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Song of the Day #555: ‘You’re No Good’ – Bob Dylan

It didn’t take me long to decide which artist would pick up the weekend mantle now that I’ve retired the Beatles Weekends. I wanted a) a legend, b) somebody who has recorded enough songs to provide ample fodder for the blog, and c) somebody whose songs would lend themselves to both musical and historic analysis.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dylan Weekends.

Through 554 songs on this blog, I’ve featured Bob Dylan nine times. Seven of those were tracks from his Bootleg albums and one was from his recent Christmas album. Which means I’ve made it a year and a half featuring just one proper studio release by Dylan. That doesn’t seem right. But rest assured, I’ll make up for it in the coming weeks.

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Song of the Day #554: ‘Make a Mistake’ – Brad Paisley

For the final installment of Brad Paisley week, I will demonstrate that Brad Paisley is one hell of a musician.

Reading his early reviews, it’s funny to see critics speculate whether a guy with his guitar chops could be taken seriously as a singer and writer of songs. This was before he became one of the top selling artists in country music, of course.

Paisley does play a mean guitar, but today’s song is meant to illustrate not just his skill but his desire to surround himself with top musicians.

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Song of the Day #553: ‘Famous People’ – Brad Paisley

For the fourth installment of my Brad Paisley theme week, I’m using one song to illustrate two different points: Brad Paisley has great taste in covers, and Brad Paisley is a terrific singer. This song could also have been used on the first day to support the ‘Brad Paisley is funny’ point, but because he didn’t write it, I didn’t find that appropriate.

Apparently it’s pretty commonplace in country music to perform other people’s songs… not in the Britney Spears sense where you have professional songwriters who churn out product for pretty faces to sing but in a friendly ‘pass the guitar around the room’ sort of way. It’s the spirit behind Lyle Lovett’s two albums of cover songs and the reason a wonderful songwriter like Brad Paisley still fits in a few covers on each of his albums.

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Song of the Day #552: ‘Then’ – Brad Paisley

And now the third reason I totally dig Mr. Kimberly Williams: Brad Paisley is romantic.

And I mean very romantic. His albums are generally split between three kinds of songs… the funny songs, the heartbreak songs and the love songs. I wouldn’t say he’s any better at one group than the others — he’s great at them all — but he comes across as particularly sincere in the love songs.

I imagine that’s because he’s still in the extended honeymoon phase of his marriage, together seven years with two young children, and because Kimberly Williams — in addition to being extremely cute — seems like a very cool person. I shamefully admit to reading her Twitter feed in preparation for this blog entry.

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Song of the Day #551: ‘He Didn’t Have to Be’ – Brad Paisley

As my Brad Paisley theme week continues, I will now move on to another aspect of the man’s music that contributes to his enormous appeal: Brad Paisley is sweet.

I’m sure numerous essays have been written about the appeal of cowboys to modern women, especially sensitive and polite cowboys. Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights has all the women I know panting like lapdogs because he epitomizes that concept, even if he generally trades the cowboy hat for a football helmet. He’s a little macho and a little blunt but he’s also charming as hell and deep down he’s a teddy bear.

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