by Tyler Glover and Julian Spivey Taylor Swift Was the Right Choice for TIME's Person of the Year When Barbara Walters compiled her list of the 10 Most Fascinating People of the Year in 2014 she included TIME's 2023 Person of the Year, Taylor Swift. Barbara Walters said it best when she said that "Taylor Swift IS the music industry." At the time, Swift was coming off her transition into pop with the blockbuster success of 1989. It was considered for years to be the peak of Taylor Swift's career. What is crazy though is it wasn't! Taylor Swift's career peak hit in the year 2023, 17 years into her career. This is remarkable in an industry that tries to tell women they are done by 30 years old. The fact that Swift has peaked this far into her career and was arguably the biggest thing in pop culture this year is the reason no one else deserved the honor for TIME's Person of the Year. Swift has been extremely popular ever since her second album, Fearless became the most awarded country music album of all time. She became the youngest winner at the Grammy Awards (at the time) for Album of the Year. Swift followed this with her first album written solely by her (Speak Now). It became her first album to sell over 1 million copies in the first week. Her next three albums, Red, 1989 and reputation would all continue this feat. 1989 would garner Swift her second Album of the Year win at the Grammys. With all of the drama in 2016 where Kim Kardashian edited a video to make it appear that Swift had lied about permitting Kanye West to call her that "bitch," it appeared that her career could be over. However, her diehard fans, the Swifties, never strayed from her side. Her album, Lover, returned to sunny pop. When the pandemic happened, Swift strayed from pop to a more indie sound with folklore and evermore. folklore would give Swift her third Album of the Year win at the Grammys, tying her with Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra and Stevie Wonder for the record. When Swift's entire catalog was sold out from under her to her nemesis Scooter Braun, she decided to re-record her first six albums that were recorded under Big Machine Records. She left BMR for Republic in 2019. Swift decided to release vault tracks from these albums to give fans an incentive to buy her new art and let her finally own the stories from her diary. These re-records have been critically and commercially successful. However, it wasn't until her tenth studio album, Midnights, came out in 2022 that things started going to another level for Swift. She announced her Eras Tour, which would celebrate all 10 eras of her music career and give her the chance to tour four albums that had not been able to be performed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Swift's new album, Midnights, came out and in my opinion, it is one of her best albums. People fell in love with this album, which has been nominated for six Grammys and could get Swift her fourth Album of the Year Grammy this coming February. Aside from this, over these 17 years, Swift's fans have grown up. They have started having kids of their own and those little girls are falling in love with Taylor the same way their parents did. The Eras Tour has become the first tour in history to gross over $1 billion in revenue. A film version of it has become the highest-grossing concert film in history. Her Eras Tour was causing crazy booms to the economy wherever she was touring. Hotels, restaurants and stores see major increases in sales when Swift is in town. The tour isn't even halfway over either. She is expected to continue the tour through next year. When it came time for TIME to choose their Person of 2023, there simply was no one else who would have been a great choice. Swift has been everywhere this year and in a good way. She has been helping the economy more than any career politician has in the last few years, bringing joy to the world through her music, and giving us not only the highest-grossing tour but the best concert experience of my entire life. In 2023, there was only one person who could make the whole place shimmer and that was superstar Taylor Swift. - Tyler Glover Taylor Swift Was the Wrong Choice for TIME's Person of the Year So, my compadre Tyler did an excellent job at stating how Taylor Swift became the biggest superstar in entertainment and as the creator of this website dedicated solely to pop culture I salute him for doing so. But, you see, this is a pro and con article. So, Tyler being the “Swiftie” that he is got the easy part of the gig – explaining and exclaiming why Taylor Swift was the right person for Person of the Year. I have the hard part – and because of how overzealous Swift’s fan base can be, arguably a dangerous one at that in explaining why Taylor Swift is not the right choice for Person of the Year. It also feels slightly wrong for me to vote against an entertainer for Person of the Year. I believe Swift is the first entertainer to ever receive this accolade and if any one performer in the entertainment industry was ever going to be named Person of the Year she’s probably the rightful choice. So, am I claiming an entertainer shouldn’t be significant enough to garner such a title? I don’t know if I believe that. Swift is certainly a more honorable person to be named Person of the Year than previous choices like Elon Musk in 2021, Donald Trump in 2016 and many others (y’all should check out who TIME called Person of the Year in 1938 – but also note Person of the Year isn’t necessarily honorific but a comment on who had the biggest impact on the world in the year chosen). But what does it say when an entertainer is considered the person who had the biggest impact on the world over world leaders? Have we as a society and as a world become more concerned with needing to be entertained than more important societal or philosophical issues? Earlier this month before announcing its selection as Person of the Year, TIME Magazine revealed nine candidates for the title on NBC’s “Today Show.” The eight candidates in addition to Swift were: Hollywood strikes – both the Writers Guild and Actors Guild went on strike this year for higher wages, and more importantly the fight against artificial intelligence and royalties in the age of streaming Xi Jinping – the Chinese President who surprisingly hasn’t been named Person of the Year before. Sam Altman – the visionary behind the ChatGPT A.I. that’ll write anything for you (seriously, screw that guy). Trump prosecutors – the law in Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington D.C. who have brought felony charges against former U.S. President Donald Trump for election interference but thus far haven’t done enough to shut him up, let alone lock him up. Barbie – a toy that became something much more than a toy this summer thanks to director Greta Gerwig’s highest-grossing film of the year. Vladimir Putin – the Russian President who was previously TIME’s Person of the Year and is still embroiled in a war against Ukraine and killing off his detractors. King Charles III – who became King of England in May simply because of whose vagina he came out of many decades ago. Jerome Powell – the Federal Reserve chairman whom TIME nominated for playing “a key role managing high inflation in the U.S.” So, who among those is more deserving than Swift? If the Trump prosecutors could manage to do something of note and not have half of this country still thinking Trump will be elected President again by this time next year they likely would’ve been my choice. And when it comes to the world of pop culture I’m more inclined to want to say the Hollywood strikers, who truly seemed to make some important and good gains when it comes to earning more and staving off the tide of A.I. completely taking over the entertainment industry. But on a global scale did the Hollywood strikes impact the world? None of TIME’s finalists impress me all that much. But there is one that was kind of on the right trail … and that’s Sam Altman, the man behind ChatGPT – the thing that will potentially put an end to what I’m doing right now – writing my thoughts on the internet. I just don’t think TIME was thinking big enough with Altman being among the nominees. What truly should’ve been among the nominees instead was Artificial Intelligence in general because it was everywhere this year – from ChatGPT to Hollywood strike talks to creating fake videos on the internet that look and feel lifelike. Artificial Intelligence has finally gotten to the point where it’s going to play a major role in this world – and maybe in a mostly negative way. It may take your job. It may take my job. It may take the job of actors, writers, etc. in Hollywood. Hell, it may even take Taylor Swift’s job one day. TIME Person of the Year has been things or ideas before – The Computer in 1982, the Endangered Earth in 1988. Why not give it to our future A.I. overlords right now? – Julian Spivey
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by Julian Spivey This year marks 50 years since both the debut and sophomore albums of Bruce Springsteen, a songwriter that has meant more to me as a music listener than any other. His music makes me believe in a better life. It makes me dream. It makes me feel. And I simply don't know what I would do without it. To celebrate a half-century of Bruce Springsteen's music I have compiled a list of what I believe to be his 50 greatest songs. I hope you enjoy it! 50. My City of Ruins (2002) Bruce Springsteen had written “My City of Ruins” about his former hometown of Asbury Park, N.J. and how years of economic downfall and hardships had left the once beautiful seaside location in ruins. He had written the song and first performed it live in 2000. But when he took to the stage on the televised “America: A Tribute to Heroes” telethon just 10 days after the horrors of 9/11 it was almost as if the song took on a whole new life with it seeming to be about the destruction of the tragic day. One of the most mournful selections in Springsteen’s discography it ends with the hopeful gospel tone of “rise up, come on and rise up,” which was both his hope for Asbury Park and the exact thing Americans needed to hear in the aftermath of 9/11. “My City of Ruins” would go on to be the final track on his 2001 album The Rising, a reunion with the E Street Band, that did feature many tracks inspired by 9/11. 49. Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) I hope this doesn’t make fellow Springsteen fans immediately switch websites at the very beginning of this list, but I’ve never quite viewed “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” off the 1978 album of the same name, to be one of Springsteen’s ultimate, greatest songs – and the truth is, I don’t really know why. It just hasn’t clicked with me like most of the tracks higher on this list. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, author Brian Hiatt said: “Some of the other characters in ‘Darkness’ fear the prospect of losing everything, but the guy on the title track almost welcomes it, as a proving ground. If, as Springsteen has said, ‘Darkness’ was his ‘samurai record,’ here is his samurai.” Maybe I just haven’t met the true depths of darkness yet? 48. Prove It All Night (1978) “Prove It All Night,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, was apparently inspired by a New York City cabbie raving on and on to Springsteen, his fare, about how you gotta prove it all day to your boss, prove it all night to your wife, prove it all weekend to your kids and on and on. The diatribe must’ve stuck with Springsteen, who wrote one of his best rockers of the ‘70s based on it. While the recorded version of the song is just fine, it truly comes alive in Springsteen and the E Street Band’s live shows, especially when guitarist Nils Lofgren, who wasn’t with the band when the song was recorded, takes on the solos, often spinning around wildly in circles while doing so. 47. She's The One (1975) Bruce Springsteen, according to Brian Hiatt’s book Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, wrote “She’s the One,” on Born to Run, simply because he loved its Bo Diddley-inspired beat and the saxophone solo from Clarence Clemons so much he had to have it as a song, so he wrote lyrics about this femme fatale type who he can’t deny, even if he knows she’s bad for him. It’s become a concert staple for the band and features Roy Bittan’s memorable piano arpeggio, which he played in his E Street Band audition before the Born to Run recording, running all the way through. 46. Death to My Hometown (2012) If it wasn’t for Bruce Springsteen’s love of old folk music, particularly those made famous by Pete Seeger, and his recording of an entire album of them in The Seeger Sessions, I don’t think we’d ever have gotten “Death to My Hometown,” off 2012’s Wrecking Ball. “Death to My Hometown” takes that old foot-stomp folk mixed with Celtic music vibe and tells the tale of how the rich will always take advantage of poor folks, often in the guise of helping them out first. Springsteen would tell comedian and friend Jon Stewart in a 2012 issue of Rolling Stone magazine: “I called on a lot of roots and Celtic elements because I use the music to give the story a historical context. ‘Death to My Hometown’ sounds like an Irish rebel song, but it’s all about what happened four years ago (the Great Recession of 2008). I want to give people a sense that this is a repetitive, historical cycle that has basically landed on the heads of the same people.” 45. The Wrestler (2008) Bruce Springsteen has written some killer songs for Hollywood films over his legendary career and a few of those songs are going to make this list, beginning with “The Wrestler” from director Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 drama of the same name. The film starred Mickey Rourke in a bit of a comeback as a veteran professional wrestler just trying to survive a hard life. The song “The Wrestler” gets this feeling perfectly with the narrator taking on this role and comparing himself to one trick ponies and scarecrows filled with dust and weeds. Like Rourke in the film, Springsteen makes us feel for this imperfect individual in such a humane way. The song won Springsteen the Golden Globe Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture, but somehow despite a prior Oscar for “Streets of Philadelphia” from director Jonathan Demme’s “Philadelphia,” Springsteen wasn’t even nominated by the Academy Awards for the song. He would tack it onto the end of his 2009 album Working on a Dream and it wound up being the best track on the entire thing. 44. The Ties That Bind (1980) Bruce Springsteen mixed some of his ‘60s garage-rock (the jangliness of The Byrds) and British Invasion (drummer Max Weinberg was asked to do his best Keith Moon of The Who) influences on the poppier sounding 1980 double-album The River, which kicks off with “The Ties That Bind,” a track the band recorded fast and in one day to attempt to get the spontaneity of their live shows, according to Springsteen in his 1998 book Songs. “The Ties That Bind” sees the narrator impressing upon a heartbroken woman not to let the downs in her past relationship keep her from seeking out future relationships. 43. Secret Garden (1995) “Secret Garden,” released as a non-album single on Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits package, is him at his softest moment of romantic crooning about a woman who is so intriguing to the narrator but won’t ever quite let him past the walls she’s put up to protect herself. The song would become popular after being included in director Cameron Crowe’s 1996 rom-com “Jerry Maguire.” I can understand why some Springsteen fans may not be a fan of the song because it’s so different in performance than most of his work but the idea of this hard-to-figure-out puzzle of a person and the overall execution of smooth vocal culminating in one of Clarence Clemons’s sexiest saxophone solos captured me. 42. It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City (1973) “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City,” the final track on Springsteen’s 1973 debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is a fantastic way to end his debut. Few songs have ever had as much swagger as this song. Just check out the coolness of lines like: “I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra/I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova/I could walk like Brando right into the sun/then dance just like a Casanova.” That’s just the beginning too. It pretty much keeps up that badassery for just over three minutes. 41. Independence Day (1980) “Independence Day,” is one of the most emotional songs in Bruce Springsteen’s discography because you know it’s based on the hard relationship he had with his father, Douglas, who suffered from a mental illness that was long undiagnosed. One of the darker tracks on the poppier The River album, it tells of a young man seeking his independence once he becomes an adult and not wanting to get trapped in the kind of hard, factory life that his father has found himself in. Not only can you feel the languish in Springsteen’s vocal about leaving this dying town for a hopefully better life, but the feeling just oozes out of Clarence Clemons’s saxophone solo. Any man who’s ever had a rift with their father will feel this one in their heart. 40. Sherry Darling (1980) “Sherry Darling,” off The River, is one of the most fun performances in Bruce Springsteen’s discography in its humorous take on a man wanting to just party with his girl but having to put up with her pain in the ass mother. The chorus about making the mom walk the next block if she just won’t shut up is sure to make anyone who’s ever dealt with a mother-in-law chuckle. “Sherry Darling” is often compared to frat rock songs from the ‘60s like The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” in its feel and performance. It’s a fun standout in the career of such a serious songwriter. 39. Ghosts (2020) Bruce Springsteen’s most recent album of original music, 2020’s Letter to You, seems to be “The Boss” coming to terms with growing older and remembering the many friends and family members who have passed on. The impetus for the album on at least a small scale seemed to be when the last member of his first-ever band, the Castiles, died in 2018 leaving him as the last man standing. According to a statement by Springsteen when “Ghosts,” one of the standouts from the album, was released as a single it’s “about the beauty and joy of being in a band, and the pain of losing one another to illness and time. ‘Ghosts’ tries to speak to the spirit of music itself, something none of us owns but can only discover and share together.” Having seen him perform it for the first time on tour with the E Street Band in Kansas City in February I can say it’s a magical moment to see live. 38. Letter to You (2020) The title track of Bruce Springsteen’s most recent album Letter to You is a love letter both to his bandmates and loved ones that have passed on before him and his loyal fan base. In his ranking of every Springsteen song for NJ.com writer Bobby Olivier said: “’Letter to You’ is familiarly forceful and earnest, a spiritual cousin of ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’.” He added, “It all feels like home.” Much of the Letter to You album, the first of original material with the band in eight years, has that lived-in Springsteen sound making it potentially (but hopefully not) the final classic Springsteen album. 37. The Rising (2002) “My City of Ruins” may have originally come out of the devastation the economy had taken on Asbury Park, but there’s no doubt the majority of The Rising – especially its title track – was influenced by the tragedy of 9/11 and the heroics and defiance shown by those, especially in New York City, in its aftermath. “The Rising” tells the story of a fictional firefighter: “can’t see nothin’ in front of me/can’t see nothin’ coming up behind …” making his way up the floors of the World Trade Center. The anthemic, spiritual feel of the song’s chorus sounds uplifting – and depending on your take on religion likely is – with the firefighter finding paradise in his ascension to another world. 36. Out in the Street (1980) “Out in the Street,” off Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 double album The River, is one of the E Street Band’s best flat-out rockers but it seemed to be one of the toughest recording sessions the group ever had with it being done 30 or 40 times in completion with “The Boss” altering lyrics as he went and then, according to Patrick Humphries 1996 book Bruce Springsteen it was almost left off the album for being “too idealistic.” But “Out in the Street” is a different side to Springsteen’s songs of the working man in the sense of hoping the working week flies by so you can be your own boss, your own man on your own time. Idealistic? No! That’s just how Fridays at 5 p.m. feel. 35. Girls in Their Summer Clothes (2007) I think Magic is one of Bruce Springsteen’s most underrated albums in the sense that I think it’s actually one of his greatest albums but his later career output doesn’t get the same attention as his first dozen years or so as a recording artist. Maybe it’s just that when Magic came out in 2007, I was first entering my Springsteen fandom. “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” is one of the standouts on Magic with its wispy nostalgia of better times on the New Jersey beaches – maybe a remembrance of the past or a hope for the future or both at the same time with much of the album focusing on the darkness of the President George W. Bush era. 34. If I Was the Priest (2020) “If I Was the Priest” is one of the most fascinating stories of any Bruce Springsteen song because there’s almost a half-century gap between when he wrote it and when he finally recorded and released it. Springsteen wrote the song, which seems to be a wild Western story with Jesus Christ as a sheriff and the narrator – assuming it to be Springsteen himself – as a priest, sometime in the early ‘70s and the song sat untouched in his archives until he came across it in 2019 and wound up re-recording it with the E Street Band for their 2020 album Letter to You. It’s this unique moment of early-20s Springsteen the songwriter melding with early-70s Springsteen the man and performer. The interesting lyrics of the song are up for interpretation, but to me, they just sound cool. 33. Meet Me in the City (2015) It wasn’t planned to have two songs that Bruce Springsteen wrote decades before and never recorded and released until many years later back-to-back on this list but here we are with “Meet Me in the City” coming directly after “If I Was the Priest.” “Meet Me in the City” was originally started for potential use on the 1980 double album The River, but according to Brian Hiatt’s Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs was “apparently left unfinished.” I’m thrilled that when The Boss decided to do a deeper look at that album with an expanded edition in 2015 he fleshed the song out into a full recording because it wound up becoming an absolute favorite of mine and sounded quintessential E Street Band. The band would open their 2016 tour in which they played The River from start to finish with this song and having seen it in Oklahoma City, Okla. it was amazing to witness live. 32. Born in the U.S.A. (1984) “Born in the U.S.A.,” the title track from Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 album, is clearly the most misunderstood song of his entire career and has been from the very beginning back when President Ronald Reagan felt it was a patriotic anthem, not a song partially built out of his policies that helped to separate the classes of American citizens. The easy-to-chant chorus makes the song feel anthemic and that was a smart way to try to bring listeners into the plight of Vietnam vets struggling to return home, find work and make a living. It’s just that some of the casual listeners of the song didn’t want to pay enough attention to the verses in between that sing-along chorus. Springsteen rarely performs the song live anymore. I wonder if it’s potentially due to people misunderstanding it? 31. Lost in the Flood (1973) “Lost in the Flood,” off Bruce Springsteen’s debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., might be the most Springsteen-esque song on the debut, meaning it’s the song that most resembles what The Boss’s music would come to sound like on later records. It’s Springsteen’s first foray into writing about veterans returning from the war in Vietnam and the toll it’s taken on them. The sparse basic piano-only (likely Springsteen himself) performance works terrifically for the track’s first verse and a half until the epic entrance of the band on the second verse about the stock car racer when Springsteen sings “Jimmy the Saint.” In one of Springsteen’s most cinematic tracks, the song comes to a full-on violent finale in the final verse when a New York City gang gunfight involves the cops. You’d see this Springsteen more beginning with 1975’s Born to Run. 30. Tougher Than the Rest (1987) “Tougher Than the Rest,” off 1987’s Tunnel of Love, is a rarity in Bruce Springsteen’s discography in that it’s an all-out love song. But the thing I love the most about it is it’s clearly the way Springsteen would write a love song, in such matter-of-fact language that a hard, working-class person might appreciate but many average music listeners might find off-putting. Brian Hiatt in Bruce Springsteen: Stories Behind the Songs notes that “Tougher Than the Rest” is “one of Springsteen’s most obviously country-influenced recordings,” which might be why Chris Ledoux’s terrific cover of it from 1995 was the first time I’d ever heard it. 29. Land of Hope and Dreams (2001) Bruce Springsteen wrote “Land of Hope and Dreams” in 1999 when the E Street Band reunited after more than a decade apart because he felt the reunited group needed a new song for the tour – something big and summational, according to Brian Hiatt’s Bruce Springsteen: Stories Behind the Songs. According to that book, Springsteen viewed his band as a “big train coming down the track,” and drew inspiration from “People Get Ready” by the Impressions. What he came up with was one of his most hopeful songs of a better life – one we might not get to experience in this life (though, we should try), but maybe somewhere in another one. It’s a summation of what Springsteen and the E Street Band mean to me. It would take nearly 15 years but it would finally find its way on an album with 2012’s Wrecking Ball. 28. Hungry Heart (1980) Even though Bruce Springsteen had always been a critical hit he had not really broken into having mainstream hits, even with the success of Born to Run. He, however, had found some success with his songs being covered by other artists. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band had taken “Blinded by the Light” to No. 1 in 1977. The Pointer Sisters took “Fire” to No. 2 in 1979. Patti Smith’s “Because the Night,” which was co-written by her and Springsteen, went to No. 13 in 1978. But Springsteen hadn’t been able to crack the Billboard top 20 himself through four albums. Then came “Hungry Heart.” Springsteen actually intended the song to go to the Ramones, the New York City punk band that certainly would’ve had the song sounding different than what the E Street Band came up with for The River. But then Springsteen’s producer and manager Jon Landau, using his keen ear for hits, persuaded Springsteen to hang onto it. The E Street Band put this sort of '60s-inspired Phil Spector pop sheen on it and it went to No. 5, where it would become one of Springsteen’s all-time biggest hits. 27. No Surrender (1984) “No Surrender,” off 1984’s Born in the USA, has one of my all-time favorite song lyrics in it: “We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school.” Now, I was a pretty good student and I definitely believe in education and gaining as much knowledge as one can but dammit if I don’t feel that line deep down in my soul. This quick, two-and-a-half-minute rocker just absolutely gets the feeling down pat of a kid breaking out of his small-town bubble with his buddies on the way to make something more of himself. 26. Blinded by the Light (1973) If you were to pop on the vinyl of Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ on January 5, 1973 (which based on sales at the time not a whole lot of people did) the very first song you would’ve heard was “Blinded by the Light,” a wordy, Dylan-esque folk-rock number that sounds like it was written by going through a rhyming dictionary (and it actually was!). “Blinded by the Light,” was one of two songs (the other being “Spirit in the Night”) specifically written after the rest of the album when Columbia Records president Clive Davis felt the album lacked a potential single. Springsteen’s single wouldn’t do much, but it would become his first and only No. 1 single as a songwriter when Manfred Mann’s Earth Band spiced it up a bit with a more progressive rock sound in 1976. Even though it’s likely the wordiest song Springsteen ever wrote it’s still a helluva lot of fun to sing. 25. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (1975) “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” off 1975’s Born to Run, is the origin story of the E Steet Band and the great friendship and musical companionship between the group, especially between Bruce Springsteen and saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Having seen him perform this song three times in concert since the death of Clemons in 2011 I can’t help but feel the song means more to him in the dozen years since than it did before. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” is a great song to pump you up. I don’t think I could possibly explain it better than author Jim Beviglia did in his book Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs when he said: “Every superhero worth a damn needs a great origin story. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive insect. Superman crash landed from another planet and gained inhuman strength from Earth’s sun. Bruce Springsteen was hit by a saxophone blast from Clarence Clemons and made it his mission to save rock and roll.” You nerds can have Superman and Spiderman. Bruce Springsteen is my superhero and God bless the big man Clarence Clemons. 24. Atlantic City (1982) I’m not sure why – maybe it’s because Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band make a glorious cacophony of music together and it was as stripped as an album can possibly be – but I’ve never been as high on Nebraska as many of Springsteen’s other classic albums. “Atlantic City” is the track from Nebraska that’s always stood out to me the most. Maybe it’s because it feels like a song that likely could’ve or maybe even should’ve been on a different album. The lyrics are certainly dour but the music and performance aren’t quite as much as the rest of the album. The song tells about the mafia battling over control of the New Jersey coastal town, which legalized gambling in the late ‘70s. The chorus is one of Springsteen’s greatest and drew its inspiration from dialogue in director Louis Malle’s 1980 film of the same name when Hollis McLaren’s character says: “I don’t mind that Dave’s dead. It just means he’ll be reincarnated sooner, that’s all. Everything comes back.” The Band’s cover of “Atlantic City” on its 1993 album Jericho is my favorite cover of any Springsteen song. 23. American Skin (41 Shots) (2001) “American Skin (41 Shots)” might be Bruce Springsteen’s most controversial song of all time but it’s also proof he refuses to pull any punches when something important needs to be said. Springsteen wrote the song in response to the 1999 police shooting death of 23-year-old unarmed Guinean student Amadou Diallo when four plainclothes officers mistaking him for a rape suspect opened fire with 41 rounds, hitting Diallo 19 times. The officers were charged with second-degree murder, but as it so often happens with these police shootings, the officers were acquitted at trial. The E Street Band debuted the song, which includes a verse about an African-American mother having to teach her son about the different rules people of color have when stopped by police, in Atlanta on June 4, 2000. They would then perform the show at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden where the performance led to the NYC Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association calling for a boycott of Springsteen’s shows. A live performance was released on 2001’s Live in New York City. The song wouldn’t appear on an album until Springsteen’s High Hopes in 2014 with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello playing lead guitar on it. Springsteen had begun performing it again in concert following the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. The song has unfortunately been relevant ever since it was written without a whole lot of change. 22. Streets of Philadelphia (1993) “Streets of Philadelphia” is the song that made Bruce Springsteen an Oscar-winner (it would also win Song of the Year at the Grammys), but that honestly has little to do with why it’s such a fantastic song. It has such a different sound than most of Springsteen’s repertoire – more of a modern R&B, even with a hip-hop flavored drum beat (at least in the early ‘90s) than the classic R&B of the ‘60s that occasionally pops up in Springsteen’s music. Director Jonathan Demme wanted a song for his 1993 drama “Philadelphia,” which told the story of an attorney (played by Tom Hanks in his first Oscar-winning performance) who is fired by his firm after they discover he has AIDS. “Streets of Philadelphia” truly makes you feel sympathy for this character whose body is beginning to betray him, and society already has and is essentially dying alone. Springsteen reportedly drew inspiration for the lyrics after having recently lost a friend to cancer. I think “Streets of Philadelphia” is one of Springsteen’s best vocal performances. 21. For You (1973) In his 2019 book Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs writer Brian Hiatt says “[‘For You’] feels inappropriately frantic on [‘Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.,’ but I must disagree with that summation. After all, what’s more frantic than young love ending in suicide? The franticness in the performance – both the barely time to breath vocal from Springsteen and the fast-paced drums by Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez and organ playing by David Sancious, gives the song a yearning that feels realistic for a 22-year old who’s heart has been broken. If you prefer a slower version there are more solo piano-driven live versions out there for you. Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir Born to Run of the heartbreaker who inspired the song as a “drug-taking, hell-raising wild child … so alive, so funny and broken … She stirred up my Catholic school-bred messianic complex.” 20. Incident on 57th Street (1973) “Incident on 57th Street” is essentially Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Romeo & Juliet, except better because it’s set to kickass music, like David Sancious’ piano and Danny Federici’s organ. In “Incident on 57th Street,” Romeo is Spanish Johnny and Juliet is Jane. Springsteen doesn’t even attempt to hide the inspiration for the characters referring to them as “cool Romeo” and “a late Juliet.” But instead of battles between rival families, Johnny is trying to make it on the streets of New York doing whatever he can to make ends meet and survive. Unlike the tragic ending of Shakespeare’s classic though, Springsteen leaves his version open-ended to let the listener decide if they think it ended in tragedy or the lovers actually get away from this life. 19. Devils & Dust (2005) I’m never going to forget this as long as I live: On February 8, 2006, I was a senior in high school who had just gotten into Bruce Springsteen’s music recently and was watching him perform “Devils & Dust,” which was nominated for Song of the Year, on the Grammy Awards telecast. Springsteen performed the dark song from the perspective of a soldier fighting in a war, presumably the ongoing one in Iraq at the time, and not understanding why or who he could trust. Springsteen was on stage alone with just his guitar and harmonica and everything about this performance instantly resonated with me, especially when Springsteen ended the song and exclaimed: “Bring ‘em home!” It was such a simple performance and message and of all the performances that evening, which included Kanye West, U2, Mariah Carey, Gorillaz and more huge stars it was the standout performance. When Springsteen has something important on his mind that he wants to get out in song he seems to do it better than almost anybody and “Devils & Dust” is a fine example of it. 18. Growin' Up (1973) “Growin’ Up,” on Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is a sign of things to come later for Springsteen, in my opinion, in its adolescent rebelliousness. Springsteen was 22 when he wrote the song in 1971 and it has all the gusto and bravado of one ready to break out of his own little world into something bigger with a bang. David Sancious, who was only 18 at the time, gives the album its first great E Street Band flourish with his piano solo. 17. Racing in the Street (1978) Wow. We’re really getting into the thick of the list now. Even sitting here writing this passage I can’t believe “Racing in the Street,” the epic about illegal street racing off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, is only at No. 17. But then I scrolled up to remind myself of the 16 songs above it and think, “OK, fine, any of these could’ve been top five.” Everything about “Racing in the Street” is perfect. It’s like a movie that plays out in just under seven minutes set to music. It begins with this amazing somber piano playing from Roy Bittan that runs throughout the song, is joined by Danny Federici on organ about two minutes in and these performances musically fit the mood of this tale about a street racer who races for money at night because there’s not much better to do and it’s about the only kind of entertainment he can find and if it ends tragically so be it. The song certainly has its tragedies but not necessarily the kind you’d expect from a song about street racing, but with feelings of depression from a world you’re almost willing to kill yourself to escape. Sometimes music can be so damn beautiful in its sadness and the long solo from Bittan and Federici on their respective keys that ends the song is one of those shining moments. 16. Spirit in the Night (1973) “Spirit in the Night,” the penultimate track on Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., is the quintessential early E Street Band sound for me – the more R&B, soulful, even jazz-tinged performing with Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez on drums, David Sancious on organ and piano (although it’s apparently Harold Wheeler credited on piano on this track) to go along with guys who would last past the first two albums in saxophonist Clarence Clemons and bassist Garry Tallent. The song, one of two written and tacked onto the album late in the recording process when Columbia Records president Clive Davis didn’t hear single material, is so infectiously fun and loose. The song tells the tale of a wild band of teenagers who drive out to a nearby lake and just screw around and there’s so much young, dumb, rebellious awesomeness in the whole performance. I wish I could bottle up the “Spirit in the Night” sound and wear it as cologne. 15. Backstreets (1975) Roy Bittan’s minute-plus long piano intro in “Backstreets,” which ends side one of Born to Run, is his most beautiful composition of the many beauties he performed with the E Street Band. In his review of Born to Run for Rolling Stone magazine journalist Greil Marcus said: “[Roy Bittan’s piano intro] might be the prelude to a rock & roll version of The Iliad.” Listening to this intro makes me think of James Cagney’s gangster crossing the street in the rain walking directly toward the camera with this menacing look on his face in “The Public Enemy.” But the song itself doesn’t have quite as violent of a story. It’s Springsteen reminiscing about the good old days of a relationship that burned bright but seemingly fast – some over the years have even debated whether or not the Terry he sings about was a man or woman and whether it was a romantic or platonic love. It doesn’t matter about the gender but I definitely feel like it was a romantic relationship. Born to Run is an album filled with cinematic songs that could all be their own little movies and “Backstreets” is one that might make you smile until you cry. 14. I'm On Fire (1984) “I’m On Fire” is about as short and sweet as Bruce Springsteen gets. It’s also the sexiest Springsteen gets – although some fools misinterpret the “hey little girl is your daddy home” line to mean something much more nefarious than is meant and screw those folks for doing so. The track off Born in the USA just oozes sensuality from the very beginning with Max Weinberg’s snare cross stick hits and the softly sensual twang of Springsteen’s guitar with the two together giving off the old Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two “boom-chicka-boom.” It’s simplistic, but shouldn’t a song about urges and sexual feelings be succinct and to the point? There is so much tension in this vocal and then the ending release of the “whoo-whoo-whoos” at the end. It’s the type of desire you don’t get a whole lot out of Springsteen’s discography but it’s a slam dunk here. 13. Dancing in the Dark (1984) “Dancing in the Dark,” off 1984’s Born in the USA, is the closest “The Boss” ever got to a No. 1 Billboard hit as a recording artist when it topped out at No. 2 for four weeks and was kept off the top spot by Duran Duran’s “The Reflex” (Boo!) and Prince’s “When Doves Cry” (OK, that’s understandable). “Dancing in the Dark” would, however, win Springsteen his first Grammy Award in 1985 for Best Rock Vocal Performance. The song is one of Springsteen’s poppier-sounding tunes of his career but just taking a listen at the lyrics lets you know it’s still the same old Springsteen ready to bust loose from a dead-end job or town and who can’t identify with lines like: “I check my look in the mirror/wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face/Man, I ain’t getting’ nowhere/I’m just livin’ in a dump like this/There’s somethin’ happenin’ somewhere/Baby, I just know that there is.” 12. My Hometown (1984) This might have me on the outskirts of many Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band fans but my favorite track off the epic Born in the USA album has always been the album-ender, “My Hometown.” It might be unusual because it’s an anthemic album that sent Springsteen from critical rock God to one seemingly everybody in the United States loved overnight and this track is more in line with something like the title track off The River – which now that I think about it was actually a great deal different than most of that album, as well. “My Hometown” sees Springsteen’s narrator both waxing nostalgia about his hometown and feeling all the dark times that have always bubbled under and now are about to breach the surface and knowing he needs to get out for the benefit of his family. It’s a mixture of beauty and pain and you can feel every bit of it via Springsteen’s almost pained vocal. 11. Wrecking Ball (2012) “Wrecking Ball” just seemed to be 100 percent Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band from my initial listen of it in 2012 off the album of the same name. It’s a song that sounds like Springsteen and the band could’ve written, recorded and performed it at nearly any point in their careers. It’s defiant. It’s ready to take on the world and it came about as the result of a frequent home of the band’s live shows in their home state of New Jersey being torn down when the NFL team that called it home got a new one. E Street Band guitarist, and Springsteen’s nearly lifelong best friend, Steven Van Zandt told Rolling Stone magazine in 2012: “Bruce wrote this song for our final shows at Giants Stadium in 2009 before they tore it down. It’s one of those road songs written for the band. But it’s become a bigger song than merely about a physical wrecking ball. We had a long conversation about whether it should be the title of our album. I thought once it’s elevated to the title of the album it actually will take on an additional metaphorical significance that can turn around the defensive negative implications of a wrecking ball smashing a structure or metaphorically smashing one’s past or history or dreams. There’s some of that in there. The song begins to say, ‘We are now the wrecking ball. We’re out here wrecking your passivity. We’re wrecking your acceptance of mediocrity. We’re out here living it with you in the pouring rain, we’re not afraid of anything. Bring on the wrecking ball.” The song was an important message for us E Street fans, especially after the death of Clarence Clemons and this being the first album for the band since (although this having been an older song is one of two he plays on on the album). The band may have been battered but they cannot be beaten. 10. Long Walk Home (2007) Magic was an important album for me as a young Bruce Springsteen fan when it was released in 2007 during my sophomore year in college. The George W. Bush presidency had gone haywire with a war in Iraq that we knew fairly early on was unnecessary, the economy was beginning to nosedive and there was an overall sense of dread overtaking the country (we were naïve to think at the time it couldn’t get worse). But on this album about these moments and feelings, there was a song that, while still holding those themes, gave me a bit of hope, although Springsteen let us know it wouldn’t be an easy journey right in his title and chorus of “Long Walk Home.” It’s a song that always gives me hope to continue fighting for a better future and depending on what’s going on in the world takes on different meanings each time I hear it. It was important enough for Springsteen that he used lines from it to endorse Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President in 2008. 9. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) (1973) “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” off The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, has always been one of my favorite Springsteen story songs and one of the most vivid of his career, as you can see the entire thing play out like a movie in your mind’s eye. It’s a love song – but what is Springsteen really in love with: Sandy or the Asbury Park boardwalk scene? The nostalgia and romanticism of it all, complete with real-life characters of the time like the fortune teller Madame Marie, makes me feel I need to see Asbury Park in my lifetime, though I’m not sure if it could ever compare or even look the same a half-century later - or if it ever really felt that way in general: E Street Band drummer at the time Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez told Rolling Stone: “No one would ever go under the boardwalk. There were rats under the boardwalk!” Springsteen has called the song a “love note and a goodbye song” to his adopted home of Asbury Park and the song hits both of those feelings perfectly. 8. The Promised Land (1978) “The Promised Land,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, may have my single favorite Bruce Springsteen chorus of any of these great songs on this list with the absolute defiance of: “The dogs on Main Street howl ‘cause they understand/If I could take one moment into my hands/Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in the promised land.” Anytime I see or hear of folks trying to keep others down with their archaic laws or beliefs or simply think they know better because of their age or race or religion I can’t help but think of the rebelliousness of “Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in the promised land.” I too believe in a promised land and it’s men like Springsteen that make me realize I’m not alone in this feeling and with battle cries like this one, we might one day make it to that promised land. 7. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (1973) “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is my favorite jam on The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, in its tale of a young rock and roller ready to set the world on fire but needing to steal away his girl from his hometown to truly have it all. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, Brian Hiatt called it: “his first great rock song.” It’s a fever dream of a seven-minute rocker with rapid-fire lyrics that Springsteen wrote in his early 20s and having seen him perform it in Kansas City this past February in his early 70s one he still knocks out of the park. The track includes some of the greatest saxophone work from beginning to end of legend Clarence Clemons’s career. ‘Rosalita’ will have you wanting to dance your ass off with the biggest smile on your face every time you hear it. 6. The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) As with many singer-songwriters of his era, Bruce Springsteen was inspired by potentially the greatest of all folk singers Woody Guthrie. This led to his interest in Guthrie’s song “Tom Joad,” which took its inspiration from author John Steinbeck’s great work of American fiction The Grapes of Wrath. In Steinbeck’s book the character Tom Joad has this great monologue about fighting for the little guy and Springsteen built “The Ghost of Tom Joad” around this epic moment of literature, which appeared on Springsteen’s 1995 album of the same name. Tom Joad was a Depression/Dust Bowl-era character fighting against the ills of that time, but when Springsteen sings about the problems of the times in which he wrote his song many of those problems (rich getting richer, poor getting poor, etc.) are still major issues. So, the narrator of the song sees himself as a kindred spirit of Tom Joad. Guthrie, Steinbeck and Springsteen are all using Tom Joad to speak for the voiceless. 5. The River (1980) The River was supposed to be Bruce Springsteen’s foray into a poppier, radio-friendly type of rock music and much of the double album is but then there’s the title track, which is one of the most devastatingly depressing songs “The Boss” has ever written and recorded about a young man who’s forced to enter the real world very quickly once he gets his girl pregnant and poof goes any dreams of a better life. But was a better life really possible? The opening line states: “I come from down in the valley/where, mister, when you’re young/they bring you up to do/like your daddy done.” This is the story of many young folks throughout the decades of American life. In the first live performance of the song in 1979, Springsteen stated that “The River” was based on his sister and brother-in-law and in author Peter Ames Carlin’s 2012 biography Bruce there is an interview with Springsteen's sister, Ginny, in which she said the song is a precise description of her early life with her husband Mickey. Springsteen would then write in his 2016 autobiography Born to Run that the song was a tribute to Ginny and Mickey. It’s a pretty devastating and haunting tribute. 4. Badlands (1978) “Badlands,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, has what’s probably my single favorite Bruce Springsteen lyric of all-time with: “Poor man wanna be rich/rich man wanna be a king/and a king ain’t satisfied/’til he rules everything.” “Badlands” is Springsteen at his most defiant. The world is pushing him down and he’s just about had enough – it’s something most of us who love his music so much have probably felt at moments in our own lives, I know I have. There’s a ferocity to the lyrics, music and performance of “Badlands” that makes you want to throw your fists in the air and scream along – Springsteen was said to be inspired by the punk records he was listening to at the time and you can tell. He told Rolling Stone magazine in 2010 that he would frequently come up with a great title first and then have to write the song to fit it. He said: “’Badlands’ – that’s a great title, but it would be easy to blow it! But I kept writing, and I kept writing, and I kept writing and writing until I had a song that I felt deserved that title.” Springsteen most definitely didn’t blow it. 3. Jungleland (1975) Bruce Springsteen wrote a good many epics in the ‘70s but none were as grand in scale as the Born to Run album ending “Jungleland.” World building isn’t something you see a whole lot in songwriting – there isn’t enough time, as most songs are two-to-four minutes long – but there’s an entire community built in “Jungleland,” the most cinematic of Springsteen’s output. We’re introduced at the beginning to our main characters: Magic Rat and the barefoot girl. We follow them through this glorious New York City night where everywhere you see and feel a mixture of love, desperation, violence, despair, danger, longing, escapism and so many other words that describe Springsteen’s entire ethos. All of this culminates in Clarence Clemons’s greatest saxophone solo of all time, which was actually a studio creation by Springsteen himself editing bits and pieces of multiple takes together in what Clemons said in his memoir Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales: “To me, that solo sounds like love.” The sax solo might sound like love – between Springsteen and Clemons, between Magic Rat and the barefoot girl – but the song quickly turns tragic in its finale, which finishes out the epic in a way that truly makes Springsteen New Jersey’s Shakespeare. 2. Born to Run (1975) After Bruce Springsteen’s first two albums, both released in 1973, failed to burst through to the mainstream despite critical acclaim, he knew he had to break through in a major way or else that might be the end of his promising career at its beginning. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Springsteen said: “I had these enormous ambitions for it. I wanted to make the greatest rock record that I’d ever heard. I wanted it to sound enormous, to grab you by your throat and insist that you take the ride, insist that you pay attention – not just to the music, but to live, to being alive.” Springsteen succeeded. “Born to Run” may very well be the greatest rock record ever recorded and it certainly grabbed us listeners by the throat and made us pay attention. Having truly become a Springsteen fan around the time I was leaving my hometown for a new world of college and adulthood I think it was the escapism of his music – trying to break free and find your way in the world – that worked its way into my mind, body and soul and has never left my bloodstream in the nearly two decades since. Born to Run, both the song and album, was my entry into this wondrous world of hope and I haven’t stopped running since because as the man says, “Someday, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place where we really wanna go and we’ll walk in the sun.” 1. Thunder Road (1975) The opening harmonica, played by Bruce Springsteen, on “Thunder Road” mixed with that beauty of a piano piece by Roy Bittan just sets the stage perfectly for the beginning of both my favorite Springsteen album, Born to Run, and its opening track, my favorite Springsteen song. It sounds so tragic setting the stage for this young man ready to bust loose from his “town full of losers” with the girl of his dreams, but magic happens about a quarter of the way through the track when the whole E Street Band comes in and this tragedy turns into a world full of hopefulness. This is their one chance to make it out of this place and they’re going to take it. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Springsteen was sure the Born to Run album would begin with its title track until he wrote “Thunder Road.” Springsteen said: “’Thunder Road’ was just so obviously an opening, due to its intro. It just set the scene. There is something about the melody of ‘Thunder Road’ that suggests a new day, it suggests morning, it suggests something opening up.” For me, it suggested a new beginning – not only in life but with a brother in music – and like the song’s narrator and Mary, I’ve never turned back to what was left behind. Springsteen may have had two truly good albums under his belt by the time Born to Run came along, but with this opening track and statement his career truly took off and he hasn’t looked back in half a century since. by Julian Spivey The term country and western doesn’t really apply much to country music these days but when it comes to Corb Lund you can use the term without drawing any strange looks. Lund and his band the Hurtin’ Albertans brought their brand of Canadian country and western to Little Rock’s Stickyz Rock ‘N’ Roll Chicken Shack on Friday, November 17 for a terrific night of music spanning his nearly 30 years on the road. Opening with a cover of his friend Hayes Carll’s “Little Rock,” those of us in attendance could tell we were in for something special on Friday night as Lund and the boys seemed to be pumped for their first performance at Stickyz since before the Covid pandemic. Lund kept the rocking country coming with a couple of my favorite tracks from his 2020 release Agricultural Tragic in the tribute to old cowboys, “Old Men” and “90 Seconds of Your Time,” a song about trying to talk an Army Ranger friend out of killing some folks. I became introduced to Lund through his wonderful 2012 album Cabin Fever, which to this day remains my favorite album of his. But as someone with a large amount of favorite musicians, I’ve never really found the time to delve into his pre-2012 releases so I found myself singing along and enjoying his last decade’s work a bit more than maybe some in the audience, who clearly have been with him longer as fans and perhaps enjoyed his earlier folk-western tunes like “Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier,” “I Wanna Be in the Cavalry” and “Roughest Neck Around.” Cabin Fever clearly means a lot to Lund too as it was the album, despite now being 11 years old, that he performed the most tracks off of on Friday night, including one that he said he hadn’t done in a while in the story song “Priceless Antique Pistol Shoots Startled Owner,” which I was thrilled to see live and remains one of my all-time favorite song titles to this day. Among my other favorite performances from Cabin Fever were “The Gothest Girl I Can,” which has a ‘50s rockabilly sound to it, the depressing “One Left in the Chamber,” which likely has multiple meanings depending on how you want to take it, and “Dig Gravedigger Dig,” possibly the most fun stomp about gravediggers in music history. My favorite song off Cabin Fever is “September,” one that was saved for the encore of a show and done as a medley with a couple of his other songs “Run This Town” and “Losin’ Lately Gambler,” which was slightly disappointing but better than not having heard any of it at all. I particularly loved the yodeling in “September” and “Priceless Antique Pistol Shoots Startled Owner,” for that matter. You don’t get enough yodeling from musicians these days! One song from Cabin Fever that Lund said he always has to be every show now – and I couldn’t quite tell if he was joking or actually tired of it – is the hilarious “Cows Around,” which is my wife Aprille’s favorite song of his and a performance that truly made her entire night. The song tells of the stubbornness of cattle and how cattle farming is sure to cost you a lot of money and drive you crazy. The most fun part of the song is when Lund rattles off all the different breeds of cow, which not only makes for a crazy fun sing-along but also a moment of agriculture education. A major influence on Lund and his style of music was clearly Canadian folk hero Ian Tyson, who died in December of last year. Lund paid tribute to Tyson by covering his classic “M.C. Horses,” and also performing a new song he wrote in tribute to him called “El Viejo,” which will be the title track of his upcoming acoustic album set to be released in February of next year. “El Viejo” was one of five songs off the upcoming album that Lund performed on Friday night. He performed a couple of gambling songs, “The Cardplayers” and “When the Game Gets Hot,” that will appear on the album, as well as potentially the first ever Mixed Martial Arts country song in “Out On a Win.” During the band’s encore later in the evening, they would perform “Was Fort Worth Worth It?” as a spur-of-the-moment trial run because they hadn’t yet performed it live and were hoping to add it to the set on Saturday night for their Fort Worth concert. Toward the end of his set, Lund would perform a song I’ve been fortunate to have seen it’s other co-writer Hayes Carll perform at least a couple of times in concert in “Bible on the Dash,” the two co-wrote it and it appeared on Cabin Fever. Lund would finish his set out with a couple of fan-favorites in “Hair in My Eyes Like a Highland Steer,” the other cow song he exclaimed that he’s written, and “Rye Whiskey/Time to Switch to Whiskey.” He would return for what would be a five-song encore, certainly one of the longest I’ve ever seen in concert, that began with him solo on the stage performing “S Lazy H,” off Things That Can’t Be Undone, a depressing tale of a generation’s owned family ranch that goes under because of changing times and greed. The concert would culminate in a rocking performance of “Gettin’ Down on the Mountain,” the opening track from Cabin Fever, which perfectly showed off all of the amazing talent in the Hurtin’ Albertans band with Grant Siemens on electric guitar (and at times on steel guitar and mandolin), Sean Burns on bass (both electric and upright and at times on harmonica) and Brady Valgardson, who is the band’s drummer during the offseason from being an actual, by-God farmer. by Julian Spivey 50. "I Shot the Sheriff" by Bob Marley & the Wailers I’ll be honest upfront – I’m not much of a reggae person. But some artists are just impossible to turn a blind eye to and Bob Marley is one of those artists. So, while “I Shot the Sheriff,” may not actually be one of my 50 favorite songs from 1973, I wouldn’t feel right leaving it off this list. Off Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1973 album Burnin’, “I Shot the Sheriff” tells of sticking it to the man who’s tried to stick it to him first. Eric Clapton would cover the song the next year and take it all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart – which is saying something maybe not so great about the history of pop music (white guys taking the music of black guys to the top), but it probably introduced more folks to Marley’s music. 49. "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan Sometimes it feels like Bob Dylan’s original version of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is the least known and least played version on the radio with Eric Clapton’s smoothed down, reggae-infused 1975 cover and the screeching of Axl Rose on the 1992 Guns N’ Roses cover getting more airplay. I’ll stick with the simplicity of Dylan’s countrified version he did for the soundtrack to director Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Western “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.” Dylan actually played a character in the film, which starred fellow legendary singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson as the doomed Billy the Kid. 48. "Gettin' By" by Jerry Jeff Walker Jerry Jeff Walker always had a wry sense of humor and “Gettin’ By,” off his 1973 live album Viva Terlingua (his career highlight in my opinion), might be my favorite original song of the great Texas sing-songwriter who brought a bit of Hunter S. Thompson’s “gonzo” lifestyle into country music. The line: “just gettin’ by on gettin’ by’s my stock ‘n trade” was essentially Walker’s credo and the verse about promising new material to the record label is pure hilarity. 47. "You've Never Been This Far Before" by Conway Twitty Conway Twitty was known for his sexy country songs that could make the ladies swoon and helped him skyrocket to the most No. 1 singles in country music history until surpassed in the last 25 years by George Strait. One of his sexiest – or perhaps dirtiest depending on your opinion – is 1973’s chart-topper “You’ve Never Been This Far Before,” which tells frankly of taking a young woman’s virginity. Despite being a No. 1 hit it was banned by some radio stations for its lyrics considered a bit too sexual, even by Twitty’s standards. 46. "Killing Me Softly with His Song" by Roberta Flack Some folks these days may be more familiar with the hit cover the Fugees did in the ‘90s, but when Roberta Flack took on “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel and an uncredited Lori Lieberman (who initially recorded it), in 1973 it stopped the world in its tracks and spent five weeks (non-consecutively) atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the early months of the year. The song truly gets the idea that we all feel often when listening to music in a performer who sings exactly what we’re feeling. The song would go on to win Fox and Gimbel the Grammy Award for Song of the Year and Flack the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. 45. "Right Place, Wrong Time" by Dr. John Dr. John was New Orleans through and through and by combining the Big Easy styles of blues, jazz, funk and R&B he created a unique style of music that culminated in his biggest hit “Right Place, Wrong Time,” which went all the way to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of 1973. It’s groovy. It makes you want to move and dance and immediately buy a ticket to get down to Bourbon Street ASAP. 44. "We're Gonna Hold On" by George Jones & Tammy Wynette George Jones and Tammy Wynette's high-profile, highly-volatile relationship produced many of the finest duets in country music history. While 1973’s “We’re Gonna Hold On,” probably wasn’t their finest – that’s likely “Golden Ring” from 1976 – nor did it prove to be true, but it’s still a country classic about a relationship attempting to make it through rocky times. It would be the couple’s first of three No. 1 duets together. 43. "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" by Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn were undoubtedly one of the greatest duet partners in the history of country music and my favorite collaboration between the icons was their 1973 country No. 1 hit “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” from their album of the same name. It’s just such a fun, up-tempo blast of a performance from the two performers, who despite not being lovers in real life – a la George Jones and Tammy Wynette – have such incredible chemistry together. 42. "These Days" by Jackson Browne Jackson Browne’s “These Days” is potentially the most introspective song on this entire list, especially when it comes to the themes and topics of loss and regret … and he wrote it when he was 16 years old! The song had already been cut a couple of times, most notably by Nico in 1967 as this baroque, folk-pop version, before Browne would update some of the lyrics and release his own version on his album For Everyman in October of 1973. That very same month, Gregg Allman released a version on his album Laid Back. Both Browne and Allman’s versions are more countrified, as was the way of doing things during this era. Maybe I’m just biased toward the writer of the art, but I believe Browne’s version in both recording and vocal is the best of these versions. 41. "Can't You See" by The Marshall Tucker Band I think when a lot of people think about Southern Rock they think about multiple guitars thrashing at once like in many of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s greatest hits but The Marshall Tucker Band showed that you could put a beautiful flute solo on Southern Rock too thanks to the incredible Jerry Eubanks, who opens and closes “Can’t You See” off the band’s 1973 self-titled debut album. The song, which might be the band’s most popular, sees the narrator reflecting on the heartache his woman has caused him and his attempt to run away from it. The band would re-release the song again in 1977 after they and Southern Rock in general had become a bit more popular – though it didn’t crack the top-40 either time it was released. It has become a classic rock radio format staple though. 40. "Blinded by the Light" by Bruce Springsteen If you were to pop on the vinyl of Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ on January 5, 1973 (which based on sales at the time not a whole lot of people did) the very first song you would’ve heard was “Blinded by the Light,” a wordy, Dylan-esque folk-rock number that sounds like it was written by going through a rhyming dictionary (and it actually was!). “Blinded by the Light,” was one of two songs (the other being “Spirit in the Night”) specifically written after the rest of the album when Columbia Records president Clive Davis felt the album lacked a potential single. Springsteen’s single wouldn’t do much, but it would become his first and only No. 1 single as a songwriter when Manfred Mann’s Earth Band spiced it up a bit with a more progressive rock sound in 1976. Even though it’s likely the wordiest song Springsteen ever wrote it’s still a helluva lot of fun to sing. 39. "Ramblin' Man" by The Allman Brothers Band “Ramblin’ Man,” written and sung by Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickey Betts, on the band’s 1973 album Brothers and Sisters, would become the band’s only Billboard Hot 100 Top-10 single when it went all the way to No. 2. To this day it’s still a staple on both classic rock and oldies format radio stations. Inspired by a Hank Williams song of the same name, “Ramblin’ Man” was actually written sometime before it was cut, but the rest of the band thought it was a bit too country music sounding for their albums. Coming out around the time that the Eagles, The Marshall Tucker Band and other country-rock acts were having a moment, it hit at the right time with American listeners. 38. "You Ask Me To" by Waylon Jennings Waylon Jennings heard Billy Joe Shaver, a mostly unknown Texan songwriter at the time, perform his song “Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me” at a concert both were performing at in 1972 and invited him to Nashville to write songs for the album that would become Honky Tonk Heroes, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in June. Nine of the 10 tracks on the album were either written or co-written by Shaver, including my favorite on the album – the beautiful love song about a man willing to do whatever the woman he loves asks of him (which was a co-write with Jennings). Jennings was known for his gruff outlaw image but could do a sweet love song with the best of them and “You Ask Me To” is about as sweet as they come. 37. "Old Dogs, Children & Watermelon Wine" by Tom T. Hall Tom T. Hall was simply known as “The Storyteller” around country music circles for his short story-like songs and 1973’s “Old Dogs, Children & Watermelon Wine” is one of his absolute best. Hall was almost like a reporter in that he could take true events that happened to him or those surrounding him and craft them into these storyline songs and this song came from a real encounter the songwriter had with an old janitor at a Miami Beach hotel while in town for the 1972 Democratic National Convention. It’s such a lovely song and spoken-sung performance by Hall. In 2014, Rolling Stone magazine named “Old Dogs, Children & Watermelon Wine” as one of the 100 greatest country songs of all time. 36. "Midnight Rider" by Gregg Allman “Midnight Rider” had appeared on The Allman Brothers Band’s 1970 album Idlewild South (with the amazing “Whipping Post” as its B-side) but it never charted when released as a single. When Gregg Allman, who had written it with Robert Kim Payne, released a re-imagined version of it on his solo album Laid Back in 1973, it suddenly became a smash, cracking the top 20 on Billboard. “Midnight Rider,” a folk-blues mixture filled with the desperation of an outlaw loner trying just to survive, was always a perfect mix for Allman’s gruff, bluesy voice no matter which version you prefer. 35. "Lost in the Flood" by Bruce Springsteen “Lost in the Flood,” might be the most Springsteen-esque song on his debut album, meaning it’s the song that most resembles what The Boss’s music would come to sound like on later records. It’s Springsteen’s first foray into writing about veterans returning from the war in Vietnam and the toll it’s taken on them. The sparse basic piano-only (likely Springsteen himself) performance works terrifically for the track’s first verse and a half until the epic entrance by the E Street Band on the second verse about the stock car racer “Jimmy the Saint.” In one of Springsteen’s most cinematic tracks, the song comes to a full-on violent finale in the final verse when a New York City gang gunfight involves the cops. You’d see this Springsteen more beginning with 1975’s Born to Run. 34. "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder Few things sound funkier than Stevie Wonder on the clavinet run through a Mu-Tron III filter pedal on his 1973 No. 4 Billboard hit “Higher Ground,” off Innervisions, one of his Grammy Album of the Year winners of the ‘70s. That sound, along with the bass line provided by a Moog synthesizer lays down this amazing groove while Wonder lays down one of his most socially conscious lyrics about all the bad shit going down here on earth but a higher calling waiting for one in the afterlife. 33. "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple Deep Purple’s “Smoke On the Water,” which was on the band’s 1972 album Machine Head and released as a single in May of 1973, is one of the most epic guitar songs of all time and truly helped bridge the gap between rock and roll to hard rock and even heavy metal. The opening riff that would appear throughout the song, played by Ritchie Blackmore, was ranked as the No. 4 greatest guitar riff of all time by Total Guitar magazine in 2004. The lyrics of “Smoke on the Water” tell of a true story the band witnessed on December 4, 1971, when they were in Montreux, Switzerland to record Machine Head. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were playing a show at a nearby casino when someone in the audience set off a flare gun that caught the venue on fire and destroyed the entire casino complex. Bassist Roger Glover came up with the title after watching the smoke billowing across Lake Geneva from the inferno. 32. "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates I was watching the new ABC criminal drama “Will Trent” earlier this year and was in the fifth episode of the season and I hadn’t completely started jiving with it yet and then in that episode came a scene between two detective partners, one of them the titular character, and Hall & Oates’ “She’s Gone” was playing in the background – Will Trent calls it “one of the greatest breakup songs of all time” – and these characters, who had been a bit icy toward each other, really begin to gel with each other to the great breakdown at the end where vocalist Daryl Hall really lets go on the chorus. I had been a bit icy toward “Hall & Oates,” and honestly there’s good reason to be with some of their biggest hits being on the lame side, but a killer groove and vocal like “She’s Gone” was enough to win me over – much like those characters on “Will Trent” – toward this being a killer track. 31. "Bennie & the Jets" by Elton John “Bennie & the Jets” must’ve been Bernie Taupin’s idea of what if David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust was a woman when he created the song about a “sort of proto-sci-fi punk band, fronted by an androgynous woman,” as he told Rolling Stone magazine in 2014. This fictional band is so kickass sounding that I kind of would’ve liked to have seen what may have happened if Taupin and Elton John created an entire concept album around the character of Bennie and her band. The song would become a huge hit in North America marking Elton John’s second career No. 1 hit (after “Crocodile Rock” had topped the Billboard chart in 1972). 30. "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight & the Pips In an oddity of an artist becoming more successful after leaving Motown Records, Gladys Knight & the Pips had the biggest hit of their career in 1973 with the group’s first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single in the R&B/soul classic “Midnight Train to Georgia.” The song, written by Jim Weatherly, was just the group’s second release after leaving Motown for Buddah Records and would instantaneously make Knight and the Pips one of the biggest acts in R&B and soul music. The song is told from the perspective of the narrator whose lover has failed to make it big in Hollywood and is leaving L.A. on the midnight train back to his home in Georgia and how she’s going to be right there standing by his side. It’s a powerhouse vocal by Knight on what would become her signature hit. 29. "Brain Damage/Eclipse" by Pink Floyd “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” are actually two different songs and tracks on Pink Floyd’s epic 1973 release The Dark Side of the Moon but the two were so often played together by DJs that they kind of became one – kind of like Queen’s “We Will Rock You”/”We Are the Champions.” “Brain Damage” flows so effortlessly into “Eclipse” that it just seems like one and it makes for an absolutely perfect ending to the album – the high point of the entire thing, in my opinion. The insanity-themed lyrics of the song were based on original band member Syd Barrett’s mental instability and eventual breakdown. The song has an interesting dichotomy for me as it’s haunting while at the same time making lunacy seem cool. 28. "For You" by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen was often compared to Bob Dylan with his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. in early 1973 with its wordy, rambling tracks like “For You.” “For You” is high on imagery, and a little bit less on proper storytelling but I get the gist that it’s about a young woman with troubles in her life who’s considering or attempted suicide and the man, who probably is in love with her, doing whatever he can to save her. The 100 MPH rapid-fire lyrics and Springsteen performance match the music's intensity and what’s going on with the general vibe, making it a rush of adrenaline from start to finish. 27. "Death of an Unpopular Poet" by Jimmy Buffett I had an incredibly hard time paring Jimmy Buffett’s excellent 1973 release A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean down to just the few tracks that made this list, and the list was finalized before Buffett’s death in September. That’s how much his music, especially his ‘70s output meant to me. “Death of an Unpopular Poet,” the final track on that album, is probably one of Buffett’s most underrated and most “who is this about?” songs as it spins a tale about an unsuccessful while living poet who dies and leaves all his royalties to his loyal dog and then in death becomes a hit. In reality, the inspiration wasn’t just one poet, but a combination of two: Kenneth Patchen and Richard Farina and Buffett essentially created a fictionalized one from aspects of them. It’s a lovely song that Bob Dylan hailed as one of his favorites. 26. "The Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet “Ballroom Blitz” has somehow always seemed out of its time to me. It doesn’t feel like a song that should be half a century old. A mixture of David Bowie glam rock with what would become The Ramones punk rock later in the decade, it also feels like something that would fit perfectly in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The song, which has always felt like an all-out rave to me, was inspired by a real incident that happened while the band was performing at Grand Hall in Kilmarnock, Scotland on January 27, 1973, when they were run offstage by audience members tossing bottles and other items at them. Whatever is happening in the song sounds much more fun than that. The song would become a No. 5 Billboard hit for the band. 25. "La Grange" by ZZ Top “La Grange” is simply one of the greatest guitar songs of all time. A-haw, haw, haw, haw. Likely the greatest track ZZ Top ever put to record, off ‘73’s Tres Hombres, it tells of a brothel – the one that inspired the Broadway play and later film “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” - down on the outskirts of La Grange, Texas. It’s mostly a shining example of what happens when boogie rock and blues meld down in the Lone Star state. 24. "I Have Found Me a Home" by Jimmy Buffett Found homes can oftentimes be more important or special in the lives of people than the ones they grew up in. That’s the feeling I get from Jimmy Buffett’s beautiful “I Have Found Me a Home,” off A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. I don’t know this for a fact, but I have a feeling Buffett is singing about Key West, which became a transformative place for him and his career. I absolutely love the verse: “And the ladies aren’t demanding here/They never ask too much/And when you’re coming off a cold love/That’s sure a nice warm touch.” It’s one of my favorite Buffett verses – but there are literally dozens of those. 23. "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray Dobie Gray’s 1973 version of “Drift Away” is certainly the most known and popular version (if you’re thinking Uncle Kracker right now please go away), but it wasn’t the original version. The song was originally released the year before by swamp rocker John Henry Kurtz (I’d never heard of him before either). But Gray’s soulful take on the song, written by Mentor Williams, is the definitive take and became the biggest hit of his career going to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sometimes you just want to forget the hardships of life, kick back, relax and listen to your favorite records. “Drift Away” knows this and wound up becoming one of those favorite records you can get lost in. 21. "Christmas in Prison" by John Prine I love “Christmas in Prison” so much because it’s exactly what you would expect from a Christmas song – though it’s one that’s perfect year-round – written by John Prine. Off his third studio album Sweet Revenge, “Christmas in Prison” sees the narrator spending the holidays in prison and waxing nostalgic about a lover – either active or former – back home. Prine had a knack for finding beauty where many others wouldn’t and this is a perfect example of that. 20. "Growin' Up" by Bruce Springsteen “Growin’ Up,” the second track on Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is a sign of things to come later for Springsteen, in my opinion, in its adolescent rebelliousness. Springsteen was 22 when he wrote the song in 1971 and it has all the gusto and bravado of one ready to break out of his own little world into something bigger with a bang. David Sancious, who was only 18 at the time, gives the album its first great E Street Band flourish with his piano solo. 19. "Tuesday's Gone" by Lynyrd Skynyrd Lynyrd Skynyrd certainly had bigger hits – “Tuesday’s Gone” wasn’t even a single – but the second track off the band’s 1973 debut album (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) might be the prettiest song the Southern Rock group out of Jacksonville, Fla. ever produced. The song has the theme of moving on, much as the band’s big hit of the debut “Free Bird,” but comes packaged in this incredibly beautiful musical packaging with Billy Powell on the terrific piano solo and the lead guitar by Gary Rossington, who passed away this year. 18. "I Got a Name" by Jim Croce I’m not sure there’s been a singer-songwriter with as high of highs and as tragic of lows as Jim Croce in 1973. His 1972 breakthrough album You Don’t Mess Around with Jim had top 20 hits with the title track and “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels).” The hits kept coming with Life and Times coming out in July of ’73 with Croce’s first No. 1 “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” The prolific songwriter just kept the songs and albums coming and the title track of his next album I Got a Name was to be released on September 21, 1973. However, tragedy struck on September 20 when Croce and five others died in a plane crash in Louisiana. The album, which would become his final, would be released in December. “I Got a Name,” which would posthumously go to No. 10, was a rare song not written by Croce (but by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel) is such an uplifting song of someone being confident in who they are no matter what life throws at them and is one that never fails to perk me up when I need it most. 17. "Gimme Three Steps" by Lynyrd Skynyrd “Gimme Three Steps” is one of my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd songs overall because I love how it brings this juxtaposition of honest sincerity when it comes to confrontation and mixes it with music and a band that’s oftentimes seen as complete masculinity, at least that’s the idea much of the fan base likes to give off. The song about a narrator dancing with another man’s girl and that man ready to end his life over it is infiltrated with this unique bit of humorous cowardice on the narrator’s part that you rarely see in rock music in general, especially from a tough-looking Southern Rock band. 16. "American Tune" by Paul Simon I can’t listen to Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” off his 1973 album There Goes Rhymin’ Simon, without getting at least a little bit emotional and depending on what’s going on with my life and in this country at any given time potentially a lot emotional. The song is a mediation on the American experience, both the positive and the negative but with the more mournful melody you can tell things were a bit worse than good at the time. Cash Box called the track, “gorgeous, haunting and highly lyrical,” which I couldn’t come up with a better way to describe the song. Simon’s gentle vocal really fits the lyrics perfectly. 15. "Dream On" by Aerosmith Aerosmith started out of the gate in 1973 with their greatest song “Dream On” being the single off the group’s self-titled debut album, though it would take a couple of years for one of classic rock’s most iconic tracks to become the hit it is. When initially released in June of ’73, it failed to make much of an impact outside of the band’s home city of Boston – where it was the single of the year on the local WBZ-FM – but word would get out about the band and the song and when it was re-released as a single in late-1975 it wouldn’t take too long for it to go all the way to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Dream On” is the band at its most introspective, which is interesting since it was them at their youngest, and kind of a sign of the stuff Steven Tyler might have written if the band hadn’t become more interested in the sex and drugs of rock & roll. 14. "Incident on 57th Street" by Bruce Springsteen 13. "Spirit in the Night" by Bruce Springsteen “Spirit in the Night,” from Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., is the quintessential early E Street Band sound for me – the more R&B, soulful, even jazz-tinged performing with Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez on drums, David Sancious on organ and piano (although it’s apparently Harold Wheeler credited on piano on this track) to go along with guys who would last past the first two albums in saxophonist Clarence Clemons and bassist Garry Tallent. The song, one of two written and tacked onto the album late in the recording process when Columbia Records president Clive Davis didn’t hear single material, is so infectiously fun and loose. The song tells the tale of a wild band of teenagers who drive out to a nearby lake and just screw around and there’s so much young, dumb, rebellious awesomeness in the whole performance. I wish I could bottle up the “Spirit in the Night” sound and wear it as cologne. 12. "He Went to Paris" by Jimmy Buffett “He Went to Paris,” off Jimmy Buffett’s 1973 album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, is maybe the finest song from start-to-finish the singer-songwriter ever penned. If you think Buffett was just about party beach songs I challenge you to listen to this ballad about a man’s life from early adulthood until his elderly years and not be completely taken in and likely even feel like shedding a tear. “He Went to Paris” is both beautiful and crushing in its story of one’s life from the highs to the tragedies. On his 1978 live album, You Had to Be There, Buffett mentioned that “He Went to Paris” was his favorite song he wrote. 11. "Tequila Sunrise" by Eagles “Tequila Sunrise,” the lead single off the Eagles’ 1973 sophomore release Desperado, was not really a hit when it was released, it didn’t crack the top 50, but it has stood the test of time as a frequent play on classic rock format radio stations and I think it’s one of the band’s five greatest songs. The country-rock tune, co-written by Glenn Frey and Don Henley, sees Frey taking lead vocals about a lonely man and the girl of his dreams running around with other men. The whining of Bernie Leadon’s B-Bender electric guitar, which has a steel guitar sound, and the longing in Frey’s vocal truly make this a classic country ballad. 10. "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce When I was young I used to think Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle” was pure cheese. I think it had something to do with the old-timey harpsichord and the crooner-ish vocals. When I grew up, and now as a mid-thirtysomething, I think it’s among the loveliest songs ever recorded – both in vocal, arrangement and, especially, lyrically. Find yourself someone who makes you want to live the chorus: “There never seems to be enough time/to do the things you want to do, once you find them/I’ve looked around enough to know/that you’re the one I want to go through time with.” If you do that, you’ll completely understand and cherish this song. The song had appeared on Croce’s breakthrough 1972 album You Don’t Mess Around with Jim but was not released as a single until after Croce’s death in a plane crash in September of ’73 when DJs began playing it and demand rose for it to be released. It would become a No. 1 posthumously for Croce, only the third time an artist (Otis Redding and Janis Joplin) ever topped the Billboard chart after their death at that time. 9. "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" by Elton John “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” the title track off Elton John’s massive 1973 double album, is the perfect song about getting out of an upper-class relationship and going back to one’s roots. It’s among the greatest lyrics ever penned by Elton John’s songwriting collaborator and lyricist Bernie Taupin and Elton’s vocal performance mixed with his piano and the arrangement, including wonderful strings during the chorus make it one of the finest pieces in Elton John’s vast discography. The lyrics kind of represent what Taupin’s goal in life was, as well, Oz was for the superstar Elton John, but Taupin belonged out with the howling owl in the woods. 8. "Jolene" by Dolly Parton No doubt one of the most recognizable and greatest country songs of all time, Dolly Parton’s 1973 country charting No. 1 hit “Jolene” is the tale of a woman confronting another stunningly beautiful woman who is trying to steal her lover or husband away. According to Parton many years later, there absolutely was a “Jolene” figure in her life – possibly a local bank teller if the rumor is correct. But have y’all seen a photo of Dolly Parton circa 1973 – what must this “Jolene” have looked like to easily be able to take her man away? Don’t worry, Parton and her husband Carl Dean have been married for nearly 60 years, but at least this flirt in their lives at one point gave us an all-timer of a country classic. 7. "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" by Bruce Springsteen “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” has always been one of my favorite Springsteen story songs and one of the most vivid of his career, as you can see the entire thing play out like a movie in your mind’s eye. It’s a love song – but what is Springsteen really in love with: Sandy or the Asbury Park boardwalk scene? The nostalgia and romanticism of it all, complete with real-life characters of the time like the fortune teller Madame Marie, makes me feel I need to see Asbury Park in my lifetime, though I’m not sure if it could ever compare or even look the same a half-century later - or if it ever really felt that way in general: E Street Band drummer at the time Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez told Rolling Stone: “No one would ever go under the boardwalk. There were rats under the boardwalk!” Springsteen has called the song a “love note and a goodbye song” to his adopted home of Asbury Park and the song hits both of those feelings perfectly. 6. "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger Bob Seger released “Turn the Page,” which I believe to be his all-time greatest song, in 1973 on his album Back in ’72 to little fanfare. It wasn’t until the song was released as a single on 1976’s live album Live Bullet that it truly became the classic rock staple that it is. It’s almost always that version you’ll hear and you could argue it should actually be on the 1976 list of this article we’ll probably do in a few years – but I’ll stick with the year of its original release (even though you can’t even find that version on Spotify). “Turn the Page” is the story of life on the road – something Seger would know more than most having truly created a successful career as a touring musician more than a recording artist. It’s real, it’s hard and it includes one of the greatest saxophone solos ever put on record by the great Alto Reed, who was told by road manager Tom Weschler to: “Think about it like this: You’re in New York City, on the Bowery. It’s 3 a.m. You’re under a streetlamp. There’s a light mist coming down. You’re all by yourself. Show me what that sounds like.” Reed freakin’ nailed it. 5. "If We Make It Through December" by Merle Haggard The great thing about Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December,” from his Christmas album Merle Haggard’s Christmas Present, is it’s not only one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written (for my money it is No. 1) but it’s also a song that works for the entirety of the year in its theme of a man down on his luck trying to provide for his family. The toughest time of year for folks suffering financially is around the holidays, especially if they have little children they hope to cheer up via Christmas presents. Haggard was known as the “poet of the common man,” and this is one I fear too many common men both at the time it was written and even now have felt too closely. Haggard is one of my all-time favorite songwriters and “If We Make It Through December” is easily in his top-10. 4. "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd What started out as a tribute to fellow Southern Rocker Duane Allman, the Allman Brothers Band guitar virtuoso who died in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at just 24 years old, would become something of a tribute to the band and its leader (and one of the song’s co-writers) themselves when a plane crash ended the band and killed Ronnie Van Zant just over four years after the release of the band’s debut album it appears on. “Free Bird” would go on to be such an iconic rock song, with its introspective lyrics that culminate in a guitar hero breakdown, that it’s become something of a cliché with fans at random concerts throughout the country and probably the world shouting “Free Bird” at bands to be a nuisance. But we shouldn’t let what the song has become in the pop culture lexicon take away from its greatness. 3. "Desperado" by Eagles “Desperado,” the softly sung country-rock ballad title track off the Eagles’ sophomore studio album, would become a classic rock staple despite never actually being released as a single by the band. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group has had a number of stellar tracks during its tenure, but “Desperado” is, for my money, their best. The track, written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey with Henley on lead vocals, was written in the style of old 1800 songs by Stephen Foster and helped to create the sound of the album overall based on themes of the Old West. 2. "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" by Bruce Springsteen “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is my favorite jam on Bruce Springsteen’s sophomore album (his second album of 1973) The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, in its tale of a young rock and roller ready to set the world on fire but needing to steal away his girl from his hometown to truly have it all. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, Brian Hiatt called it: “his first great rock song.” It’s a fever dream of a seven-minute rocker with rapid-fire lyrics that Springsteen wrote in his early 20s and having seen him perform it in Kansas City this past February in his early 70s one he still knocks out of the park. The track includes some of the greatest saxophone work from beginning to end of legend Clarence Clemons’s career. ‘Rosalita’ will have you wanting to dance your ass off with the biggest smile on your face every time you hear it. 1. "Piano Man" by Billy Joel “Piano Man” was Billy Joel’s first bit of success as the first single on his 1973 album of the same name. The song had come from Joel’s, a natural New Yorker, experiences as a fish out of water lounge musician in Los Angeles from 1972-73 while escaping a bad contract situation with a record company back home. Reportedly, all the characters in Joel’s song were based on real people or real experiences he witnessed as this lounge pianist/singer. “Piano Man” would not just become Joel’s signature song in his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career, but also one of the all-time greatest story songs and sing-alongs. by Tyler Glover & Julian Spivey WOMEN! At the 2018 Grammys, #GrammysSoMale started trending on Twitter due to the winners being overwhelmingly male. In response to this, the Grammy President at the time, Neil Portnow responded by saying women needed to "step up." That year, Bruno Mars took home Album, Song and Record of the Year. At the time, it was relatively new that the Grammys had switched categories to just Pop Solo Performance instead of Best Male Pop Solo Performance and Best Female Pop Solo Performance. With so many men winning, it appeared that this could be a way that women would not be recognized. I feel this was the fear at the time. Portnow did not know what he was talking about at all then and I am so thrilled to see so many women nominated in the General Field categories. In fact, the only male nominations in Record and Song of the Year are for Jon Batiste. It appears that the men need to step it up now. Women have been on fire in music for years. I am glad that an Academy that just a few years ago seemed to predominantly only value art by men are recognizing that women, in my opinion, are carrying the music industry right now. In Album, Record and Song of the Year, we have Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, SZA, Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey, boygenius, Janelle Monae, Victoria Monet and Dua Lipa. I am truly excited for all of these women to be celebrated since they have all played a part in making 2023 truly an unforgettable year in music. TG Taylor Swift It has been Taylor's year! The amount of things Swift has accomplished since October 2022 is outright insane. Last October, Swift released her tenth studio album, Midnights, to massive critical and commercial success. The lead single, "Anti-Hero," went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her longest-running #1 hit. Shortly after, Swift announced her Eras Tour, which is a trip through her music beginning with her debut album all the way to Midnights. The Eras Tour has become a cultural phenomenon. On October 13th this year, she released a concert film of the Eras Tour in theaters. The film became the highest-grossing concert film in the United States of all time. Theaters were filled with Swifties dressing up, trading friendship bracelets and singing and dancing like they were at the concert. Oh, and she also released two more albums for her well-documented re-recording project: Speak Now (Taylor's Version) in July and 1989 (Taylor's Version) last month. It came as no surprise when Grammy nominations were announced last Friday when Swift was announced as a finalist for Album of the Year for Midnights and Record and Song of the Year for "Anti-Hero." Right now, Swift is in a four-way tie for most wins for Album of the Year with Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder. If Midnights wins AOTY, she will be the ARTIST at the Grammys with the most Album of the Year wins. Swift also made history as the songwriter with the most nominations for Song of the Year ever and has tied Barbra Streisand as the female with the most Album of the Year nominations in Grammy history. If Swift had been snubbed on Grammy nomination morning, it would have been unforgivable. That is why her six nominations (Album, Song, Record, Pop Solo Performance, Pop Vocal Album, and Pop Collaboration with Vocals) are my favorite Grammy nominations this year! TG But Here We Are by Foo Fighters for Best Rock Album If you read the Grammy Snubs list that Tyler and I collaborated on yesterday you’ll know that I’m pretty bummed/irritated that the Foo Fighters’ excellent and incredibly emotional new album But Here We Are couldn’t break into the general field Album of the Year category (at least boygenius is there to represent some form of rock music), but that doesn’t mean I can’t be thrilled for the veteran Rock Hall of Famers to be nominated all up and down the rock genre-specific categories, most notably Best Rock Album. You can see the emotions of frontman Dave Grohl and the rest of the Foos losing drummer Taylor Hawkins all over this album, which is honestly one of the band’s best of their career. JS "Butterfly" by Jon Batiste for Song of the Year Jon Batiste is an artist that makes me love the Grammys. Until Batiste became an Album of the Year winner two years ago, I had never heard of him. The Recording Academy shined a light on this artist for me and made me look. What I found was a brilliant songwriter and vocalist who truly touches the hearts of listeners everywhere. If it wasn't for the Grammys, I would probably have never heard Batiste sing and it would have been a true shame. He is easily one of my favorite new artists of the last several years. "Butterfly" is such a touching song of going through the journey of life and finding out who we are. Batiste brilliantly does this in comparison with the progression of a butterfly's journey in their lives. This was a song that I wanted to be nominated for Song of the Year so badly but it wasn't an obvious pick for Grammy voters so I am beyond thrilled to see Batiste get the recognition. TG Rolling Up the Welcome Mat by Kelsea Ballerini for Best Country Album Kelsea Ballerini is a country artist whom I have really grown to just love over the years. She definitely leans more toward pop like Taylor Swift did before she fully committed to just making pop music. At the end of the day though, Ballerini's EP Rolling Up The Welcome Mat is something truly special. Ballerini breaks our hearts as we hear track by track about the dissolution of a marriage. All the high hopes and the best of intentions float away as the album continues on. The best song on the album is "Penthouse," which offers a glimpse of how we can act like everything is okay and project to the world that everything is perfect in our lives, but the looks cannot hide the fact that sometimes, we are playing pretend. Another fantastic track on the album is "Leave Me Again." Ballerini sings that she hopes life is going good for her ex but she hopes that she will never leave herself again for someone else. While the album arguably could be considered pop, I am truly excited to see that the Recording Academy felt this album deserved recognition. TG "Buried" by Brandy Clark for Best Country Song I love songs that are both heartbreaking but find a bit of beauty in the heartbreak and, boy, does “Buried” by Brandy Clark have that in spades. In a softly sung almost whisper, Clark lists off all of these things she can do with her newfound singlehood – some sound like dreams, some sound like time killers – but at the end of the song she will nearly knock you dead with the punchline of it all. It’s a stunner of a song written by Clark and Jessie Jo Dillon and while it has some solid competition in the Best Country Song category it’ll certainly be the one I’m rooting for on Grammy night. JS Barbie One of the biggest films this year was the hit film, "Barbie," starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. The film struck a chord with people for so many reasons. The film truly had us thinking about what our purpose was in this world and made us all think about how patriarchal our society has become. Women are expected to be perfect while men can be extremely flawed but celebrated for those flaws. “Barbie” will be remembered for its incredible direction by Greta Gerwig, its spot-on performances from Robbie, Gosling and America Ferrera, its brilliant script, its beautiful production design, its vibrant costumes, and most definitely for its soundtrack. I was so excited to see that the Recording Academy agreed with me. On Friday, the "Barbie" soundtrack was nominated for 11 Grammys. Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?" was nominated for Record, Song and Best Pop Solo Performance of the Year. Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night" was nominated for Song of the Year." Barbie's soundtrack was nominated for Best Score Soundtrack and Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. In the Best Song Written for Visual Media category, four of the five nominations are from the Barbie movie: Eilish's "What Was I Made For?," Lipa's "Dance the Night," Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj's "Barbie World" and Gosling's "I'm Just Ken." "Barbie World" was also nominated for Best Rap Song. The Recording Academy absolutely fell in love with this film the way we all did. This was definitely one of my favorite Grammy nominations this year. TG Jubilee by Old Crow Medicine Show for Best Folk Album So, Old Crow Medicine Show is facing some major hitters in the Best Folk Album category like Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon, but it is an honor they’ve won before for 2015’s excellent Remedy. But the veteran band’s latest release Jubilee is right up there with the best albums of their career with terrific tracks like, “Miles Away,” “Allegheny Lullaby,” “Smoky Mountain Girl” mixed in with fun barnstormers like “Belle Meade Cockfight” and “Wolfman of the Ozarks.” I love Paul and Joni, but on Grammy Night it’s O.C.M.S. I’ll be rooting for it. JS Weathervanes by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit for Best Americana Album Jason Isbell has been one of the best singer-songwriters in all of music for the last decade-plus and the nominating committee for the American Roots/Americana categories knows this well as he’s been frequently nominated and frequently wins awards in those genre-specific categories, but he’s never broken into the general field categories and that’s a damn shame. This year’s Weathervanes is right in line with the rest of Isbell’s discography with fully-fleshed terrific story songs about the highs and lows of life lived by real-life Americans. So, while I’m thrilled Weathervanes is nominated for Best Americana Album, as it should’ve been, I still harbor some resentment that it can’t break through the general field’s pop strong-and-stranglehold. JS The Returner by Allison Russell for Best American Roots Song I mentioned in our recent The Word on Pop Culture Podcast episode that if I had the ability to fill out a ballot for the general field Song of the Year category I’d put Allison Russell’s terrific “The Returner,” the title track off her most recent album, as one of the best of the year. I knew that was not going to happen – you watch these things enough and you know some artists are just destined for the genre-specific categories. But, at least “The Returner,” which features the best of Russell as a vocalist, musician and songwriter, got a nomination for Best American Roots Song. The song will simply make you want to fly. JS What Were Some of Your Favorite 2024 Grammy Award nominations? by Tyler Glover & Julian Spivey No Country Music in General Field Once again this year the Grammy Awards have been incredibly cruel to the genre of country music by snubbing it completely from the general field categories of Record, Song and Album of the Year. If you look at the country genre categories you’ll see that the Grammys are completely aware that there was some great country music made during the eligibility period with stuff from Brandy Clark, Chris Stapleton, Zach Bryan, Brothers Osborne and others appearing in the genre-specific categories but apparently the nomination committee body as a whole doesn’t view any of that as worthy of the general category field, which has mostly turned into a category for pop music. It’s gotten to where I truly believe the Grammys should mandate at least one country, rock and hip-hop nominee in the general field categories to at least attempt to even the disjointed and unfair playing field. JS "About You" by The 1975 for Song of the Year "About You" is a song that was on my list of hopes to be nominated for Song of the Year. The haunting and gothic feel of this song truly stays with you. The 1975 sing about how they cannot seem to get their ex off of their mind. They feel like if questioned about it, they would truly ask, "Do you think that I've forgotten about you?" Love truly can be so strong sometimes that even when it ends, it doesn't. The proximity and the way that we show that love for each other may go away but it doesn't. It becomes love that you cannot do something with except think about how it cannot exist the way you want it to. I am normally not into rockish-pop songs but this one truly hits a nerve ... I just wish that the Grammys would have appreciated it the way that I do. TG Tanya Tucker In 2020, Tanya Tucker finally won a Grammy at the age of 61. Tucker had been nominated for Grammys over the years but had never been able to turn one of those into a win until then. Tucker won two Grammys: Best Country Album for While I'm Livin and Best Country Song for "Bring My Flowers Now." This album and song were easily some of the best country music released in recent years so when Tucker released her latest album, Sweet Western Sound, I expected the Grammys to continue to shower Tucker with love. This was especially due to the amazing song, "Ready As I'll Never Be," which really does continue some of the themes of her Grammy-winning song, "Bring My Flowers Now." I guess the Recording Academy thought it might have resembled the other work too much maybe. TG Foo Fighters in General Field At least the Grammys didn’t completely snub rock music in the general field categories this year with boygenius receiving an Album of the Year nod for The Record and a Record of the Year nom for “Not Strong Enough,” but the Foo Fighters took a lot of pain and tragedy with the death of longtime bandmate and drummer Taylor Hawkins and the death of frontman Dave Grohl’s beloved mother Virginia and turned it into truly one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band’s greatest albums in But Here We Are. The band did receive love in the rock genre specific categories but has been known to break into the general field categories in the past making this year’s snub seem all the worse. JS "Dear Insecurity" by Brandy Clark & Brandi Carlile for Song of the Year “Dear Insecurity,” the collaboration between Brandy Clark and Brandi Carlile on Clark’s self-titled album, being nominated for Song of the Year was one of my hopes for that category. When I first heard this song, there was not a single lyric that did not feel like it applied to me. Every line delivered so beautifully by Clark and Carlile just hits you in your soul. You feel sadness for what you have felt, you feel happiness that you aren't alone and you feel like you can find the strength to deal with it all through this song. This song truly is like a therapy session for the soul. I am surprised the Academy overlooked this song for Song of the Year, especially considering that they have really been recognizing Carlile in recent years for her amazing vocals and songwriting talent. Knowing this is a song that truly will affect so many people makes it hard to believe that it could not touch the hearts of Grammy voters as it did mine. TG Jason Isbell in General Field So, Jason Isbell not being nominated in the general field categories of Song and Record of the Year this year isn’t all that surprising. I felt he had better stuff on his Weathervanes album to submit in those categories than “When We Were Close” and “Save the World” respectively, but the fact that he’s never been able to break through into those categories like some of his Americana brethren in Brandi Carlile and Sturgill Simpson steams me, especially because he’s dominated the Americana/American Roots categories at the Grammys every time he’s released an album for the last decade. JS What do you think was the biggest Grammy Award snub?
by Julian Spivey
Bruce Springsteen’s sophomore release The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle was released 50 years ago today on November 5, 1973. It was his second release of 1973 with his debut Greetings from Asbury Park debuting on January 5. Much like the first release, the second album gained critical acclaim but was released to average to poor sales and many wouldn’t find their way to it until the success of Springsteen’s third album Born to Run two years later when going back to see what else was in his discography. The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle contains the kind of wordy, storytelling of Springsteen’s debut but in more of a rock and roll flavor and sound than the folky debut. It includes some of Springsteen’s most epic songs both in storytelling and in the minds of his legion of fans and classics he performs often in concert to this day. Here’s my track-by-track look at The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle … The E Street Shuffle If “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” which would come out a couple of years later on Born to Run, is the origin story of the E Street Band then “The E Street Shuffle,” the opener on The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, has to be the band’s theme song. Springsteen himself never lived on E Street in Belmar, N.J., but early key extraordinaire in the E Street Band David Sancious did and as Jim Beviglia said in his 2014 book Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs, it would become “the figurative and spiritual home of all things Springsteen.” In his own book, Bruce Springsteen: Songs, Springsteen said: “’The E Street Shuffle’ is a reflection of a community that was partly imagined and partly real. The cast of characters came vaguely from Asbury Park at the turn of [the ‘70s]. I wanted to describe a neighborhood, a way of life, and I wanted to invent a dance with no exact steps. It was just the dance you did every day and every night to get by.” There may be no specific steps but the song sure makes you want to dance with every member of the early version of the E Street Band in unison on something so funky Stevie Wonder of the same era may have recorded it. When the E Street Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, Springsteen joined members of every era of the band for a performance of this song. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy,” the second track off the album, has always been one of my favorite Springsteen story songs and one of the most vivid of his career, as you can see the entire thing play out like a movie in your mind’s eye. It’s a love song – but what is Springsteen really in love with: Sandy or the Asbury Park boardwalk scene? The nostalgia and romanticism of it all, complete with real-life characters of the time like the fortune teller Madame Marie, makes me feel I need to see Asbury Park in my lifetime, though I’m not sure if it could ever compare or even look the same a half-century later - or if it ever really felt that way in general: E Street Band drummer at the time Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez told Rolling Stone: “No one would ever go under the boardwalk. There were rats under the boardwalk!” Springsteen has called the song a “love note and a goodbye song” to his adopted home of Asbury Park and the song hits both of those feelings perfectly. Kitty’s Back This will likely be controversial but “Kitty’s Back,” the seven-minute epic that makes for the third track on the album, isn’t one that would crack my top 50 favorite Springsteen songs, even though the band sounds tight as hell with the jazzy-rock sound of the music behind Springsteen’s lyrics and the “oo-ooh, what can I do?” part is an earworm. I’ve just never really gotten into the story, which was inspired by Springsteen seeing a sign outside either a strip club or go-go dancing club welcoming a dancer back after some time away. It feels like the type of song that must’ve come out of the improvisation of a band learning to play together at a small bar scene. It sounds fantastic, and you’ll want to see it live, but as a lyrics guy first it doesn’t hit me the way a ‘Rosalita’ or ‘Sandy’ does. Wild Billy’s Circus Story The first side of The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle vinyl comes to an end with “Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” which truly has the old circus feel to it with the opening tuba part coming from bassist Garry W. Tallent melding with Danny Federici’s accordion. Springsteen told Elvis Costello on Costello’s Channel 4 U.K. show “Spectacle” that he was always enthralled with the circus as a young lad. “I was both thrilled and frightened by the sideshow. It all felt frightening, uneasy and secretly sexual.” It’s the experience of a boy sneaking off to see the behind-the-scenes of the carnival “freaks.” It’s probably the weakest track on the album, but just as cinematic as the rest of these short stories set to music. Incident on 57th Street “Incident on 57th Street” is essentially Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Romeo & Juliet, except better because it’s set to kickass music, like David Sancious’ piano and Danny Federici’s organ. In “Incident on 57th Street,” Romeo is Spanish Johnny and Juliet is Jane. Springsteen doesn’t even attempt to hide the inspiration for the characters referring to them as “cool Romeo” and “a late Juliet.” But instead of battles between rival families, Johnny is trying to make it on the streets of New York doing whatever he can to make ends meet and survive. Unlike the tragic ending of Shakespeare’s classic though, Springsteen leaves his version open-ended to let the listener decide if they think it ended in tragedy or if the lovers actually get away from this life. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is my favorite jam on The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, in its tale of a young rock and roller ready to set the world on fire but needing to steal away his girl from his hometown to truly have it all. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, Brian Hiatt called it: “his first great rock song.” It’s a fever dream of a seven-minute rocker with rapid-fire lyrics that Springsteen wrote in his early 20s and having seen him perform it in Kansas City this past February in his early 70s one he still knocks out of the park. I, shockingly, haven’t mentioned the name Clarence Clemons yet in talking about this album, but his saxophone work from beginning to end in ‘Rosalita’ is among the best of his career. ‘Rosalita’ will have you wanting to dance your ass off with the biggest smile on your face every time you hear it. New York City Serenade “New York City Serenade,” the longest non-live track of Springsteen’s career, begins with a mesmerizing piano piece by Sancious, once again proving the early iteration of the E Street Band to be a jazz-rock outfit, before moving on to the story of New York City characters and their lives. It’s not one of the more interesting stories on the album, but the music – like “Kitty’s Back” – is enough to keep you moving along and vibing with the track. “New York City Serenade” actually came from Springsteen and the band melding two unused, potentially unfinished songs – “Vibes Man” and “New York City Song” – together. Overall, the musicality of “New York City Serenade” makes for a nice, easy listen to come down off the epic high of ‘Rosalita’ and play out the album to its end. What's your favorite track on The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle? by Julian Spivey It was a homecoming for Ashley McBryde on Sunday, October 15 at the Robinson Center Music Hall in Little Rock, Ark. as the native from the unincorporated community of Saddle, Ark. brought the house down in front of a packed house of adoring fans, that included family and long-time friends. McBryde just released her third solo studio album, The Devil I Know, on September 8 and her set on Sunday night was very heavy on tracks from the album, which seemed just fine with the audience – much of which already knew all the lyrics by heart and sang along. The Devil I Know is probably McBryde strongest effort from top to bottom thus far of her ACM, CMA and Grammy-award-winning career that still feels like it could skyrocket at any moment. McBryde began her set around 9 p.m. with one of the more raucous numbers off the new album, “Blackout Betty.” She was in complete control of the stage from the very beginning of the show oozing an effortless cool about her the entire way through. Amazingly, McBryde was able to fit the entire 11-song album into her 20-song set on Sunday night, something you rarely get from an artist. Among my favorite performances from the new release were “Whiskey and Country Music,” “Made for This,” “6th of October” and “Cool Little Bars.” McBryde basically made the almost always in my opinion stuffy venue and crowd at Robinson Center feel like a cool little bar crowd on Sunday night for the first time making me able to focus on the terrific music on the stage completely and not some dumb nuisance that can come with a crowd forgetting concerts are supposed to be about the music. Kudos to McBryde’s fan base in her home state for that. While fitting the entirety of The Devil I Know into her set, McBryde also found time for some fan favorites from her previous albums like the raunchy “Brenda Put Your Bra On,” off last year’s collaborative album Lindeville that she kind of over-sought. Never have I seen so many bras tossed on a stage in my life and McBryde was sure having a helluva time with it, picking one rather large one up and hanging it on the neck of guitar player Matt Helmkamp’s guitar. I was thrilled she performed what’s still my favorite song of hers, “Girl Goin’ Nowhere,” from her 2018 slightly different titled Girl Going Nowhere debut. I had been perusing through previous recent sets of hers and hadn’t seen it on any of them, so I was worried she might not play it on Sunday night, but if you’re going to break that particular song out anywhere it’ll be at your home state show. The massive reaction from the crowd still seems to choke her up after all this time, which is incredibly moving and you can tell isn’t just a put-on for us. It was probably around the quarter-to-halfway mark of her set when McBryde let us into a little bit of a secret that my wife and I in attendance hadn’t noticed at all – she was a bit under the weather and losing her voice. This was quite shocking as her performances up to that point had sounded about as close to the albums they are on. As the show went on, you could tell she was indeed losing her voice as her speaking voice in between songs got coarser and coarser as the night went on but miraculously, at least to my untrained ears, it never showed once in any performance. McBryde’s few selections from her sophomore studio release Never Will from 2020 were impeccable, as if she asked me, “Hey, Julian, what do you want to hear from that album?” Those songs included “First Thing I Reach For,” likely my favorite from the album, “Sparrow” and “One Night Standards.” Toward the end of the set, she performed “A Little Dive Bar in Dahlonega,” which was the first song I’d ever heard from here toward the end of 2017 and immediately piqued my attention as both a voice and songwriter to pay attention to and six years later she’s stood out as one of the best (really one of the few) from country music who can be among the mainstream acts (though radio still doesn’t quite do her justice – “One Night Standards” is her only solo top 20 charter) and still perform by-God country music. The final two selections on Sunday night came from the new album, including her current single (and my favorite track on the album) “Light on in the Kitchen,” which she told the Robinson Center audience was the highest trajectory of any of her singles to date – it’s currently No. 22 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart and based on what she said is hopefully still climbing. McBryde and her supremely talented band – which incredibly includes two musicians from my hometown of Mountain Home, Ark., shout out to Quinn Hill on drums and Wes Dorethy, who mostly was on keys but also played guitar, harmonica and fiddle during the show (no, I don’t know either personally) – finished the night up with the title track “The Devil I Know,” capping off a night of truly terrific music from a home state girl who made her dreams come true. McBryde mentioned during the show that she and her band handpicked their opening acts when they had the opportunity to play headlining shows like on Sunday night and her choice for the Little Rock show was another amazingly talented Arkansas artist – J.D. Clayton from Fort Smith. Clayton put out his debut album, Long Way from Home, in January and it's been a highlight in my country music of 2023 playlist for sure. Clayton performed many of the standout tracks from the album during his eight-song opening set on Sunday evening, including the title track, “Gold Mine” and “Heartaches After Heartbreak,” which has been my favorite from the album. He also performed a couple of beautiful songs written for his wife, whom he told us he met as a senior in high school in Fort Smith, “Beauty Queen,” which opened his show, and “Brown Haired Blue Eyed Baby,” which he had released on an E.P. in 2018 and of which he and his talented bandmates mixed with Steve Miller Band’s hit “The Joker.” While “The Joker” certainly got the crowd singing along, it was actually Clayton’s amazing cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1995 top-five hit “Give Me One Reason,” which truly showed off his voice and range. Between this cover and Luke Combs taking “Fast Car” to the top of the country airplay chart, it’s damn nice to see country dudes giving a black, queer songwriter in Chapman some love. Clayton finished off his opening set with a performance of “Arkansas Kid,” which is a slightly reworked version of Ronnie Van Zant/Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Mississippi Kid,” which was the perfect way to send him off. by Julian Spivey I had been wanting to check out the Arkansas Goat Festival in Perryville, Ark., held annually on the first Saturday of October, for some years now but my work schedule never seemed to align with it. This year I got lucky it fell on an off-Saturday and it was off to see some goats in lingerie (seriously, they have a goat lingerie show!). I just so happened to see on the festival’s website that a band called Posey Hill, which I’d just recently become acquainted with thanks to its single “Keeping Tyler” popping up on my Spotify via the Saving Country Music Top 25 Current Playlist curated by that website’s maintainer Kyle Coroneos, would be headlining the concert stage at the event, so after seeing livestock parade around in frilly undergarments, my wife, Aprille, and I decided to stick around for some country music. Posey Hill is a regional touring band from central Arkansas that kept it all in the family featuring sisters Kristian, Erin and Megan on vocals, while their dad Doug Burnett picks guitar and helps the harmony flow. They also had two fine instrumentalists with them on fiddle and banjo whose names I wish I had remembered to write down. Posey Hill had a bit of a train theme going on early in its set, opening with a nice cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “White Freight Liner Blues,” before transitioning into Alan Jackson’s “Freight Train” and then into the group’s first original song of the set, “First Train,” the opening track off the debut album No Clear Place to Fall. Being a festival where there are a lot of comers and goers and the general population of the event might not know you from Adam it was easy to see why Posey Hill performed mostly covers on the sunny, finally feeling-like autumn Saturday afternoon, but when the originals are as good as the ones the group performed it’d be just fine by me if they’d toss a few more in the set. The other two originals the group performed were “I’m Too Old for This,” and the aforementioned “Keeping Tyler,” a tale of a broken relationship in which the narrator only wants to keep her Tyler Childers records. If you’re a fan of Childers, I assure you that you need to check this song out. I guarantee you’ll love it, even if you might be like me and my wife and think Eric Church shouldn’t catch a stray. Posey Hill showed it was capable of doing just about anything singer-songwriter-ish on Saturday afternoon going from bluegrass to country to folk to rock to even harmonizing pop on a stunning cover of the Bee Gee’s “To Love Somebody.” The cover choices from the group were impeccable with some great ones I’d never been familiar with like Kasey Chambers’ “Last Hard Bible” to all-time favorites of mine in John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.” The girls even let pops shine for a bit when Doug took the vocals on a nice performance of Vince Gill’s “Liza Jane.” One of the many highlights of the set was the finisher “Mule Skinner Blues,” which allowed the sisters to show off their vocals on the bluegrass staple revitalized by Dolly Parton in 1971. As I mentioned, Posey Hill bills itself on its website as a “regional touring band,” but if they keep writing and recording songs like they have on their album and showcased on Saturday afternoon to a bunch of goats and their humans they might drop that “regional” part real soon. Y’all be sure to see them locally while you can. They’ll be at the Arkadelphia Festival of the Arts on Saturday, Oct. 14 at 3:30 p.m. James McMurtry Performs Some of the Greatest Story Songs You'll Ever Hear at White Water Tavern10/7/2023 by Julian Spivey Singer-songwriter James McMurtry brought his brand of literary Americana folk-rock music to the White Water Tavern in Little Rock, Ark. for a two-night stand on Wednesday, October 4 and Thursday, October 5. I attended the Thursday night show and, as always seems to be the case at the White Water, it was a magical evening of terrific music in a nice communal atmosphere. I feel like I was pretty late to the McMurtry game. He’s been recording music since the late ‘80s but I’ve come to know him over his last two albums: 2015’s Complicated Game and 2021’s The Horses and the Hounds. He’s an extraordinary storyteller, something that no doubt runs in the family as his father was famed novelist Larry McMurtry of Lonesome Dove fame, and his mother was an English professor. Prose is in his blood. I might be a simpleton, but music has always been my favorite form of literature, so McMurtry’s brand of storytelling set to music is just perfect for me. From the very moment I heard “Copper Canteen” and “You Got to Me,” off Complicated Game, they immediately became my favorite McMurtry songs, as I have a feeling that’s never going to change. They are perfect short stories set to music that I can see in my mind’s eye every time I listen and sing along, mentally putting myself in the shoes of the narrator. “Copper Canteen” actually has lines that remind me of my own life and relationship, though I’m younger than the narrator telling the story and I have no desire “to kill one more doe” before the end of deer season. But it’s almost as if: “Hold on to your rosary beads/leave me to my mischievous deeds like we always do” was written directly for me and my wife. “You Go to Me” is the story of a gentleman who ends up as a guest at a wedding in a once-familiar location that instantly brings back the memory of a long-lost love. This is not a scenario I’ve ever found myself in personally, but damn if I don’t feel it in my bones as if somewhere and sometime in this universe I was again in the narrator’s shoes. That’s the kind of lived-in, true-to-life storytelling McMurtry is capable of. Thursday night wasn’t the first time I’d heard him perform these wonderful songs. A few years ago, he opened a show for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit at the Robinson Center in Little Rock and performed both – but on Thursday night it was like hearing them again live for the first time. I’ll never tire of hearing “Copper Canteen” and “You Got to Me.” What made me the most excited to see McMurtry on Thursday night, other than the hope he’d perform those two songs again and the White Water Tavern becoming my favorite live music haunt, was the fact that I hadn’t seen him live since he released The Horses and the Hounds, which was my favorite album period of 2021. And McMurtry certainly did not disappoint when it came to performing his latest album getting to seven of the 10 tracks on it and, by God, if they weren’t probably my seven favorites on the thing. The first one he performed on the evening was “Canola Fields,” which is one of my two favorites on the album (it’s so hard to decide between it and “Blackberry Winter”). “Canola Fields” is similar to “You Got to Me” in recalling a lost love, but unlike in the previous songs, this love eventually finds its way back to him. Speaking of “Blackberry Winter,” it was potentially the most magical performance of his entire set with his three The Heartless Bastards bandmates – Tim Holt on guitar and accordion, Darren Hess on drums and his bassist who simply went by “Cornbread – stepping away for a bit and McMurtry even walking away from the microphone to perform to a stunned, hushed crowd. He’s not the first artist I’ve seen do this at the White Water and it’s always a spine-tingly moment no matter who does it. For him to do it on one of my favorite songs of his just added to the beauty of the entire evening. The other songs from The Horses and the Hounds performed on Thursday night were “Operation Never Mind,” “If It Don’t Bleed,” “Vaquero,” the hilarious “Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call,” with the crowd singing the refrain “I keep losing my glasses” and the tragic “Jackie.” Among the many other fantastic performances of the evening was the band rocking through a “medley of their hit” as McMurtry wryly stated – don’t worry though folks he didn’t smile! – of “Choctaw Bingo” which just about burned the place down, as well as “Childish Things,” the title track off his 2005 album, and “No More Buffalo,” from 1997’s It Had to Happen. McMurtry and The Heartless Bastards ended their set with a rip-roaring performance of “Too Long in the Wasteland,” the title track off his debut album in 1989. McMurtry was coaxed back onto the stage for an encore, something I honestly haven’t seen much at the White Water Tavern, for a performance of a new song he’s been working on called “Pinocchio in Vegas,” which was both humorous and touching as hell and I can’t wait to see on a future album. Amazingly, McMurtry left the stage again and took the stairs to the second story of the small barroom venue before once again being begged back downstairs for a second encore, this time performing the beautiful “These Things I’ve Come to Know,” off Complicated Game, before finally calling it a night. BettySoo, a singer-songwriter out of Austin, opened both nights at the White Water for McMurtry with her terrific songwriting and beautiful voice. I had never heard of BettySoo prior to Thursday night’s show but I’ll definitely be following her now. Always pay attention to the openers when you go to concerts. I promise you will find new favorites. She began her set solo with quiet, contemplative tunes before being joined on stage by Hess and Cornbread for a thoroughly rocking second half of the set. |
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