Some More Songs For You Until We Get Back to Doing This on a Daily Basis

Back when we started Lucid Culture – if you don’t remember our infancy, so much the better, infancy is always messy – we promised you a new post every day, a reason to keep you coming back again and again. Lately we’ve been doing it more in fits and spurts than usual  – although if you count up everything we’ve put up since we went bicoastal at the end of September, we’re only about a week behind. Loyal readers will remember how we used to put up a new song from our 666 Best Songs of Alltime list every day, counting them down one at a time on the way to #1. We fully intend to resume that countdown, and in the meantime, here’s a bunch that might wet your whistle or get you humming along, that take the countdown up to November 19, to be precise:

268. The Velvet Underground – After Hours

Listen closely: this is a twisted Broadway song. A very subtle parody, maybe? Just imagine if Maureen Tucker’s unforgettably stoic, off-key vocals had been replaced by, say, Streisand. Of course, then the song’s wrenching, understated angst would have been lost. “People look well in the dark.” Don’t we.

267. REM – South Central Rain

Wherein Peter Buck strapped on his Vox Teardrop and played one of his most hauntingly beautiful hooks while Mike Mills’ bass soared over the poignancy of the jangle and clang. The link above is the original video – for some reason, Buck is playing what looks like a hollowbody Gretsch. From Reckoning, 1984; mp3s are everywhere.

266. The Moody Blues – I Know You’re Out There Somewhere

This song is about losing your muse, or your voice, and then rediscovering it. The original 1988 single is a shitshow of glossy studio electronics, but onstage the band ripped this big, jangly, crescendoing anthem to shreds, Justin Hayward slamming out those big guitar chords for all they’re worth. The version on the 1992 Live at Red Rocks cd (see the link above) isn’t bad, and there are even better bootleg takes floating around. The Moody Blues continue to tour and with all of the original band members well into their sixties, are reputedly still vital.

265. Son Volt – Tear Stained Eye

This plaintive, twangy escape anthem is one of the great moments in alt-country: “Saints don’t bother with a tear stained eye.” The studio version on what is probably the best; the link above is from the 1998 live album recorded at Irving Plaza in New York.

264. Radio Birdman – Aloha Steve & Danno

This riff-rock smash interpolates the Hawaii 5-0 theme within the chorus, a fan favorite and one of the surfiest things the legendary Australian garage punks ever did. From the 1979 classic Radios Appear; there are also a million live takes out there and virtually all of them are pretty amazing as well. The link above is a vintage 1978 live take; here’s one from a recent reunion tour.

263. Queen – 39

From the last band you’d ever expect to be capable of poignancy, here’s a stunningly sad, evocative, country-flavored time travel ballad, once a staple of classic rock radio: spaceman returns home only to find the place is completely different and everyone he knew is dead. The layers of Brian May’s acoustic guitar against John Deacon’s upright bass are exquisite. From A Night at the Opera, 1976 (yup – the one with Bohemian Rhapsody on it).   

262. The Move – Blackberry Way

One of the most haunting pop songs ever written, Roy Wood’s 1968 orchestrated rock lament was the band’s only #1 UK hit – strangely, the band never reached anything more than cult status stateside. After going even deeper into loungey pop, frontman Carl Wayne would leave the band to pursue its darker, louder side on the excellent albums Looking On and Message from the Country. But this foreshadows what lay even further ahead in ELO.

261. The Boomtown Rats – Living in an Island

Gleefully morbid existentialist new wave hit, fiery reggae-rock lit up by Garry Roberts’ guitar over Pete Briquette’s ominous descending bassline. From the classic 1978 lp A Tonic for the Troops.

260. Jethro Tull – Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day

With their tricky time signatures, artsy flourishes, electrified Scottish jigs and often impenetrably weird or pretentious lyrics, Jethro Tull were the last band you’d ever expect to have a radio hit. Yet back in the 70s they had several. This was once a big FM radio standard, a bitingly surreal, lushly jangly, bracingly existentialist lament. From the otherwise disappointing 1974 Warchild lp; mp3s are everywhere.

259. Bob Dylan – Visions of Johanna

This song is one big ellipse: who is Johanna, and why is she missing? And what’s up with Louise? It also happens to be one of the most evocative songs ever written: in the deathly stillness of the organ and the mesh of the acoustic guitar, the wintertime ambience where “the heat pipes just cough” could not be more vivid. From Blonde on Blonde, 1966; mp3s are everywhere.

258. Richard Thompson – Yankee Go Home

The iconic guitarist/songwriter defiantly resisted the vogue of Americanizing his music back when British artists were doing that in order to court an American audience, and he’s never held back from criticizing the US, particularly during the Bush regime. This gorgeously catchy broadside dates from his 1987 Amnesia lp, telling Reagan to get his troops the hell out of the UK.  

257. The Clash – London’s Burning

Best song on the band’s first album, a volcanic bedlam of guitars half-drowning Joe Strummer’s snarling lyrics: “London’s burning with boredom now.” Killer ending, too. Download away – nobody’s getting any royalties from this.

256. The Rolling Stones – Just My Imagination

Alongside the Sex Pistols’ version of My Way, this ranks as one of the great cover songs ever, adding hypnotically ringing guitar fury to the Temptations’ pretty but tame top 40 hit. As great as the 1977 version from Some Girls is, there are plenty of intriguing live takes from the era which are just as good: peek around.

255. Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town

The vivid chronicle of a compulsive gambler slowly and inexorably losing it – when it comes to verisimilitude, Tom Waits has nothing on this. Title track from the 1977 album, which isn’t bad, but the Byrdsy janglefest on the 1985 live box set is completely different, somewhat more understated and therefore in its own strange way even more menacing. There are a million versions out there, most of them live, some good, some less so. Have fun digging around.

254. Pink Floyd – Us & Them

Arguably the band’s best and most definitive song, Roger Waters’ visionary antiwar lyric set to Rick Wright’s hypnotic, fluidly symphonic, Beatlesque melody: “Forward he cried from the rear, and the front rank died.” Interestingly, it remained a staple of classic rock radio throughout the Bush years – apparently, even a fascist in office can’t stop corporate radio from giving audiences the Floyd they know and love so well.

253. Bruce Springsteen – Point Blank

When Springsteen wasn’t mythmaking, there are few other songwriters who’ve had such a handle on life on the impoverished fringes, or such compassion for the people who live there. This is an anguished gutter ballad from the River, 1980: guy watches his druggie ghetto girlfriend slip away despite his best efforts. The late Danny Federici’s organ swirling like a cauldron behind Roy Bittan’s poignantly incisive, minimalist piano is one of the band’s alltime high points. A million versions of this out there, good luck: the studio track is unbeatable.

252. Erica Smith – The World Is Full of Pretty Girls

This could be the great lost track from American Beauty, the NYC Americana chanteuse at the absolute top of her game as understatedly charismatic siren and haunting lyricist. Behind her, Jon Graboff’s pedal steel tones mingle with Dann Baker’s understatedly resolute Jazzmaster lines as the bass rises with a melody all its own. From her classic 2008 cd Snowblind.

251. Bruce Springsteen – Stolen Car

The tension on this song is so tight you could cut it with a knife, Max Weinberg’s kettle drum reverberating hauntingly in the background as the Boss calmly, fatalistically narrates his protagonist’s descent into what would justifiably be called madness. Arguably the best cut on the River, 1980, the studio version remains unbeatable.

250. Big Lazy – Theme from Headtrader

This haunting, noir Mingus-meets-Morricone reverb guitar instrumental takes its title from the episode of the network tv detective drama where it first aired. Released on the band’s classic 1996 debut, back when they were called Lazy Boy (the furniture manufacturer threatened to sue, causing them to adopt the sarcastic new name), this has guitarist/composer Steve Ulrich, bassist Paul Dugan and then-drummer Willie Martinez at the absolute peak of their macabre powers.