Happy dreary, rainy Monday, folks. Next week is Spring Break! And then we don’t get another break until Memorial Day, so we better make it count.
- Wilco, “You Never Know”: Did you know Jeff Tweedy and Co. wrote the best song George Harrison and Jeff Lynne never recorded? It’s true! It’s this song.
- Linda Ronstadt, “Tumblin’ Dice”: Brother Clyde’s distaste for this Rolling Stones classic notwithstanding, Ronstadt’s cover blows it out of the water, hands down.
- The New Pornographers, “Ballad Of The Last Payphone”: There are stranger things to write an ode to, but few as heartbreaking as an outdated, outmoded piece of technology.
- Alison Krauss & Union Station, “Richmond On The James”: It’s a song about Richmond, VA. It’s off their first album in well over a decade, and it’s just as good as anything else they’ve ever released.
- Jeremy Messersmith, “Billionaires”: As I sit here, watching my retirement savings disappear because someone decided they wanted to start a trade war with the entire rest of the world (including some islands that don’t have any human inhabitants), I listen to this song and I think…maybe the French had the right idea during the Reign of Terror.
- Sting, “All This Time”: One of my favorite songs of all time, featuring one of my favorite lines of all time: “Men go crazy in congregations/They only get better one by one.”
- The Black Crowes, “Hard To Handle”: I love me an old R&B cover. I remember that my dad had this album on cassette when we were kids; it was the last new music I think he’s bought.
- Townes Van Zandt, “Pancho And Lefty”: If there’s a better version of this song out there, I haven’t heard it.
- The Hollies, “The Air That I Breathe”: Just such a simple, beautiful love song. Gotta give it to the Hollies.
- Jim James, “Long, Long, Long”: And we close with another cover, this one of the George Harrison classic “Long, Long, Long” from the White Album. It’s slow and languid and sad, and I could listen to it all day long (long, long).