Continuing the chronological presentation of my 25 favorite songs…
‘Tangled Up in Blue (Demo)‘ – Bob Dylan (1974)
This song is one of two selections on my list of 25 that refers to a specific version different from the official release. To be fair, Bob Dylan’s ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ would certainly make this list in its initial full-band Blood on the Tracks incarnation as well.
Continuing the chronological presentation of my 25 favorite songs…
‘Life on Mars?‘ – David Bowie (1971)
This is the first of six songs from the 70s to make my list (tying that decade with the 80s for most represented). I guess that makes sense, given that those two decades made up my first 18 years, and isn’t that when music makes its biggest impact?
That’s one theory, but a deeper dive reveals that half of those 12 songs — including both of today’s featured tracks — didn’t find me until much later. So maybe they were just good musical decades.
In recent months, I’ve found myself declaring a couple of times that one song or another was officially among my all-time favorites.
That got me interested, during these pandemic times, in creating a definitive playlist of my favorite songs. This is an exercise fraught with peril and subject to repeated second-guessing, but that’s also what makes it fun.
Narrowing such a list to ten songs proved impossible, so I kept at it until I had close to 30, then pared back to 25, which feels like a good number.
Fountains of Wayne’s fifth and final album, 2011’s Sky Full of Holes, is the one I know least. It’s nice, then, to see it pop up on a Random Weekend and treat me to a “new” song.
‘Hate to See You Like This’ is a sweet plea to a loved one who is suffering from depression. I like that the music is more power pop upbeat than you would expect from the lyrics.
After Taylor Swift blessed fans with two surprise full-length albums in 2020, the records were invariably paired up in interesting ways.
Swift called the second album, Evermore, a “sister record” to the earlier Folklore, prompting fans to match “sister songs” on the albums. Track 13 on one is about Swift’s grandfather, while track 13 on the other is about her grandmother. The video for ‘Willow’ picks up where ‘Cardigan’s video left off. Both albums feature duets with Bon Iver. And so on.
Meet Me In Montauk 