Happy Monday, folks. It’s a wet and weary Monday, especially for me. I got sick over the weekend and have not fully recovered. But time and playlists (and AP Test proctoring) stop for no one!

1. Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”: Gawd damn, how had I never heard this song until this weekend? It is so angry (justifiably so) and righteous (also justifiably so) and that groove is undeniable.
2. John Lennon, “Working Class Hero”: Over the weekend, the Wife convinced me to activate Sirus XM on our car, as she was tired of “just listening to your curated playlists all the time.” Apparently she wants unpredictability in the music she listens to? That just sounds horrible to me, but that may be my weird little quirk. Anyway, I heard this song this weekend, too, probably on the same radio show as the Gil Scott-Heron track.
3. Bruce Springsteen, “We Shall Overcome”: The looseness of the Seeger Sessions always struck me as very out of character for Springsteen, but it’s also a big part of why I love these songs so much.
4. Adeem the Artist, “Books & Records”: The revolution will not be televised, and a lot of folks couldn’t afford to watch it even if they wanted to. While not a revolution per se, it is indicative of the folks down at the bottom of society for whom scraping by just doesn’t cut it.
5. Bob Dylan, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”: Who writes more bitterly, more eloquently, about the revolution than Bob?
6. Bob Marley & the Wailers,” Redemption Song”: You get the feeling – just from listening to this song, if nothing else – that Bob Marley understood the human spirit and the drive for freedom far better than many ever will. And maybe that’s a good thing: maybe we don’t want more folks having to think long and hard about how difficult freedom is to obtain, how challenging it is to fight just to exist. But Marley knew.
7. Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth”: I’ll take “Songs I didn’t see becoming quite so relevant again” for $500, Alex.
8. Leadbelly, “Midnight Special”: While I absolutely love the CCR version of this one, Leadbelly gives it a little something John Fogerty never could. There’s some authenticity to Leadbelly’s version – this is a man who literally sang his way out of prison at least once – and a lived-in experience that just isn’t present in the CCR version, no matter how awesome it is.
9. Moxy Fruvous, “Stuck in the 90s”: While we may look back through nostalgic, rose-tinted glasses at that decade of decadence and – dare I say? – hedonism, not everyone sees the 90s as the golden age we think of it as being.
10. Tracy Chapman, “If Not Now…”: Then when?