Songs I Didn't Skip (Part 17)

Thanks to any of you who have engaged with me on this list. It's fun to hear what other people think about these songs. Time to make the donuts!

"This Island Life" by Violent Femmes (1994)

This band got on my radar (or should it be SONAR?), not from hearing their biggest hit, "Blister in the Sun" but from hearing "Country Death Song", with its hardcore banjo playing, blasted on a friend's car stereo in the early 90s. This somehow resulted in me getting a CD of their 1994 album that few likely remember today. I still like the band, in limited quantities. 

"No Self Control" by Peter Gabriel (1980)

I guess it's been a while since I've listened to some of PG's music. This is a fun track that features Phil "Swarm of Bees" Collins on drums and a marimba!

"Highwayman" by Willie Nelson/The Highwaymen (1985)

The big hit from the country supergroup of the same name. How many country supergroups were there?

"Queen of the Silver Dollar" by Emmylou Harris (1975)

A great Shel Silverstein song. 

"Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin (1970)

What can I say about this classic? It, excuse the expression, ROCKS, and will outlast its association with the Thor movie. 

"Ballet for a Rainy Day" by XTC (1986) 

Peak XTC at their prog-rock Beatles-esque best.

"Grown Up Wrong" by The Rolling Stones (1964)

A basic, economical R&B-flavored Stones track

"Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Ray Charles (1960)

Yeah, pretty much beats the original.

"Closer to the Heart" by Rush (1977)

I wouldn't call this one their "monster" songs (I knew someone in college who repeatedly referred to Neil Peart as a "monster") but it's a very radio-friendly Rush song that gets right to it and doesn't wear out its welcome.

"Peter Gunn" (1959)

The original Mancini recording. If any song can be described as "Cool", it would be this one. That alto sax solo is out of control! I also associate it with the old arcade video game, Spy Hunter. 

"Anna" by Toto (1988)

IMO, the bass playing in this group, at least on the albums, wasn't as good after David Hungate left (1980) the band and the tracks on this album show it. This song sounds like it has keyboard bass but no matter; a solid Lukather power ballad.

"Some People" by LeAnn Rimes (2006)

Every time I hear a song like this, I get thinking how fundamentally similar modern country songs are to plain old rock/roll pop songs. There are surface level stylistic differences but the bones are the same. This is a good sentimental pop song with high production values and since it's "country", just plain "VALUES" LOL.

"Being Boring" by Pet Shop Boys (1990)

This is a good counterweight to the previous song on this list at least as far as the lyrics go. It's another song about long-term relationships.

"Try and Love Again" by The Eagles (1976)

Was Randy Meisner the "Ringo" of The Eagles? He got one song on this album and it's actually pretty good, though I don't love his lead vocal which seems to get outshined by the background singing (Frey/Henley?) so I could see this working very well as a cover. Maybe I also like it due to the fact that I am not sick of hearing it, unlike many of the other songs from this LP.

"Debaser" by The Pixies (1989)

Yeah, the lyrics are probably surrealist BS but the song is fun.

"Just a Man" by Los Lobos (1992)

From a very good album overall. The band is worth checking out if all you know them from is "La Bamba"

Songs I Didn't Skip (Part 16)

 "Last Night" by The Mar-Kays (1961)

Back when this amazing studio house band could just jam for 3 minutes and release the recording as a hit.

"Gold" by John Stewart (1979)

If this sounds like a Fleetwood Mac song with a different vocalist, it's because it was put together, at the behest of the record label, adding Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. The song has a great 70s radio-hook sound to it but I can see why Stewart pretty much disowned it as it didn't really represent what he usually wanted to do as an artist.

"Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers (1979)

This is quite the song and pretty dark, too.

"I Want to Live" by Talking Heads (1976)

Solid TH song and an early demo but Tina really needed to tone down the fret sound on the bass!

"Veronica" by Elvis Costello (1989)

This is of course a great EC song but I had no idea Sir Paul played bass on and co-wrote this. Makes sense.

"Walk With You" by Ringo Starr (2010)

Another Paul McCartney collaboration pops up. Nice tune.

"SWLABR" by Cream (1967)

I chose to stop here because this is one of the few Cream singles I haven't heard a million times.

"Sing a Simple Song" by Sly and the Family Stone" (1968)

Sly cannot be skipped!

"Breath of Life" by Erasure (1992)

This song sounds older than it is because if someone made a song that sounds like it today, it'd be thought of as an 80s (or even late 70s Kraftwerk) throwback.

"That Was Yesterday" by Foreigner (1985)

Phil Collins may have been the king of 80s relationship-end songs but this one is on the Phil level with perhaps less bitterness. Yes, Lou Gramm has been dumped but he's got his pride and he's moving on!

"Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode (1990)

This is a good companion to the Erasure song and really the whole album reminds me of my last year or so of college as I happened to buy a used CD of it after hearing parts of it at a friend's place. It's likely the band's best album and got popular for good reason. Listening to it now also made me think of how much work went into these old electronica albums. They seem like they took a lot more effort to sequence/record than something like it would today. These songs were made on computers then, like today, but the hardware them was a LOT harder to use.

"Satellite"  by Elliot Smith (1995)

Some good angst-folk vibes here.

"The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" by Prince (1995)

Funny how I get two of the same year in a row. Even "lesser" Prince is still damned good, even if he may have "borrowed" it.

"Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants (1988)

An early TMBG song that shows they were pretty much fully developed before I'd heard them in the early 1990s.

"All U Can Eat" by Ben Folds (2006)

Ben goes on a rant against Americans ... who eat at buffets?

"It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over" (1991)

Lenny goes really deep into retro-Motownland. 

"Sleep Late, My Lady Friend" by Harry Nilsson (1967)

I swear I've never heard this one before. And who can argue with the sentiment here?

"Powder Your Face With Sunshine (Smile, Smile, Smile)" by Dean Martin (1948)

As this was written by someone who was recovering from spinal injuries, I'll take this as more of a guideline than a rule. Also seems somewhat stiff for a Deano tune.

Songs I Didn't Skip (Part 15)

 I don't have anything quippy to add for the fifteenth installment. But I wonder, if Toto were still making albums, would they have used, "The Fifteenth One"? Deep.

"Lido Shuffle" by Boz Skaggs (1977)

And speaking of Toto...The Boz strikes again! 

"Would I Lie To You?" by Eurythmics (1985)

I stated a while back that I'd stop this crazy thing when I hit a repeat. For a second I thought I did but NO. This technically isn't a dupe since I have two versions of this song in ye olde music library. Why, you ask? Back in an ancient time, I was a member of this thing called a Listserv (kids, ask your parents about these) devoted to audiophile turntables and vinyl. Oddly enough, kids do know what these are! For a time, I found it entertaining to read a lot of discussion about a hobby I could barely afford but made my best effort at it participating in.

There were a number of somewhat well-known audiophile magazine reviewers who contributed there and one of them was reviewing this super high-end turntable setup that cost north of $100,000 (in early 2000s dollars) and he made a CD-R (Do kids know what these are? Never mind, no kids are reading this anyhow) that was a sampling of tracks he played back from a lot of different LPs to give people an idea of what this machine could do with everyday ordinary vinyl. The guy asked the membership of this list to reply with an address and he'd mail a copy of this CD to the first one. That guy (let's be honest, it was a dude) would mail the CD to the next person down and so on after presumably listening to it and, like me, making a copy. The songs sounded fantastic and had virtually no "noise" even though some of them were decades old even then. The Eurythmics song was slightly better, to my ears, than the regular CD version I had, perhaps more bass if I remember that right. In any case, Apple Music doesn't consider it the "legit" version in their database so it's in there twice and does sound slightly different. Aren't you glad you asked?

"Caught in the Rain" by Revis (2003)

While we're on an early 'aughts mode, here's a one-hit wonder of post grunge. I have this track because I once stayed at the Hard Rock Resort hotel in the Orlando Universal park and in the room, along with the bars of soap, shampoo and bible, there was a sampler CD (what's with all the sampler CDs?!) that, if memory serves, was created for the hotel with tracks of...rock. It was a bit more legal than the previous CD, I'm thinking. This is the only reason I would have this song and probably didn't listen to it since then. It was also "notable" for being on the soundtrack to the 2003 Daredevil movie that no one liked. 

"Do You Realize" by The Flaming Lips (2002)

This is getting to be as bad as the 1978 pattern. This song works pretty well on its own even though it's part of a concept album. Cool.

"When You Come" by Crowded House (1988)

Out of all the solid Crowded House hits, this one flies under the radar a bit but very solid.

"Candela" by Buena Vista Social Club (1997)

One of these days I should look up the English lyrics for these tunes.

"Urge For Going" by Joni Mitchell (1972)

A classic among classics for JM that expresses the constant movement in life so well.

"Cool Yule" by Louis Armstrong and The Commanders (1953)

Yeah, it's a holiday song but one of my favorites; written by Steve Allen, who wrong a lot of songs (8,500 supposedly)! The recording has the horns sounding like they are coming from Grant's Tomb, but still great.

"Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day" by Jethro Tull (1975)

A song (supposedly) about climate change...in 1975!

"Loneliest Star" by Seal (2003)

OK, so I stopped paying attention to Seal not long after this song came out but this is mid-shelf Seal. Very slickly produced, shiny pop.

"It's Now Or Never" by Elvis Presley (1960)

To be honest, I lingered on this one with the thought that it's be a good tune to do at ballroom dance gigs; Elvis cha-cha.

"Walking The Long Miles Home" by Richard Thompson (1999)

I could imagine this being a bitter sequel to the previous song.

"Toolmaster of Brainerd" by Trip Shakespeare (1989)

If there's one song in all of these posts you should go check out, it's this one. "Up in Brainerd where the children go to milking school. " It sounds like a Midwestern Jefferson Airplane. 

"Son of Your Father" by Elton John (1970)

It's nice to hear one of the EJ songs that doesn't come up very often, from one of his "American" style LPs.

"Ride Captain Ride" by Blues Image (1970)

A classic one-hitter who's membership went on to play in a number of notable 1970s rock acts.

"I Sat by the Ocean" by Queens of the Stone Age (2013)

2013? That's like super contemporary for this list!

"Imposter" by Oingo Boingo (1981)

Gee Danny, tell us what you really think.

Songs I Didn't Skip (Part 14)

 Full disclosure: a couple of these I ended up listening to because I was cooking and wasn't able to wash my hands in time. I won't tell you which ones.

"Bottle of Blues" by Beck (1998)

Here's one by an artist I can say is one of the last "cool" acts I was into when their material was new. Beck seemed to, at the time I was listening, alternate between pseudo retro acoustic songs and electronic tracks. This is the former. I always liked his versatility but, "you can't make love to no Beck!".

“Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings (1978)

An old-fashioned fadeout for an old-fashioned song.

"Side" by Travis (2001)

I enjoy the music on this song more than the lyrics which try a little too hard to be profound.

"The Look of Love (Part One) by ABC (1982)

Did anyone ever listen to Part Two?

"Long, Long, Long" by The Beatles (1968)

One of the best tracks on "The White Album" and it's by George.

"Hiawatha" by Laurie Anderson (1989)

I listened to this album a lot in college. It's pretty atypical Anderson but still great and has huge list of all-star session musicians on it, including that amazing bassist who played on the "Graceland" album.

"Mambo Italiano" by Rosemary Clooney (1954)

A very goofy novelty song that was trying to mock/take advantage of the popularity of latin music at the time, It sounds like the same obnoxious harpsichord player that's on her earlier hit, "Come on-a My House". Some people must have really loathed Mitch Miller in those days.

"The Payback" by James Brown (1973)

There's a reason this shows up so often in movies/TV.

"The Promised Land" by Bruce Springsteen (1978)

Again with the 1978!

"Can't Get There From Here" by R.E.M. (1985)

There's a baritone sax on this song! ("But I'm looking for the same Old Place")

"You Can All Join In" by Traffic (1968)

Steve Winwood really stands out in the background vocals. Catchy song.

"Give Me Strength" by Howard Jones (1986)

HJ does...reggae? And, there's a credit on this album for "tap-dancing".