Happy Monday, folks! The AC is out at the Wife’s school, which has sent them scrambling home and us to the local library for the day. But playlists don’t care about the temperature!

1. The Allman Brothers Band, “Midnight Rider”: All these years later, this song still kicks a serious amount of ass. Those harmonies in the chorus? They send chills down my spine.
2. Badfinger, “Day After Day”: It’s always a bit of a tragedy, this band. They had so much potential, and it ended up being (mostly) wasted by managerial incompetence (or, y’know, malfeasance).
3. Bruce Cockburn, “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”: I heard a Barenaked Ladies cover of this song the other week, and it just…lacked any kind of oomph. The line “You gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight” is still stone-cold badass, though.
4. Tom Waits, “Get Behind The Mule”: The title for this song apparently came from famous bluesman Robert Johnson’s father, who famously said, “the only thing wrong with Robert Johnson is that he doesn’t want to get behind the mule in the morning and plow.” And that thought now resides rent-free in my head.
5. Tom Petty, “You And Me”: I’ve softened considerably on latter-day Tom Petty as I’ve grown older, especially The Last DJ and Highway Companion. This one comes from the former, though I think I can be forgiven for originally thinking it came from the latter. It just has that solo style, that easy-going, laid-back tone that so much of his best work possessed.
6. Queen, “’39”: A folky little slice of…I dunno, colonialism? It’s less endearing than I originally thought now that I give it more thought. Hmm.
7. Monsters of Folk, “Say Please”: Speaking of a group that’s supposed to be folky, there’s these guys. I wonder if any of them ever went on to make anything else?
8. The English Beat, “Save It For Later”: A stone-cold classic. I feel like the horn section is what really holds the song together and gives it that certain something that sets it above many of the English Beat’s peers.
9. Billy Preston, “Nothing From Nothing”: That Billy Preston could release songs with such emotion and energy and feel as…trapped as he apparently felt still resonates with me.
10. Jefferson Airplane, “Somebody To Love”: How did the band that released songs like this, “White Rabbit,” and “Volunteers” eventually morph into the band that released “We Built This City?” It’s one of life’s great mysteries.