of this song so much. There is no doubt that he felt this way about her. I wanted to make a powerpoint of their lives together using this, but I don't think anyone would've been able to sit through it. For the scary, bellowing "Man in Black" figure that Johnny Cash was, he could really delivery the soft stuff when he needed to.

"First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is from the album "American Recordings IV: The Man Comes Around." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#71 "Firecracker" by Ryan Adams

"Firecracker" is the second track from Ryan Adams' second album. I've written about Adams several times here and will do so several more times before it's all over. He's one of my favorite artists... a prolific songwriter and engaging performer whose versatility in musical styles keeps even the casual fan interested in his career.

I don't have much to say about "Firecracker" other than that it's just a good, fun, upbeat song about wanting to "burn out hard and bright" as opposed to living forever. I can't really argue with this anti-Couch Potato attitude. Adams unfortunately embraced this notion a little too much for a while and his relentless touring and writing was fueled by a dangerous drug habit. Thankfully he was able to turn his life around. He got married to Mandy Moore recently and though the releases have not been as frequent, I'm glad that the guy is still alive and seems to be happy.

"Firecracker" is from the album "Gold." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#69 "Fight Test" by The Flaming Lips

Somehow I got my alphabet mixed up and forgot to do this song before I did "Fire." Sorry, folks.

"Fight Test" is the first song from the Flaming Lips' wonderful 2002 album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." I think I'd heard of them before. No, I didn't remember that they were once the featured band at The Peach Pit in an episode of Beverly Hills 90210. Yeah... don't laugh. You know you watched it too. Their name must have stuck in my mind for some reason, and when this album came out there was certainly a lot of press about it. I just remember that one day I was walking around Border Books and saw this on one of the listening stations. I listened to a few of the songs and was definitely curious. Coincidentally enough, one of my students came by the following Monday and said, "I've got this really cool album for you to check out" and gave me a copy of this cd. I thought it was so cool... inventive, unique, intelligent, tuneful, emotional, silly... so many things wrapped up into one. Though the Lips can descend into their own abyss of madness and creativity sometimes, they can also write really great songs when they want to.

The lyrics to "Fight Test" seem to be about avoiding confrontation... because being standoffish and indifferent seem to be the cooler way to be. In the beginning of the song, frontman Wayne Coyne sings "When it came time to fight, I thought that I'd just step aside and that time would prove you wrong and that you would be a fool." Later he realizes the err of his thinking and has the great lines, "There are things you can't avoid. You have to face them... when you're not prepared to face them." In the end he realizes that he's too late and that he let "the other guy" win. It's a great song about growing up and trying to figure out what kind of person you want to be and what kind of person you should be. And like a lot of the Lips' songs, there are interesting philosophical moments with a chorus that goes "I don't know where the sunbeams end and the starlight begins... it's all a mystery." I love that line. It's one of those great things that people just never think about, but is right there for your consideration.

"Fight Test" is from the album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#70 "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix

Back when I used to work at Herndon High School, me and two of my co-workers used to argue about who made the greatest contribution to hard rock: Hendrix, Sabbath, or Zeppelin? We all had our own opinions and were somewhat validated when VH1 did a countdown of the greatest metal artists and 1, 2, and 3 were the very three we constantly fought over. I think Black Sabbath actually got the #1 nod, but that was alright. I knew that Zeppelin was the greatest. My other buddy was certain Hendrix was the man. A lot of people would agree with him.

I'm not the biggest Jimi Hendrix fan. Oh sure... there's no question that he's one of the greatest, and certainly most innovative, guitar players that every lived. I'd also have to give him credit for writing one of the coolest lines in rock history when, in "Purple Haze," he belts out "Excuse me... while I kiss the sky!" That's just awesome. He has tons of great songs and I like lots of them, but something about me and Jimi just doesn't always gibe. You can't always explain why you like or dislike certain things.

"Fire" is one of my favorite Hendrix tunes. In a much earlier post I wrote about how I liked songs where the music started and stopped in the middle of the track. It shows the great timing and playmanship of the band and for some reason just really hits me. "Fire" does this numerous times. It's also got the great line "Move over Rover and let Jimi take over!" Basically, "Fire" is just a great song, hence its inclusion on The 300.

On a related note, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are HUGE Hendrix fans, did a phenomenal cover of this song on their 1988 release "The Abbey Road EP."

"Fire" is from the album "Are You Experienced?" To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.