999,871: DJ Aligator Project - The Whistle Song (Blow My Whistle Bitch)

Why does music have the capacity to affect us as it does? Why do certain combinations of sounds evoke certain emotional responses in human beings? And what is it exactly that makes DJ Aligator’s “The Whistle Song (Blow My Whistle Bitch)” possibly the gayest-sounding song ever recorded? (Not gay like derogatory, just gay like a homosexual man.) You’d think it would be the lyrics, right? But listen through -- the words never specify what gender is supposed to be blowing whose whistle. Really, if you took these lyrics and set them on top of a booty-bass beat, watchdog groups would be up in arms decrying hip-hop’s degradation of women. Now, you’re in the ballpark when your musical setting is a simple house/trance/rave/whatever track. But we don’t have the answer yet. This musical style is more associated with gay clubs here in the United States than it is in Europe, partly because of house music’s very real roots in the gay discos of Chicago, and partly because Europeans dig electronic dance way more universally than we do. So we can’t assume that this will translate as a gay club anthem everywhere in the world. (Although it certainly did here.)

So what are we left with? What, in the end, is the auditory signifier that tells us this song is about gay? It’s THE WHISTLE. I don’t know why. But if there’s any doubt what the song’s subtext is, it vanishes the instant you hear that whistle blown in that rhythm. I can’t think of anything intrinsically gay about it. I don’t know why those sounds in that pattern evoke the association of human males engaging in sexual conduct with one another. I don’t know that there’s any relation to the fact that this song spent 3-4 months on top of various charts in Denmark. I don’t claim to know why DJ Aligator (real name: Ali Movasat, hence the spelling of ALI-gator) keeps his beard trimmed so very neatly. Here’s what I do know: gay or straight, this song speaks to the universal difficulty of finding that skilled and dedicated someone who will blow your whistle like they mean it. And once again, humanity finds common ground via the mystical language of music.

(NOTE: Some versions of “The Whistle Song,” including the one in the official video, have been edited for radio play to say “blow my whistle, baby.” Further proof that censorship destroys the essence of an artist’s vision.)

999,872: Iron Maiden - Quest for Fire

Iron Maiden fans take their Iron Maiden very seriously. Very, very seriously. Any affront to the awesomeness of Iron Maiden is greeted with vitriolic disdain. That especially includes affronts coming from the band itself. Gods may not act as mere mortals.

There are those who will tell you that the whole Maiden concept of “thinking man’s metal” teeters on the edge of ridiculousness far more than their fans will admit. After all, we are talking about a band prone to writing grandiose, operatic adaptations of their favorite books and/or World War II battles. A band that dwells in a virtually sexless realm, where even their recurring prostitute character Charlotte the Harlot is treated more like a dramatic lead than a sex object, and where the concept of groove is virtually nonexistent – the music never aims to evoke sex, and the busy, “intellectual” bass playing of Steve Harris ensures that the rhythm section will never just lay back and relax. (Not coincidentally, this approach mirrors the percentage of women usually found at Iron Maiden concerts.) Now, those people are wrong, because Iron Maiden is objectively awesome. But they will tell you that nonetheless.

Essentially, Iron Maiden is revered for always trying to go bigger -- whether that means smarter, faster, more complicated, more gloriously epic, or any number of other superlatives. Ambition has always been a key component of Maiden’s identity. And even when you’re good at it, it’s hard to go big and succeed every time out. Your lyrical subject matter always has to support the epic themes your music tries to evoke. Your melodies have to support the huge, operatic delivery of your vocalist. If you’re constantly aiming for the stars, sometimes you’re going to fall short and not make it out of the Earth’s upper atmosphere. (For more on this theme, see Iron Maiden’s “Flight of Icarus.”)

The Piece of Mind track “Quest for Fire” is the object of many a Maiden fan’s derision. Of all the songs from the band’s early-‘80s glory days, it’s the one that most clearly crosses the line into silliness. Most of the album’s other songs are about mythology and war, subjects that lend themselves to epic drama; “Quest for Fire” is about cavemen who live with dinosaurs. Most of the other songs have soaring, anthemic melodies; the tune of “Quest for Fire” sounds stiff and underdeveloped. Even for the most obsessive Maiden fan, it’s difficult not to look askance at the stereo as soon as Bruce Dickinson starts howling “In a tiiiiiiiiiiime when dinosaurs walked the eaaaaaarth.” The song’s storyline feels as underdeveloped as the hooks; howling wolves and cannibal tribes appear without setup, and the entire quest for fire happens because all those cavemen – heroes and villains alike – don’t know they can make fire themselves by “rubbing stick and stone.” An epic narrative gets its power from pitting ultimate personifications of good and evil against each other, and it’s hard to write a convincing one about folks who could easily be saved by an 8-year-old Boy Scout.

Everything in “Quest for Fire” is writ large, but doesn’t quite deserve to be. That disconnect places the song pretty high on the unintentional comedy scale, but that’s also what makes it so entertaining. Heavy metal need not be taken seriously to be enjoyable, despite what some metal diehards believe. They are the people who usually have a chip on their shoulder about the lack of critical respect afforded their music of choice, and while they have a legitimate point, it’s also true that silliness – intentional or not – often equals FUN. What, in the end, is wrong with putting smiles on faces? Come with me now, and let us regaaaaaaain the power of light and heeeeeeat. And remember that life is still worthwhile…if you just smile.

Quest For Fire - Iron Maiden

999,873 - Joanie Sommers — Johnny Get Angry; 999,874 - The Crystals — He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)

If you listen to any basic overview of ‘60s-era girl-group pop, you hear a lot of songs about boys who are misunderstood rebels. Nobody loves them except the girl singing the song, and without her, the sensitive heart underneath that rough exterior would wither and die. If you start to dig deeper into the genre, you pick up on a peculiar – and disturbing – subgenre of songs about boys who are not pseudo-dangerous, but actually violent. Given the romantic conventions of girl-group pop, these characters are not exactly depicted from an empowering feminist point of view. Artifacts like these might be a better barometer of the era’s culture by showing us where an average girl might turn for help making sense of what was happening to her in real life. Nobody is pretending to make high art here. These are commercial products, tailored by adults to reflect their best guesses as to what teenage girls might relate to, and thus spend money on.

On one side of the coin, you have Joanie Sommers’ “Johnny Get Angry,” which on the surface seems like a celebration of regressive gender politics (“I want a brave man/I want a caveman!”) written by a man (frequent Burt Bacharach lyricist Hal David). As the song tells it, Joanie has played one of those silly teenage-girl games and broken up with Johnny so that he’ll protest angrily and give her lots of negative attention. But the plan backfires when Johnny fails to object, and just goes along with it. Downplaying her own role in provoking the whole mess, Joanie is heartbroken and hurt, and spends most of the song castigating Johnny for being a pussy. She doesn’t want to get beaten up or anything; she just wants “the biggest lecture I’ve ever had,” and someone to “look up to” and be “the boss.” Then Joanie spends the second verse complaining that Johnny never gets mad when she purposely lets other guys cut in at dances. And we realize…this chick isn’t a victim, she is a manipulative, ball-busting drama queen. And we know what Johnny’s future will be like in a few years if he takes her back: Joanie will instigate shit with some random dude at a bar, scream at Johnny “Are you going to let him talk to me like that?!”, and then secretly get her rocks off watching the overt displays of testosterone unleashed in her name, satisfying her own cavewoman instinct to find a man who can protect their offspring, hunt the woolly mammoth for food, and maybe spank her during sex. No, we do not need to worry about Joanie Sommers. And the song seems to know it, sticking an insouciant kazoo solo right in the middle of the orchestral arrangement.

The Crystals’ “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” on the other hand, is every bit as downright creepy as the title suggests. It was produced by legendary control-freak psycho and now-convicted murderer Phil Spector, which is a fairly telling connection. But as often as Spector threatened his lovers with guns and imprisonment, it’s important to note that he didn’t write this song – no, the prolific commercial team responsible for this one is Gerry Goffin and future ‘70s heroine Carole King. There’s no intentional provocation we can see in this one; the singer confesses to her boyfriend that she’s seen someone else, and he hits her. Spector’s arrangement – more restrained here than his typical work – still surges dramatically behind singer Barbara Alston as she rationalizes that her man must care about her a great deal, or he wouldn’t have gotten so angry. Lines as stark and simple as “He hit me, and I was glad” and “He hit me, and I knew I loved him” ensured that no matter how skilled the performances or Spector’s production were, radio was not going to touch this record with a 50-foot pole. It’s great artistic technique in the service of something reprehensible, not unlike watching D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation. The Crystals themselves reportedly hated the song (go figure), and couldn’t understand why Spector had pushed so hard for them to record it (though, in hindsight, perhaps it does make a bit more sense). Spector would go on to fuck with the Crystals even more, putting their name on records that were actually by non-member Darlene Love, then using the original membership to record an unairable single called “(Let’s Dance) The Screw,” which was designed to screw his former business partner out of royalties from the next Crystals single.

Johnny Get Angry (LP Version) ...

999,875: The Beatles—You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)

For a band that cited Spike Milligan's Goon Show as an influence, The Beatles produced remarkably few tracks of just them fucking around in the studio. In fact, this song is pretty much it. Sure, "Yellow Submarine" was rotten with sound effects, tracks like "Only a Northern Song" were self-consciously messy, and the band certainly got a lot weirder starting with "Sgt. Pepper", but only the B-side of their last single celebrated absurdity for its own sake.

Maybe that's because just fucking around in the studio apparently takes a hell of a lot longer than you'd think. To give you a ballpark: The Beatles asked Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones to contribute a saxophone solo for the track, which he recorded in 1967, but the song wasn't finally released until a year after he drowned to death in his pool in 1969. In between, the song went through vocal overdubs, a cut-down from a maximum length of about 8 minutes (imagine what that thing sounded like for a second), and did a lot of sitting around. The entire 14-song Please Please Me album, by contrast, was recorded and mixed in about 17 minutes total, and contained 2,400 percent more lyrics than "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)".

No song on Please Please Me, however, had a section that sounded like what your silly friend did upon discovering that Garage Band came pre-loaded with "comedy sound effects". "You Know My Name" proceeds in four separate parts of increasing dippiness, starting with a straight-forward, plodding piano rocker that only sounds strange because the lyrics never change.

The second part is a latin lounge piece, which inexplicably name-checks movie producer Denis O'Dell—this predictably led to "867-5309/Jenny" levels of botheration on the part of fans who looked up Mr. O'Dell and wanted him to know that they knew his name and number. Featuring overly honeyed vibrato singing by McCartney, this section was apparently meant to rib Trini Lopez, famous for making latin versions of popular hits, although the reference might have been timelier if "You Know My Name" hadn't been released two years after Lopez' final chart appearance.

Through parts three and four, the vocals grow more inane. In part three, Lennon and McCartney repeat the lyrical mantra in cartoonish voices while cukoo birds and other refugee effects from a Foley artist's trunk trill and fart in the background. It's the fourth part of the song that's actually the funniest, though (not that we're talking "House Party" levels of hilarious or anything). It features John grunting unintelligibly while Paul does his best impression of Yosemite Sam getting an anvil dropped on his foot, but the funny part is that they're doing it over the playing of what sounds like a very straight-faced jazz lounge combo. You know, just a bunch of union pros who come into work every day and play while two jag-offs burp out the standards.

999,878: The Valentinos—It's All Over Now; 999,877: The Rolling Stones—It's All Over Now; 999,876: Bobby Womack with Bill Withers—It's All Over Now

Groomed by their strict father, five brothers from a depressed neighborhood in a midwestern industrial city formed a singing group. Unlike Joe Jackson, though, Friendly Womack, Sr. could not countenance his children turning away from their gospel roots to embrace the devil's music. And unlike the Jackson 5, the Womacks didn't exactly tear up the charts their first few times out.

After their discovery by Sam Cooke, the Womack Brothers released a couple of low-selling gospel numbers under their own names (in deference to dad) before re-anointing themselves The Valentinos and recording straight-up R&B. With their fourth single—written by lead singer Bobby and, uh, one of his brother's wives—The Valentinos dragged a lot of familiar blues tropes ("baby used to stay out all night long/she made me cry, she done me wrong") over a strummy, almost ludicrously upbeat tune whose instruments included a glockenspiel. It's such a sunny tune because, unlike most of the bluesmen who came before, when Bobby's woman took him for the same old clown, he had the good sense to quit her. "I used to love her/but it's all over now" is a victory cry, not a lament.

It only made it to #94 on the pop charts, though...until the Stones happened to hear it passing through the US on tour. Over Womack's initial protests, Jagger and company entered the studio nine days later, retooled the intro, increased the tempo, and bought a brand new money-powered furnace to await the dough from their first UK #1. Womack allegedly invited the Stones to cover any song they wanted after seeing the first royalty check; their definitive treatment turned "It's All Over Now" into a rock standard covered by dozens of artists.

But it wasn't actually quite over. A decade later, Womack took another crack at it, and if you told me he did it specifically to try and out-rock the Rolling Stones, I wouldn't doubt you after hearing the first ten seconds. Kicking off with a driving beat and a multiple-guitar attack that's more Allman Brothers than Womack Brothers, Bobby throws out the first two verses entirely, instead diving into a lengthened chorus and trading exuberant, howling "I used to love her"s with Bill Withers. "Still Bill" is a guy you'd normally bring along to smooth things up, but egged on by Womack, Withers practically turns shouter, singing a new verse about, well, stalking the unfaithful woman as she went around cheating, which leads into a blistering guitar solo that might have been lifted from "Free Bird". For all those efforts, the new single didn't make the pop charts at all, but man. Turn up the volume and listen to this damn thing. Then get ready to redo the paint that peeled off your living room walls.

999,879: Coven — Wicked Woman

Music has long been filled with Satanic references, whether Beelzebub is merely in the world, being a baddie, or directly on the trail of bluesman who owes Lucifer his immortal soul, but it took him a hell of a long time to have music written and performed directly in praise of His Evilness. Specifically, it took him until Coven’s 1969 debut Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls.

Even in terms of rock’n’roll – The Devil’s Music – that’s a long time; nearly fifteen years, depending on your count. Unfortunately for The Dark Lord, it’s also a fair-to-middling record, with about a third of its running time dedicated to a recording of a black mass, which loses its novelty pretty quickly.

Fortunately for Mephistopheles, it contains what should be heralded as one of the best songs the rock canon has to offer, in the form of “Wicked Woman.” It seems like the algorithm must be deducting points for relation to The Archfiend of Hades, since we’ve seen so much Death Metal, GG Allin and Black Eyed Peas here, at the bottom of the pile.

I suppose the “Wicked Woman” isn’t breaking any ground in terms of pushing musical or lyrical boundaries, being a fairly typical, if amphetamized, San Francisco-style psych-rock number with the blues-like description of The Demon Female. It gets style points on the attack, though, as the band plays with angry abandon and opera-trained vocalist Jinx Dawson wails like she might be quite the wicked woman herself.

The next year, Black Sabbath would issue their self-titled debut album, and The Horned One would take his rightful place, permanently in the rock firmament. Satan can’t be held to mediocrity for very long.

999,880: The Gun Club — She's Like Heroin To Me

Eventually, all genres pass their expiration dates. Jazz is just an excuse for Wynton Marsalis to complain about The Kids Today; Stevie Ray Vaughn started playing The Blues; and Reggae is more about Natty Light than Natty Dreads. Rockabilly, I’m pretty sure, is on permanent display at the Smithsonian, between Archie Bunker’s chair and Rick James’ crack pipe. (Exceptions noted and understood.)

Oh, sure. People still play Rockabilly, but that's just because it’s become a bit of a punk rock graveyard. Too tired to be angry? Too many bad tattoos? Nothing left in the old imagination? Try Rockabilly. It doesn’t take a whole lot to look good in the Rockabilly game. Grab yourself an upright bassist and some Murray’s Hair Cream and you, too, can be a star. (Again, exceptions noted and understood.)

The last time anyone took Rockabilly to a level that really cooked was in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when no one outside of record store nerds had actually heard any Rockabilly in 20 years. These record store nerds formed forceful, fun, Punk/Rockabilly (Psychobilly? Punkabilly? Shit, I don’t know. Grab the nearest guy who looks like the Fonz and ask him.) bands like The Cramps and The Gun Club.

While The Cramps were more of the Horror-worship and Garage Rock variety, Jeffrey Lee Pierce of The Gun Club, revved up a more traditionalist ramp, albeit one more focused on sex and drugs than the pleasures of driving a suped-up car with a fine young lady of upstanding moral character. His stroke of genius was in combining the two in “She’s Like Heroin To Me.”

It doesn’t sound like she’s heroin to him, though, as the song careens around the room with EchoPlexes sending reverberations of manic slide-guitar sound effects willy-nilly. She seems to be more like cocaine to him, considering how anxious and ill-at-ease he is. It’s like he’s just gonna take a seat and grind his teeth down to their infected roots at any second.

Rock’n’Roll isn’t a genre of poets (Again, exceptions noted and understood), so let’s give the man some leeway. We know what he means. She blows his mind and fucks him over, but he keeps crawling back, and he’ll be damned if he can figure out why. All she can give him is only enough to make him feel normal anymore, but it’s a sad normal, not normal normal. He’ll take it. He’ll take anything he can get.

999,881: Joe Pass — 'Round Midnight

Joe Pass called the 1974 album from which this track is taken Virtuoso. Man, that's bold. After all, Frank Lloyd's masterpiece is called "Falling Water," not "Awesomest House." Beethoven called his Ninth Symphony "Choral," not "All Out Balls To The Wall". Calling your album Virtuoso is writing a check that your ass will have a great deal of difficulty cashing.

But what makes a virtuoso? If my late 90s Guitar Player Magazine back issues are to be believed, you can't throw a rock in Scandinavia without hitting a Satan worshipper who can lay a lightning fast cascades of notes over a metal track. These are the dudes you think of when someone says "guitar virtuoso", but that's missing the point. Sure those guys can play fast, but few if any of them can produce something non-meatalheaded guitarists will enjoy listening too, especially if the Scandinavian is playing without the support of backing musicians, and most especially after I have just hit him with a rock. In my mind, this disqualifies these guys from true virtuosity. Why play all those notes if no one wants to hear them?

Pass is different. He shapes this achingly beautiful standard like he's sculpting with water, playing melody, harmony, and suggesting a rhythm all by himself, with each note gone the second he plays it. Having a limited number of hands, he can only do one or two of these things at a time, but he does what he does in a way that suggests a unified, three dimensional whole, rather than just a stream of notes played at an ever increasing velocity.

This album is appropriately titled not because of the number of notes it contains (although there are a lot of those buggers), but because he plays almost all of those notes in the perfect order and in the perfect way.

'Round Midnight - Joe Pass

999,882: Donny Hathaway — Misty

It's easy to be nice to someone you like. It's extremely difficult to be nice to someone you hate.

Like so many bits of wisdom one finds in the one's grandmother's inspirational page-a-day calendar, what is true in life applicable to funky soul as well. Any jive turkey can funkify that which is already funky, but to bring the stank to one of the least funky tracks ever set to wax, you need a master like the late Donny Hathaway, whose version of wedding band staple Misty is so soulful it sounds like it should come with a side of turnip greens.

If Johnny Mathis weren't still alive, he'd be spinning in his grave, albeit to an uncharacteristically funky rhythm.

999,883: Nick Lowe — Rollers Show; 999,884: Nick Lowe — Bay City Rollers We Love You; 999,885: Nick Lowe — Let's Go to the Disco

So the story goes that Nick Lowe – soon to become a British new wave icon as both a solo artist and house producer at the indie label Stiff Records – was trapped in a stifling deal with United Artists in the late ‘70s. Lowe had been the chief songwriter for the rootsy pub-rock band Brinsley Schwarz, during which time he’d penned the future Elvis Costello standard “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding.” But he wanted to move into cheeky guitar pop, and although his label was not supportive, they refused to let him go. So Lowe hit upon the idea of deliberately writing songs that would get him kicked off. UA’s flagship artist at the time was the Bay City Rollers, who were in the midst of a brief reign as the biggest teen pop idols in the world. What better way to burn bridges with your label than openly mocking their biggest act?

So under the alias “The Tartan Horde” (a reference to the Rollers’ extremely Scottish wardrobe), Lowe cut a bubblegum-pop “tribute” written from the point of view of a ridiculously worshipful fan. “Bay City Rollers We Love You” features a sugary, oft-repeated chorus name-checking all the band members, while the singer hopes the band will still “be around about July” and spends a whole verse being stared at for dressing like the Rollers. Surely this devastating tongue-in-cheek sarcasm would prove the final straw! Unfortunately, Lowe’s plan backfired on two important counts. First, he was too good a pop songwriter, and made the song too catchy. Second, the irony behind his wryly understated British humor did not translate well across cultures and languages. As a consequence, when United Artists released the song in Japan, just ahead of the Rollers’ tour there, it became an enormous hit with fans eager to snap up anything associated with the band. Instead of giving Lowe the boot, UA asked him to record an entire Tartan Horde album of Bay City Rollers tributes.

Lowe gave it a shot with “Rollers Show,” as infectious a piece of ear candy as you’re likely to hear. Lowe’s skills as a budding pop craftsman are smeared all over the track, from the seemingly effortless hooks to the rich supply of countermelodies shifting between backing vocalists and different instruments. The nifty arrangement helps disguise the fact that structurally, this song is almost as chorus-heavy as its predecessor, because we keep hearing new little details. Lyrically, the tone is much the same, and Lowe continues to make sure he name-checks every band member, addressing the recent instability of the Rollers’ bassist position (“Ian [Mitchell] jacked it in, but we got Pat McGlynn/And as long as he’s a Roller then we’ll love him!”). “Rollers Show” is the musically superior of the two, and was good enough to get tacked onto the American version of Lowe’s solo debut. Both songs appeared on the odds ‘n’ sods compilation The Wilderness Years, now sadly out of print (though some of those songs have resurfaced on the deluxe reissue of Jesus of Cool).

The Rollers experience taught Lowe a valuable lesson: if you want to piss people off when you make fun of something, don’t ape it so accurately that fans of the real thing will miss the joke. In a happy epilogue, Lowe’s next release, the equally silly “Let’s Go to the Disco” (credited to the Disco Brothers), succeeded in getting him sacked. The secret? With its Bo Diddley beat and ‘50s-era lyrical references (the Bop was a dance craze from 1957, and Lucy Brown was a character name-dropped in several songs including “Mack the Knife”), it didn’t sound a goddamn thing like disco.

999,886: Paul McCartney - Temporary Secretary

Paul McCartney was in a strange place in 1980. Early that year, he was busted for trying to bring half a pound of marijuana into Japan, jailed, and eventually deported. In the wake of the resulting tour cancellations, his backing band Wings dissolved. Nearing 40 and starting back over on his own, McCartney decided to use his first truly solo album in a decade to get back in touch with what the kids were listening to. And in 1980, the kids were getting “hep” to new wave and synth-pop. McCartney’s take on synth-pop roughly parallels the cover photo of McCartney II, which shows a stunned (or stoned) McCartney, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly agape, looking completely flabbergasted by reality. Clearly, this is a man in need of a personal assistant.

If “Temporary Secretary” is the sound of McCartney’s subconscious crying out for help in holding his shit together, it’s buried under his oft-noted penchant for insubstantial whimsy, which never took a more bizarre turn than this song. Musically, it’s an attempt to pull off the robotic synth-pop of Gary Numan that doesn’t quite nail it – it still sounds like a human being, albeit one who’s doing something baffling. Part of the problem is that everything was recorded and produced by McCartney in his own home studio, so the result doesn’t have the slick, polished sheen of mainstream ‘80s new wave. Nor is it backed by a ton of experience creating music with synthesizers. There’s a weird, angular sequencer line that serves as the song’s base, and it’s punctuated by…acoustic guitars, which don’t exactly create a man-machine vibe. The vocal effects sound similarly homemade, with a nasal chorus that pops up at irregular intervals, and a monotone recitation of almost randomly chosen rhymes in a similar “robot” voice. Sonically, it’s about as convincing a transformation as a robot costume made out of a cardboard box and tin foil.

If the music is at odds with itself, the lyrics are even more baffling. McCartney spends most of the song begging one Mr. Marks (a reference to a large British temp agency, analogous to addressing Mr. Manpower) to send him a girl. Perhaps McCartney assumes that, as a rock star, he needs to address his request to the head of the company rather than some low-level functionary. The first stanza makes it sound like McCartney is out for a piece of ass, like in the good old days when sexual harassment was legal – he wants a girl who fits on his knee, and he’ll let her keep the job even if she does it wrong. Yet, ever the gentleman (or perhaps recalling that he married a woman named Linda), Paul spends the rest of the song convinced that he’s doing a remarkably good deed on this girl’s behalf by giving her a shitty temp job. He gives personal assurances that he’ll treat her right and rarely – RARELY – keep her till late at night. (Presumably, they’d confine most of the screwing to regular business hours.) This crosses into a creepy middle-aged-man concern with how hard it is for young girls these days to stay on the right track (especially with older guys like him out to bone them). So he asks Mr. Marks to take a personal interest in his ex-temp’s well-being once he’s done with her. Which, having already taken “dictation” on McCartney’s lap, and maybe thrown in a bit of belly dancing, wouldn’t seem likely to assuage a young lady’s fears about prostituting herself to wealthy men.

Furthermore, McCartney seems unclear on what kind of women will be available to fill his position, telling Mr. Marks in his “best” robot voice that it’s okay to send him a belly dancer, a diplomat, or a neurosurgeon (all very skilled professions) as his temporary secretary. One gets the impression that McCartney would also not mind if the Duchess of Luxembourg came over to clean his solid gold toilet. Again, perhaps breathing the rarefied air of stardom (and/or weed) for too long has clouded McCartney’s perception of how the lower levels of the world work. Or perhaps he is mired in the fantasy world of ancient Greece, in which prostitutes were expected to be cultured and well-read, and well-off older dudes got to have sex with the boys they were responsible for educating. At any rate, if you worked at a temp agency and got a call like this, you’d probably think three times about sending anyone over.

Other than “Coming Up,” which became a hit in a more organic live version, “Temporary Secretary” is far and away the most striking song on the album, the remainder of which could be more accurately titled “Paul McCartney Dicks Around With Cheap Synths In His Spare Bedroom.” Still, it’s one that prompted my Beatles-obsessed father to ask, “What is he doing?”

Temporary Secretary - Paul McC...

999,887: G.G. Allin - Expose Yourself to Kids

There are two sides to EVERY story. (Or three, if you’re watching Rashomon.) Kids subjected to anti-smoking PSAs never get to hear about the alleged benefits, unless members of older generations make them watch episodes of the old Jack Benny Show, sponsored by Lucky Strike. Luckies taste better. Cleaner, fresher, smoother. Oh sure, there’s now a broad consensus that they’ll kill you, and that this is not an area which needs the lost art of critical thinking. But there is vast entertainment value in watching someone try to defend the indefensible.

Punk rock invertebrate G.G. Allin was always willing to do so in the name of danger, rebellion, and being a self-consciously horrible human being. Thus, “Expose Yourself to Kids” takes up a counterargument that relatively few people had been waiting to hear. Allin’s advocacy of the issue is framed not around the morals or benefits, but rather the convenience (“Let’s fuck some kids! They can’t say no!”) and the urgency of a limited time frame (“Do it now before they grow up, and it’s too late!”). Ah, they do grow up so fast, don’t they. However, upon closer examination, his argument quickly breaks down from lack of focus. Allin can’t seem to make up his mind whether he wants to have sex with children or just jerk off in front of them at recess. And there is no supporting explanation of why, as the chorus says, it’s all right to expose yourself to kids. The inherent desirability of the goal is never even questioned, and Allin’s failure to anticipate this natural challenge would never fly with any serious debate team member. It’s almost as if Allin completely ignored the discipline of logic when constructing his argument in favor of child molestation. Clearly the song is the product of a disorganized mind. And certainly not the cogent thesis that the members of NAMBLA had long been awaiting. (Of course, it’s all purely for shock value, and of course, you wouldn’t let your kids within six miles of G.G. Allin’s rotting corpse.)

Musically, by the time Allin recorded this, his voice had degenerated into a hoarse, tuneless bellow that resembled a distant cousin of the Muppets’ Animal. It’s actually one of his catchier three-chord ear-graters, though it failed to spark the sort of anarchic revolution Allin was always threatening to incite with his tales of brute, rampaging id. Shortly before his fatal overdose, Allin would take another quixotic political stand with his demand to “Legalize Murder.” For whatever reason, this also proved to be a non-starter.

Expose Yourself To Kids - GG A...

999,888: Millenium beyond - Jefferson Starship

In 1970, Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner released the solo album "Blows Against the Empire" under the new band name "Jefferson Starship." A few years later, Jefferson Airplane was disbanded for good, as half of the band split off to form a "blues band" called Hot Tuna, and the other half decided to change their name permanently to Jefferson Starship. Their sound shifted from San Fransico pyschedelia to Foreigner-esque "arena rock" and they ended up selling quite a few records. Eventually, that band was whitled down to only one original member, Grace Slick, and renamed Starship. Then everybody got really old and started suing each other and touring under weird names like "Jefferson Starship the Next Generation" and Jefferson SPACEship*. It looked like it was all over for the Jefferson crew.

Then, in 1999, out of nowhere, Jefferson STARSHIP reunited, featuring Jefferson Airplane members Marty Balin, Paul Kantner and Jack Casady. Oddly enough, Casady had never been in Jefferson Starship, only Jefferson Airplane. So basically, he was replacing the guy who replaced him in a band he wasn't in.

It must have taken a lot for these aging rockers to put away their lawsuits and record again in 1999 under what was probably the only name whose copyright wasn't owned by a label or a band member who refused to participate. But our world was about to enter a strange new era known as the millenium, and we needed the guidance of Jefferson Starship - guidance they were kind enough to give us in the eight-minute epic "Millenium Beyond." I think they were going for a psychedelic trip-out along the lines of something off of "After Bathing At Baxters," their experimental 1968 album, but the whole thing comes off like the unintentionlly hilarious opening song of a "Rent"-style rock musical instead. "This is the year the machine fucks up" proclaim the Starship troopers in unision, hoping beyond hope that "Y2K" will lead us away from the shackles of technology and back to the agrarian utopia of their hippie aspirations. "These are the explosive years" wails Kantner, lamenting the loss of bowel control in the latter half of his fifties.

Kantner also gives us some predictions for what was in store in the coming millenium, predictions that have come all too true. Instead of the boring, vagina-birthed children of the nineties, he accuratly predicts that in the new millenium we would have "children born of space, concieved in light, fused in zero gravity. A new creature, descendent of Earth, born of sky." "Imagine, as well" he also sings, "the inexplicable fame of Kim Kardashian and the invention of iPhone Apps."**

As stupid as the whole thing is, I found it strangely touching. Jefferson Starship manage to somehow dig deep down and deliver some of that revolutionary feeling of their 1969 peak, and deliver it with complete sincerity. Maybe it helps that there are no irritating "modern" production tricks - no trip-hop loops, auto-tune or guest rappers. Instead, we're treated to the bittersweet spectacle of a group of burnt out hippies, giving it their all in the hopes of saving the world.***

*I made that one up.

**Also made up.

*** Paying the property tax on their vinyards.

999,889: Fela Kuti—Zombie

When our society advances to the stage of adolescent rock n' roll dystopia, and our generation (here I am thinking of people born between 1970 and 1990) is collectively called to answer for high crimes against culture, one of the worst of our offenses enumerated by The Wall's gigantic cartoon buttocks will be our blatant and ham-fisted misuse of the zombie. From decreasingly necessary remakes of thirty-year-old zombie movies to self-conscious zombie horror-comedy parodies of said movies to zombie war protests to zombie-themed adult birthday parties to lazily appending "zombie-" to whatever decidedly non-zombie-ish event we might be holding, we (and here I am thinking of everyone in the world except me) have thoroughly ruined the zombie. As we have previously wrecked robots, ninjas and puppets for everyone, so have we done with the walking undead. And like those brain-eating denizens of hackneyed jokes everywhere, we show no awareness of what we are doing and no sign of stopping. In our future science world where sunlight is illegal and rock music is punishable by death, the secret police will have to shoot our heads off to prevent us from sending out evites to our Godamned zombie flash mobs.

Invoking the zombie has become such an automatic and uninspired move that most of us probably can't remember a time when doing so could actually have been considered revolutionary. So step into the time portal set up by the leaders of the human resistance and go back to 1977 Nigeria, where they had a real-life government that was autocratic and corrupt. Resident Afrobeat inventor Fela Kuti was already a politically provocative guy, having declared the commune where he made his home an independent nation in 1970. For an encore, he wrote Zombie, whose lyrics were as rebellious as its beat was infectious. He mocked the Nigerian army by comparing its soldiers, who served as government enforcers against ordinary citizens for all kinds of petty bullshit, to the mindless stupidity of the zombie—the Afro-Caribbean variety, which served robotically at the pleasure of its voodoo master. The record was a smash hit, and Kuti's fans even took to performing zombie pantomime in the presence of soldiers.

You might be wondering what the big deal was, since after all the Cranberries used the zombie to protest political violence almost twenty years later and they didn't exactly earn that much cred for it. The difference (aside from the Cranberries' unwise foray into sludgy off-brand metal versus Kuti's awesome horn-driven opus) is that after Zombie hit it big for the Cranberries on MTV, the UK government and the IRA didn't send out 1,000 guys to burn Dolores O'Riordan's house down and throw her mom out a window to death. On the other hand, O'Riordan didn't marry more than two dozen of her own back-up singers, but that's a story for the next Fela Kuti entry.

999,890: Mark Ronson featuring Alex Greenwald—Just

If there's one major knock against the Radiohead of the mid-nineties, it's that they never orchestrated totally sick horn charts for their songs. Sure, The National Anthem features primitive, almost feral sax work, but that came after OK Computer. Think about it: Creep—zero trombone players; Paranoid Android—not even one single trumpet section; Just—a complete, incomprehensible lack of brass instrumentation.

At least, this becomes a knock retroactively once you hear Mark Ronson's cover of Just. On paper it doesn't look all that promising, buried as it is in the middle of a mediocre Radiohead tribute album and featuring the singer from Phantom Planet on lead vocals. But just when your heart sinks at the thought of Thom Yorke and company co-mingling with the theme song from The OC, the rhythm guitar kicks in.

From the first chord, it's a monster. It's the same notes and almost the same rhythm, but tightened to a syncopated clockwork fit with a tambourine shake. Then the trumpets enter, followed by the baritone saxes and the thudding beat. With Alex Greenwald doing his best Thom Yorke impression, it's almost like a Radiohead from an alternate dimension where the five Abingdon schoolboys started a funk band.

Just feat. Alex Greenwald - Ma...

999,891: Dennis Wilson — Love Remember Me

Love Remember Me - Dennis Wils...

I used to want to be Brian Wilson. Back when I took a lot of acid, something about being a fractured genius with a grand piano in a sandbox really sang to me. In a later period, when I’d settled into the simpler pleasures of off-brand beer and cheap Mexican brick weed, Dennis became the more appealing figure.

Dennis, the youngest Wilson, never had any expectations on his shoulders, save scoring with the chicks and going surfing. When he emerged as the Beach Boys’ greatest talent in the wake of Brian’s well-publicized meltdowns, he was probably just as shocked as anybody. He didn’t have the knack for the studied, precise Works of Art™ that flowed from Brian’s mind, but his songs – and his singing - were full of fire, heart and truth.

By the time he recorded this track for his failed Bambu album sessions, his voice had been reduced to a drunken mumble of a snaggletoothed beach hobo. He didn’t so much sing, as push the words out. When he wasn’t shoving them, they would gurgle upward and then droop toward the floor, sticking in his beard.

His drooling vocals on “Love Remember Me” benefit its simplicity. The ragged, childlike view of love would be rendered too precious in another’s hands and throat. Peter Pan, approaching 40, is upended by the intimacy he never had from his family or his lovers. When Wilson cedes the vocals to choir for the extended, meditative coda, he becomes his own hype man, burbling and babbling “Yeah” and “Come on” over and over and over, while the choir promises that his love will come driftin’/tumblin’/gently down on whoever would be so lucky to have something so pure.

Having spent the opening of the song reminding himself that love is as normal as living, dying, laughing and crying, you get the feeling that he doesn’t know if he can give the love he claims and that the coda is his chant, his prayer, for his benefit.

999,892: Emmylou Harris — Luxury Liner

Luxury Liner - Emmylou Harris

I’ve seen Smokey and The Bandit about a hundred times, and it’s a damn fine movie. I hope that, one day, our mathematicians write an algorithm that puts it firmly in the pantheon of greats with The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver, and Smokey and the Bandit Part II.

In my personal favorite scene, The Bandit gets himself in a bit of a pickle (Oh, that Bandit!), with Sheriff Buford T. Justice hot at his heels, and a convoy of eighteen-wheelers helps him evade the long arm of the law. There’s a cute truck-drivin’ lady, going by the handle Little Beaver, who gets all winkity-wink on the CB with The Bandit, while guiding him out of the convoy.

I guess most guys are supposed to get hung up on Frog (Sally Field), but I’m a Little Beaver man, all the way. I like the thought of that little thing commandeering 40 tons of steel, out on her own, without anyone to tell her about her business. I wouldn’t mind her jammin’ my gears, and runnin’ me rough down the road, all night long, ‘til I deliver the load.

If you know what I mean.

That’s probably about 90% of the reason that I like Emmylou Harris’ “Luxury Liner” better than the version by its writer, the great Gram Parsons. The other ten percent is that this version completely smokes the original, what with Emmylou hiring on the best of Nashville to run tight bluegrass circles around this tale of a gal searching the country for someone to make her a little less lonesome. Maybe even that last fella who left her so alone.

If I ever find myself lonesome again, I’m might just buy myself a Trans Am with a CB and cruise around the highways, blasting this track, waiting for Little Beaver to cut through the static. I’ll let her know that someone in this whole wide world knows the ways she feels.

If you know what I mean.

999,893: Drakkar Sauna — Pirate Treasure

Pirate Treasure - Drakkar Saun...

My mom is fond of saying that friends come and go, but family is forever, whether you like it or not. She’s wrong of course. Some people actually love their families, and many families are bonded by an internal feuding that bounces from one drunken Thanksgiving to the next, but plenty of people don’t care enough to do anything but walk away.

Drakkar Sauna tells the story of those that just don’t care anymore in their uncharacteristically serious and grounded “Pirate Treasure.” Upon the death of the parents, one child is left with the task of settling the estate, size-unknown, while the brother and sister just want their cash on the back-end.

There aren’t emotional fireworks at play, just a resigned sadness toward the apathy of the distant siblings. Their vocals weave in odd harmonies, meditating on the death of their family over a simple piano waltz that rolls slowly downhill, as in defeat.

Then it repeats from the top.

I keep having these dreams in which my dad dies, but he’s still around, complaining to me about how poorly people are dealing with his death. My dad is not one to hold his many opinions close to his vest, so of course he would stick around and talk some shit about the family, even after he has passed.

In these dreams, I’m just as incompetent as everyone else, even though I’m trying to be a hero, while my dad keeps lumping shit on top of me. My mother, brother, sister and myself argue and pick nits and yell. All that anger and accusation proves we feel something, and are still connected, whether we like it or not.

The song says that “ambivalence is sent to menace us, like cannons are meant to finish us.” Drakkar Sauna aren’t looking for love or support; they just want to be able get some kind of reaction to prove that there’s still a family in there, somewhere.

999,894: Isaac Hayes — By the Time I Get to Phoenix

A devout Scientologist in life, nowadays the late Isaac Hayes is surely yachting around The Hereafter with L. Ron Hubbard, clad in white coveralls, grinning his lopsided grin, and taking his turn at the helm of The Enchanter II whenever L. Ron needs to pee.

As he points the ship into yet another breathtaking sunset- where Isaac is, all the sunsets are breathtaking- I hope he feels a swell of pride when he thinks of the fantastic music he created in life. And when he thinks of his musical mistakes, I hope he sees that they were largely a result of his inability to edit himself, or better yet, to keep someone around willing to tell him he was doing something stupid.

Maybe he once had that someone, and maybe it was David Porter. In the early days of Stax records, Hayes and Porter wrote over 200 tight little soul nuggets for the label's artists, including the Sam & Dave hits Soul Man, I Thank You, and their debut single Hold On I’m Coming. No cinematic strings. No overlong and self indulgent breakdowns. And certainly no pointless 8 minute monologues. Just the solid moody soul that Hayes did so well.

Eventually, he and Porter parted ways, and soon thereafter Hayes started working on Hot Buttered Soul, his breakout second solo album. If Porter was the guy putting the kibosh on Hayes's worst self-indulgent tendencies, I believe he would have saved his harshest criticism for some of Hayes’s later decisions (“Ike, do NOT do a disco record!”) and gone along, maybe reluctantly, with most of Hot Buttered Soul. He probably just would have clucked his tongue a bit, warning Black Moses that his brooding cover of Walk On By is awesome, but too much of that long ass string shit is going to drain all the funk out of everything.

One choice I’m sure the Porter of my imagination would have called Black Moses out on, though, is the monologue that starts this track. We don't need all of this background, especially since, when the song proper starts in (at 8:38!) Ike’s tortured baritone provides all the back story this song needs, injecting each note with a quantity of raw soul that would have been lethal to Glen Campbell. Porter would have thought long and hard about how the song ends, but eventually he'd realize that sure the strings are sappy, but they fit, and they’re pretty, and the slow, gentle build suits the song perfectly as its protagonist achieves romantic escape velocity.

I hope David Porter is a Scientologist, because when he dies, I bet he and Hayes will do a ripping 8 minute version on the Enchanter II’s Cabana Deck.

By The Time I Get To Phoenix -...

999,895: The Four Seasons - December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)

It’s the ‘70s! Disco is here, and so is the sexual revolution! Free love isn’t just for smelly hippies anymore! Sex for pleasure is IN, baby! Key parties! Birth control! One-night stands with Mr. Goodbar! Herpes simplex! Deep Throat, the film AND informant! What better time for a ‘60s teenybopper group to score a pop-chart comeback with a disco song about a one-night stand? The Four Seasons were Jersey boys with Italian accents that today we’d most associate with The Sopranos, and not just because Frankie Valli got to be on that show. They had voices ideal for angelically innocent teenage love songs, but accents best suited to telling graphic anal sex jokes in between takes. If that seems like a little ethnic stereotyping, it’s worth listening to “December 1963 (Oh What a Night)” and reading between the lines just a bit. It’s already blatantly about a random hookup on the surface, and when you take into account the time period it’s set in (the Four Seasons had only just gotten big in ’62), this is a song that could very well be about fucking one of your teenage fans on Christmas morn.

Maybe the Four Seasons were still relatively innocent themselves at the time, but under the spotlight of stardom, that was disappearing quickly (“Why’d it take so long to see the light?/Seemed so wrong, but now it seems so right”). Really, the only regret is that he got real excited and came too fast (“As I recall, it ended much too soon”). Sex in early rock ‘n’ roll was all between the lines anyhow, in the beat and the movement but not the lyrics. If a pop group bred in that era are willing to acknowledge this much, imagine what the hell really went down.

So hey, this casual sex thing is new to you guys, here in late’ 75/early ‘76? We are the Four Fucking Seasons. We’ve been banging out broads since you were in short pants. Here, we’ll write a disco song about it, put some porno wah-wah guitars in the breakdown section. You regular jackoffs can use it as a soundtrack for your own average hookups. But here’s the point. See that date? Late December, NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE. We shed our inhibitions about 12-13 years ago, kids. You all have fun being daring and transgressive. Here’s a pat on the head. Now, we’ve gotta get back to that line of groupies we have backstage. Hey, you’re good-looking, sweetie. Here, take a number. Hopefully we won’t run out of boners. I guess otherwise we can all do the Hustle or some shit. Man, this is good blow.

December, 1963 (Oh What A Nigh...

999,896: Bobby Vinton - My Melody of Love

Being a music nerd means knowing the answers to questions that will never enter anyone’s minds. Such as, “What is the only American Top Ten single to feature lyrics in Polish?” I’m so glad you asked, Me. It’s Bobby Vinton’s “My Melody of Love,” a mid-‘70s pop confection that reinvented the onetime teen idol into a Vegas superstar for the middle-aged set. Vinton was born of Polish extraction and, having just recently lost his record deal, wrote the song at his mother’s suggestion to court that audience. The song topped the adult contemporary chart in 1974, and suddenly Vinton was America’s “Polish Prince,” hosting a polka-heavy variety show that was (according to what I read on Wikipedia) not as creepy as Lawrence Welk’s.

“My Melody of Love” is so squarely middle-of-the-road that there are cars on both sides of it, honking to indicate that it should get off the center line and pick a lane already. It’s also ear candy of the highest order. The unexpected chord shifts that occur as the verses build up to the chorus make you wonder why Vinton didn’t compose his own material more often. The gently trippy post-psychedelic effects under the second verse illustrate just how far into the mainstream the musical aftereffects of ‘60s drug culture had penetrated. The lyrics are superficially about heartbreak and pining for a lost love, but once the bright, bouncy, major-key chorus kicks in – at a tempo that’s not too fast for the old folks to dance to – it’s clear what we’re really here for. Namely, a song tailor-made for every Polish wedding in America, and especially in Pennsylvania polka country. You can’t get too depressing when your song is going on right next to “The Beer Barrel Polka” (which, not coincidentally, was Vinton’s follow-up single). The chorus helpfully translates the Polish lyrics, and the English ones are fairly simple; the whole thing is designed for people who only speak one of these languages well, and underlines the point by just finishing up with a chorus of “la la la la la”s.

One audience Vinton likely did not anticipate gaining was hopelessly nerdy five-year-old kids who felt like they were learning something from the song, and whose mothers really, really liked soft MOR pop. So Mr. Vinton, for providing the inescapable soundtrack of my early childhood (along with the Lettermen and the King of the Key Change, Barry Manilow), I salute you.

999,897: Simon and Garfunkel — Keep the Customer Satisfied

We can't all be raised by whores in the backroom of a roadhouse. Yet for many, so called "roots" music has to at least sound like it sprang from a deep well of human misery to be deemed authentic. If you can't live the life, you can at least fake it by affecting a cigarette scratch death rattle of a voice and carefully constructing music that stumbles and swaggers like a mean drunk.

Then there is the other option. To take your baby soft hands, your college-bred chops, your glee club voice and your jew-fro and play your tune with no attempt to disguise who you are or where you came from. This is the tact taken by Simon and Garfunkle on "Keep the Customer Satisfied" and you can't fault them for honesty, or for sounding totally awesome.

This song is basically an episode of the Dukes of Hazard, as narrated by guys who prefers the Paper Chase. Yet at the same time they sounds delighted to be slumming it with the good old boys. Like with George Harrison before them, they have a way of making studied arrangements played with all the grit of a midi sequencer sound vital and alive. One of the best things about this song is that it doesn't sound like the band has been around this pariculat block 100 times before, either in smokey bar rooms or top-flight nashville studios. Instead you're hearing the thrill of Simon and Garfunkel trying this particular suit on for the very first time. And when the spot on horn section kicks in, it's hard to tell who's more thrilled, us or them.

Keep The Customer Satisfied - ...

999,898: Murray Head — One Night in Bangkok

When it comes to the primacy of music vs. lyrics, I'm a music man. Sure, lyrics can certainly ad or detract from a song, but there's a reason that music is called music. And for the people I've talked to over the years who "only" care about the lyrics, well, poetry's down the hall. Oh Burn! Are we done?

No? Well at least I'm in the majority. Take this song, One Night In Bangkok, performed by Murray Head for the musical Chess. Here's a song with lyrics that don't make any sense, but was still a huge hit. Now I could try to prove my point with any song with vague indecipherable lyrics, There's no shortage of those, but lyric boosters will claim that "I just don't get" those songs or that the "lyrics are supposed to be evocative" or some shit like that. In the case of Bangkok, the lyrics make perfectly fine sense, provided you hear them in the context of an album that few people bought, for a musical that nobody went to see.

I was barely out of footie pajamas the first time I heard the song this song, so God know what I thought it was all about. I certainly didn't think it was about whoring around Bangkok while on a chess tournament. I seem to recall liking that the chorus because it sounded like Michael Jackson, and liking the way the funny man said "massage parlor." Lines such as "Time flies, doesn't seem a minute since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it", which refers to the previous act of the musical, I simply ignored and hopped on my bed to the moderately funky beat. Slack standards such as my own helped this song chart on both sides of the Atlantic.

This song answers the question, "Is rapping just talking in rhythm or is there more to it?" There's more to it. But the fact that the rhythmic talking on this song sounds nothing like rapping (It sounds more like a laid back Fred Schneider) probably saves the song from the awfulness that claimed too many wannabe raps back in the mid eighties. And even the halfway rappiness of the song pushed the lyrics even further to the side, since this song came out before white people thought you were even supposed to understand the lyrics to rap songs.

999,899: Robert Parker - Barefootin'

Nobody knows how to cut loose and party at a night club any more. Velvet ropes, bottle service, expensive clothes - you can't stunt in the club without spending at least $1000. And most important of all, you have to have nice shoes. Some places won't let you in with anything less than a pair of $600 italian ankle boots and in others people are walking around with so-called "sneakers" that cost more than that. The last thing anyone would do is "take off your shoes and throw them away / come back and get them another day." Those shoes would be on eBay long before that "other day" ever arrives.

For that reason, I would love it if some nightclub DJ in Hollywood or the Meat Packing district would cut off the Lady Gaga for the two minutes it would take to play Robert Parkers's "Barefootin'." It's an ode to kicking off your shoes in a nightclub, it rhymes "would you barefoot too" with "I've been barefootin' since I was two" and I think it could still get people dancing. It has horn stabs, slightly distorted mid-sixties guitar all over the place, and a hint of proto-James Brown funky drumming.

The best part of the song is probably the last line. After explaining what barefooting is, giving examples of people who had fun barefooting in the past (such as Lil' John Henry and Long Tall Sally), Mr. Parker exclaims, "We don't have no shoes on!" It's as if he was in a barefootin'-induced trance, dancing around the club and stepping in an unholy mixture of dirt from the street outside, spilled drinks and cigarette butts (this was 1966, after all) only to realize what his command to dance with your shoes off had wrought. I don't really want to barefoot at a club along with Long Tall Sally and her crew because of my fear of tetanus, and judging by the end of the song, I don't think Robert Parker did either, but provided I've vacuumed recently, I will joyfully barefoot around my living room any time "Barefootin'" comes on.

999,900: Kenny Chesney - Living in Fast forward

Recently, I saw a movie called "The Butterfly Effect." It was the worst movie I'd ever seen. It's about time travel, or magic powers, or something - I couldn't really tell. This guy keeps travelling back and forward in time every time he reads his old diary. At one point, he ends up in an alternate universe where his hands have been blown off and for some reason he needs a wheel chair. Because that's what they give you when you don't have any hands. A wheel chair.

Interestingly enough, a year before "The Butterfly Effect" came out, Kenny Chesney released the song "Living In Fast Forward," which deals with a very similar concept. You see, the character in the song has been traveling through space-time in a forward direction along the continuum, and now needs to somehow reverse the flow of time or "rewind real slow." Unlike Ashton Kutcher's character in "The Butterfly Effect," Kenny Chesney hasn't been forced to give himself stigmata to avoid fellating neo-nazi prisoners, but he has filled his body with "greasy cheeseburgers and cheap cigarettes" and done a lot of "runnin' and son-of-a gunnin'." Either way, both of them need to "rewind," although Kutcher needed to rewind real fast, because he was about to get killed in a prison riot.

Like the theme of the Butterfly Effect, which suggests that by trying to go back in time to perfect the present, you can end up destroying the future, "Living in Fast Forward" is also awash in bitter irony. The song, with a catchy, chant-along chorus, honky-tonk fiddlin' and salutes to being a "hillbilly rockstar," practically dares you to take another shot of whiskey. It's a song about a guy who has to stop partying before he kills himself with his bad habits that seems designed to encourage those habits. Perhaps Kenny can read his lyric sheets and travel backwards through time to before he started partying so hard, but we can't, and this song isn't going to help at all. It's "The Butterfly Effect" of music, except it makes you want to pump your fist into the air, not into your own face.

999,901: Martin Denny — Hava Nagila / Scimitar

Lots of fleeting musical trends emerged and vanished in the years after World War II—pretty much all of the trends not called Rock N' Roll, actually—but Martin Denny's exotica was probably the only one based on a kitschy restaurant fad. An amalgam of largely latin instruments, latin rhythms, latin chord progressions and ersatz animal noises (mostly bird calls shouted in turns by members of the combo), exotica's intention was to evoke, uh, the lands of the South Pacific—sort of "Bali Ha'i" as a genre.

Oh, there was the occasional foray into "Asian" territory as well, usually employing the kinds of "Chinese" melodies you can plink out using just the black keys of a piano, but exotica was mainly a phenomenon of tiki culture, that Jonny Quest-ian take on any place that might recently have hosted a death march and was located safely on the other side of a vast ocean. All you really needed was a bunch of Caucasians clad in what you might now call Yacht Rock gear, the suggestion of a non-white nation more than 1,000 miles from North America, and a minor key, and you had the makings of a pretty decent exotica song.

Denny's fake world music was certainly real enough for his fans, the denizens of sunken suburban living rooms in new developments throughout the US, who might well have been sipping home-made mai tais while spinning a side or two of exotica and eyeing the scantily-clad, vaguely Asian or Polynesian lass splayed across the album cover. It didn't matter if it was all make-believe, since if you were resigned to life in suburbia you might as well fantasize about places that technically didn't exist.

And as long as you're mixing together cultures willy-nilly, why not go completely for broke? Why not take your sluggish congas, your grooved cylinders, your wordless female vibratos, your cascading piano lines—all the usual trappings of your grass-skirted, faux island music—and apply them to a Jewish folk song that was written to celebrate the Balfour declaration? And since nobody loves the Balfour Declaration like the Arab people, how about you tack on something vaguely Arabian sounding? After all, Arabs and Jews go together as well as the music of Arabs, Jews, the Chinese, Fijians and Cubans does.

Hava Nagila / Scimitar - Marti...