Please Listen

 

Listen to the last refrain of Nowhere Man.

 

I will love Paul McCartney ‘til the day I die.

Sock It To Me

 

The thing about lists is they are designed to create controversy.  Witness Rolling Stone’s 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.  Everyone’s going to have a grievance or three.  This one’s too low on the list, that one’s too high.  And – especially, it would seem, if you’re a Celine Dion fan – why isn’t she (or he) on the list?

 

But this list created a different problem for me, because for every okay-I-get-it and are-you-serious? on the list there was also a who?

 

I must be getting old.

How Many?

 

I know Chuck Berry only wrote, like, three songs, but all twenty-eight of them are fabulous.

I Woke Up This Morning …

 

Over the years, I’ve heard lots of criticism about 12-bar blues, all of it boiling down to: it’s boring because it’s so predictable.

 

Fair enough, but do you know why it’s endured all these years?  Because it works.

Or Else Expecting Rain

 

Check out the lyrics for Dylan’s Desolation Row. 

 

How can one guy be this …  insightful, cutting, good, clever, empathic, cynical, hypnotic, intimate?

 

Thanks, Bob.  Wow!  Ouch!  Right on!  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

 

I think.

Deep Inside My Heart I Know I Can’t Escape

 

Here’s some heresy for you:

 

Who is the greatest blues songwriter?  Willie Dixon?  Robert Johnson?  Howlin’ Wolf?  Muddy Waters?  B.B. King?

 

I think a serious case could be made for one Robert Zimmerman.

Ol’ Poor Boy

 

The older I get, the more I understand why George Harrison revered Carl Perkins.

We Can’t Rewind, We’ve Gone Too Far

 

Maybe it’s not high art, but poignant lyrics and a thoughtful arrangement

elevate Video Killed the Radio Star above the status of just a silly pop song.

Time Is Tight

 

Who’s on your list of tightest bands of all time?  Led Zeppelin?  U2?  The Allman Brothers?  Jethro Tull?  Yes?  AC/DC?  Steely Dan?

 

Have a listen to Melting Pot by Booker T. & the MG’s and tell me they don’t belong.

She’ll Never Break

 

The Stones should have re-recorded Heart of Stone when they were making Voodoo Lounge.  I mean, they were always good, but their musicianship and production was just so much better later on.