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Playlist #217: Summertime

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Happy Monday! It’s all officially summer now, what with the summer solstice occurring late last week, so let’s look at some of my favorite songs about summer and summer-related stuff.

  1. Don Henley, “Boys of Summer”: Did you know the Ataris did a cover of this song, only instead of a “Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac” it’s a “Black Flag sticker” on the Caddy? I’m pretty sure the Venn Diagram of people who drive Cadillacs and people who would put a Black Flag sticker on their car has zero overlap.
  2. Mungo Jerry, “In the Summertime”: It’s all loosey-goosey and jugbandy. Feels like the most casual, tossed-off thing in the world, which is perfect for summer. We’ll just ignore the bit about, “If her daddy’s rich, taker her out for a meal/If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel,” which feels a little like Mungo Jerry and his ridiculous hair ought to be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
  3. Sublime, “Doin’ Time”: Ever heard a ’90s alt-punk band borrow liberally from Gershwin? Well, you have now! And it actually works surprisingly well.
  4. Glen Phillips, “Winter Pays For Summer”: I rather like the idea that the reward for dealing with the season you don’t like is the season you do like. The winter, that is, pays for the summer, though in my case I think it works the opposite (I hate summer heat. I should escape to cooler climes, but I’m pretty locked-in here in Fairfax County).
  5. Wilco, “Summer Teeth”: Does the title make any sense? Does it matter if it does? Not even a little. This bright bite of poppy bubblegum is from the similarly-named album Summerteeth, which is likewise full of Brian Wilson-esque tunes to bop along to as a summer night stretches out before you.
  6. Better Than Ezra, “Summerhouse”: It’s about a summer house, but more accurately it’s about a murder that no one really seems to care about. So it goes.
  7. Iron & Wine, “Summer in Savannah”: From that weird, experimental period where Iron & Wine tried to pretend they weren’t an old-timey string band sort of thing and were just a bunch of synth nerds. You can be both, Sam Beam. You can be both.
  8. The Head and the Heart, “Summertime”: With enough reverb on the guitar for a Ventures solo and enough yearning to make Brian Wilson blush.
  9. The Beach Boys, “Fun, Fun, Fun”: We’ve already established that the Beach Boys were the quintessential band of summer, and “Fun, Fun, Fun” is one of their absolute best summertime tunes. Joyriding in a T-Bird? Saying you’re going to the library when you’re going out cruising? It’s such a time capsule of the early 1960s. I can just see Harrison Ford and Opie searching for the Wolfman while this song plays.
  10. Ray LaMontagne, “Summer Clouds”: A wistful, finger-picked ballad that feels like a Sunday morning in October kind of song, a longing remembrance of the past.

Playlist #207: Wilco Albums, Ranked

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Happy Monday, folks! I’m off in Ohio on Spring Break this week, but the internet is a greedy sonuvagun and demands content! And as it just so happens, I spent all last week doing a deep dive into the catalog of the band Wilco, so I thought I’d just rank their albums and judge all of them accordingly.

13. Cruel Country: It’s not a bad album, per se, nor is it a return to the alt-country of their earliest days. It’s a latter-day Wilco album, with all that entails: excellent instrumentation played by consummate professionals, while Jeff Tweedy mumbles and croons over it all. It’s good, just not as good as some of their other stuff.

12. AM: Their first album, which really just feels like Uncle Tupelo 2.0. The sound is rough and ragged and the songs aren’t nearly as finished as you’d like them to be. There’s some bright spots here and there – “Passenger Side” remains a personal favorite – but it’s not anything like what the band became.

11. Star Wars: Even though it combines three of my favorite things (the cat on the cover, the title, and the band Wilco), I’m not a huge fan of this album. My biggest complaint about it is that it feels too tossed off and too self-serious at the same time. It’s like Wilco trying to reclaim their art-rock credentials, but also it sounds like they were just freeform jamming in the studio.

10. Cousins: It’s another latter-day Wilco album that I just…don’t really remember after I’ve listened to it. It’s good, it’s pleasant and all, but I don’t remember a single song off this one.

9. Schmilco: Wilco still trying to recapture that art-rock cred, but at least this time their sense of humor is intact and the songs feel more fleshed out than on Star Wars.

8. Ode To Joy: Here we go. From here forward, we start getting into the solid albums, the ones really worth listening to. Ode To Joy finds the band balancing their artier pretensions with good, solid songcraft. They use weirdness in service to the songs. Tunes like “Quiet Amplifier” and “Everyone Hides” are damn good. If I was going to pick a latter-day Wilco album to start with, this would be it.

7. Being There: Yeah, it’s probably blasphemy to put this one in the middle of the list, and the double album is where Wilco starts to coalesce into a band rather than a jumble of musicians banging away on their instruments, but there’s a lot of filler on these two discs. They could’ve had a stone-cold classic if they’d edited it down to just a single LP. That being said, “Misunderstood,” “Outtasite (Outta Mind),” “Red-Eyed And Blue,” “Say You Miss Me,” “Sunken Treasure,” and “Dreamer In My Dreams” are all outstanding songs that showcase what Tweedy and the band could do.

6. Wilco (the album): When you kick off your self-titled album with a self-titled track, the oroboros that you have become is finally complete. There are some bangers on here, though, such as “One Wing” and “You Never Know,” and “Sonny Feeling” is a great travelogue song.

5. The Whole Love: The title track alone makes this album worth the price of entry. The fact that you also get great songs like “I Might” and “Capitol City,” or “Dawned On Me” and “Open Mind,” or the trippy opener “Art of Almost” (with a great freakout coda at the end) is just icing on the delicious cake.

4. Sky Blue Sky: When this album first came out, three years after A Ghost Is Born, I felt…let down. It wasn’t nearly as inventive or experimental or exciting as the previous album. It was just…dad rock. Sure, the songs were pleasant and well-constructed, and the band were in fine form, but it just didn’t click with me. I’m happy to say it clicks now, and tracks like “You Are My Face” or “Hate It Here” could’ve fit alongside anything from Ghost and been perfectly acceptable. There isn’t a bad song on here, and the penultimate song, “What Light,” might be one of the best, sweetest songs Tweedy’s ever written.

3. A Ghost Is Born: While it’s probably my personal favorite Wilco album, I’m not crazy enough to believe that it’s their best. There are too many weird detours – “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is just too damn long, and “Less Than You Think” just drones on for what feels like an eternity – but the songs that hit really hit. Opener “At Least That’s What You Said” starts out quiet and moody, then breaks out into a Neil Young and Crazy Horse exercise. There’s a string of songs in the middle of the album – “Muzzle of Bees,” “Hummingbird,” and “Handshake Drugs” – that feels so absolutely perfect that I cannot imagine any other sequence of songs ever being that right again. Then there’s the one-two punch of “Theologians” and “The Late Greats” on either side of “Less Than You Think.” They’re uptempo and bouncy and just fun. This is a Serious BandTM, but they know how to have fun and cut loose.

2. Summerteeth: Everyone goes through a Beach Boys phase, right? Except most of us don’t turn that phase into one of the best albums of the ’90s. This is one of those all-killer, no-filler albums (well, except for maybe “Pieholden Suite” and “Via Chicago,” but I’m entitled to my opinions and you’re entitled to yours) that you can just put on and listen to all the way through, and when it reaches the end, you just flip the album over and start it again from the top. This is the band realizing its potential, and everything comes up aces.

1. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: If Summerteeth is the band realizing their potential, YHF is Wilco surpassing every expectation. It’s the perfect distillation of Americana and alt-country or whatever else you want to call it. It’s the American experience, grappling with life in a post-9/11 world, searching for meaning and reason in a world without either. It’s a perfect album.

Playlist #206

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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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.”
  7. 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.
  8. Townes Van Zandt, “Pancho And Lefty”: If there’s a better version of this song out there, I haven’t heard it.
  9. The Hollies, “The Air That I Breathe”: Just such a simple, beautiful love song. Gotta give it to the Hollies.
  10. 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).

Playlist #199

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Happy Tuesday, everyone! As is my wont, I took yesterday off ’cause it was a federal holiday. Anyway, here’s this week’s playlist. Enjoy!

  1. Kendrick Lamar, “Not Like Us”: Yeah, I’m several months behind the zeitgeist on this one, but in my defense I’m usually several years behind, so this is progress for me. It’s also a damn good song and a textbook case of how to destroy a rival’s image. I know everyone harps on the “and it’s prob’ly a minoooooooor” line, and rightly so, but the bit about Drake being a colonizer are just….*chef’s kiss*
  2. Jesse Welles, “That Can’t Be Right”: You’ve possibly seen this dude, standing in a clearing on a stump, singing songs about the South in a raspy drawl reminiscent of John Fohgerty if he’d gargled sand and glass for a few hours before singin’. There’s humor and heart in it, and I dig that.
  3. Gregory Alan Isakov, “Sweet Heat Lightning”: Blame Clyde for this one. He insisted I needed to listen to this guy over the weekend after he first sent me a text slagging the guy for always playing the same chords at the same pace. And, yeah, some of the songs do sound a bit samey, but there’s also some very clever songwriting in there and the guy’s clearly found his groove.
  4. The La’s, “There She Goes”: After watching a video about the disastrous efforts to create their first (and only!) album, I had to go give it a listen. Sure, I was already well-aware of this song, which is all chorus repeated ad-infinitum, but the rest of the record (which the lead singer and songwriter has disavowed as not part of his vision) feels like ramshackle ’60s British Invasion pop, with all the jangle and three-part harmonies that implies.
  5. Vaydra, “Learning to Love”: It’s always good news when Kelly and company put out new music. They’ve cut back on the psychedelic touches that tinged their first LP, but her voice remains the driving force it’s always been.
  6. The Cranberries, “Ode to My Family”: Listened to their debut, No Need to Argue, last week, and it sounds…exactly like what you’d expect a Cranberries album to sound like. If you’ve heard “Zombie” or “Linger,” you’re already pretty familiar with their sonic palette. This is by no means a criticism, more an observation that they’d found their niche pretty quick.
  7. Wilco, “Handshake Drugs (11/13/03 Sear Sound-NYC Version)”: A Ghost Is Born remains one of my all-time favorite albums by any band ever, and I’m also down as a guy who loves listening to the iterative process of how the musical sausage gets made. Getting to hear early versions of the songs from this album is a treat, and also the reason I’m seriously considering dropping $150 on the 9-disc version they just released.
  8. Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, “The Virginian”: Early Neko Case is a strange beast. Her voice is as powerful and emotive as you’d expect, but the songwriting polish just isn’t there quite yet (in another song off this album, she rhymes “away” with…”away”). It’s also much more honky-tonk country than the strange alternative singer-songwriter stuff of more recent vintage.
  9. Phil Collins, “I Don’t Care Anymore”: A stark, angry kiss-off song from one of the most unassuming guys in pop, the guy who usually sang stuff like “Sussudio.” Very strange way to start an album.
  10. Tom Petty, “You Saw Me Comin'”: An outtake from the Wildflowers sessions, still one of the best periods of songwriting in Petty’s career.

    Playlist #198

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    Happy Monday, folks! Looks like another round of snow is headed towards Northern Virginia this week, so I’m looking forward to a short week of work (and not administering the WIDA exam on Wednesday). Here’s some songs to get you through the snowy cold.

    1. The Weather Station, “Neon Signs”: You could describe this as folk/Americana, or alternative, or “cosmic Americana,” my preferred genre. However you describe it, it’s good. The instruments fade in and out, entwine with one another then break apart, and the lyrics float in from the middle of absolute nowhere like they’ve just blown in from the desert. Good stuff.
    2. Waxahatchee, “Mud”: New Waxahatchee means happy Charlie, even if it is just a single.
    3. Wilco, “Handshake Drugs”: The deluxe edition of A Ghost Is Born was released Friday, so of course I’ve already listened to it. I’m a little disappointed the so-called “Expanded Edition” only included a single extra disc of early versions of the songs instead of the 9-disc full version that is apparently available out there for the diehards (yeah, I’ll probably end up tracking that one down. I’m a sucker for the iterative nature of songwriting).
    4. Michgander, “Emotional”: I’ve dug this guy and his work since I first heard an EP of his several years ago, and his songwriting only gets stronger and his arrangements only get fuller as time goes by. Love it.
    5. Electric Light Orchestra, “The Bouncer”: A bonus song off the Time album, and one that has a bouncy, fun little beat and all the trademarks of Jeff Lynne production.
    6. Iron & Wine, “Call Your Boys”: I love the slide guitar work on this song. It’s subtle but effective, and the vocal melody is beautiful and sad.
    7. Jesse Malin, “She Don’t Love Me Now”: I think it’s the horn section in this song that gets me.
    8. Mark Knopfler, “Donnegan’s Gone”: A skiffle song about the guy who started the skiffle craze? Why not?
    9. The Gaslight Anthem, “Say I Won’t (Recognize)”: Early Gaslight Anthem is full of punch and power and longing and more hair grease than was used on the set of the movie Grease. James Dean would be proud.
    10. Jason Isbell, “Elephant”: Whenever I want to cry and feel absolutely beautiful misery, I put this song on. Works every time.

    Playlist #197

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    Happy Monday, folks! We finally made it through that nigh-unending January, sanity (mostly) intact. Here’s some songs to get us through the week.

    1. David Gray, “As I’m Leaving”: David Gray’s earlier stuff is much more striped down and folky. I kinda dig a lot of it, especially this piano ballad off the Lost Songs collection.
    2. You+Me, “From a Closet in Norway”: Maybe I’m just a sucker for acoustic-based folk-pop?
    3. Van Morrison, “Madame Joy”: This song is just so full of joy, it’s hard not to love. Van could rave it up sometimes.
    4. Wilco, “You Are My Face”: I love the breakdown in this song, where it totally changes tone and rhythm and becomes a completely different song for a couple of minutes. Great.
    5. Jackson Browne, “Downhill From Everywhere”: An actual environmental protest song, this time about the sea and how we’re all connected to it.
    6. Beck, “Lost Cause”: I know Sea Change is Beck’s big breakup album/Bob Dylan reference, and it’s good, and it sounds like he’s just being backed by the Flaming Lips the whole time (to the point that he took them out on tour as his opener and his backing band for the subsequent tour), but it does occasionally make me miss the whimsical, clearly-stoned-out-of-his-gourd Beck.
    7. Richard Thompson, “Beeswing”: Back on my folky acoustic bullshit, but it’s a damn good story song.
    8. George Harrison, “Not Guilty”: Solo George is the best George.
    9. The Gaslight Anthem, “Blue Jeans & White T-Shirts”: Early Gaslight Anthem, with the band showing they have a softer, more sensitive side.
    10. Aimee Mann, “Stranger Into Starman”: A subdued ender for this particular playlist, but a perpetual favorite. Aimee Mann somehow became one of my favorite artists over the past few years, and I’m not sad about that at all.

    Playlist #194 and #195

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    Happy Monday! It’s Martin Luther King, Jr, Day, and Inauguration Day. One of those is a cause for celebration, while the other is a cause for heavy drinking. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which one is which.

    1. The Refreshments, “Banditos”: I am embarrassed just how long I got the Refreshments and the Replacements confused. It was…far longer than I care to admit.
    2. Chris Smither, “Origin of Species”: A fantastic, farcical song mixing stories from the Bible with a winking nod to Charles Darwin and the double helix.
    3. Jason Isbell, “Super 8”: No one wants to die in a Super 8 Motel, Mr. Isbell. My wife won’t even set foot in one.
    4. Stevie Nicks, “Lighthouse”: Still love this song. It’s still a banger. I will not be accepting questions at this time.
    5. Tom Waits, “Goin’ Out West”: “I know karate and voodoo too” is a hell of a line.
    6. The Mountain Goats, “No Children”: We’ve talked about this one before, about how it’s my wife’s favorite Mountain Goats song and maybe I need to be concerned about that? Who knows.
    7. Michael Penn, “No Myth”: I dunno, maybe comparing yourself to Romeo and Heathcliff is not the flex you think it is.
    8. Big Red Machine, “Latter Days”: I like the album this song is from so much I picked it up on vinyl a couple of weeks ago. Great decision.
    9. Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”: About the only slice of ’80s music I can really stand, it’s a damn good song with a killer chorus.
    10. Franz Ferdinand, “Take Me Out”: It will never cease to amuse me that the band named after the dude whose assassination kicked off World War I released a single called “Take Me Out.” Just top-tier trolling.
    11. Jimmy Eat World, “The Middle”: Such an uplifting, shout-along song. And easy to play on the guitar to boot!
    12. Tracy Bonham, “Mother Mother”: A nice slice of ’90s nostalgia. Apparently the Wife hates her music? I was just as surprised as you are.
    13. Whiskeytown, “Jacksonville Skyline”: I know everyone was all about the authenticity of the cowpunk/alt-country movement in the early 2000s, but Whiskeytown’s country always felt like a coat Ryan Adams was wearing and took off as quickly as he could when he went solo.
    14. Wilco, “At Least That’s What You Said”: The snarling, Neil Young-esque guitar explosion that erupts about halfway through this song is giving me life.
    15. Diana Ross & the Supremes, “Reflections”: Sometimes, you just need a girl group singing close harmonies to get you through the day. This might be such a day.
    16. Edwyn Collins, “A Girl Like You”: Britpop, you say? Britpop? I’ll give you Britpop!
    17. Bob Dylan, “Mississippi”: For nothing else than I got the line “You can always come back but you can’t come back all the way” stuck in my head the other day.
    18. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “A Thing About You”: This has somehow become one of my favorite Tom Petty songs in recent years. Dunno how or why. I think I just like the breakneck pace of it and how I always imagine things almost tumble apart in the instrumental break but barely hold on.
    19. Calexico, “Beneath the City of Dreams”: I am a sucker for a good Calexico song, which really means any Calexico song. They’re all pretty damn good.
    20. Bill Small, “This Old House”: A dark tour through the empty halls of one’s life, or an empty house that used to be occupied by a loved one.

    Playlist #168

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    Happy Tuesday, folks! We’re back from the beach, and for once I did not get sunburned! Don’t forget that the new Eddie Hazzard book is now available on the ‘Zon.

    1. Foo Fighters, “Best Of You”: “I’ve got a confession to make”: I didn’t realize this song was over 20 years old. It somehow seems older? And yet somehow also timeless. David Grohl is a pretty good songwriter.
    2. Sonic Youth, “Teen Age Riot”: Never really got into noise rock when I was young and malleable, so it’s kind of strange that I started listening to them this week and didn’t hate it. Still don’t fully understand the genre, but that’s on me, not them.
    3. Bob Dylan, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”: Dylan rarely writes straightforward love songs, and calling this one is maybe a bit of a stretch. It’s easier to decode than many of his other songs: “She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful/Yet she’s true like ice, like fire,” is a damn good line.
    4. Fleetwood Mac, “Silver Springs”: Man, the 1997 live version of this song is just gloriously mean. Stevie Nicks sings it directly to and at Lindsey Buckingham, a great big lyrical fuck you the likes of which you rarely get even in the best sad songs.
    5. Wilco, “Livid”: Wilco’s new EP is pretty good, if sadly short.
    6. Flying Burrito Brothers, “Dark End of the Street”: These guys were putting the country in country-rock well before that was even a genre.
    7. John Prine, “The Great Compromise”: I’m still discovering amazing songs written by this guy. He left us far too soon.
    8. The Shins, “Phantom Limb”: I kinda like the Shins still. They didn’t change my life, contrary to what the movie Garden State would have you believe, but they’re good.
    9. Violent Femmes, “American Music”: The snide condescension in the vocals on, well, all Violent Femmes songs sustains me in my dark moods.
    10. The Velvet Underground, “Rock & Roll”: Why does this song include a Bb6? What is the point of that damn chord other than to infuriate me when I try to play the song?

    Playlist #167: Beach Party

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    Happy Monday, folks. We’re at the beach this week with the Wife’s family, but I have a surprise! The new book comes out this week! That’s right, Hazzard Pay 7, The Armageddon Seed, will be available sometime this week (whenever it gets through the Amazon process, which should be today or tomorrow?). I’ll show you the cover tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a playlist while I soak up some sun and splash around in the Atlantic.

    1. Alanis Morissette, “Head Over Feet (Acoustic Version)”: Mellower with age, as things tend to be.
    2. Soundgarden, “Burden In My Head”: The Lithium station on Sirius XM plays a lot of Soundgarden, and I’m kinda here for it, I think.
    3. Charley Pride, “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone”: Apparently, my grandfather only ever attended one concert in his life, and it was to see Charley Pride.
    4. Fleetwood Mac, “Seven Wonders”: I’ve developed a certain fondness for latter-day Fleetwood Mac.
    5. The Rolling Stones, “Not Fade Away”: I’m always slightly amazed at how ramshackle and almost chaotic this song is, like the band were barely keeping it together while they played it.
    6. Radiohead, “2+2=5”: On the other hand, you’ve got Radiohead, who even when they get into a heavy breakdown still feel completely in control of everything.
    7. Ben Harper & the Blind Boys of Alabama, “Well, Well, Well”: What’s that, someone doing a Dylan cover? It’s more likely than you’d think!
    8. Band of Horses, “General Specific”: I love this song for reasons I’ve never been able to fully articulate. It just seems so joyful.
    9. Uncle Tupelo, “Steal the Crumbs”: Meanwhile, this song just hits me right in the gut and tugs on the ol’ heartstrings.
    10. Wilco, “Say You Miss Me”: Speaking of the heartstrings, this one gets to me, too. Maybe I’m just more vulnerable to songs of love and loss right now.

    Playlist #163

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    Haaaaappy last Monday of the school year! School officially ends here in Fairfax County on Wednesday, and I for one am more than ready for Summer Break. Here are some songs to get us there.

    1. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Waiting For Tonight”: Heard this one late last week on Tom Petty Radio, and had forgotten the song even existed. Features one of the best lines ever sung, “And I’m wrestling with my overcoat/And I’m fighting with my thoughts.”
    2. Primal Scream, “Rocks”: Hadn’t really listened to these guys before, and while this song is pretty good, it wasn’t enough to get me interested in listening to any of their other stuff.
    3. Van Morrison, “Tupelo Honey”: It’s also Clyde’s birthday this week! Let’s listen to classic Van Morrison in his honor.
    4. Hank Williams, “Kaw-Liga”: My grandfather continues to kick around, though he’s currently in the hospital with pneumonia. But his spirits seem good, and he’s alert and responsive, so I’ll take those as good signs. This is one of his favorite Hank Williams songs, and one he used to sing to us when we were little.
    5. Wilco, “The Late Greats”: What is the greatest song most folks have never heard?
    6. Paul McCartney, “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man”: Great McCartney cover. Run Devil Run was such a good album.
    7. Linda Ronstadt, “When Will I Be Loved?”: Things don’t get much better than Linda Ronstadt singing this song.
    8. Sting, “We’ll Be Together”: The most 1980s song I could imagine, from the processed drum machine to the synth horns.
    9. Pink Floyd, “Fearless”: I’m weird in that I really dig the Pink Floyd album Meddle (it might even be my favorite of theirs). This song, right in the middle of things, is a good example of why it’s such a great collection of tunes.
    10. Alice Cooper, “School’s Out”: Of course it is. And good riddance until next school year, ya filthy animals!