“Sara,” is Bob Dylan’s most honest song.  Its probably the only personal song he addresses to a real person directly, his wife Sara.  The lyrics are incredibly intimate and, apparently, true to life.  ‘Sara’ a gorgeously pained ballad of desperation, fittingly included as the closer to an album he named Desire.  That record came out in 1976, and it should come as no surprise that Sara divorced him a year later.  Their marriage was on the rocks, evidenced by all the songs found on Blood on the Tracks.  I love this songs melody, at once both graceful and earthy.  The lyrics, which I also love, are mix of passionate pleadings and cosmic reverence for this woman, a brave and true piece of work, but hey, what else would you expect from Mr. Bob Dylan?  The video itself, is an incredible document of washed out 70s home movies and live performances capturing the desolate mood of the song perfectly. So, in the end, there is nothing else for us to do but press play a few times and let this sink in our souls.

I don’t know too much about James Taylor, but perhaps its time I start.  I’m just gonna rattle off what I know off the top of my head.  He was a recovering heroin addict, suffering from severe depression, when at some point he finally put his life together and allowed his incredible talent to flourish.  He was one of the early super star signings for the fledgling “Apple Records,” the Beatles hot new label, cutting his first record with the help of Paul McCartney and George Harrison among others.  Ever since the phenomenal success of his debut, he has sort of coasted along in the first class world of pop’s elder statesmen, performing his trusty hits, and melting hearts everywhere he goes with his perfect fragile style.  This video of “Something in the Way She Moves,” a clip I first saw in the Beatles Anthology documentary, has always stuck with me.  It’s just one of the purest examples of a man, his guitar, and a song.  Even with his acne, it is perfection with no adornment, one of the ultimate expressions of the folk pop format executed with heart breaking beauty.  James just has a way of drawing you into his intimate world, to a place we’ve all been to.  It’s just spellbinding.  Please watch this and appreciate the artistry and genius going on here.

I was wandering around New York City feeling depressed as hell last week when “Rats” by the Kinks popped on my iPod.  It was the kind of song just randomly on my music player without my knowledge, and without me ever hearing it before.  It immediately altered my mood from depressed and sad, to something rocking, vicious, and righteous.  In this digital world where our music collections have outgrown our capacity to possibly hear it all, its a beautiful feeling when a song strikes you like a bolt from the blue.  “Rats” was written by Ray’s overshadowed brother Dave, the lead guitarist of the Kinks, and its just an awesome paranoid rocker about being lost in a city and being bitten by human vermin.  The song has some destructive non-corny power chords, and a driving forceful melody of power.  It’s become one of my favorite new Kinks songs, and it gets my pick of rocking song of the month, a category I just invented.  There is no proper music video of the song, so I’ll just post the youtube still….I’ve gotten heavily into video editing, so perhaps I’ll make my own video for this overlooked gem soon…Look out for it.

Sly Stone, I can safely say, is the funkiest man ever born in Texas.  Ray Davies, the mastermind behind the Kinks, was born of a more dainty British cloth.  Don’t get me wrong, Ray’s rebellious awesomeness cannot be questioned, but there is no doubt that he is crumpet eating, village green strolling, nostalgia reflecting English gentleman.  What was so great about the rock revolution of the 1960s was how world’s so seemingly divergent, could merge through music, in thrillingly unpredictable ways.  The song below is such an instance.  This is a fantastic, funky, and fresh studio outtake of Sly tackling Ray’s garage rock classic, “You Really Got Me.”  Words to describe what awaits you behind the play button are useless in the face of Sly’s sleek and sexy guitar playing.  So, do your soul a favor and groove to this.

So apparently, if it weren’t for this song, Charles Manson never would have heard the Beatles “Helter Skelter” and have murdered all those people.  Legend goes that Paul McCartney read that this song was the “heaviest” ever made, and without even hearing it, took it upon himself to write a metal song, a genre that didn’t really exist yet.  The funny thing is, this song is not that heavy.  It’s a beautiful psychedelic pop song wrapped up in themes of revenge, be them romantic or otherwise.  It’s funny because as I write this, I do recall reading something from Paul McCartney when he finally heard the alleged Who song in question, sort of laughing at the “false” inspiration.  Amazingly, the folks at Wikipedia have the quote for us all to enjoy,

“Umm, that came about just ’cause I’d read a review of a record which said, ‘and this group really got us wild, there’s echo on everything, they’re screaming their heads off.’ And I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, it’d be great to do one. Pity they’ve done it. Must be great — really screaming record.’ And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn’t rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, ‘Oh well, we’ll do one like that, then.’ And I had this song called “Helter Skelter,” which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, ‘cuz I like noise.”

Interesting stuff, but that’s all besides the point.  The point, if you must know, is that “I Can See For Miles” is indeed awesome.  It features some of the best hard rock psychedelic harmonies the Who ever achieved, driving the song with force into the psychedelic expanse.  The video below is also great even though it’s a  mimed performance.  The Who had trouble replicating the overdubs live, contributing to the fact that they never played it much on stage, at least when Keith Moon was living.  Anyway, enjoy this sucker, because its one of the best ever.

Rock and roll.  It’s life, it’s blood, it’s the Who.  This studio performance of “Who Are You” from “The Kids Are Alright” film is one of the best and clearest examples of rock and roll perfection.  The Who were a dynamite live act and an incredible studio machine.  This video captures both looks of the Who at their best in one of their most iconic songs.  There is something both beautiful and intimidating in the way Pete Townshend was able to pack explosive art into every second of this masterpiece.  The beauty part is self evident, but the intimidation element is something to behold.  This band, directed by Pete, is just all muscle.  Each member flexes their power over rock in a furious fashion, a force only contained in the lines of Pete’s brilliant songwriting.  It’s amazing, if you haven’t guessed, so just press play and enjoy.

I was examining the dusty halls of my website, and I realized my section on the Who is seriously lacking.  It’s not for lack of love, merely an oversight soon to be corrected.  “The Seeker” is one of my favorite Who songs.  It’s a hard driving philosophical rock fest that is half serious/half parody.  When I was 17, I was more interested in the serious side; Pete Townshend’s search for the meaning of life and death expressed through Roger Daltry’s howling lungs, Keith Moon’s insane bashing, and John Entwistle’s flute like bass playing.  As a 27 year old, I’m more interested in the parody side.  The song almost seems to be the story of your average rock and roll fan, searching for enlightenment and meaning through the dominant pop culture icons of the age; the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Timothy Leary.  Pete himself must have come across tons of these people asking him for guidance seeing him as another rock and roll prophet.  The whole concept is brilliant, and the raucous music matches the abstract flair.  The music video itself below is also an awesome example of pop art perfection with dramatic closeups of the members and stylized lyrics splashing the screen.  Enjoy.

There are a lot of “Worst Beatle Songs” lists out there, and they all have the same formula.  The writer lists 2-3 songs that are absolute duds, and then sprinkles in a few that are actually classics just to fuck with people’s long held opinions.  In preparing for this piece, I read those articles, many written by major magazines, and top online blogs, and saw songs like “Hey Jude,” “All You Need is Love,” “Yesterday,” and “Penny Lane.”  It’s simply a travesty, even if you are just trying to get attention, to lump any of those songs onto a “worst ever” list, and you won’t see it here.  Also, its mandatory for all of these writers to include “Revolution #9,” a song loathed and skipped the world over.  I know its equally pretentious to claim being a fan of “Revolution #9,” but count me as one.  I just think it adds richness and color to the “White Album.”  It’s interesting to listen to, not a bore at all, and has really nice snippets of sound effects and music woven into it very beautifully.  It’s experimental, daring, and fuck you for criticizing the Beatles for trying something off the wall after giving you the soundtrack to your life.  Ok, with all that said, I’m going to give you the three worst Beatle songs according to me.  Now, I also want to preface, that despite the fact that I think these songs are terrible, I still let them play if they pop on my iPod, and they still get stuck in my head.

#3.  “Mr. Moonlight”- This is a song that finds its way on most lists, and for good reason; its probably the worst cover the Beatles ever did.  John’s lead vocal is forced and the backing vocals are lame.  It’s one of these ancient 50s standards that the Beatles can’t quite seem to bring into the next decade.  I just don’t understand why the guys liked this song enough to put it on one of their albums.  The lyrics are insanely embarrassing and bad, “we love you, Mr. Moonlight.”  Lastly, when they repeat “Mr. Moonlight” to end the song with a dark three part harmony, its just dreadful, and possibly the worst harmonizing they ever laid on tape.

#2.  “A Taste of Honey”- Another cover song.  This one has lyrics more thoroughly embarrassing then “Mr. Moonlight,” and musically, its just as awful.  It’s some kind of dark samba like shuffle with utterly bizarre emotional and lyrical moments with the main dramatic hook being biggest offender, “A taste of HONEY!…tasting, much sweeter, then wine, doo doo do dooo!”  The thing about this song is that it’s terrifyingly catchy.  You will probably be humming the start and stop melody for a week in the back of your brain after hearing, so be warned.  Perhaps the Beatles recorded it to show off their range at playing show tunes, or perhaps they appreciated its catchy refrain, the number one ingredient they were searching for in their own songwriting.  Whatever they were really thinking when making “A Taste of Honey,” is hard to fathom, and thus can only be appreciated with irony, delicious as it might be.

#1. “Do You Want to Know a Secret”- Before George was George, he was just the youngest member of the Beatles.  He hadn’t cultivated any songwriting ability, and his voice wasn’t as strong as John or Paul’s, but being a Beatle, he had a massive fan base that wanted to hear from him.  So, John and Paul took it upon themselves to write songs for George and Ringo, and were quite clever about it. They realized that there would be a huge demand for it, and that they could give the lesser songs, they themselves to embarrassed to sing, to George and Ringo, just to get rid of them.  One of these songs was “Do You Want to Know a Secret.”  Right away, you can tell why John dumped this thing on George.  It starts off with an ambitious declaratory and unmusical refrain, but then kicks off into the schmaltziest take on 60s doo-wop ever heard.  The backing vocals say it all, “doo-wah-doo” sung after ever line with shameless pixie like stupidity.  The most immortal line, “I’ve known a secret for a week or two, nobody knows, just we twoooo,” is a crime not only against music, but grammar as well.  John famously said that he gave it to George because, “it only had three notes and he wasn’t the best singer in the world.”  He did qualify the brutally harsh statement by saying “he has improved a lot since then.”  John said that in 1980, a full decade after George’s rise to genius songwriter/performer, so he’s either being sarcastic by limiting his praise for George, or just outright mean. Either way he ignores the fact that he wrote the stupid song, and it would sound awful coming from anybody.  On the plus side, there is still something magical going on, mainly its unstoppable catchiness.  The melody is timeless…existing at the lowest wrung of timeless melodies, but hanging in, somehow.  It proves that even at their worst, the Beatles had some enchanted sense of beauty that permeated everything they touched…..doo-wah-dooo.

I’ve never heard anyone but Bob Marley refer to the sun as the “high yellow moon.”  Fantastic poetry.  “Concrete Jungle,” from Catch a Fire, is one of the bleakest songs about urban dystopia you will ever hear.  It was the lead-off track from Bob’s 1973 masterpiece, Catch a Fire, and is an incredible piece of dark reggae funk.  Bob’s melody is 100% authentic emotion, and his brilliance lies in this fact.  Whenever I hear this song, Bob puts me in his shoes, and lets me stare right through his eyes.  The live performance below is culled from the “Old Grey Whistle Test,” whatever that was, and is just a strait up reminder of what the world is missing today, namely, Bob Marley and the Wailers giving you some of the best music the world has ever heard.  Enjoy.

Some Girls is one of the best Rolling Stones records.  It’s sleazy, dirty, punky, and country.  It came out in 1978, and has just been reissued it a nice little collectors package.  You should get it; I know I will.  To celebrate its corporate repackaging, I present to you a thoroughly scandalous fan made music video of the title song from the record.  The video features classic films such as “Easy Rider,” “Backbeat,” “Quadrophenia,” “Death Proof,” “Goodfellas,” and “Dr. No.”  It also has great clips of the Sex Pistols, Blondie, and the Rolling Stones, all vamping it up for one of the Stones most booziest songs.