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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #92: Won’t Get Fooled Again

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

The Who from Who’s Next (1971)

 

“The CSI:Miami theme song made your top 100 list?” Peggy said.

I laughed. “You know, I’ll bet there are some people who think the song was recorded for that show. Those are the same people who think Kanye West gave a big break to an old musician named Paul-something.”

“So where does Who’s Next stand on your list of greatest albums.”

“Don’t get me started on albums. However, if I were to put such a list together – and I’m not saying that I’m going to – Who’s Next would be very high up there. It starts with ‘Baba O’Reilly’ and it ends with this song. If what came between was nothing but Keith Moon’s besotted mumblings, it would still be an unforgettable record.”

“Number twelve,” Peggy said after a pause.

“Wait, you have a list of top albums?”

“I didn’t, but I started one after we reconnected. I didn’t want to do a song list because I didn’t want you to accuse me of copying you.”

“What’s number one?”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

“Nope, I can hold out. You know that patience is one of my few virtues.”

I was lying. As soon as Peggy mentioned that she’d put a list of best albums together, I wanted to know everything on it. That was of course why I’d bridged the distance between us to share my list with her. Peggy was the one person I’d ever been able to be an unabashed music nerd with.

Peggy cut into my thoughts. “Does Townsend get extra credit for making a synthesizer actually sound like a musical instrument here?”

“I think he does. Not many had done so before him. Mostly it was just a bunch of bleeps and blurps. Keith Emerson got it mostly right on ‘Lucky Man,’ but even that switches to noodling by the end.”

“And then there’s the whole next-generation protest song thing.”

“I think that’s what makes this song a classic. It’s a great track – big guitar, crushing bass, just-barely-under-control drums, that amazing wail from Daltrey toward the end – but Townsend’s post-sixties vision of where revolution gets us just keeps resonating.”

“It almost seems more relevant now, doesn’t it?”

That was a political discussion for another day, but it was awfully hard to disagree with Peggy.

It was so great to be speaking with her like this again.

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Mar 26, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #93: Dear Mr. Fantasy

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Traffic from Mr. Fantasy (1967)

 

“Steve Winwood: top-five rock voice ever?” Peggy said.

“Not counting R&B singers? Yeah, I wouldn’t argue against that.”

“Well, that was the thing. He had a voice made for R&B, but he was singing these trippy tunes. How many other people could have done that?”

“He definitely carved a distinctive place for himself with Traffic. But I really think he could have sung anything. After all, the biggest hit of his career was ‘Higher Love.’”

“‘Higher Love,’ yeah. Do you think Winwood ever thought while he was writing ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy’ that he would wind up with a slick haircut singing a dance tune?”

I remembered the complaints from the Traffic faithful when that song landed that the great Steve Winwood had sold out. “I never hated that song as much as others did,” I said. “Really, I was just happy that he had a big hit after all those years.”

“Promise me ‘Higher Love’ isn’t in your top hundred.”

I laughed. “No, definitely not. I don’t think I have any total-career-pivots like that on the list.”

“That’s good to hear. I was really worried that Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ was going to show up at some point. So what is it about ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy’ that makes it a song for the ages for you? The dreamy chord changes? The shredding guitar? The plaintive vocal?”

“D: all of the above. But you actually didn’t mention the thing I love the most. And this one has nothing to do with Winwood; it’s a Jim Capaldi thing. I just love the story he tells with only a handful of lines about a musician’s unique ability to make us feel more alive. That was both inspirational and aspirational.”

“Oh, right. Your rock star phase.”

“I’m not sure it qualifies as a phase.”

“Wasn’t it the only thing you wanted for your entire adolescence?”

“‘Only thing’ is overstating it. I also wanted good pizza.”

“And this was because of ‘Dear Mr. Fantasy.’”

“Not entirely, but that song gave voice to something I was feeling inside. I think it still does, except the stage has changed.”

“Yeah, one of these days we’ll talk about something other than music during these conversations and you can give me a hopes-and-dreams update.”

“Any time you want?”

“Really?”

“Any time.”

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Mar 24, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #94: Smells Like Teen Spirit

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics
Nirvana from Nevermind (1991)

“There’s a handful of before-and-after moments in rock history,” Peggy said. “This is one of them.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “nihilism was around long before Kurt Cobain.”

“Yeah, but it never sounded like this.”

Peggy was of course right, which was why “Smells Like Teen Spirit” made my top 100. So many other bands of this time captured some of what Nirvana was capturing – the dynamics, the raw anxiety, the alienation – but it seemed as though Nirvana was the only band to master all of it. Not only that, but they did it with a level of musicality that demanded listening and stood the test of time.

“So you think music changed from this point forward?” I said.

“Not permanently – it never changes permanently – but ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was a pivot point.”

“It’s also the kind of song that a band can only do early in its career.”

Peggy hesitated on that for a few moments. “Hmm, I’d never considered that. So you can’t do a song like this on your fifth album?”

“I don’t think so. Not unless you recorded your first album when you were eight. It’s a combination of physical age and musical development. I think both need to be fairly young to make a statement with this much blunt force. Things start to become more nuanced after that.”

“Which leads to the eternal question of where Kurt Cobain might have gone if he’d lived.”

I think most of us who take rock music seriously have considered this, maybe as often as we’ve wondered where Hendrix would have gone. Many have conjectured that Cobain would have been the John Lennon of his time if he hadn’t taken his life.

“I’m not in the John Lennon camp,” I said.

“I’m with you there. Cobain wasn’t nearly as accomplished a songwriter at 27 as Lennon.”

“I do think he would have evolved and written a bunch of memorable songs, though. You can see from Nirvana’s Unplugged performance that he was already experimenting with new forms. Combine that with his innate understanding of structure, and I think it’s safe to assume that there were some great compositions down the road.”

“Too bad we never got to hear them. Do you think he got a decent deal?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he only got to live 27 years, but he left behind a piece of work that people will be listening to for generations. Is that a good trade?”

“Well, Bruce Springsteen is in his sixties and he’s left behind lots o work that people will be listening to for generations.”

Peggy made the “tsk” sound she often made to indicate that I wasn’t getting it. “That’s not what I’m saying. I know there are people who’ve lived much longer and contributed much more. What I’m asking, though, is if you would consider 27 years and one immortal album to be enough of a life.”

I thought about that, but only briefly. “I don’t think so.”

“I do.”

“But then instead of the two of us having these conversations, I’d be putting on your record every now and then and thinking about how sorry I am that you were gone so soon.”

“So?”

That caught me up short. “I think we might have more to talk about than I thought we did.”

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Mar 17, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #95: I Heard It Through The Grapevine

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Marvin Gaye from In the Groove (1968)

“So what’s worse,” Peggy said, “hearing it through the grapevine or getting a breakup text?”

“Since I have no experience with the latter, I’m going to have to go with the former. Also, I can’t imagine Marvin Gaye singing a song about receiving a breakup text.”

“If he had, though, he would have crushed your heart with it –while at the same time making you wish you were him.”

Peggy had nailed it. There were many remarkable things about Marvin Gaye as a singer, but maybe most notable was his ability to make you feel his pain in such a way that you wished you were him feeling this pain. The first time I heard this song, I knew that what he was describing was a lousy way for a relationship to end, but I had no doubt that Marvin Gaye (or the character he was playing in the song) was going to come out of this fine. The woman who had wronged him would probably regret her behavior for the rest of her life, but he would move on to someone better … someone who appreciated a man who felt like Marvin Gaye.

“Yeah, that was pretty true of everything he did,” I said. “There are so many other versions of this song – Gladys Knight had the first hit with it, remember – but for me no one nailed the sentiment of this song the way Gaye did.”

“Well, there were the California Raisins.”

“Close second.”

Peggy laughed. Then she was quiet for several seconds. Once she’d moved to Austin, I’d always sought to fill any empty spaces in our conversation instantly. I didn’t today, though. This was more like our college days when we could go a half-hour without saying a word and still feel that we were connecting.

“Wait,” she said, finally. “You’ve had experience hearing it through the grapevine?”

“You remember.”

“I really don’t.”

I was a little hurt. “You really don’t?”

She was silent for several seconds more. “You mean…?”

“It counts.”

Peggy’s voice came back strong. “She didn’t count. How many times did I tell you that?”

“It didn’t scar me for life. I just thought of it because we were talking about this song. Music, you know?”

 

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Mar 12, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #96: Rolling in the Deep

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Adele from 21 (2011)

“So I see your entire list isn’t going to be music made by guys a long time ago,” Peggy said.

“Not entirely, no.”

“It’s nice that you’ve stayed evolved. So what do you think? Is Adele the most important pop artist of the decade?”

“More important than Carly Rae Jepsen? Gee, I don’t know…”

Peggy chuckled. “She’s in the conversation, right?”

“No question. In fact, she’s central to the conversation. Just as 21 needs to be in the conversation for most important album of the decade. There’s so much good stuff on it. Ultimately, I felt that ‘Rolling in the Deep’ edged out songs like ‘Don’t You Remember’ and ‘Set Fire to the Rain’ because of the dynamics. I remember the first time I heard it I thought it was a nice tune with a great vocal – and then she got to the first chorus. I actually got goosebumps. That’s not a daily occurrence for me.”

“You’re just not living right. The thing that struck me was watching her sing this live for the first time. This is one tough song to sing and she looked like she was expending no effort at all. She probably could have gone up another three octaves without breaking a sweat.”

“One can only hope that she keeps her career moving forward, because there have been very few singers who can bring her combination of emotion and technical skill.”

“Let’s just hope she doesn’t need to experience an awful breakup to make music this good.”

“It really was the breakup heard ’round the world, wasn’t it?”

Peggy was quiet for a few seconds. “That’s the same thing you said about my split with Paul.”

I had completely forgotten about that. Paul was the guy Peggy dated for most of her junior year of college. I was never a huge fan, but I kept my opinions to myself. When they broke up that summer, Peggy spoke about nothing else for weeks…and weeks. About two months into this, I threw out the “breakup heard ’round the world” line to indicate that maybe this thing had been talked out. I mean, he really was kind of a jerk. Peggy didn’t speak to me for ten days afterward. It was the longest we ever went without talking until she moved to Austin.

“Sorry to bring up bad memories,” I said.

“Hey, we’re talking about music. Comes with the territory.”

I suddenly felt awkward, which was a feeling I rarely had with Peggy.

“Too bad you can’t sing like Adele, huh? You really could have cashed in.”

Peggy offered a little laugh. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

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Mar 10, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #97: Stairway to Heaven

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Led Zeppelin from Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

 

“Masses of teenage boys from the seventies are en route to picket your house because of this low ranking,” Peggy said.

“You know, the funny thing is that it probably wouldn’t have made my top hundred at all if not for the Kennedy Center performance,” I said, referring to the tribute by the Wilson sisters, Jason Bonham, and an all-star backup band when Led Zeppelin were given a Kennedy Honor. “I’d just heard it so many times that I couldn’t listen to it anymore. That performance reminded me how stirring the song can be. And it was kind of cool to see Robert Plant wiping his eyes while he watched it.”

“Yeah, that got to me, too. So this is an interesting thing to think about when considering a pop song’s greatness. It not only has to stand the test of time, but also the test of being played endlessly.”

“I think that’s a legitimate litmus test. You know, I tell my kids all the time that they need to factor what the world was like before a piece of work came out when you think about its greatness. The first Saturday Night Live looks creaky now, but it changed television forever. The Left Hand of Darkness might seem didactic at this point, but science fiction was never the same after it. But I think it’s also fair to factor in a fatigue effect. That’s probably exclusive to music. I mean, how many times are you ever going to watch Casablanca, right? But with songs, if you hear it thousands of times and get to the point where you hit “skip” after the first few bars, I think that says something.”

“And you got there with ‘Stairway?’”

“Most of the way there. I just needed some distance. Now, if it comes up on my phone, I’m glad to hear it.”

“It really is an amazing composition.”

“No argument. Gorgeous introduction.”

“Which Page didn’t write.”

“I know, ‘Taurus.’ Then the bridge into the final section is about as symphonic as rock music gets without a symphony.”

“And then the killer solo and Plant’s wailing.”

“And the fact that rock songs didn’t sound like this in 1971.”

“That too. Are you sure ninety-eight is the right spot for this one?”

I rolled my eyes, even though we were talking on the phone and Peggy couldn’t see me doing so. “If I told you how many times I went over this list and the personal criteria I put in place to compile it, you’d call the Nerd Police on me.”

“I’ve already reported you. I’m just saying that when I told Stevie about your list, one of the first things he said was, ‘Well, “Stairway” has to be in the top ten.’”

“Now you know why Stevie and I never got along.”

“There are different reasons why Stevie and you never got along.”

I let that rest between us for a few seconds.

“I think we should talk about Robert Plant’s hair instead,” I said.

“Yeah, probably.”

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Mar 05, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #98: Yesterday

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

The Beatles (well, at least one of them and George Martin) from Help! (1965)

 

“How do you think Paul McCartney feels when he sings this song now?” Peggy said.

“Rich?”

“I think he probably always feels rich. What I mean is that he had just turned twenty-three years old when this song came out, which meant that he was no more than twenty-two when he wrote it. Yet there’s so much melancholy in the way he reflects here. Do you think, while he’s singing this song now, he ever imagines, ‘I can’t believe I thought things were that heavy back then?’”

“I think you just hit on what makes this a top 100 song. There are several songs on the list about which you could say the same thing.”

“I wouldn’t know, since I haven’t seen the rest of the list.”

“Nothing you say is going to tempt me to let you know what’s coming. My point here, though, is that the lyric works both in that naive way where everything seems so momentous when you’re in your early twenties and in the deeper way when you consider your truly life-changing events when you get older.”

“Probably why it’s been covered thousands of times. Wasn’t this one of the first songs by a rock band that Frank Sinatra ever recorded?”

“Yeah, he probably still considered McCartney a punk, but the message got through to him.”

“Universals.”

“I love universals.”

“It probably wouldn’t have resonated as much if it had been about scrambled eggs, huh?”

I chortled, which was something only Peggy was able to make me do. McCartney had used the title and a few lines as a placeholder until he came up with more suitable lyrics for the melody he’d created. He and Jimmy Fallon performed the “original” version together on Late Night.

“Could you imagine if he’d decided those lyrics were good enough?” I said.

“Not out of the realm of possibility considering some of the songs he released post-Beatles.”

I allowed myself a few seconds to imagine the alternate reality where perhaps our greatest songwriting genius got derailed putting out a song about breakfast.

Then I let the real song seep back into me, which led me to consider the time that had passed since Peggy and I had been in regular contact.

“What are your ‘Yesterday’ moments?” I said.

She chuckled, and I thought I caught a bit of nervousness in it. “Don’t get me started.”

“Why not? I’ve got some time.”

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Mar 03, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #99: Whole Lotta Love

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics (not sure you really need these)

Led Zeppelin from Led Zeppelin II (1969)

 

“Ah, another message song,” Peggy said. Again, no “Hello.” Did Peggy greet all callers like this now?

“You know, some people don’t realize that ‘Shake for me, girl, I wanna be your backdoor man’ was about Cambodia.”

“Casual listeners. So if you were doing a list of coolest breaks ever, where would the mid-section of this song rank?”

“Top five, probably, Gotta put ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ ahead of it at least, right?”

“What about heaviest opening riffs?”

“Maybe top five there, too.”

“And yet the song is only number ninety-nine.”

“Well, yeah. You know me. I’m a melody and lyrics guy and, this song’s a little short on both. It’s a testament to how great that break and opening riff are that I listed it so high.”

“Where would this song have ranked when you were seventeen?”

I understood what Peggy was asking here. She wasn’t asking if the song would have been much higher if not supplanted by songs that came later. She was asking if personal context affected my rankings. Would seventeen-year-old me, focused much more on my body than my brain (to put it politely) have resonated with the primal values of the song and therefore considered it much greater? Of course context matters, I thought, jumping to some of the songs higher on the list, but I always put a premium on song craft, even when my hormones called more of the shots.

“A few notches higher, maybe. Not that much.”

“You’re so evolved. Keep it coolin’, babe.”

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Feb 26, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #100: Where the Streets Have No Name

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

U2 from The Joshua Tree (1987)

 

I’m not a music critic, though I’ve published several music critics over the years. What I am is a serious fan who literally grew up with rock music. From the day I was born (on Elvis’s birthday, by the way), there has been rock music playing, and my earliest memories involve a rock and roll soundtrack.

I do have some credentials as a novelist, so when I put this list together, I decided that the best way I could present each selection was to create a fictional conversation between “me” and a former close friend who I reconnect with through these rankings.

* * *

Peggy and I were music buddies all through college and into our early years in the real world. A great night together for us was dropping a brand-new album and reading to each other from the liner notes while sharing a six and a pizza from Carlo’s with meatballs and extra cheese. Even when one of us was seriously involved in a relationship, we’d find at least once a month to listen and talk music.

Then Peggy moved to Austin for that teaching gig. Then Stevie came into her life, and I should have realized right away that it was the real thing because our long-distance music dates went from sparse to nonexistent within the span of a few months. I saw her exactly twice after the wedding: when I was part of a panel on publishing at U of T and when she came up for her mother’s funeral. That was eighteen years ago. When Facebook came along, we friended each other so I could learn how the three dogs were doing and she could see my kids grow up. But we never spoke, because we just weren’t in each other’s orbits.

I didn’t specifically create my Top 100 list to reconnect with Peggy. When I was finished preparing it, though, she was one of the first people I let know that I’d done so. She suggested a call about #100. Ninety-nine others followed. Here’s the first:

“You were always a sucker for a great opening,” she said when she answered the phone rather than “Hello.”

“It’s an awfully good opening.”

“Almost ‘California Girls’ good. And this song is actually about something.”

“That song was about something, too. If you had ever been a teenage boy, you would understand.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Bono wrote the lyrics in Ethiopia, you know.”

“Yeah, I heard that. He was taken by how much less status conscious that culture was, and he longed for that.”

“Funny coming from a guy who wound up being the most famous rock star of his generation.”

I grinned over Peggy’s observation. “He’s always been a great conveyor of messages, though. Messages you can dance to. The supreme rock and roll mission.”

“So is the rest of your list filled with messages you can dance to?”

“Not so much. There are plenty of songs where the message is nothing more profound than ‘sex is great.’ And there are lots of songs you can’t dance to.”

“Such as?”

“Nope, no sneak peeks.”

“What about telling me what isn’t on the list.”

“You want me to name all of the songs ever recorded except for the hundred songs I chose?”

“Maybe some other time. I was thinking about the songs that just missed.”

I considered this. Would Peggy glean too much by knowing what wasn’t on the list? In college, she would have spent days reading the signs. We were a long way from college, though.

“The first ten out were Walking in Memphis, Piece of My Heart, Monday Monday, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, Nineteen Forever, The Needle and the Damage Done, Here Comes the Sun, The Tracks of My Tears, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, and Mr. Tambourine Man.”

“You found a hundred songs better than Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood?”

“Feel free to create your own list.”

“Count on it. So what’s #99?”

“Next time. How’s Stevie doing?”

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Feb 24, 2015
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An excerpt from THE DISCIPLINE MIRACLE

By lousiteadmin

The Three Parenting Principles I will describe in the following chapters are essential if you want to raise happy, well-adjusted kids. Think of these Three Parenting Principles as the three legs of a stool. If you use only two of the legs, you will fall over. If you don’t use any of the legs, you will not be supported and will find yourself on the floor. The Three Principles have evolved from my decades of clinical work as well as extensive review of hundreds of books and articles about kids and parenting. And they absolutely work. Will these Principles make it so that your child will always behave? Of course not. But you can rest assured that if you apply these Principles consistently, you will be the best parent you can be and you will raise the best kid your child can be.

◊ PRINCIPLE #1: BE A SAFE HARBOR – Create a secure base for your child and ensure that you and your child have a healthy attachment.
◊ PRINCIPLE #2: BE A GOOD BOSS – Set firm limits and demand in a loving way that your child accept your rules and their responsibilities.
◊ PRINCIPLE #3: PREPARE THEM FOR THE REAL WORLD – Give your child what he needs rather than what he wants and teach him the importance of being part of a larger community.

The urgency in learning and applying the Three Parenting Principles depends upon your circumstances. For example, if you and your family are essentially stress free, you have no mental or physical conditions that run in your family, you and your child are completely healthy and happy, and your family has never experienced any traumas or life tragedies, then your child is much less likely to progress from normal developmental problems to severe behavioral problems. However, even if you are this fortunate, you can still enhance your chances of raising a happy child if you follow the Three Principles. On the other hand, if your home or family has experienced a high degree of stress or adversity, or your child has significant temperamental, biological, or genetic problems, then you run a significant risk of having a child who displays severe problem behaviors. For you, the Three Parenting Principles are a must.

Once you learn about the Three Parenting Principles you may find that you will need to modify or even radically alter your parenting style. This requires changing habits, and habits by definition are hard to break. But using the Three Parenting Principles will give you a peace you may have never experienced before. And as you adopt these parenting techniques you will see your child change in wonderful ways. Because each person in your family is an individual and the combination of personalities in your family is unique, you will find that solving problems takes flexibility and imagination. But my Three Parenting Principles are basic to human development and I will show you how to adapt them to your own particular family characteristics, culture, religion and beliefs.

I am not suggesting that the Three Principles are going to lead to a utopian existence for you and your family where conflict never arises. Building your family into a cohesive, functioning unit takes work and at times involves the honest display of intense emotions. In other words, even the happiest families are going to have their share of thorny moments. But you can rest assured that if you master the Three Principles and adhere to them, life with your toddler or preschooler will go much more smoothly and your child will be as well equipped as possible to deal with whatever life sets in his way. Could there be anything more rewarding than that?

The tools and techniques you need are all in the pages that follow. The thing to remember as you move forward is that problem behaviors are very much a natural part of growing up for your child.The key to surviving them and helping your child emerge from them stronger is remembering that these tools are at your disposal. As you master the use of these tools, you will go a long way toward making life better for everyone in your family.

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Feb 03, 2015
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