Good morning and happy first Monday of the new year. Yes, the government took some extrajudicial actions down in Venezuela over the weekend, and we’re all scrambling figuring out how to deal with that, but in the meantime I’ve got some songs for you.

1. The Cranberries, “Salvation”: A blistering blast of punky energy and the occasional horn? Yes, please.
2. Lyle Lovett, “Lungs”: An old Townes Van Zandt song that, according to Lovett, Van Zandt said ought to be “shouted rather than sung.” Lovett sings it here anyway. It’s good, as Van Zandt songs tend to be.
3. Rufus Wainwright, “Chelsea Hotel No. 2”: There’s just a…sadness to this song that I’ve always felt an affinity for. Maybe it’s the line, “You told me again you preferred handsome men/But for me you would make an exception.”
4. George Harrison, “Marwa Blues”: Just a beautiful instrumental number off Brainwashed with some absolutely perfect slide guitar from George.
5. Tom Waits, “(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night”: I think of this one as the flipside to a Bruce Springsteen song from about the same era: there’s a yearning there, like in Bruce songs, but a bitter sadness as well, not just a sense that there is no escape from this life but that even trying to escape from this life isn’t worth the effort.
6. Better Than Ezra, “Desperately Wanting”: Drugs are bad, m’kay?
7. Counting Crows, “Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes to Hollywood)”: A lot of the songs on this particular list deal with longing and loss, I think. Did I do that on purpose? Man, who even knows anymore.
8. Billy Bragg & Wilco, “When The Roses Bloom Again”: Going off to war always sucks. Always. And there are always unintended consequences.
9. Brian Fallon, “Forget Me Not”: Brian Fallon remains one of my favorite songwriters of the past twenty or so years. There’s some Bruce in there, some doo-wop, and a lot of joy at just making music. And I will always dig that.
10. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Again, drugs are bad. The “white horse in her hip pocket” is a less-than-subtle reference to heroin, after all.