My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #270-261

With one exception, the ten songs on this segment of my list of 500 all-time favorite songs are from the last century...it figures, since that was the time of my impressionable youth.  And the one song from more recent times turns out to be something of a tribute to an earlier one from 1968.  So without further ado, here's what I think about this week's songs...

270 BREAKFAST IN AMERICA...Supertramp
There's currently an indie band called Beirut that focuses on old, traditional European musical themes and instruments, creating a unique sound for themselves.  Breakfast in America, the title track of Supertramp's wildly successful 1979 album (I bought the cassette edition), does this as well while the lyrics describe an immigrant from the "old country" to the promised land overseas, full of false assumptions about the paradise he will encounter: "Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear, mummy dear, they gotta have 'em in Texas, cause everyone's a millionaire".  I miss ol' Supertramp, another once-successful band where one crucial member left because he erroneously believed he'd do better going solo...

269 DEADWEIGHT...Beck
This was a singles release by the Los Angeles alternative musician, associated with his award-winning album Odelay but not on it...that's okay because in 1997-98 my local alternative rock radio station here in Gainesville played it a lot.  Like Beck's debut hit Loser, Deadweight is loaded with nonsense lyrics that in the end are funny as hell, lines like "Like an ice age, nice days on your way sipping the golden days on a riptide, freak's ride, sleep inside...a parasite's appetite"...

268 RAPTURE...Blondie
Although this 1981 singles hit acknowledged two other contemporary hip-hop artists by name, its driving beat and narrative rap style seemed to me as a tribute to the 1979 seminal rap hit, Rapper's Delight, by the Sugarhill Gang.  I'm sure that one day somebody will finally land on the planet Mars and return...and as sure as I am of sitting here writing this some wiseguy will then play this song with the silly lines about the "man from Mars".  I always liked singer Debbie Harry...she sings dreamily in the song's first part and then bravely goes into the awfully campy rap lyrics in the second.  I also loved the extreme guitar jam at the end...

267 ALL TOGETHER NOW...the Beatles
At the conclusion of the 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine viewers got a treat: the Beatles themselves, not their cartoon avatars, sang this song which...save a pretty adult-themed line Paul threw in...is more on the level of a children's song.  When the movie came out, the Fab Four were full of praise for it although they didn't play much of a role in its development, production or promotion other than to contribute a couple of extra songs.  Since I didn't see Yellow Submarine until years later, this song was a real treat for me, a kind of "new" Beatles song long after the band had broken up...

266 LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE...Jet
I can only assume that this Australian alternative rock band made some sort of peace with whoever owns the rights to the Beatles' music because this 2004 song makes no pretense of copying one of theirs: Sexy Sadie, both with the music and lyrics.  Normally I don't care for ripoffs, but Jet's version beats the Beatles' enough to where I deemed it my "song of the year" back then.  Jet made a big debut splash in 2004 with a string of hits and then disappeared. I looked it up...they made three albums before breaking up, later reuniting and supposedly still together...

265 GOODBYE TO LOVE...the Carpenters
It's hard to imagining the Carpenters of all musical acts coming up with a dark song, but for them this hit from the fall of 1972 pretty much fits that description, and with an uncharacteristically rockin' electric guitar break in the middle to boot. It's a song about disappointment in love and an overwhelming since of discouragement that the feeling will ever arise again...pretty much dovetailed right in with what I was going through at the time: dark desolation...

264 WHO DO YOU LOVE...George Thorogood and the Destroyers
In the 1980s George Thorogood and the Destroyers revived old-time rock n' roll, adding to it a virtuoso electric guitar polish while capitalizing on video exposure through MTV.  Their Who Do You Love, originally by the late Bo Diddley with his trademark beat, is sharp and in-your-face.  This is one of the supreme air guitar songs...probably not a good idea to be driving while this one's playing: you might end up speeding and losing control of the steering.  The lyrics, however, are kind of violent and overly possessive; you really don't want to be like the dude expressing them.  Yeah, this is a great song that should have a warning label...

263 QUEEN BITCH...David Bowie
David Bowie's early-1972 breakthrough album Hunky Dory contained many good tracks...the unforgettable, introspective Changes is on it.  Toward the end is Queen Bitch, a Dylanesque-sounding narrative song that reminded me of the great bard's 1975 song Tangled Up in Blue...interestingly, the preceding track is titled Song for Bob Dylan.  Queen Bitch is a fun, funny song to listen to and I loved the interplay between acoustic and electric guitar.  I only heard it for the first time in 2016, following Bowie's death and my decision to investigate his recordings spanning the years...

262 THE FAMILY OF MAN...Three Dog Night
I treasured this singles hit from the spring of 1972, back during a down and cynical period of my teenage angst years. I associate it with skipping my after-school bus ride one late afternoon and walking the five-six miles home...only for a kindly teacher's aide to pull over and offer me a ride home about halfway through: how could I refuse such a gesture?  And then I realized that behind the scenes there actually were people looking out for me...or least one person.  The Family of Man bespeaks kindness and community as well, totally contradicting my worldview at the time...go figure why I liked it so much then (and still do)...

261 LITHIUM...Nirvana
A lot of Nirvana's music doesn't appeal to me because Kurt Cobain is just screaming out the lyrics in what sounds like an elevated state of rage...Lithium has him emptying out his lungs as well but for much of the time he's engaging in (almost) normal singing, with that hint of maniacal derangement always lurking in the background.  Although I think Cobain meant the lyrics as a criticism of the mind processes of some religious people he knew, I tend to broaden their meaning to encompass anyone who holds tenaciously to a personal narrative...only accepting input that confirms it and unthinkingly rejecting or ignoring anything contradictory.  I loved the bass/lead guitar interaction on this song as well as the contrast  between the song's alternating two sections...it's from their 1991 album Nevermind...

Next time: #260-251...