#115 "I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty

Tom Petty is pretty cool. I don't think he's the greatest musician that ever lived, but he's produced a solid body of work over his long career. Not everyone can be a serious ground-breaker. Petty just writes good rock-n-roll tunes. Nothing wrong with that.

In 1989 Tom Petty released "Full Moon Fever," billed as his first solo album. A lot of people don't realize that it IS a solo record because it doesn't really sound that different from his other records. That's most likely because FMF features guitarist Mike Campbell, whose sound is so recognizable from The Heartbreakers. A few of the other band members appear on the album too, so I'm not too sure why it was considered a solo project in the first place. Whatever... I digress.

I've always liked the song "I Won't Back Down" because now and then you just need a good "Fuck You" tune. Petty's stubbornness is well-documented. He fought back when his record contract was sold from one company to another. He fought back when his label tried to hike the price on one of his releases under what they called "Superstar pricing." He fought once again when someone tried to use his song in a commercial without his permission. "I Won't Back Down" is kind of a tribute to his indomitable spirit.

"I Won't Back Down" is from the album "Full Moon Fever." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#114 "I Wanna Stay Home" by Jellyfish

In 1990 a band hit the airwaves who looked like some weird hybrid of Scooby Doo and The Partridge Family. Visually, it was hard to take them seriously, but Jellyfish's debut album "Bellybutton" was pretty good... a great mix of bubblegum, psychedelia, and pop.

My younger sister really got into Jellyfish. Maybe it was the dyed dreadlocks or the hippie fashion, but she wanted to listen to my "Bellybutton" cd all of the time. And sure enough, when Jellyfish came to town that same little sister asked me to take her. She was only fifteen at the time. The band was coming to the original 9:30 Club in DC, a legendary venue nestled in one of the many shady neighborhoods of our nation's capitol. I had mixed feelings, but remembering how cool it felt when my older brother took me to some of my first concerts, I thought I had to pass the torch.

When we got the tickets, my sister was pretty psyched. Honestly, we're not the closest siblings in my family. I think ultimately we're just very different. When my parents divorced, I probably tried to be a father-figure to her a little too much too. I'm sure that didn't bring us closer. So when I had my chance to be a cool big brother, I enjoyed it. I remember telling her, "Look... the 9:30 club is not exactly in a nice part of town. Stay close to me. Don't talk to anyone. Don't look at anyone. If anyone talks or looks at you, tell me. I'll take care of them." The entry into the main room of the club required you to walk down this narrow corridor. No matter who's playing there, it's always a freak show. The Jellyfish fans looked like the Mickey Mouse Club on acid, so I was definitely giving the clientele a wide berth. I remember walking down that corridor with Melanie in front of me, my hands on her shoulders guiding her through the crowd. It was probably overkill, but I was not going to tell my parents that I got my baby sister killed or stoned by taking her to a late-night concert in DC.

When the band came on, they put on a great show. Looking over at Melanie... she just had the biggest grin on her face. It was great. I mean... here she was at her first concert, but what was so great was that she was seeing this band from MTV right in front of her. The original 9:30 club was tiny, so it felt like it was just us and them in this little room. We were probably only five or ten feet from the stage. What a great first show. Later I told her, "Don't think all concerts are like this. You'll probably never get this close to anyone again." All these years later, I don't know if she ever has, but I'm sure she'll always remember that first Jellyfish concert. Hopefully in that memory will be one of me... looking out for her like I always did.

"I Wanna Stay Home" is from the album "Bellybutton." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#113 "I Must Belong Somewhere" by Bright Eyes

It sounds romantic, but I'll always remember a train ride into the south of France when I think of Bright Eyes.

I had heard "Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground" a number of years before. I'd read all the stuff about Conor Oberst being the new Bob Dylan... about how he was the emo king of poetic lyrics. I gave him a listen, but most of what I heard initially was a warbly, forced-emotional delivery and pretentiously-long album titles. So when "Cassadaga" came out in 2007, it didn't really register on my radar.

A kid I was traveling with that spring gave me the Bright Eyes "Four Winds" EP to listen to and something caught my ear. When we got back to the states a week later, the full length album was right about to come out. She promised me a copy as we were imprisoned on a nine and a half hour plane ride from Munich to Chicago and delivered on that promise shortly thereafter. I told her to give me a week to listen to it and then we'd compare notes. I ended up really liking the album and we talked about all the songs that we both enjoyed. It's a fairly long record and as we were going through the play-by-play, I all of the sudden went "Oh yeah... I LOVE the second to last song... I Must Belong Somewhere. It's so great." She confessed that of all the songs on the album, she thought I would really like THAT one. "I don't know why," she said. "It just sounded like a you song."

Conor Oberst IS a great songwriter... or at least a very good one. His lyrics are observant and intelligent and poetic and a lot of what popular music is not. That being said, he still has a long way to go before he becomes "the next Bob Dylan." While I find Oberst's lyrics to be literary, I don't always find them to be meaningful. He's got a great gift of stringing words together and often employs alliteration and other poetic devices to enhance his imagery, but sometimes I wonder if they're really anything more than fancy word play. "I Must Belong Somewhere" definitely shows a lot of this. Some of the ones I like are...

Leave the epic poem on its yellowed page.
Leave the grey macaw in his covered cage.
Let the traveling band on the interstate remain.

Leave the old town drunk on his wooden stool.
Leave the autumn leaves in the swimming pool.
Leave the poor black child in his crumbling school today.

The lines are so visual. Oberst's details are excellent. Every time I hear the line about the leaves in the pool I can totally see it. My dad used to say that when he read a Jack London story about being on a ship, he could feel the wind and the ocean spray on his face, feel the pitch and yawn of the boat, hear the crash of the waves, etc. I feel this same way about Oberst's imagery in this song.

"I Must Belong Somewhere" is from the album "Cassadaga." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#112 "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" by Colin Hay

Recognize the name? Vaguely? Yes, this is THAT Colin Hay... the singer from Men At Work... "Who Can It Be Now?"... the guy with the strange lazy eye. The 80's may be long gone, but Colin Hay is still working. I'm trying to avoid making a bad joke about that and his former band's name right now.

When the movie Garden State came out a few years ago, it was fairly successful. Among the many things it was applauded for was its soundtrack. If I'm not mistaken, the film's writer and director, Zach Braff, actually won a Grammy award for his compilation of songs. That's pretty cool. The cd is a mix of lots of great alternative bands, from Coldplay to The Shins, and also included other artists like Simon & Garfunkel and Iron and Wine. Nestled among the bigger names was this beautiful little song called "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You." I don't necessarily remember it from the movie, but when I heard the soundtrack for the first time it just about killed me. Man... what a powerful song.

I've often said the simplest delivery allows for the heaviest impact. Don't dress up everything with special effects. When you cut your work down to its most basic form and you can still be effective, that's when you've really done something.

The lyrics to this song are just about missing someone's presence and about what a powerful impact someone can have on your life. I think the words kind of speak for themselves so I'm going to print them below. Sometimes you just need a good sad song. This is it.

I drink good coffee every morning.
It comes from a place that's far away.
And when I'm done I feel like talking.
Without you here there is less to say.
I don't want you thinking I'm unhappy.
What is closer to the truth
is that if I lived 'til I was 102,
I just don't think I'll ever get over you.
I'm no longer moved to drink strong whiskey
'Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew
that if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs
I just don't think I'll ever get over you.
Your face it dances and it haunts me.
Your laughter's still ringing in my ears.
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years.
But I don't want you thinking I don't get asked to dinner
'Cause I'm here to say that I sometimes do.
Even though I may soon feel the touch of love,
I just don't think I'll ever get over you.
If I lived till I was 102
I just don't think I'll ever get over you.

"I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" is from the Garden State Soundtrack. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#111 "I Got A Woman" by Ray Charles

Whenever we have family or friends over to the house, I usually load the cd player with a rotation of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Norah Jones, a Chess Records compilation, and Ray Charles. When I'm not playing jazz music and Frank Sinatra in an attempt to make my house sound like Maggiano's, the standard mix from above always does the trick.

Honestly, I'm not a huge Ray Charles fan. I guess that's almost un-American to say, being that Ray was like our nation's god-father or something, but I can give Ray Charles his due. The guy was massively talented and played a part in one of my favorite movies when I was a kid, "The Blues Brothers."

When "Ray" came out a while back, Ray Charles was everywhere. We'd always been familiar with the music, but now we found out about the life behind the genius. It was odd to hear about this old blind guy being a heroin addict and womanizer back in the 50's and 60's. That was like envisioning my grandfather doing the same thing!?!

I play Ray Charles in the house because even though he's not my favorite, he is a significant part of American culture. I'm not content to let my sons listen to KidzBop all day long. I've got two boys who can name the members of The Beatles, a band who broke up thirty years before they were born, who like The Clash, Elvis, Led Zeppelin, and more recently Burl Ives. Yes, unfortunately they occasionally watch Big Time Rush on Nickelodeon, but they are also familiar with the songs that formed the soundtrack of The United States for the past sixty years are so. I'm pretty proud of that.

"I Got a Woman" can be found on any number of Ray Charles compilations. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#110 "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" by Prince

Prince is a total badass. I've only said that about one other person on this list: Bo Diddley. I won't say it about anyone else. Say what you want about The Purple One, but he is undeniably one of the most gifted musicians of our time.

Now I didn't include a picture of Prince here. I also won't include a copy of the song "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" in the jukebox either. Apparently Prince is fiercely protective of his image and his work and how it is used by others. I have the utmost respect for that.

What I've always liked about Prince is that he does whatever he wants. After "Purple Rain" made him the biggest name in American music in the mid-eighties, all anyone wanted was a sequel. He proceeded to release album after album of specifically NON-sequels, full of music that sounded nothing like "When Doves Cry" or "I Would Die 4 U" and sometimes wasn't even remotely radio-friendly. This confounded a lot of people. I thought it was great. Later he changed him name to some unique little symbol and shaved the word "slave" into his facial hair, all in an intricate legal maneuver to free himself from an ugly record contract. Again... people were baffled, angry, and irritated. I'll admit... I thought it was odd, but I respected the guy for being unique and for making a stand.

A few years ago Prince seemed to lighten up a bit. He performed at the Grammys. He did a greatest hits tour. He even showed up at the SuperBowl halftime show and did a Foo Fighters' cover!?! He rocked the HOUSE at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame too. Maybe the Purple One is mellowing out in his old age. Who knows! I'll always have a ton of respect for him though.

Oh... and on a side note. Prince made his name in Minneapolis in the late seventies and early eighties. He was a frequent performer at First Avenue, which is kind of shown in Purple Rain. And who else cut their teeth at that famous club? My boy Paul Westerberg and the Replacements!

"I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" is from the album "Sign 'O' the Times."

#109 "Hunger Strike" by Temple of the Dog

In the summer of 1992, I spent a few days at the beach with one of my good friends. We weren't yet 21, but Kurt and I knew that a week with a bunch of Ocean City lifeguards was probably going to be a pretty good time. At that point, neither of us had a serious girlfriend. We hadn't graduated from college nor had embarked on important careers either. Five days at the beach most likely meant a lot of drinking, hopefully a lot of girls, a lot of visits to Tommy's Sub Shop, and a lot of good times. It ended up being a great trip.

One thing I'll always remember from that week is that when we first got there, Kurt's buddies were all out guarding and left their house to us. All we had was a case of Milwaukee's Best Light and the Temple of the Dog cd. We plopped down on some couches, put the cd on, put the case in the middle of the floor, and Kurt promptly announced, "We're not leaving this room until we drink that case of beer!" Though I was probably 230 pounds at the time and well-versed in mass alcohol-consumption, twelve beers was no mean feat. I got comfortable and got ready to get bombed. It was great.

Kurt and I always had ridiculous conversations about nothing. We'd known one another since elementary school, played on soccer teams together, and knew all the same people. We just had a lot of material to laugh about from over the years. I can remember fishing with him one time and spending what seemed like an hour talking about all the different sandwiches we'd eaten from Subway... what we put on them, what kind of bread we preferred, etc. Pretty deep stuff. We used to sit at his house playing video games and talking about girls... girls we hooked up with, girls we wanted to hook up with, girls we needed to hook up with. Typical guy nonsense, but it was always a good time.

I can't recall exactly what we talked about that first afternoon in OC, but I do remember that Temple of the Dog cd playing on repeat for a few hours. Whenever it got to Hunger Strike, Kurt and I would trade parts. I'd be Chris Cornell to his Eddie Vedder, or vice versa. We were belting it out too, so I'm sure that any passerby's must've gotten quite a feast for the ears... two drunken fools singing off-key to what would become a grunge classic. At one point I think we put the song on repeat for about ten or fifteen times and just blasted it over and over again. It's funny what we DON'T remember, and yet for some silly reason I can't get that afternoon out of my head. The rest of the week included run-ins with a handicapped guy whose piss-bag kept leaking, another guy whose nickname was "Pep" because his gigantic nipples were easily the size of sliced pepperoni, numerous sloppy trips down the boardwalk, the public drunk-bus stopping right at Tommy's Sub-Shop... our Shangri-La, and nights I don't even remember because the days were so much fun. It wasn't too long after that week that I met my wife and embarked on that part of my life. Looking back on it now, that time in OC was my last crazy stand as a single guy.

On a related note... when Lollapallooza came around Northern Virginia later that year, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were both on the bill and for one rare performance, the parts of those bands that formed Temple of the Dog got together and played Hunger Strike live. Some research told me that this was only one of three times that they ever did that. My buddy Kurt was in the audience that day and that was claim-to-fame for a long time.

"Hunger Strike" is from the album "Temple of the Dog." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#108 "How Will It Go?" by Izzy Stradlin' and the JuJu Hounds

Izzy Stradlin was the dirty, bluesy, Keith Richards-y character in GNR. His backing vocals, all raspy smoke and whiskey, were an ideal compliment to Axl Rose's. He wrote a number of their cool songs too. As a result, when I heard he was going to put out an album in the early nineties, I thought that it had potential. When it was called "Izzy Stradlin' and the JuJu Hounds," I must admit that I was a little confused.

Izzy's debut ended up being a little Stones with some reggae thrown in. He actually did a scorching cover of Pressure Drop, the Jamaican standard, however Izzy's was more of a great speed-metal version. It was awesome. He ended it with a little reggae too, in a nod to the song's origins. All in all, the album was solid and ended up being the first of many Stradlin releases. Regular contributor Rick Richards from The Georgia Satellites brought his great guitar to the records and you can always find something good to hear on them.

The JuJu Hounds record came out the year I started dating my wife. I can remember driving around Patriot Circle on the back side of campus, listening to this album on my car stereo. I'm pretty sure I even copied the words to this song in a note to her once. Smooth? Cheesy? Who knows, but eighteen years later we're still together. "How Will It Go," Izzy Stradlin asked me? Not too badly, my friend.

"How Will It Go" is from the album Izzy Stradlin and the JuJu Hounds. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#107 "How's It Going to Be?" by Third Eye Blind

Remember Third Eye Blind? They burst onto the scene in the mid-nineties with what was all at once the most catchy then suddenly most annoying song you'd ever heard. Semi-Charmed Life? You know... the one that goes "Do-do-do... do-do-DO-do... do-do-do... do-do-DO-do." That was followed by "Graduate," a tune that they seemed to be almost begging high school kids to pick as their end-of-year song. Another track was used in a suicide hotline commercial. I think their singer was dating Charlize Theron for a while. They were all over the place for a few months, and then they just disappeared. It's hard to stay relevant these days when literally ANYone can release an album.

I was not really a fan of 3EB, but they did have this one song that I thought was pretty powerful. Also remember that this list is supposed to be representative of all of the artists in my cd collection. This is one of my wife's cd's. I had to throw her a bone or two here!

"How's It Going to Be?" is pretty emotional stuff. It's from the perspective of a person who wonders how life is going to be for his ex-girlfriend once she realizes that he's no longer in her life. I read something where the singer talked about love songs and break-up songs, but that he'd never heard many aftermath songs... the ones about that awkward space where something so great used to be but is now gone. I can completely relate. There were these two girls I dated when I was younger that meant so much to me at one time, but when we broke up I could just never handle the relationship anymore. I pretty much never spoke to them again! I just wasn't mature enough to know how to navigate that territory. It's kind of sad to me now to think about it. It's a pity when someone so significant to you is no longer a part of your life. You can't even really laugh about the old times because you just couldn't figure that transition out. Oh well... I guess there's always facebook!

"How's It Going to Be?" is from the album "Third Eye Blind." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#106 "House of Pain" by Faster Pussycat

Faster Pussycat!?! Are you kidding me? Though I've included a lot of questionable material on this list, this might be the one that makes you say, "No way, dude... I am NOT listening to THAT!" Give it a chance, people. A great song can come from ANYone.

Around the time I was in the eighth grade, my parents' marriage started to crumble. After twenty years and four kids and what I thought was a pretty good life together, it was over. It was devastating, not only because I was losing whatever sense of stability I had in my life, but my parents also had one of those incredibly ugly, bitter break-ups that cast its ugly pall over our home. The fighting was horrific. I was hurting all of the time and yet I was so ashamed to talk to anyone about it. It was embarrassing, as far as I was concerned, and the fact that most of my best friends had married parents made it even worse. I remember trying to talk to one of my buddies about it. His parents had been split for a while and I recall sitting next to him at lunch one day and managing to get out the words, "Your parents are divorced. What's that like?" I couldn't manage any more. If I did, I was going to cry. You can't do that when you're a boy... not in high school.

Though the split started in eighth grade, the bitterness lasted for a really long time. Part of my parents' settlement involved my sister and I staying with my mom in the house we grew up in while my dad moved out. Once my little sister graduated from high school, my mom would have to move out and my house would be sold. As a result, even though they were legally divorced, they were financially tied for another ten years or so. It was awful. The negativity, accusations, and nit-picking just went on and on. As I'm writing this, it's probably been over twenty five years since my parents broke up. They're civil with one another now, but the bad blood is still apparent. That's what all those years of being tied together did to them.

The song "House of Pain" came out in 1989. I wasn't really into glam metal. I thought Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant, RATT, and the slew of other hair bands might have had the occasional decent song, but were ultimately a little hokey to me. Faster Pussycat? Even their name sounded like a joke. But like I said earlier, ANYone has the potential to write a great song and "House of Pain" was one of the more poignant songs from my youth. It's this confessional narrative about a boy waiting for his daddy who just never comes home... not when he's five and not when the boy is still waiting for him many years later. The words, music, and delivery are very powerful and hit me every time. I may have not been deserted by my father, but I certainly wished he could come home again and we could all be together like in the old days. There are some great lines near the end where it goes "I didn't write these pages and my script's been re-arranged." That feeling of your life being out of your hands is most likely true to all children of divorce. As the song is finishing up, the singer speaks softly over the strains of a harmonica. If you listen closely he says, "If I learned anything from this, it's how to live on my own." A sad lesson for a young boy.

"House of Pain" is from the album "Wake Me When It's Over." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#105 "Hotel Yorba" by The White Stripes

The 2001-2002 school year was an awesome one for new music. At the time, I was sharing a classroom with my buddy Scott. He was a drummer and I was just learning guitar. We talked about bands we liked all the time and spent lots of our off-periods grading papers and listening to new stuff we were finding. In the beginning of that year The Strokes broke out, I discovered Ben Kweller, The Hives came to America, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot became the most talked-about album in a long time, and Scott read about some band called The White Stripes who were supposed to be pretty cool. I remember listening to "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" one day during lunch. It didn't really do anything for either one of us. It took a while for us to catch on to them.

Some time later I was flipping through the channels and as I ran through my usual selections, I came by MTV2. There was this song playing that just hit me right away. It ended up being The White Stripes' Hotel Yorba. I thought it was great. Very simple... a simple stomping beat... just a few basic chords. To be honest with you, it sounded nothing like the usual stuff I was hearing on MTV. It certainly didn't fit in with all the rap music and Britney Spears crap that was on TRL every day. The voice sounded familiar, but I didn't pick up on it right away. When I saw the name of the band come up at the end, I thought, "Ok... yeah. I remember now." I came back to school and told Scott about it. It wasn't long after that Fell In Love With a Girl came out, complete with that awesome LEGO video, and The White Stripes were everywhere. I still remember emailing the mp3 of that song to a friend of mine and his response was three words, spaced out across the page "THAT WAS AWESOME."

To be honest with you, I'm not a big White Stripes guy. I love the idea of them... the back-to-basics approached, the stripped-down style of just fuzzy guitar, vocals, and drums. And they certainly have some songs that I think are just fantastic. But whenever I listen to a full-length album of theirs, I always get a headache. I have no idea why. It most likely has to do with the recording style or the level of treble on Jack's voice and guitar, but whatever it is I just can't listen for too long. That obviously hasn't stopped the rest of the world.

"Hotel Yorba" is from the album "White Blood Cells." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#104 "Hot For Teacher" by Van Halen

A few months ago my wife started taking a dance class. Though she was only in the first session, if she stayed in the program through six levels there would be a graduation where she would have to give a solo performance. In it she would choreograph her own routine and dance to a song of her choice. Though she was REALLY looking far ahead, she came to me for some musical selections. We went all over the place with song possibilities until she threw out "Hot For Teacher." She thought it would be hysterical for her to dance to this, with me being in the education business and all. I actually didn't even own "1984," the album the track is from, but upon downloading it the memories just came flooding back. Where have you gone, David Lee?

Van Halen were the sh*t back in the eighties. Talk about a real American band! Had the Super Bowl half-time shows been like they are today back then, you KNOW we would've gotten a little Vitamin VH at one of them. Who else could've blown the doors off of any US sports venue like Eddie and the boys could back in their hey-day? It would've been awesome.

I still remember sitting in my eighth grade science class in 1984. My teacher was Mr. Warren. He was a real dick, to put it mildly. One time this girl Barbara who sat next to me totally copied the answers to my test. The next day Mr. Warren pulls ME aside, accuses ME of cheating, then proceeds to inform me that I was a getting a zero for the test. He wouldn't listen to any sort of argument on my behalf. Damn... I hated that f*cking guy. But you know what? I got my revenge. I had this friend whose parents split and the kids were kind of on their own. This friend did all kinds of crazy stuff. I'm not talking drugs or anything like that, but the guy stole everything that wasn't locked down. And when it was locked down, he managed a way to steal that too. Dang... the guy stole a bowling ball from Bowl America one time! Just for the hell of it. He stole fire extinguishers, street signs, magazines... you name it. He was also big into the destruction of property. We'd drive full speed down a street on trash day, just barreling into all the garbage cans along the side of the road. We plowed into a parking lot pumpkin patch pile once, just to see what would happen. I'm crackin' up now thinking about it.

One day this guy got the idea to buy a bb pistol. I have no idea why he wanted it, but sure enough he got one. We took it out one day and were trying to shoot tin cans with it. For some reason, the thing wasn't working at all. It would barely dent the cans. We couldn't figure out what the problem was. Finally he looks at me and says "Shoot that car." I told him he was crazy. I wasn't going to do anything like that. "It won't even dent a tin can," he said. "It's not going to do anything to that car." I still remember kneeling in the parking lot of Springfield Mall and aiming the pistol at this yellow VW Bug. I fired the trigger and the the glass cracked and spread like a spider web. I was petrified, but we jumped in my buddy's car and sped off as quickly as we could. "I can't believe you did that," he laughed. I kept arguing that it was an accident... that I couldn't have known that would happen, but he kept laughing all the same. He was older than me. I was his little accomplice, too young, too scared, and too good of a kid to anything bad MYself. This was my first real foray into his world. He loved it. Sure enough, that one windshield sparked an idea in his head and it became one more item on our resume of destruction. I don't think I shot any more cars personally. I still felt bad about the whole thing, though it seemed funny as hell watching him do it. I enjoyed feats of skilled target-shooting, like hitting street signs along the side of the road while driving past them. We even had a sound for it, "Shick-Tang," for every time I hit one. We shot up everything, man. The shop windows on Main Street. The glassed-in domed waiting areas at the bus-stop. We were bad. Even to this day when I hear about vandalism and my wife gets all "If they ever shoot out our car windows I'll kill somebody," I always just keep my mouth shut. I know that my time will come on day. Karma will come back to me.

So anyhow... one day I was complaining again about my prick science teacher Mr. Warren. I just hated the guy. Finally my friend said, "Want to go over to his house later?" He looked at me with that smile that told me we weren't going by for a social call. "I think so," I said. This is the reason why, when I got into teaching, that an old veteran told me never to live in the neighborhood where my students lived. This is especially true if you're an asshole, like Mr. Warren. Evening came, and my buddy picked me up. I pulled the gun from under the passenger seat, cocked it, and was ready to go. I can still see it so clearly, all these years later. My teacher lived on a corner, right where his street turned off another one. His car was out on the street, right in front of his home. I could see the lights on in his house. I knew that f*cker was inside. We slowly pulled up right alongside his car. I rolled down my window and with two shots at close range took out both windows along the driver's side. We had to actually drive down his street in order to turn around and get out of there, so we passed the car again on our way home. No one had come outside. The deed was done. The whole thing felt like a mob hit.

And why this tale of teenage destruction? I can still see Eric, this kid in the front row of Mr. Warren's class, wearing his Van Halen 1984 tour shirt, complete with its Japanese lettering. It's a crazy look into my brain to see how I got from my wife's dance class to blowing out my 8th grade science teacher's windows!

"Hot For Teacher" is from the album "1984." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#103 "Hotel Columbia" by Jesse Malin

Jesse Malin's debut "The Fine Art of Self Destruction" was a great find back in 2002. When he released a follow-up two years later, it was unfortunately a bit of a disappointment for me. "The Heat" was just missing some of that spark that hit me with the first record.

I guess when his first album came out, it was frequently mentioned that Malin was Ryan Adams' protege or something, even though Malin is a few years older. Adams produced his debut and played on a number of the songs. And even though they are great friends and Malin appreciated his help, apparently he didn't want to spend the rest of his career being known as "Ryan Adams' boy" so he severed some of those ties for "The Heat." I thought Ryan Adams' contributions to the first record were great. I don't know that that's what is missing from "The Heat" though. I just don't think the songs are as good.

That being said, there are plenty of likeable tunes on Jesse Malin's sophomore effort. My favorite is probably "Hotel Columbia." Its lyrics seem to be about that struggle growing up and growing old. How do you still be cool when your "friends are all dads and moms"? A number of my buddies from college seemed to have a hard time adjusting to life in the real world of wives, jobs, mortgages, etc. Many people in their mid-twenties and early thirties can identify with Malin's lyrics here. Words aside, the music in this song is great too. It's got a great guitar hook that starts it all off and pops up throughout. The whole thing is good and fast... a great rocker with Malin's heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics holding it all up from below.

"Hotel Columbia" is from the album "The Heat." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#102 "Hot Patootie" by Brian May

Brian May is the freakishly intelligent and talented guitarist of Queen. He's got one of the more recognizable guitar sounds in all of music and I've enjoyed his work for a long time. Like I said before... my mom LOVES Queen. We heard a lot of Brian May growing up.

I've also mentioned before that I don't always believe that it's necessary to get the spin-off releases from a band's individual members. In the case of Brian May, however, he did a lot of solo songs on Queen's albums that most people never heard because they weren't included on any of the Greatest Hits collections. He had a singing contribution on nearly every album, I think, and was responsible for writing a lot of their biggest hits that he let Freddie Mercury sing. So when he put out his first solo record, "Back to the Light" in 1992, I was curious to hear it.

When I first heard "Back to the Light," I was pretty stunned. It's a GREAT album. It has all of the elements that made Queen great, like the multi-tracked choral voices, the big loud guitars, the soaring ballads, etc. I remember thinking, "Wow... I guess it was Brian May who was really the secret behind Queen." I think I read a similar comment in Rolling Stone as well. So if you ever get the chance, check it out.

"Hot Patootie" is a bonus track from May's second album "Another World." Actually, it was only available on Japanese imports of the record but got this via a free mail-in offer from the album. There was a little post-card offer for a free "Retro Rock Special" inside the cd case. You know what? There's not too much that's free in the world these days, so I took advantage of the opportunity. The whole cd is a bunch of 50's rock-n-roll covers. May appears in this silly crooner's outfit and has liner notes that claim that the whole thing was recorded by his alter-ego T.E. Conway. It's a lot of fun. "Hot Patootie" begins with this revving motorcycle and then a screaming laugh. May comes on with a boisterous, "HEEEEY, Pussy-cat! What's going down?" My boys love it. I was about to write that the whole thing reminds me of the song Meatloaf sings in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," but a little research told me that "Hot Patootie" IS the song Meatloaf sang in that movie. Duh!!! Oh well... enjoy!

"Hot Patootie" is from the "Retro Rock Special EP." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#101 "Hot Coals" by Evan Dando

I'm always a sucker for a good love song.

"Hot Coals" is one of those tunes I wish I could've written. Actually, it's mostly just the chorus that makes me think that. It's simple. It's built on a popular cliche, but every time Evan Dando sings "I 'd walk over hot coals just to win your love," I can just feel every word he's saying. As much as I can admire someone like Conor Oberst's use of clever word-play and metaphors in his lyrics, the simple and direct approach is often the most effective. And in the case of "Hot Coals," it's the most affective too.

Evan Dando made his career in The Lemonheads. He churned out poppy catchy alternative songs that earned him a big following, lots of magazine covers, celebrity girlfriends, and ultimately more fame than he seemed to be able to handle. After 1996, he kind of disappeared for a while. Whenever he resurfaced for the occasional tribute album or soundtrack, the music he was playing was pretty different... a lot more country than alternative. You could hear him covering lots of songs by his idol Graham Parsons, or tunes by Hank Williams and other Americana legends. This might've confused some of the fans who missed his bubblegum rock, but I loved it. Dando's voice is so rich and his acoustic guitar playing is also warm and tuneful. His talents are perfectly suited for this kind of music. "Hot Coals," a song written by Jeff Rymes of the alt-country California band The Lonesome Strangers, is a great showcase for this.

"Hot Coals" is from the original soundtrack to the film "Heavy." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#100 "Horrorshow" by The Libertines

It's the 100th song! I'm a third of the way through The 300!!! Hallelujah!

It's interesting to see how these songs line up alphabetically. Sometimes there are some selections that make for a really bizarre combo once they're next to each other. At other times you get these really cool runs, like the "Can't" and "Don't" songs that are just fabulous. This song, "Horrorshow," is great right next to "Holidays in the Sun." You have two legendary English punk bands snarling it out for world domination!

"Horrorshow" was one of the first songs by The Libertines that really hooked me. I still don't remember how I came upon their music... and they probably don't remember recording half of it either! But I digress... so anyhow I heard this song that was wild and fast and seemed dangerously close to imploding before it was able to finish. I thought, "This one is great." There was so much energy in it. Granted, I had no idea what the song was about. Pete Doherty's vocals are regularly a mix of screams, yelps, slurs, and breathy exhales that are difficult to decipher. And the music is so rockin' that I often got lost in it, but I have managed to hear the heroin references in lines like "horse is brown," one of several "brown" comments that work their way into a number of The Libertines songs. I LOVE the second half of the chorus when, after Pete sings "Pin me up or put me.... uh uh uh uh oh!" The great stoppage of the music at that part is fantastic. There are a few places where the tempo shifts down for a while, only to explode again. Great great stuff. This is a really fun song to listen to.

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

#99 "Holidays in the Sun" by The Sex Pistols

I tried to make a sort of policy for myself with this list and not include multiple tracks from the same album. I have SO many records. The point was to stretch this profile out to cover most everything I owned. Occasionally there are some albums that were just too good to get a single selection though. Or in the case of The Sex Pistols, they only have one album, and that one album is so great that you just have to give it some extra attention.

"Holidays in the Sun" literally comes marching right out of the first side of "Never Mind The Bollocks," the landmark album the Pistols made in 1977. When this song comes on, my boys hear the military intro and start marching in place. When Steve Jones' killer guitar comes in, they just lose their minds. I totally encourage this kind of madness too. What's better than watching a six and an eight year old jumping all over the house to the tune of The Sex Pistols? Then when I show them how Johnny Rotten used to look when he "sang," they get all demented with some bizarre combo of punk rock meets the elementary school playground. "Kidz Bop" would never garner such a reaction!

"Holidays In The Sun" is from the album "Never Mind the Bollocks." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#98 "Holiday" by Vampire Weekend

Right now, I'm TOTALLY obsessed with Vampire Weekend. You must've heard of them. In the beginning of 2010, it's been all about Vampire Weekend. They're on magazine covers everywhere, and if they're not, they're certainly featured in some article about their newest album Contra. As a music fan, I had heard of them, but I had never actually listened their music until recently. It was my luck that in the midst of all the media attention a student bounced into my room a few weeks ago and said, "Look at what I just got, Mr. G!" She was holding a copy of Contra. I borrowed it, burned it to my laptop, and listened to it that afternoon. I've been hooked ever since.

What's funny about my interest in VW is that they really don't fit into many of the categories that I like. They're a bunch of preppy Columbia-grads whose music, an eclectic combo of Paul Simon meets JD Salinger... like the remnants of some prep school field trip to the islands or something, just didn't seem like it would appeal to me. When I popped their cd in, however, I liked it, though I couldn't tell you why. It was simply like-able. I always find that to be such an interesting part of being human. Can anyone explain why they enjoy something? I can't really tell you why I love ice cream or why I enjoy asparagus but not peas. It's weird. But with Vampire Weekend, I just kept listening. It's been one of those happy little discoveries... AND their first album is even better than their second!

"Holiday" is one of VW's new songs. Contra is a lot slicker than their debut. Whereas their first record sounds like some college kids recording stuff in their dorm rooms, the new one employs more electronics, more production, and most likely more money. It's still good, but it's a little harder to identify with the rich kids when the sound rich with their auto-tune software and keyboard symphonies. "Holiday," however, is one of the simpler more rockin' songs. It's got the great island-influenced drums and the sort of ska guitars and bass. It's good and fast too. I especially like when, in the second half of the chorus, the electric guitar really kicks in. It's some fun stuff. The drums on all of Vampire Weekend's songs are always great too. Chris Tomson did some time as a dj in college and has cited this great African music hour that he used to get to listen to as a big influence. It's not easy stuff to play, but it really helps to define VW's music. What I especially like about the drumming here is how Tomson keeps the percussion time not on the high-hat, but instead on the rim of the snare drum. That's pretty cool, and certainly not something you hear very often in conventional rock songs.

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

#97 "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC

My high school swim team had this time-honored practice of kidnapping new recruits. The older kids would call the parents of some new member, make the arrangements, and then pounce on their unknowing prey in the early hours of some weekend morning. I can still remember when they came for my brother. My own kidnapping got messed up because my mom forgot to leave the door unlocked. I ended up letting my assailants in myself!?! When it was my turn to nab some young kid, I had a great time doing it.

Me and my buddies picked this really sweet kid to get. He was the goofiest boy you could ever come across... the definition of a freshmen. He even had these big Coke-bottle glasses. He couldn't see a damn thing without them. I honestly have no idea how he was able to navigate the pool in that condition. He might've been a heck of a lot faster had he been able to actually see the walls. He was the nicest kid though... but damn was he goofy!

So me and my senior pals show up at his house one early Saturday. His mom let us in. She had a big smile on her face and was happy to be a part of the joke. She didn't even budge when we put panty hose on our heads. She just drank her coffee and led us up to her son's room. The kid was dead asleep... sawing some serious logs in his bed. We stood over him menacingly and just laid into him. We pinned him face down to his bed, talked in deep "scary" voices, duck-taped his hands behind his back, and told him to shut the hell up. And because the kid couldn't see a damn thing and was being violently awoken by three strangers, he was freaking out. I think his mom helped to calm him down when she said aloud, "Be sure to grab his glasses." The fear probably wore off, but the confusion certainly couldn't have... especially for this goofball. We blind-folded this blind kid anyway, walked him out of his house, and threw him (literally) into the back of my buddy's car. We drove around super-fast, swerving all over the place in order to bang this kid all over the back of the car. Because he was all tied up, he couldn't steady himself at all. He must've smashed his face against the walls so many times. It was nearly impossible not to laugh. Later we took him to someone's house, duck-taped him to a chair, and beat him up a bit. Ok... we weren't hurting the kid, but we definitely gave him the once-over. Looking back on it now, it's pretty demented, but it was all for fun. We never would've seriously hurt anyone. Shoot... our coach endorsed it, though I doubt she knew what was actually happening. We ended the morning back at her house where all of the new faces were given breakfast and then laughed about the whole thing. It was pretty fun.

So what does "Highway to Hell" have to do with any of this? My buddy thought it would be a great idea to have that song playing as we drove the kidnapped prisoner around. "It'll be awesome mood music," he said.

"Highway to Hell" is from the album of the same name. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#96 "Hey You" by Tommy Stinson

"Hey You" is from former Replacements' bassist and Paul Westerberg partner-in-crime Tommy Stinson's first solo record, "Village Gorilla Head." Now I love PW and The Replacements. Anyone reading this blog knows that, but I'm not the guy who thinks that all of the separate recordings from the individual members of a band are worth buying. What's the old saying: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"? In a lot of cases, the spin-off records just don't work out. In this case, however, it was pretty good.

I wasn't too interested when I heard that Tommy Stinson had a solo album. Well, after I read that Paul Westerberg had nothing to do with it, I wasn't. Tommy is apparently on some kind of million dollar retainer to play with Axl Rose and the newest incarnation of Guns-n-Roses whenever he comes a-calling, so I just kind of thought this album wouldn't be much. I mean... did you hear Chinese Democracy? I kept reading good review after good review for VGH, however, so I decided to check it out. It's got some really good stuff on it.

"Hey You" is definitely my favorite song on "Village Gorilla Head." The whole album is sort of this collage of sounds. You've got some punk stuff, some electronic stuff, some acoustic stuff... a little of everything Tommy's been around in his career. "Hey You" starts with some simple acoustic strumming. I like how the basic melody comes out on one side, and a slightly different one accompanies it on the other end. I've never been able to do that in my own music. It always ends up sounding off-beat. I need to listen to more of The Rolling Stones to figure that one out. Then another guitar lead melody comes in and then this kind of electronic drum beat shows up. I just think it's kind of cool. The whole song is like that. You can kind of listen to the layers of tracks all built up around the basic tune. It's great. I can't say I entirely understand the words. They seem to be about the world kind of being a bunch of crap, but that the speaker isn't willing to wait around for anyone to fix it. On that notion, I like the sense of defiance there. I like the drums in the chorus a lot too, but my favorite lines come in the bridge when Tommy sings "I ain't waitin' for proof. I ain't waitin' for the future. I've seen too many signs now and every one was wrong." That part always really strikes me. He sings it wonderfully with a lot of passion and aching in his voice. You can identify with the "tired of these false prophets... false fix-alls that we're always being sold on" idea.

In the end, this is one of those songs on my blog that I doubt anyone has ever heard, but I hope they'll give a chance.

*** The wonderful picture of Tommy at the top of this post was taken from the website of photographer Michael Wilson. To see more of his gorgeous photos, go to
www.michaelwilsonphotographer.com.

"Hey You" is from the album "Village Gorilla Head." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#95 "Hey Hey What Can I Do" by Led Zeppelin

In the days before you could download just about anything you wanted, be it single songs, whole albums, live recordings, b-sides, Japanese releases, demos, or bootlegs, some things were really hard to come by. One of those rare gems was Led Zeppelin's "Hey Hey What Can I Do."

Recorded at the time of their third album, HHWCID was released as a b-side to the legendary "Immigrant Song" but was the one Zeppelin cut that was unavailable on any of their albums, including the posthumous CODA record which compiled many rare tracks from throughout their career. The first time I heard it was on a local radio station's nightly "Getting the Led Out" segment that came on at 10:00. Since HHWCID was so hard to come by, it was frequently on DC-101's Zeppelin playlist. I ended up coming across the 45 of "The Immigrant Song" in a record store one day and saw the Holy Grail on the back of it. I was psyched and immediately recorded it onto a cassette tape to listen to in my car. Man... those were the days! Years later, when Zeppelin first remastered selections from their catalogue in a four disc box set, HHWCID was a big highlight.

I've always loved the style of HHWCID. It showcases the more mellow, acoustic side of Zeppelin, a band more famous for their pounding drums and overall heaviness. This little number is replete with acoustic guitars and mandolins. Even the thunderous throat of Robert Plant is held in check most of the time. The song is one sad fella's lament about his girl who just won't be true to him. Unfortunately, if you listen closely, the poor sucker is in love with a prostitute it seems, "a street corner girl" who wants to "ball all day" and do "the midnight shift... in the bars with the men who play guitars." Sorry, bro... you picked the wrong lady. It's a fun song and a humorous little narrative with a great sing-a-long chorus.

"Hey Hey What Can I Do" can be found on the four disc box set "Led Zeppelin." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#94 "Hesitating Beauty" by Wilco and Billy Bragg

A great delight from the past ten years or so has been my discovery of the work of Woody Guthrie. Sure, everyone knows "This Land Is Your Land," but beyond that famous folk ballad Guthrie was a talented illustrator, painter, poet, and writer. It took Wilco and Billy Bragg's wondrous collaboration "Mermaid Avenue" in 1998 to get me going, but since then I've enjoyed a lot of material from the incredibly prolific Dust Bowl artist.

"Mermaid Avenue" apparently originated when one of Woody's daughter's approached English protest singer Billy Bragg with some of her father's unpublished lyrics. Bragg then asked Wilco to join in. The idea was to put a modern spin on Guthrie's work and try to reach a new generation with contemporary musicians interpretting his words. The album ended up being a huge hit, garnered a Grammy nomination, and even spawned a sequel a few years later. If you've never heard either one, they're a real treat.

What surprised me about the songs were the beauty of the lyrics. I'd always known Guthrie as the husky box-car balladeer who sang about politics and human rights. "This Land is Your Land" has some nice imagery in it, but it never made me guess that its author was a talented poet. "Mermaid Ave" showcases that side of Woody's writings. There are so many beautiful love songs on the two records. I can't begin to tell you how many lines made me think, "Man... I wish I could write something like that."

"Hesitating Beauty" is definitely my favorite track from the first record. It's a lover's plea to a woman who can't seem to make up her mind. Curiously enough, though it could've been written to Woody's wife, the woman named in the song is Nora Lee, Woody's daughter... the very woman who brought the lyrics to this song and the others to the light of day. There are many great lines in it, but I've always admired the last verse where it says "We can ramble hand in hand across the grasses of our land and I'll kiss you for each leaf on every tree." That's gorgeous. It's not only full of beautifully-vivid imagery, it's also about a wonderful sentiment.

On a related note, to see some other great Woody Guthrie work, check out the book Art Works: Journals, Drawings, and Sketchbooks of an American Original.

"Hesitating Beauty" is from the album "Mermaid Avenue: Volume I." TO hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#93 "Forever In Blue Jeans" by Neil Diamond

Elvis, ABBA, Queen, KISS, and now Neil Diamond? Yes, people, there's always room for some cheese in The 300's heart.

Something made me think of the big Neil the other day and I thought, "Wait a minute... I've yet to talk about him on the list! What's going on?" When I did some investigating, I realized that I'd never burned my Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits cd into ITunes. Somehow it eluded the massive conversion from cd's to mp3's that I did a year or so ago. Hence we have #93 on the list, which should actually be somewhere closer to #76. Sorry, folks.

I don't know when I first discovered Neil Diamond. I swear I saw him in some cowboy movie a long time ago, but it may have been some sort of western video send-up for one of his classic 70's tunes like "Cracklin' Rosie" or something. I remember my mother HATING Neil Diamond. I don't really know why. I'm pretty sure she's still not a big fan. I certainly remember his "Turn on Your Heartlight" song from the biggest movie of the 80's "ET." He disappeared for a while I guess, but came back as a sort of cultural icon in movies like "Saving Silverman" or in Saturday Night Live skits with Will Ferrell. And yeah... he IS cheesy. The haircut. The sequins. The whole package is a little much, but there's no denying his ability as a songwriter. The guy has hammered out a zillion memorable songs, and not just for himself. Maybe it was humming his "I'm a Believer" from when I watched The Monkees as a kid that first got me in tune with my inner Diamond. Regardless... I like the guy and if you ask my wife, I also do a pretty sweet impression of him.

"Forever in Blue Jeans" is always the first Neil Diamond song I think of. It may not be as big as a few of his others, but it's one that I always liked. I still can't believe I overlooked it for so long here, but without further ado...

"Forever In Blue Jeans" can be found on a number of Neil Diamond compilations, like "The Essential" or "The Neil Diamond Collection." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#92 "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles

I always have a few Beatles posters on the walls of my classroom, which I much prefer to the dorky educational Parts-of-Speech ads a lot of my colleagues display. I take great pride when people occasionally say, "This looks nothing like a classroom. It looks more like... a college dorm!" I have nothing around me but music posters, movie posters, and pictures of artwork that I admire. I figure if this is going to be the place where I have to spend a lot of my time, I might as well make it a place I like being. As a result, my love of The Beatles is no secret.

When George Harrison died a few years ago, there were tons of students who came by to talk to me about it. I remember this one kid who showed up the morning after to see if I'd heard the news and how I was doing. We talked for a while and I tried to explain to him what it felt like. I was sad because George Harrison seemed like a pretty good guy. He wasn't some jackass gangsta rapper shooting his mouth off all the time who ended up getting gunned down in the street. He wasn't some angry screamer spewing hate and violence in his lyrics. From all accounts, George Harrison was a good person. He sang a lot about love, peace, and a transcendental state of mind. He stood up for causes too, and is credited with staging the first all-star benefit concert when he put together the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. That was one of the main reasons I was sad. It's not that I knew George Harrison. It's just a bummer when the world loses one of the good ones.

I also tried to explain to this kid that I felt like I'd lost one of the giants of my childhood, and that was a hard thing to put my head around. The Beatles were such big figures in my memories of growing up. I can't tell you how many times we listened to their songs, looked at their pictures, and pretended to be them. I wouldn't say they were necessarily my heroes, but they were these sort of larger-than-life figures that I admired, along with other entertainers, athletes, and public figures of that time. I'll feel the same way when Gil Gerard dies. He was Buck Rogers on Thursday nights, the one night a week I was allowed to stay up until 9:00 to watch his show. I'll feel the same when Dexter Manley dies, the Redskins' defensive end who was almost a living cartoon character. When you're a kid and you see these people on tv or in the newspaper, they almost don't seem real. And then one day, they end up getting old and dieing just like everybody else. It's a sobering reality and when I've experienced it a few times over the years, it's like discovering that Houdini really couldn't escape from all of those ropes and chains. He just hid the keys in his mouth and resorted to other slight-of-hand maneuvers. The world seems a little less magical.

I know when The Beatles broke up there were people weeping in the streets, but if there's anything great that came out of it it's that George Harrison came into his own. For years he'd been the little brother of the band... the guy who nobody really listened to. He was the guy who seemed to hate being a Beatle more than any of the others and the one who blossomed the most when they were done with. "Here Comes the Sun" was apparently written when George was tiring of the business end of being a rock star. He was weary of the "long, cold, lonely winter" and looking forward to "spring" coming. It has always been one of my favorite Beatles' songs. It's a real toss up between this and "Don't Let Me Down" for my #1.

One curious little fact about this song: In 1977, Carl Sagan spear-headed a movement to put the sounds of Earth into space. A collection of recordings from all over the world was included in a Voyager satellite and was supposed to represent the history of humanity for any extra-terrestrial lifeforms who came upon it. Many things made it onto this record, from many different forms of "hello" to the sounds of a variety of earth animals. Also included were quintessential musical compositions, from the work of Mozart to Bach to Stravinsky to even Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode." Apparently there was a movement to include "Here Comes the Sun" as well, but contractual issues with EMI prevented its inclusion.

"Here Comes the Sun" is from the album "Abbey Road." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#91 "Headache" by Frank Black

This post is definitely not the first in a series of "Frank Black is God" entries. I never really got into The Pixies. To me, there were two under-rated but incredibly-influential bands of the mid-eighties and early nineties... them and The Replacements. Kurt Cobain and many of his peers frequently cited The Pixies in interviews and showed an obvious influence from Black Francis and his "quiet/loud" approach to music. As illustrated throughout this blog, however, I have always been more of a Replacements guy. The Pixies were just a little out there for me.

That being said, it doesn't mean that I can't find something by Frank Black that I like. When The Pixies split and Black Francis became Frank Black and released "Teenager of the Year," I loved the first single from it "Headache." It's really nothing more than your basic rock song, but I like the edge that Black can bring to his voice. And who hasn't had a horrific headache where it felt like your "heart was crammed in your cranium and it still knew how to pound"? What I really like about the song are the great backing vocals that Black does to his own leads. I love the little "credits" and "headaches" and my favorite "got me down." Cool stuff.

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

#90 "Hard Way to Fall" by Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams has been on this list a number of times already. He's such a big favorite of mine and such a prolific artist that he might just end up with more entries than anyone else. And though Adams has dabbled in a number of genres and musical styles, it seems that I can find something to like in almost anything he does.

"Hard Way to Fall" is just a crushing love song. It's a breakup number where the singer remembers all of these idiosyncratic details about his girl... how she reads from the back to the front of magazines, the Scotch that she drinks, how she loses her keys, etc. You realize it's a lost love song when he sings "how I miss those things." None of this is groundbreaking or anything, but it's simple and sad and direct and everything I like about music. The ending is the best. He's got the verse:

"See her smiling at him?
That used to be me...

And we used to be something,
but something happened to me."

I love that. It kills me. It kills me every time I hear it. It's so honest and sad. Best of all, I find it to be very self-critical, which most people struggle with. Something I admire most about writers is when they put themselves out there, emotionally-naked for the world to see. This is a song that says, "Guess what... I lost. She didn't choose me." It's not something you're proud of or want to share with anyone and possibly something that opens you up to criticism, and yet the most courageous artists do it any way. AND they do it in a massive public forum, with hundreds of thousands of fans and critics listening to their work. That kind of courage is nothing less than impressive.

"Hard Way to Fall" is from the album "Jacksonville City Nights." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#89 "Hard to Explain" by The Strokes

Was anyone cooler than The Strokes in the beginning of the millennium? They were everywhere after the fall of 2001... the biggest story out of New York in a post-9/11 America. They brought back a stripped-down street style to music back then. Suddenly there were tons of leather-jacketed chain smokin' hoodlums in their wake, but no one put out anything quite as good as The Strokes' debut "Is this It?"

It always makes me laugh that the guys in the band look like they worked in some Queens pizza parlor in their off time. They come off like the blue-collar sons of a bunch of Italian immigrants and even have surnames like Casablancas, Valensi, and Moretti. What's funny is the actual pedigree The Strokes brought to the table. Julian Casablancas was the son of mega-successful fashion icon John Casablancas, the founder of Elite Modeling Agency. Guitarist Albert Hammond Jr's father is an extremely successful musician and recording artist. The Strokes were no joke when it came to connections.

"Hard to Explain" is my favorite song of that first record. It showcases some of the signature elements of The Strokes' music: the simple frenetic rhythm guitar inter-played off the melody of the lead, Casablancas vocals which sound like they're sung through a paper cup, and drumming that seems just a little bit electronic. The best part of the song is without a doubt the chorus. I love the great beat of the melody of "I missed the last bus, I'll take the next train. I try but you see, it's hard to explain." I often tell my young poetry students that the best way to keep a beat is to use single-syllable words. Casablancas does that all over this song to wonderful effect. I also love when everything comes to a dead-stop in the middle of the tune, right after the line "You're right, it's true." As I've noted several times, that's always something I like in a song.

"Hard to Explain" is from the album "Is This It?" To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#88 "Hard Luck Woman" by KISS

I kind of feel like KISS just might be the cheesiest of the cheese. It's not that they're not talented or don't have good songs, but all of the hair, make-up, sequins, platform shoes, hairy chests, and exposed tongues just add up to a lot of kitschy silliness if you ask me. But you know what... KISS knows that the performance can be as important, if not more important than the songs themselves. After all, isn't the old saying, "It's not the story, but he who tells it"? KISS had that figured out a long time ago.

I first remember KISS when I was just a kid. I didn't know any of their songs. Their albums certainly never got any rotation in our conservative little house, but since the band was so cartoonish in their image a lot of people knew who they were even if they weren't familiar with any of their work. As a matter of fact, I remember my brother and I getting a KISS Destroyer puzzle for Christmas one year, and being totally psyched about it! And even though I thought Gene Simmons and his dragon boots were totally cool, when I heard that one of my cousins was going to a KISS concert, all I could envision was a very dark, loud place with a lot of scary long-haired people in attendance. And I remember the old legend that Gene supposedly, in between bouts of spitting fire and spewing blood out of his mouth, had occasionally stomped baby chicks in those fanged boots!?! Was my uncle insane or something?!? Letting his boy go to a KISS concert?!? In the end they were harmless. Shoot... for all I know, KISS put the baby chick story out there themselves. Like most rock stars, they knew that any press was good press.

"Hard Luck Woman" is one of a few songs sung by original drummer Peter Criss. I first heard it when my brother, years after our innocent youth, came home with the KISS Double Platinum record. Amidst all the party all night songs and the sleezy innuendo-filled songs and the god-of-thunder songs was this cool kind of country number. If I'd had a thousand choices, my last guess for who sang this would've been KISS, but sure enough it was. I found out that this little 1976 number was originally penned by Paul Stanley for Rod Stewart, who ultimately passed on it. Knowing that now, when you hear the beginning of it and Criss' raspy delivery, it's not a far cry from "Maggie May" and could easily have fit in with Stewart's early solo work. Regardless, this is a big favorite of mine. I get excited whenever I hear it.

On a related note, in 1994 country super-star Garth Brooks covered this song for a KISS tribute album. Now I think that Brooks is one of the cornier country stars around, but I have to give him some street-cred for picking such a cool song to sing, getting the original KISS line-up to back him on the track, and showing the world that there's more to him that big hats and ugly shirts.

"Hard Luck Woman" is from the album "Rock and Roll" over. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#87 "Happy" by The Rolling Stones

"Happy" is one of those great Stones' songs that you won't hear if you're only familiar with their big hits. A lot of people are content to listen to "Brown Sugar" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash," but I was excited to hear the Stones' other songs when someone loaned me some of their old albums. For me, deep cuts are where it's at.

"Happy" is from the Stones' legendary album "Exile On Main Street." It's one of Keith Richards' vocal contributions. A lot of people HATE Keith's voice. It's certainly not of the best quality, but what I always like is the way that people sing, not so much their ability to do so. The boozy crackling of Keith's ramblings have always appealed to me, so "Happy" was a pleasant surprise when I started my journey deep into the Rolling Stones' catalogue.

"Happy" is from the album "Exile on Main Street." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#86 "Hannah and Gabi" by The Lemonheads

I can't believe that I've nearly gone through a third of this list and I've yet to talk about Evan Dando. He's been a favorite of mine for a long time.

Like most people, my introduction to The Lemonheads came via their rockin' cover of "Mrs. Robinson" from their 1992 breakthrough album "It's a Shame About Ray." I thought it was pretty cool and loved how they sped up the original Simon and Garfunkel classic. It seemed like just a little while later I couldn't turn on MTV without seeing "Into Your Arms" every five minutes and hearing about what an alt-hunk Dando was. That song was good and certainly catchy, but I hadn't heard enough to make me want to go out and buy their cd. Remember... this was way before Itunes and Napster. You were taking a financial risk commiting $12 to a full album when you'd only heard a single song from it, especially if it wasn't a proven band that you'd liked for a while. But somewhere along the way I finally broke down and grabbed one of their albums. I think it was 1996's "Car Button Cloth," after loving "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" and "Outdoor Type." Yeah... I'm cheap. It takes me a while to invest. Humorously enough, that ended up being their last album!?! At that point, I'd waited long enough that there was plenty of back material to listen to though.

Sometimes I think that if I could sing like anyone, I might choose to sound like Evan Dando. It's not that he's got some spectacular voice or anything. He doesn't have the range of Jeff Buckley or recognizability of some other famous singers, but there's this great warmth to his vocals. I once read a review that said he had a syrupy baritone. I don't know about that, but over the years the quality of his voice has endured and even after all of the touring, the drugs, the cigarettes, and everything else Dando has sadly subjected himself to, he can still conjure up something wonderful every time he opens his mouth.

"Hannah and Gabi" has long been one of my favorite Lemonhead tunes. When I finally got the chance to see Dando in concert a few years ago, it was on my list of hopefuls to hear. I was so excited when I heard those opening notes. Among Dando's other gifts is his ability to play guitar. Actually, I think he's one of the more underrated acoustic strummers around, and those chops are on display in this song. What you also get is Dando's HUGE Graham Parsons' admiration, whose alt-country influence is usually on display in the best of The Lemonheads' catalogue.

"Hannah and Gabi" is from the album "It's a Shame About Ray." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the blog.

#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.