The World in Six Songs

Le tableau de l'opération de la taille - Marin Marais

"...An 18th century opera by Marain Marais whose lyrics describe the gory details of a surgical operation..."

Nucleus - Alaskan Humpback whales

"...forty minutes of groans and shrieks made by humpback whales in the Pacific…"

Homegrown Tomatoes - Guy Clark

"...an ode to the gustatory pleasures of homegrown tomatoes...

Plant ’em in the spring eat ’em in the summer
All winter without ’em’s a culinary bummer
I forget all about all the sweatin’ and diggin’
Every time I go out and pick me a big ’un
Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes?
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes"

Cruella De Vil - Barabra Hendricks

"The diversity of our musical legacy includes songs that tell stories about people, such as 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown' or 'Cruella De Vil'…"

Armour hotdogs - Armour & co.

"...songs exhorting us to buy this meat product and not that (Armour hotdogs versus Oscar Mayer wieners)…"

Til I Waltz Again with You - Theresa Brewer

"...a song promising to keep a promise…"

I Know Love Is All I Need - Rodney Crowell

"...a song mourning the loss of a parent…"

In the Hall of the Mountain King - Woody Phillips

"...music played on power tools…"

Ten Little Indians - Disneyland Children's Sing-Along Chorus & Larry Groce

"...English-speaking schoolchildren still learn the alphabet through song and the number line through counting songs, such as the politically incorrect 'Ten Little Indians…'"

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64, II. Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

"...John Denver took Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and added lyrics to the melody…"

Satisfaction - Rolling Stones

"…the intro guitar riff…"

Happy Birthday - Sesame Street

"…'Happy Birthday' has been translated into nearly every language
on earth…"

If I Had A Hammer - Pete Seeger

"Seeger is the great folk singer-songwriter who penned such songs as 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone?', 'If I Had a Hammer,' and 'Turn, Turn, Turn' (the latter with lyrics taken from Ecclesiastes)."

The Nutcracker - Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

"My parents took me to see ballet and musicals before I was five, and through them (The Nutcracker and Flower Drum Song) I gained an early appreciation for Eastern scales and intervals—neuroscientists now believe that such early exposure to other tonal systems is important for later appreciation of music outside one’s own culture"

Maria - Leonard Bernstein

"Anyone named Maria or Michelle in the 1960s (think Bernstein and Beatles) or Alison or Sally in the 1970s (think Elvis Costello and Eric Clapton) knows what it is like to be accosted by the song bearing your name, mentioned by a friend or new acquaintance intoxicated by his own wit at having made this childishly simple connection."

Alison - Elvis Costello

"Anyone named Maria or Michelle in the 1960s (think Bernstein and Beatles) or Alison or Sally in the 1970s (think Elvis Costello and Eric Clapton) knows what it is like to be accosted by the song bearing your name, mentioned by a friend or new acquaintance intoxicated by his own wit at having made this childishly simple connection."

Danny Boy - Bing Crosby

"My own past has been bothered, annoyed, and taunted by endless choruses of 'Danny Boy' or 'Daniel' (Elton John), by people expecting me to howl at their cleverness."

Rikki Don't Lose That Number - Steely Dan

"Steely Dan have made it a habit, a fashion even, to elevate main characters with uncommon names like Rikki, Josie, and Dupree."

Cousin Dupree - Steely Dan

"Steely Dan have made it a habit, a fashion even, to elevate main characters with uncommon names like Rikki, Josie, and Dupree."

Roxanne - The Police

"I have actually known people named Maggie Mae, Roxanne, Chuck E., and John-Jacob (think Rod Stewart, the Police, Rikki Lee Jones, and an old children’s song), and they are astonished when people sing these songs to them as though no one has ever thought to do this before."

John-Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt - Barney

"I have actually known people named Maggie Mae, Roxanne, Chuck E., and John-Jacob (think Rod Stewart, the Police, Rikki Lee Jones, and an old children’s song), and they are astonished when people sing these songs to them as though no one has ever thought to do this before."

Tobacco Road - The Animals

"Friendship songs like 'Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room' and 'Tobacco Road' legitimized and banded together tens of thousands of high school (or even junior high school) students who were otherwise marginalized at the fringes of their school, engaging in an illegal but oh-it-seems-so-cool activity."

When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge

"They [love songs] reflect a bond powerful enough to make people do things that are not always in their own best, personal interest:
When a man loves a woman
Spend his very last dime
Trying to hold on to what he needs
He’d give up all his comforts
And sleep out in the rain
If she said that’s the way
It ought to be."

Happy Birthday - Marilyn Monroe

"This relative mode of processing also permits us to recognize 'Happy Birthday' as the same song regardless of what key it is sung in, a process musicians call transposition."

Happy Birthday - Barney

"This relative mode of processing also permits us to recognize 'Happy Birthday' as the same song regardless of what key it is sung in, a process musicians call transposition."

An Sylvia (Who Is Sylvia) - Franz Schubert

"Lee mentioned the treasure trove of medieval and Elizabethan lyrics—the poems/songs of Campion, Sydney, Shakespeare (and Schubert’s 'Who Is Sylvia?', for example, and other lieder)."

Rain - The Beatles

"I was listening to the song 'Rain' when I heard a crack of thunder followed by a few taps of light droplets on my roof. Within minutes, the rain was pounding...I had the first verse of that Beatles song stuck in my head ('When the rain comes/they run and hide their heads'), and to get it unstuck I tried to think of another song."

Do You Know the Way to San Jose? - Dionne Warwick

"...instead of a segué to another Bacharach and David composition ('Do You Know the Way to San Jose?' or 'I Say A Little Prayer') or another B. J. Thomas record ('Hooked on a Feeling,' 'Just Can’t Help Believing') or another song with the same I - I maj 7 - I7 - IV chord progression ('Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me,' 'Something') my frontal cortex was bent on searching my hippocampus for a song with 'rain' in the title, and instantaneously, unconsciously, my brain delivered 'You and Me and Rain on the Roof' by the Lovin’ Spoonful."

Hooked on a Feeling - B. J. Thomas

"...instead of a segué to another Bacharach and David composition ('Do You Know the Way to San Jose?' or 'I Say A Little Prayer') or another B. J. Thomas record ('Hooked on a Feeling,' 'Just Can’t Help Believing') or another song with the same I - I maj 7 - I7 - IV chord progression ('Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me,' 'Something') my frontal cortex was bent on searching my hippocampus for a song with 'rain' in the title, and instantaneously, unconsciously, my brain delivered 'You and Me and Rain on the Roof' by the Lovin’ Spoonful."

Everybody’s Talkin’ - Harry Nilsson

"...instead of a segué to another Bacharach and David composition ('Do You Know the Way to San Jose?' or 'I Say A Little Prayer') or another B. J. Thomas record ('Hooked on a Feeling,' 'Just Can’t Help Believing') or another song with the same I - I maj 7 - I7 - IV chord progression ('Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me,' 'Something') my frontal cortex was bent on searching my hippocampus for a song with 'rain' in the title, and instantaneously, unconsciously, my brain delivered 'You and Me and Rain on the Roof' by the Lovin’ Spoonful."

Rain on the Roof - The Lovin’ Spoonful

"The melody descends the scale from the fifth degree, sol, down an octave to the sol below, suggesting the Greek lydian mode, and I knew from experience that there was little danger this would get stuck in my head, but it would at least push out the Bacharach melody. Why was I trying to get rid of that? Oh yes, because the Beatles’ 'Rain' was reverberating around in there. Oh no! Soon I had that back. Quick! Think of John Sebastian. Ahhhh. 'You and me and rain on the roof . . .' Sol - fa - mi - re - do - sol - la - sol."

Fire and Rain - James Taylor

"My overactive hippocampus kept offering me more rain songs, floating up from my unconscious: 'No Rain' by Blind Melon, 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor (and the haunting cover version by Blood, Sweat & Tears), 'I Can’t Stand the Rain' by Tina Turner, 'Still Raining, Still Dreaming' by Hendrix, and of course 'The Rain Song' by Led Zeppelin, the opening chord a downward arpeggio, itself falling like rain."

I Can’t Stand the Rain - Tina Turner

"My overactive hippocampus kept offering me more rain songs, floating up from my unconscious: 'No Rain' by Blind Melon, 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor (and the haunting cover version by Blood, Sweat & Tears), 'I Can’t Stand the Rain' by Tina Turner, 'Still Raining, Still Dreaming' by Hendrix, and of course 'The Rain Song' by Led Zeppelin, the opening chord a downward arpeggio, itself falling like rain."

The Rain Song - Led Zeppelin

"My overactive hippocampus kept offering me more rain songs, floating up from my unconscious: 'No Rain' by Blind Melon, 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor (and the haunting cover version by Blood, Sweat & Tears), 'I Can’t Stand the Rain' by Tina Turner, 'Still Raining, Still Dreaming' by Hendrix, and of course 'The Rain Song' by Led Zeppelin, the opening chord a downward arpeggio, itself falling like rain."

Walk Between the Raindrops - Donald Fagen

"I congratulated myself on successfully avoiding getting stuck with an earworm from 'Here Comes the Rain Again' by Eurythmics or 'Walk Between the Raindrops' by Donald Fagen."

Rainin’ - Rosanne Cash

"I fired up the stereo with 'Rainy Days and Mondays' (the Carpenters), 'Rainin’ ' (Rosanne Cash), 'Let It Rain' (Eric Clapton with his group Derek and the Dominos), and two rain songs by one of my favorite groups: 'Who’ll Stop the Rain' and 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain?' (Creedence Clearwater Revival)."

Who’ll Stop the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival

"I fired up the stereo with 'Rainy Days and Mondays' (the Carpenters), 'Rainin’ ' (Rosanne Cash), 'Let It Rain' (Eric Clapton with his group Derek and the Dominos), and two rain songs by one of my favorite groups: 'Who’ll Stop the Rain' and 'Have You Ever Seen the Rain?' (Creedence Clearwater Revival)."

Prayers for Rain - The Cure

"Two more of my favorite groups finally weighed in from down below in my hippocampus, playing in my head as if a CD player were wired directly to my neurons: 'Prayers for Rain' by the Cure, and 'Bangkok Rain' by the Cult."

Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles

"Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. ('Here Comes the Sun,' I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of 'Sun King' and 'I’ll Follow the Sun' [Beatles], 'Let the Sunshine In' [The 5th Dimension], 'Sunny' [Bobby Hebb], 'You Are My Sunshine' [as performed by Ray Charles], 'Wake Up Sunshine' [Chicago], 'Who Loves the Sun' [The Velvet Underground], 'California Sun' [the Ramones and the Dictators], 'House of the Rising Sun' [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].)"

I’ll Follow The Sun - The Beatles

"Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. ('Here Comes the Sun,' I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of 'Sun King' and 'I’ll Follow the Sun' [Beatles], 'Let the Sunshine In' [The 5th Dimension], 'Sunny' [Bobby Hebb], 'You Are My Sunshine' [as performed by Ray Charles], 'Wake Up Sunshine' [Chicago], 'Who Loves the Sun' [The Velvet Underground], 'California Sun' [the Ramones and the Dictators], 'House of the Rising Sun' [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].)"

Sunny - Bobby Hebb

"Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. ('Here Comes the Sun,' I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of 'Sun King' and 'I’ll Follow the Sun' [Beatles], 'Let the Sunshine In' [The 5th Dimension], 'Sunny' [Bobby Hebb], 'You Are My Sunshine' [as performed by Ray Charles], 'Wake Up Sunshine' [Chicago], 'Who Loves the Sun' [The Velvet Underground], 'California Sun' [the Ramones and the Dictators], 'House of the Rising Sun' [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].)"

Wake Up Sunshine - Chicago

"Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. ('Here Comes the Sun,' I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of 'Sun King' and 'I’ll Follow the Sun' [Beatles], 'Let the Sunshine In' [The 5th Dimension], 'Sunny' [Bobby Hebb], 'You Are My Sunshine' [as performed by Ray Charles], 'Wake Up Sunshine' [Chicago], 'Who Loves the Sun' [The Velvet Underground], 'California Sun' [the Ramones and the Dictators], 'House of the Rising Sun' [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].)"

California Sun - The Ramones

"Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. ('Here Comes the Sun,' I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of 'Sun King' and 'I’ll Follow the Sun' [Beatles], 'Let the Sunshine In' [The 5th Dimension], 'Sunny' [Bobby Hebb], 'You Are My Sunshine' [as performed by Ray Charles], 'Wake Up Sunshine' [Chicago], 'Who Loves the Sun' [The Velvet Underground], 'California Sun' [the Ramones and the Dictators], 'House of the Rising Sun' [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].)"

House of the Rising Sun - The Animals

"Lee and I met the following week and the sun had been out for a couple of days by then. ('Here Comes the Sun,' I thought as I walked across campus to meet him, and this gave way to auditory images of 'Sun King' and 'I’ll Follow the Sun' [Beatles], 'Let the Sunshine In' [The 5th Dimension], 'Sunny' [Bobby Hebb], 'You Are My Sunshine' [as performed by Ray Charles], 'Wake Up Sunshine' [Chicago], 'Who Loves the Sun' [The Velvet Underground], 'California Sun' [the Ramones and the Dictators], 'House of the Rising Sun' [Eric Burdon back when he was with the Animals, one of the first rock songs I ever wanted to play nonstop for a week].)"

Begin the Beguine - various

"Or consider these lines, from 'Begin the Beguine,' where the song title itself is a visual and auditory wordplay: To live it again is past all endeavor,
Except when that tune clutches my heart,
And there we are, swearing to love forever,
And promising never, never to part. Notice in the third line the internal rhyme in there and swear. The first and third lines rhyme, as they ought to, ending with endeavor and forever. But Porter adds an additional rhyme to these in the middle of the fourth line with the repetition of never."

Hotel California (We are all...) - The Eagles

"...most of them didn’t speak a word of English. They had no idea what they were saying when they sang 'warm smell of co-li-tas/rising up through the air/up ahead in the distance/I saw a shim-mer-ing light.' Not knowing English, they didn’t know where the beginnings and endings of words were. Just as my little sister used to think that 'The Star- Spangled Banner' spoke of a particular kind of lamp called a donzerlee light (for 'dawn’s early light'), my Belgian friends thought there must be a type of lamp called a 'murring light' (from shim-mer-ing light). And what was this thing called a 'prizzonerzeer' that all of us are ('we are all just prisoners here . . .')?"

She Loves You - The Beatles

"In their early songs, Paul McCartney says, he and John intentionally—somewhat calculatingly—tried to inject personal pronouns into as many of the early lyrics and song titles as they could….'She Loves You,' 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'P.S. I Love You,' 'Love Me Do,' 'Please Please Me,' 'From Me to You.'”

P.S. I Love You - The Beatles

"In their early songs, Paul McCartney says, he and John intentionally—somewhat calculatingly—tried to inject personal pronouns into as many of the early lyrics and song titles as they could….'She Loves You,' 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'P.S. I Love You,' 'Love Me Do,' 'Please Please Me,' 'From Me to You.'”

Please Please Me - The Beatles

"In their early songs, Paul McCartney says, he and John intentionally—somewhat calculatingly—tried to inject personal pronouns into as many of the early lyrics and song titles as they could….'She Loves You,' 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'P.S. I Love You,' 'Love Me Do,' 'Please Please Me,' 'From Me to You.'”

Amelia - Joni Mitchell

"I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails
Across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Oh Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Note the repetition of the long i sound in I and driving in the first line; the repetition of the d sound in driving and desert in thatsame line; the repetition of the s sound in spotted and six in the second line. Of course there is also the alliteration in hexagram of the heavens. The song features a prominent guitar, connecting the music to the lyric. I love that she mentions her six-string guitar in the sixth line of the song, just one subtle element among many that create an internal consistency in this lyric. There is the semantic connection between a desert and a plain, both flat expanses of terrain, a connection implied by her choice of the homonym planes in the second line."

I Got You (I Feel Good) - James Brown

I feel good
I knew that I would
. . .
I feel nice
Like sugar and spice
So good so nice I got you
"Apart from the fact that all (but one) of the words are monosyllabic, the accent structure of the melody supports the accent structure of how this might be spoken—contributing to the pounding insistence of the groove."

Smokin' in the Boys Room - Brownsville Station

"...it’s when an old song from thirty-five years ago comes on that one of the girls cranks the volume. Soon the entire group is moving as one to “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” by Brownsville Station:

Smokin’ in the boys’ room Smokin’ in the boys’ room
Teacher don’t you fill me
Up with your rules
Cuz everybody knows that
Smokin’ ain’t allowed in school!"

Whistle While You Work - Guy Lombardo

"Work songs ('Whistle While You Work,' 'Let’s Work Together,' 'Hard Work') do help to pass the time, and may well be a comfort to those singing them, but this is not their fundamental use—primarily, they exist to coordinate movement and cooperative undertakings, to imbue participants with a sense of shared purpose."

Hard Work - John Handy

"Work songs ('Whistle While You Work,' 'Let’s Work Together,' 'Hard Work') do help to pass the time, and may well be a comfort to those singing them, but this is not their fundamental use—primarily, they exist to coordinate movement and cooperative undertakings, to imbue participants with a sense of shared purpose."

Row Row Row Your Boat - Raffi

"Alternation occurs when some members of the group deliberately don’t synchronize with others, singing either in a round (as when children sing 'Row Row Row Your Boat' and some start at a different time than others) or when singing a 'call and response' pattern such as in the children’s campfire song 'Sippin’ Cider Through a Straw.'"

Smokin' in the Boys Room - Brownsville Station

"A common musical interest can provide solidarity for these smaller splinter groups, just as 'Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room' does for the smokers. Gay students may turn to gay anthems such as Lou Reed’s 'Walk on the Wild Side.' The 'we' that music binds together can refer to liberals (Nine Inch Nails’ 'March of the Pigs'), conservatives (Toby Keith’s 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue'), the young (the Who’s 'My Generation'), the average guy (Primus’s 'Poetry and Prose'), or the working man (Springsteen’s 'Working on the Highway')."

March of the Pigs - Nine Inch Nails

"A common musical interest can provide solidarity for these smaller splinter groups, just as 'Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room' does for the smokers. Gay students may turn to gay anthems such as Lou Reed’s 'Walk on the Wild Side.' The 'we' that music binds together can refer to liberals (Nine Inch Nails’ 'March of the Pigs'), conservatives (Toby Keith’s 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue'), the young (the Who’s 'My Generation'), the average guy (Primus’s 'Poetry and Prose'), or the working man (Springsteen’s 'Working on the Highway')."

My Generation - The Who

"A common musical interest can provide solidarity for these smaller splinter groups, just as 'Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room' does for the smokers. Gay students may turn to gay anthems such as Lou Reed’s 'Walk on the Wild Side.' The 'we' that music binds together can refer to liberals (Nine Inch Nails’ 'March of the Pigs'), conservatives (Toby Keith’s 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue'), the young (the Who’s 'My Generation'), the average guy (Primus’s 'Poetry and Prose'), or the working man (Springsteen’s 'Working on the Highway')."

Working on the Highway - Bruce Springsteen

"A common musical interest can provide solidarity for these smaller splinter groups, just as 'Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room' does for the smokers. Gay students may turn to gay anthems such as Lou Reed’s 'Walk on the Wild Side.' The 'we' that music binds together can refer to liberals (Nine Inch Nails’ 'March of the Pigs'), conservatives (Toby Keith’s 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue'), the young (the Who’s 'My Generation'), the average guy (Primus’s 'Poetry and Prose'), or the working man (Springsteen’s 'Working on the Highway')."

I Walk The Line - Johnny Cash

"The free love and sex philosophy of the late sixties and early seventies was celebrated in songs such as Stephen Stills’s 'Love the One You’re With,' and those who rejected such notions might have turned to Johnny Cash’s 'I Walk the Line,' and today might be galvanized by Whitney Houston ('Saving All My Love For You') or Jill Scott ('Celibacy Blues')."

Celibacy Blues - Jill Scott

"The free love and sex philosophy of the late sixties and early seventies was celebrated in songs such as Stephen Stills’s 'Love the One You’re With,' and those who rejected such notions might have turned to Johnny Cash’s 'I Walk the Line,' and today might be galvanized by Whitney Houston ('Saving All My Love For You') or Jill Scott ('Celibacy Blues')."

Dirty Water - The Standells

"...People who do something together that is antisocial or somewhat off - center enjoy a bond. We hear it in the proto- punk classic 'Dirty Water' by the Standells. 'I’ll be down by the river Charles,' they sing, along with “lovers, fuggers and thieves*.” What they are saying is “They’re actually good people, these river- dwellers, people like us.”"

White Rabbit - The Jefferson Airplane

"A generation was inspired to take drugs, or at least if they were already taking them to feel good about it, by songs such as 'White Rabbit' by the Jefferson Airplane, with its call to 'feed your head.' (Non-drug-users found solace in Paul Revere & the Raiders’ 'Kicks' or John Lennon’s 'Cold Turkey.')"

Get Up, Stand Up - Bob Marley and The Wailers

"Protest songs use social bonding powerfully. Whether it’s Bob Marley singing 'Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!' or Phil Ochs singing 'I Ain’t Marching Anymore,' Moses Rabbeinu singing 'Let My People Go,' or Pete Seeger singing 'We Shall Overcome,' protest songs have an ability to inspire, motivate, bind, focus, and move people to action."

Let My People Go - London Adventist Chorale

"Protest songs use social bonding powerfully. Whether it’s Bob Marley singing 'Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!' or Phil Ochs singing 'I Ain’t Marching Anymore,' Moses Rabbeinu singing 'Let My People Go,' or Pete Seeger singing 'We Shall Overcome,' protest songs have an ability to inspire, motivate, bind, focus, and move people to action."

Hurricane - Bob Dylan

"What has been far more common in our lifetime is that protest songs have directly, through their lyrics, addressed slavery, human rights, desegregation, economic injustice, legal injustice ('Hurricane,' Dylan’s ballad of Rubin Carter), and other social ills."

Blowin’ In the Wind - Bob Dylan

"I first learned “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and 'Blowin’ in the Wind' as a seven-year-old at a summer camp in the California mountains. A twenty-two-year-old camp counselor brought his guitar to campfi re and taught all ninety of us these two protest songs, and we sang them every night for three weeks."

I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore - Phil Ochs

"As the war escalated, more songs appeared on the radio: 'War (What Is It Good For?),' 'I Ain’t Marching Anymore,' 'Universal Soldier,' 'Eve of Destruction,' and 'Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam).'"

Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire

"As the war escalated, more songs appeared on the radio: 'War (What Is It Good For?),' 'I Ain’t Marching Anymore,' 'Universal Soldier,' 'Eve of Destruction,' and 'Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam).'"

Give Peace a Chance - John Lennon

"It didn’t sound like a Beatles song, but there was that familiar voice, the familiar acoustic guitar rhythms, making the call for an end to the war. Lennon’s song was far from the first or even the most pop u lar protest song, but it exploded with musical power and with the raw simplicity of its message."

For What It’s Worth - Buffalo Springfield

"There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
We gotta stop hey watch that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Writing a review of a documentary about the sixties (broadcast in 2007), New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger said 'That astonishing song came to encapsulate ’60s turmoil so perfectly that resorting to it is a subconscious admission by a documentarian: 'I have nothing to say that Stephen Stills didn’t say better in 2 minutes 41 seconds.' Its instantly recognizable two-note opening rings like an alarm bell.'"

For What It’s Worth - Buffalo Springfield

"There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
We gotta stop hey watch that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Writing a review of a documentary about the sixties (broadcast in 2007), New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger said 'That astonishing song came to encapsulate ’60s turmoil so perfectly that resorting to it is a subconscious admission by a documentarian: 'I have nothing to say that Stephen Stills didn’t say better in 2 minutes 41 seconds.' Its instantly recognizable two-note opening rings like an alarm bell.'"

Ohio - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

"Right after the Kent State murders in 1970, CS&N were in the recording studio with Neil Young. 'Teach Your Children' was climbing up the charts and headed for number one. Neil had just written 'Ohio' in reaction to the shooting of four student protesters. 'Graham suggested that we release the song right away,' Neil Young recalled. 'It was his call, because it was his song that was climbing the charts, and we knew that we might not be able to have two songs on the charts at the same time. But he felt it was important to get the song out, and so he sacrificed "Teach Your Children" for "Ohio." That was really something.' Nash added, 'I had left my group The Hollies over disagreements over which songs to release—I wasn’t going to do to Neil what they had done to me.' 'Ohio' became one of the most moving antiwar anthems; David Crosby can be heard crying at the end of the recording. Many people who grew up in the fifties, sixties, and seventies regarded the leaders of the antiwar movement—whether political leaders or musical leaders—as heroes, taking a courageous stand with the minority, speaking their conscience."

Crazy - Willie Nelson

"Willie Nelson, writer of 2500 songs including the classic 'Crazy' (made famous by Patsy Cline)…"

Everything Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police

"Sting: "I use ‘ee-oh’ a lot. In Italian it means ‘me.’ I don’t know what that says about my psychology! But it’s something that the audience clearly gets off on. And it’s a simple vowel thing—it creates this bond, it creates this link between us all. And you can fill the whole stadium with it. I don’t know whether it’s meaningless or not, but it definitely has some sort of power—and it’s not personal power. The thing itself has a power, has a sense of connection. They’re probably the most effective songs, really.” Daniel Levitin: “You do that in ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,’ and in ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.’ ”
Sting: “Yes, and you’ll hear me do it to night in ‘Walking on the Moon’ and another song too. It’s powerful. People relate to it; they feel the joy and the magic.""

Walking On The Moon - The Police

"Sting: "I use ‘ee-oh’ a lot. In Italian it means ‘me.’ I don’t know what that says about my psychology! But it’s something that the audience clearly gets off on. And it’s a simple vowel thing—it creates this bond, it creates this link between us all. And you can fill the whole stadium with it. I don’t know whether it’s meaningless or not, but it definitely has some sort of power—and it’s not personal power. The thing itself has a power, has a sense of connection. They’re probably the most effective songs, really.” Daniel Levitin: “You do that in ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,’ and in ‘De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.’ ”
Sting: “Yes, and you’ll hear me do it to night in ‘Walking on the Moon’ and another song too. It’s powerful. People relate to it; they feel the joy and the magic.""

Bach Zadeh - Aziza Mustafa Zadeh

"Joy songs today are found everywhere from the scat singing of Ella Fitzgerald to that of the Azerbaijani singer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, from 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' to Ren & Stimpy extolling the virtues of their favorite toy, 'The Log'..."

The Log Song - Ren and Stimpy

"Joy songs today are found everywhere from the scat singing of Ella Fitzgerald to that of the Azerbaijani singer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, from 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' to Ren & Stimpy extolling the virtues of their favorite toy, 'The Log': What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs
Rolls over your neighbor’s dog?
What’s great for a snack and fits on your back?
It’s Log, Log, Log!

It’s Log, Log, it’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood.
It’s Log, Log, it’s better than bad, it’s good!
Everyone wants a log! You’re gonna love it, Log!
Come on and get your log! Everyone needs a Log"

Pepsi Generation - PepsiCo

"Based on their jingles, we are meant to believe that pure, undiluted joy will come to those who eat Peter Paul candies ('Sometimes you feel like a nut—sometimes you don’t'), drink Pepsi ('It’s the Pepsi generation, comin’ at ya, goin’ strong/Put yourself behind a Pepsi/If you’re living, you belong'), or drive a Chevrolet ('See the U.S.A. today in a Chevrolet!')."

Slinky jingle - Slinky

"The company that manufactured the children’s toy Slinky turned a spring into a perennial children’s favorite, largely on the basis of their catchy song! (And it was this song that Ren & Stimpy were parodying when they tried to show that even a log could be a fun toy if given the right song.)"

Suspicious Minds - Elvis Presley

"Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds
And we can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds Too much suspicion erodes the foundation of trust necessary for most long-term human cooperative ventures."

Over The Rainbow - Judy Garland

"When we hear the first two notes of the chorus in “Over the Rainbow”—that big octave leap—it feels like someone has pulled a spring in our musical brains. The third note simply has to come down in pitch, and of course it does."

She Loves You - The Beatles

"Huron argues that music appropriates all of these four TRIP processes (plus another called 'appraisal' that I’ve left out). He dissects the Beatles’ song 'She Loves You' to illustrate this. One of the most clichéd chord sequences in fifties pop music and doo-wop is what musicians call a I-vi- IV- V progression (in the key of G: G Major, E minor, C Major, D Major; sometimes a ii chord is substituted for the IV, that is, A minor, which has two- thirds of the notes in common with C Major). In the first section of the chorus, Huron notes, Lennon and McCartney throw in a C minor where we are expecting to hear a C Major. There is only one note different between a C minor and a C Major chord (E flat instead of E natural), but even non-musicians detect this instantly. The C minor doesn’t last very long and then we are brought to the expected D Major—listeners reappraise the entire sequence, subconsciously of course, and realize that there exists a plausible alternative to the overlearned sequence they expected to hear. The listener, with the composers’ help, has learned something new about the world."

Autobahn (instr.) - Kraftwerk

"The six songs that inspired me in 1975—that made me want to become a musician at least in those days—were:
1. 'Autobahn' by Kraftwerk. These guys ushered in what is now regarded as an entirely new genre—techno (sometimes called electronica)—and like all great musicians, they made it seem easy. Combining long-form, classical themes with a kind of geeky interest in electronics and creating their own synthesizer sounds, they seemed to be just the kind of sciency, music-y nerds that I could aspire to being. The song from the album of the same name was a twenty-five-minute tour de force of drawn-out arpeggios and McCartney-ish shifts from major to minor tonality."

Through My Sails - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

"The six songs that inspired me in 1975—that made me want to become a musician at least in those days—were 4. 'Through My Sails' by Neil Young with Crosby, Stills & Nash. The delicate vocal harmonies here still give me chills. Think of the Everly Brothers to the second power. The blend of their voices is gorgeous, comforting, and warm. It is usually Stills who performs songs with a solo lead vocal, joined at certain points by the lush background voices ('Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,' 'See the Changes,' 'Woodstock'), but here for the only time I’ve ever heard, Young pulls a Stills and delivers a few call-out lines, his voice enmeshed in the harmony the rest of the time..."

See The Changes - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

"It is usually Stills who performs songs with a solo lead vocal, joined at certain points by the lush background voices (“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “See the Changes,” “Woodstock”)…"

Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd

"The six songs that inspired me in 1975—that made me want to become a musician at least in those days—were 5. 'The Great Gig in the Sky' by Pink Floyd. This came from their concept album Dark Side of the Moon, the band’s second effort (after Meddle) at playing with large- scale thematic connections among the tracks, more like a symphony than anything else that had ever been done in rock. The use of classical devices and narrative arc on the album got me thinking big, about merging classical and rock music. The singer, a guest vocalist named Clare Torry, delivers a chilling vocal performance—so much passion and sadness conveyed by the human voice that, even though there are no lyrics, the message seems so clear."

I've Never Went to Bed With an Ugly Woman (But I Sure Woke Up with a Few) - Bobby Bare

"Étienne took the microphone and launched into one of his signature tunes, the Shel Silverstein song 'I Never Went to Bed with an Ugly Woman (But I Sure Woke Up with a Few).'"

Poison Love - Hank Snow

"I played my bit passably, but the crowd was generous, maybe a little drunk, and applauded as Étienne slid into the first line: Oh your poison love has stained the lifeblood in my heart and soul, dear..."

Stand By Your Man - Tammy Wynette

"The waitresses had made a mixtape for the little cassette player in the back and the six songs that they played most often back there were:
1. 'My Guy' by the Supremes (a somewhat rare version compared to the Mary Wells version, which was the big hit)
2. 'Stand By Your Man' by Tammy Wynette
3. 'I Love a Rainy Night' by Eddie Rabbit ('Because he’s so cute,' they said.)
4. 'Nights on Broadway' by the Bee Gees
5. 'Disco Duck' by Rick Dees
6. 'The Morning After' by Maureen McGovern"

The Nights on Broadway - The Bee Gees

"The waitresses had made a mixtape for the little cassette player in the back and the six songs that they played most often back there were:
1. 'My Guy' by the Supremes (a somewhat rare version compared to the Mary Wells version, which was the big hit)
2. 'Stand By Your Man' by Tammy Wynette
3. 'I Love a Rainy Night' by Eddie Rabbit ('Because he’s so cute,' they said.)
4. 'Nights on Broadway' by the Bee Gees
5. 'Disco Duck' by Rick Dees
6. 'The Morning After' by Maureen McGovern"

The Morning After - Maureen McGovern

"The waitresses had made a mixtape for the little cassette player in the back and the six songs that they played most often back there were:
1. 'My Guy' by the Supremes (a somewhat rare version compared to the Mary Wells version, which was the big hit)
2. 'Stand By Your Man' by Tammy Wynette
3. 'I Love a Rainy Night' by Eddie Rabbit ('Because he’s so cute,' they said.)
4. 'Nights on Broadway' by the Bee Gees
5. 'Disco Duck' by Rick Dees
6. 'The Morning After' by Maureen McGovern"

Two Tickets to Paradise - Eddie Money

"Victor’s top six songs were:
1. 'Road Fever' by Foghat
2. 'Warrior' by Wishbone Ash
3. 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath
4. 'Running Wild' by Judas Priest
5. 'Runnin’ with the Devil' by Van Halen
6. 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree' by Tony Orlando and Dawn

Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas

"Victor’s top six songs were:
1. 'Foreplay-Long Time' by Boston
2. 'Two Tickets to Paradise' by Eddie Money
3. 'Keep On Lovin’ You' by REO Speedwagon
4. 'Carry On Wayward Son' by Kansas
5. 'Lady,' by Styx
6. 'We Built This City' by Jeff erson Starship"

We Built This City - Jefferson Starship

"Victor’s top six songs were:
1. 'Foreplay-Long Time' by Boston
2. 'Two Tickets to Paradise' by Eddie Money
3. 'Keep On Lovin’ You' by REO Speedwagon
4. 'Carry On Wayward Son' by Kansas
5. 'Lady,' by Styx
6. 'We Built This City' by Jeff erson Starship"

Warrior - Wishbone Ash

"Eddie’s tape was:
1. 'Road Fever' by Foghat
2. 'Warrior' by Wishbone Ash
3. 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath
4. 'Running Wild' by Judas Priest
5. 'Runnin’ with the Devil' by Van Halen
6. 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree' by Tony Orlando and Dawn"

Running Wild - Judas Priest

"Eddie’s tape was:
1. 'Road Fever' by Foghat
2. 'Warrior' by Wishbone Ash
3. 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath
4. 'Running Wild' by Judas Priest
5. 'Runnin’ with the Devil' by Van Halen
6. 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree' by Tony Orlando and Dawn

Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree - Tony Orlando and Dawn

"Eddie was into heavy metal and had his own mixtape that one of his brothers made for him before being sent to prison for beating up three policemen with their own clubs. Eddie’s tape was:
1. 'Road Fever' by Foghat
2. 'Warrior' by Wishbone Ash
3. 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath
4. 'Running Wild' by Judas Priest
5. 'Runnin’ with the Devil' by Van Halen
6. 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree' by Tony Orlando and Dawn
When any of Eddie’s five heavy metal songs were playing, he would wash dishes with a vengeance, scrubbing them cleaner than the day they were new, and doing a little thing that sort of resembled a dance, with him shifting his considerable weight back and forth from one leg to another. He had worn holes in the thick rubber mats where he stood. But when “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” came on he would stand in place, his head hung over his shoulder his arms limp at his sides, all the weight shifted to one leg. In Eddie’s understanding of the world, the song was about a prisoner who would one day come home and nothing more...Eddie followed right behind, the two of them yelling and screaming as our Sunday morning patrons looked on, half-astonished and half-scared out of their wits, while the chorus played jauntily on,'Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree/It’s been three long years/Do you still want me . . .'

Smokin' in the Boys Room - Brownsville Station

"In the seventies, some of us listened to musicians who sang about things that were not discussed—free sex, smoking cigarettes or marijuana out in back of the school (think Brownsville Station and 'Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room' or the Animals and 'Tobacco Road'). The implicit message of these songs was 'You’re one of us—you’re not alone—the things you think and feel are normal.'"

At Seventeen - Janis Ian

"Janis Ian’s 'At Seventeen' addressed the millions of teenage girls (and boys) who felt they didn’t fit in because they were not attractive enough:
To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came,
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me"

Death Is Not The End (When you're sad...) - Bob Dylan

"In 'Death Is Not the End,' Bob Dylan creates a simultaneously anthemic and anesthetic refrain: 'When you’re sad and lonely and you haven’t got a friend, just remember that death is not the end . . . When the cities are on fire, with the burning flesh of men, just remember that death is not the end.” As with many songs, the lyrical intent is ambiguous. Is Dylan singing to someone who has just lost a friend, telling her that the friend is not really dead? Or is he suggesting the recipient of the song might consider suicide? Either way, the message that death is just a portal, not the end, and you will live on afterward, is more comforting than the alternative, that death ends everything definitively."

I Don’t Wanna Talk About It Now - Emmylou Harris

"David Byrne described three songs that he reaches for when he feels he needs comfort, or in his words, 'consoling': 'I Don’t Wanna Talk About It Now,' 'Michelangelo,' and 'Boulder to Birmingham'... The next one’ll see me
drown
But I don’t want to talk about it now
I don’t want to talk
about it now
I don’t want to talk about it now
I wanna go down"

Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris

"David Byrne described three songs that he reaches for when he feels he needs comfort, or in his words, 'consoling': 'I Don’t Wanna Talk About It Now,' 'Michelangelo,' and 'Boulder to Birmingham'... I don’t want to hear a love song, I got on this airplane just to fly
And I know there’s life below
But all that it can show me is the prairie and the sky"

Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band

"'Boulder' was co-written by Bill Danoff who wrote 'Take Me Home Country Roads' and 'Afternoon Delight...'"

The Great Intoxication - David Byrne

"I asked if he [David Byrne] ever picked up the guitar and sang one of his own songs for consolation, if they had that effect on him . 'Once in a while,' he said. 'There’s a few—usually more of the recent ones. There are a few that I occasionally play, that I enjoy. The singing is kind of consoling, or cathartic, or soothing to me; which is something that I always wanted to be able to do: to write a song that would be a tool that I could use for myself the way I’ve been able to use other people’s songs. There’s two from my album Look into the Eyeball: 'The Revolution' and 'The Great Intoxication.'"

God Bless America - LeAnn Rimes

"During the initial aftermath [of the September 11, 2001 attacks], radio and television stations, train stations and bus depots, and many public places began to pipe music to Americans. And what did they play? Not the battle-tinged refrains of 'The Star-Spangled Banner,' but a song written by an immigrant in 1918, near the end of World War I, Irving Berlin’s 'God Bless America.' 'That song spontaneously became our de facto national anthem,' says Rabbi Yosef Knefsky, a spiritual leader in Los Angeles, 'at a time when people were looking for something with which to express themselves, and to bond. It’s amazing—the capacity of that simple melody to unite the country in a way that was both comforting and brought strength—it crossed all divides.”"

California Girls - The Beach Boys

"The lyrical content to this chord progression can be anything, from the Beach Boys praising the beauty of their local beaches and babes ('California Girls'), Chuck Berry paying homage to an especially skillful guitarist ('Johnny B. Goode'), or Steely Dan exploring Eastern enlightenment through the Buddha ('Bodhisattva')."

Bodhisattva - Steely Dan

"The lyrical content to this chord progression can be anything, from the Beach Boys praising the beauty of their local beaches and babes ('California Girls'), Chuck Berry paying homage to an especially skillful guitarist ('Johnny B. Goode'), or Steely Dan exploring Eastern enlightenment through the Buddha ('Bodhisattva')."

Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan

"That night after dinner, some of the attendees took turns taking the stage to play music for the group. Ian insisted that I borrow his classical guitar to play something for everyone, and so I sang and played a song I had just taught myself that month, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 'Pride and Joy.' Mine was the only nonclassical contribution to the evening, but everyone seemed to be having a good time. To this day, I still run into people from that conference who remember me as 'that guy who played Stevie Ray Vaughan.'"

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall - Tin Orense

"'99 Bottles [of Beer on the Wall]' and 'The Ants [Go Marching]' teach children to count."

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round - Raffi

"'The Wheels on the Bus' helps to construct and reinforce the physical and social order of the environment, encoding the perceptions into age-appropriate schemata: The baby in the bus cries, the wheels go round and round, the wipers go whoosh-whoosh, and so on."

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly - Peter, Paul, and Mary

"'I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,' or 'An Only Kid, An Only Kid' are examples of songs that continue on, with each verse invoking earlier verses in an interconnected narrative, so that by the end of the song the memory load is quite high."

How To Save A Life - The Fray

"We see versions of them ['how-to' songs] today in pop music, in songs such as 'How to Save a Life' by the Fray, 'The Locomotion' by Little Eva (and later by Grand Funk Railroad), 'The Heist' by Busta Rhymes ('that’s how we make movies'), or the whimsical “How to Build a Time Machine” by Aussie singer Darren Hayes."

The Loco-motion - Grand Funk Railroad

"We see versions of them ['how-to' songs] today in pop music, in songs such as 'How to Save a Life' by the Fray, 'The Locomotion' by Little Eva (and later by Grand Funk Railroad), 'The Heist' by Busta Rhymes ('that’s how we make movies'), or the whimsical “How to Build a Time Machine” by Aussie singer Darren Hayes."

How to Build a Time Machine - Darren Hayes

"We see versions of them ['how-to' songs] today in pop music, in songs such as 'How to Save a Life' by the Fray, 'The Locomotion' by Little Eva (and later by Grand Funk Railroad), 'The Heist' by Busta Rhymes ('that’s how we make movies'), or the whimsical “How to Build a Time Machine” by Aussie singer Darren Hayes."

Black Cat - Janet Jackson

"They [superstitions] are mentioned in contemporary popular songs as diverse as Devo’s 'Whip It' ('step on a crack/break your mother’s back'), Janet Jackson’s 'Black Cat,' Keith Urban’s 'A Little Luck of Our Own' ('Black cat sittin’ on a ladder/Broken mirror on the wall'), and the Rolling Stones’ 'Dandelion' (with the implicit message that to blow on this particular plant will give you the power to foretell the future)."

Dandelion - Rolling Stones

"They [superstitions] are mentioned in contemporary popular songs as diverse as Devo’s 'Whip It' ('step on a crack/break your mother’s back'), Janet Jackson’s 'Black Cat,' Keith Urban’s 'A Little Luck of Our Own' ('Black cat sittin’ on a ladder/Broken mirror on the wall'), and the Rolling Stones’ 'Dandelion' (with the implicit message that to blow on this particular plant will give you the power to foretell the future)."

Wakko's America - Animaniacs

"The children’s television show of the 1990s Animaniacs featured songs that a generation of kids used to learn such things as the states of the United States and their capitals (set to the melody of 'Turkey in the Straw') and the nations of the world (set in rhyme to the tune of the 'Mexican Hat Dance.')"

Parts of the Brain - Pinky and The Brain

"Several of my undergraduates every year gleefully sing to me the 'Parts of the Brain' as they learned them from this show, set to the melody of 'De Camptown Races,' with a high- pitched voice chiming in the words 'brain stem' where the 'doo-dahs' would go: 'neocortex, frontal lobe (brain stem, brain stem)/hippocampus, neural node, right hemisphere.'"

In Too Deep - Genesis

"When Genesis sings “All this time, I still remember everything you said,” or when Bryan Adams sings “I remember the smell of your skin/I remember everything/I remember all of your moves,” they are encoding their personal memories in song."

The Last Song - Sleater-Kinney

"Some knowledge songs are written as a plea for the listener to remember something specific and important to the writer, as in 'The Last Song,' by indie rockers Sleater-Kinney:
I need you out of me before I turn into you
I can’t stand to look at you,
until you remember everything I can’t be
The recipient’s only hope for saving the relationship is to 'remember everything,' and the song serves as a reminder that this is what (s)he needs to do."

I Walk The Line (As sure as night…) - Johnny Cash

"Often songwriters are not asking for others to remember, but write for themselves to remember. Take one of Johnny Cash’s most famous songs, “I Walk the Line”:
I find it very, very easy to be true
I find myself alone when each day is through
Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
On the surface, it seems like a sweet love song, sung by the man to his sweetheart back home. But in the third verse, Cash explicitly invokes memory as he pledges to think of her:
As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And happiness I’ve known proves that it’s right
Because you’re mine, I walk the line
My reading of this verse is that Cash is not in fact singing the song to her, but to himself. The ironic underpinning is that in fact he doesn’t find it very, very easy to be true. He wants to be, but it is a struggle. The song’s function is to remind him why he’s doing this—because of the 'happiness [he’s] known' with her and that he doesn’t want to risk. 'I Walk the Line' is the song of a man in conflict, on the road, with a wandering eye, hoping against all odds and knowledge of his own weakness that he will be true. 'I Walk the Line' is a knowledge song, a song of feelings encoded in song so that he will remember 'when each day is through' what he promised himself he would do."

The Stars and Stripes Forever - John Philip Sousa

"There are several points in the piece where the wind instruments play a low note, followed by a rapid flurry of notes all leading up to a much higher note."

Hold On - Yes

"...the phrase 'spill the beans' shows up in songs by six artists that couldn’t be more diverse: Yes ('Hold On'), Lard ('Pineapple Face'), DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince ('I’m All That”), Boomtown Rats ('Tonight'), Carly Simon ('We You Dearest Friends'), and Smash Mouth ('Padrino')."

I’m All That - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince

"...the phrase 'spill the beans' shows up in songs by six artists that couldn’t be more diverse: Yes ('Hold On'), Lard ('Pineapple Face'), DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince ('I’m All That”), Boomtown Rats ('Tonight'), Carly Simon ('We You Dearest Friends'), and Smash Mouth ('Padrino')."

We You Dearest Friends - Carly Simon

"...the phrase 'spill the beans' shows up in songs by six artists that couldn’t be more diverse: Yes ('Hold On'), Lard ('Pineapple Face'), DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince ('I’m All That”), Boomtown Rats ('Tonight'), Carly Simon ('We You Dearest Friends'), and Smash Mouth ('Padrino')."

Fight and Scratch - Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner

"...this exact phrase 'fight like cats and dogs' is found in dozens of pop lyrics including songs by Dolly Parton ('Fight and Scratch'), Paul McCartney ('Ballroom Dancing'), Harry Chapin ('Stranger with the Melodies'), Tom Waits, Nanci Griffith, and Indigo Girls ('Please Call Me, Baby'), and Phil Vassar ('Joe and Rosalita')."

Stranger with the Melodies - Harry Chapin

"...this exact phrase 'fight like cats and dogs' is found in dozens of pop lyrics including songs by Dolly Parton ('Fight and Scratch'), Paul McCartney ('Ballroom Dancing'), Harry Chapin ('Stranger with the Melodies'), Tom Waits, Nanci Griffith, and Indigo Girls ('Please Call Me, Baby'), and Phil Vassar ('Joe and Rosalita')."

Joe and Rosalita - Phil Vassar

"...this exact phrase 'fight like cats and dogs' is found in dozens of pop lyrics including songs by Dolly Parton ('Fight and Scratch'), Paul McCartney ('Ballroom Dancing'), Harry Chapin ('Stranger with the Melodies'), Tom Waits, Nanci Griffith, and Indigo Girls ('Please Call Me, Baby'), and Phil Vassar ('Joe and Rosalita')."

The Wreck of the Old '97 - Hank Snow

"'The words have a metrical pattern, which must correspond to the rhythmical pattern, the beat structure, and the time signature of the music…In this ballad, the meter consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Usually the unstressed syllables are shorter in length than the stressed syllable…The meter and rhythm are closely related in that the number of stressed syllables equals the number of beats in the music...Thus, the music and words constrain each other.'"

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - Disney

"Most North American children learn the alphabet by learning the letters set to the melody of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' (the same melody as the beginning of 'Ba Ba Black Sheep')."

Superstar - The Carpenters

"...Karen Carpenter sings the line 'Long ago, and oh so far away' using a vocal technique that artfully reinforces the meaning of the words. She delays the pronunciation of the word 'far,' reinforcing the idea of distance. While holding the word 'away,' she brings out a subtone in her voice that conveys the sense of deep loss and separation."

I Walk The Line - Johnny Cash

"We write songs to remind ourselves of things (as in Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”) or to remind others of things (as in Jim Croce’s 'You Don’t Mess Around with Jim' or Fleetwood Mac’s 'Don’t Stop')"

Don’t Stop - Fleetwood Mac

"We write songs to remind ourselves of things (as in Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line”) or to remind others of things (as in Jim Croce’s 'You Don’t Mess Around with Jim' or Fleetwood Mac’s 'Don’t Stop')"

Dear John ("Well when I woke…saddle home") - Aubrey Gass

"In 'Dear John,' the writer of this song (Aubry Gass, and as sung by Hank Williams) is again encoding an experience into a song, presumably so that he won’t forget that it was his own misbehavior that caused his woman to leave him; he weaves into the message two well-known Old Testament
references: Well when I woke up this mornin’,
There was a note upon my door,
Said “don’t make me no coffee babe,
‘cause I won’t be back no more,”
And that’s all she wrote, Dear John,
I’ve sent your saddle home.

Now Jonah got along in the belly of the whale,
Daniel in the lion’s den,
But I know a guy that didn’t try to get along,
And he won’t get a chance again,
And that’s all she wrote, Dear John,
I’ve fetched your saddle home Note the interesting shift to the third person in the second verse ('I know a guy that didn’t try to get along'), a conceit to make us think that it isn’t actually he who was left by a woman, a move that underscores the point that he’s sending the message out to others as a warning: Don’t do what I did; treat your woman right."

Run That Body Down - Paul Simon

"Hard-won lessons are a staple of knowledge songs, from Paul Simon’s 'Run That Body Down' to Ani DiFranco’s aptly titled 'Minerva' (after the Roman goddess of knowledge) to the Magnetic Fields’ 'You Love to Fail.'"

You Love To Fail - Magnetic Fields

"Hard-won lessons are a staple of knowledge songs, from Paul Simon’s 'Run That Body Down' to Ani DiFranco’s aptly titled 'Minerva' (after the Roman goddess of knowledge) to the Magnetic Fields’ 'You Love to Fail.'"

I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly - Peter, Paul, and Mary

"A song like 'Too Much' turns the memory process into a game—the first part of each line cuing the second part or vice versa. If we forget the line, logic can often deliver it to us just as it does in 'I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.'"

Sounds of Science - The Beastie Boys

"Knowledge songs are perhaps the crowning triumph of art, science, culture, and mind, encoding important life lessons in an artistic form that is ideally adapted to the structure and function of the human brain. We need to know. And we need to sing about it... I've been dropping the new science and kicking the new knowledge
An M.C. to a degree that you can't get in college… It's the sound of science"

Pomp and Circumstance - Edward Elgar

"It begins with a legato line of notes in close proximity to one another: The first fifteen notes are all stepwise and then (the [?]) sixteenth note of the piece takes a large ascending leap of a perfect fourth immediately followed by a falling perfect fifth, a move that grabs our attention."

God Save the Queen - Unknown

"…'Hail to the Chief ' or 'God Save the Queen,' [are] played respectively when the President of the United States or the British Queen enters a room"

Deck the Halls - Elmer Iseler Singers

"Ritual and religion songs are therefore, to my way of thinking, bound to particular times and events, and for the explicit purpose of accompanying, guiding, or sanctifying a specific spiritual act. Under this definition 'Jingle Bells' or 'Deck the Halls' are not religion songs, although they spring from the celebration of a religious holiday. Rather, I see them as friendship songs, binding us to friends and family who hold similar beliefs."

Trombone Concertino, Op.4 - II. Andante marcia funebre - Ferdinand David

"'The Wedding March,' 'The Funeral March,' the Mass, the Song of Atonement, on the other hand, are religion songs in that they must be performed at a certain time and place and they cannot be performed whenever one pleases."

Eli Nora Alilah (example of a song of atonement) - Keith S. Toth

"'The Wedding March,' 'The Funeral March,' the Mass, the Song of Atonement, on the other hand, are religion songs in that they must be performed at a certain time and place and they cannot be performed whenever one pleases."

The Hokey Pokey - Ray Anthony

"Children’s songs in which participants move parts of their body selectively, and in particular ways, are found in every culture. These constitute practice for coordinating music and movement.

You put your right foot in
You put your right foot out
You put your right foot in
And you shake it all about
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around
That’s what it all about!"

Down By the Riverside - Cornerstone Baptist Church Choir

"Within such choirs, an ever-changing core group of people sing the nominal melody as others sing, improvise, shout, chant, and rejoin whenever they feel moved to do so."

Vidéo - India.Arie

"...the individual as an artistic and meaningful entity, created in God’s image—leading to feelings of self-acceptance and self-confi dence. As India.Arie sings in “Video,” her own merging of hip- hop, funk, gospel, and pop: I’m not the average girl from your video
and I ain’t built like a supermodel
But, I learned to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

When I look in the mirror and the only one there is me
Every freckle on my face is where it’s supposed to be
And I know my creator didn’t make no mistakes on me
My feet, my thighs, my lips, my eyes; I’m lovin’ what I see"

Oh Happy Day - Edwin Hawkins

"In such 'call-and-response' music, the response may either be a literal musical and textual repeat (as it is here on the first and second replies) or a melodic variation (as on the third reply):
leader: Oh happy day!
choir: Oh happy day!
leader: Oh happy day!
choir: Oh happy day!
leader: When Jesus washed . . .
choir: When Jesus washed . . ."

Flip, Flop, Fly - Blue Brothers

"...in Big Joe Turner’s 'Flip Flop and Fly,'...each vocal line is answered by a saxophone line."

Superstar (Chorus) - The Carpenters

"In Leon Russell’s 'Superstar,' as performed by the Carpenters (with Richard Carpenter’s brilliant arrangement), Karen sings 'Long ago' and the orchestral instruments echo her vocal melody, and keep up a vocal call and instrumental response throughout the song. McCartney does the same thing with his piano lines responding to the vocal lines in 'Let It Be.'"

Summertime - Billie Holiday

"'Most white singers don’t have anywhere near the emotion that black singers do – Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith – every single note is invested with all the feeling of human existence.'"

My Body Is a Cage (My body is…) - Arcade Fire

"'To me,' David [Byrne] says, 'it’s religious and at the same time anthemic. It gets really big at the end, but it’s still very personal. This song’s not calling for spiritual or political revolution or, "we must march and fight" or "we shall overcome,’" or whatever. "My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key." It’s beautiful, but to me it’s a little bit backwards; usually it’s the other way. Usually it’s the mind that’s keeping the heart from acting. So it’s the mind telling the heart "No! I’m gonna stop you from indulging in your passions." And then it goes on: "I’m living in an age that calls darkness light . . ." It’s biblical language, but they apply it a little bit to the personal and the political. It’s not one of the social bonding or friendship songs from The World in Six Songs, a kind of rousing "hey, we’re all in this together." It’s more like one person’s torment, one person’s inner experience, which is what makes it such a powerful religion song to me.' 'My Body Is a Cage' showcases religion as a struggle not just against immorality—its usual sphere—but against immortality. The conviction that there is something beyond this corporeal existence—a life, a future, beyond what we know and see here. But my body is a cage preventing me from seeing it. My body is a cage preventing my essence from being able to reach out and merge with that of my lover or my creator."

Roble (Roble sin fin…morir) - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs

"A cayeron ojas secas

El frio del invierno va a venir

Sin resistir, sin dormir
Roble sin fin vos sabes lo que es morir

Solo soñar con la lluvia lo lleva a revivir "'It has the sort of sweeping melody you find in national anthems,' David [Byrne] explains. 'The melody begins with a slow build and then just climbs up; it has some really peculiar stops and hesitations where it lets the note just kind of hang over so that you know that there’s probably an extra bar or something in there, which has this big emotional crest. And then it comes down. Lyrically, roble is Spanish for ‘oak,’ and the words are basically about how it loses its leaves and then they come back.' The anthemic nature of the melody and the long, slow rhythms transform the lyrics from a literal story about an oak tree to a metaphor—a spiritual lesson about change, growth, perseverance, and renewal. 'Without resisting, without sleeping, the oak tree knows what it is to die,' David says. 'I can’t help but apply it to the Argentine political situation, because these guys are from a generation that grew up in the era where people disappeared for their po liti cal views. In Spain, Argentina, Romania, citizens have lived through a period as children, and they remember this repressive situation; that was just the way things were. And then, things open up. I can’t help but read that the song is a little bit expressive of that as well.'"

We Shall Overcome - The Freedom Singers, Dorothy Cotton, & Pete Seeger

"The Big Idea of most religions is that even if things aren’t so good now, they’ll get better. We see this powerfully rendered in the so-called black spirituals of the South, in 'We Shall Overcome,' and 'People Get Ready' by Curtis Mayfield…"

The Wedding Song (There Is Love) - Paul Stookey

"We are descended from ancestors who sealed mating rituals and wedding ceremonies with song, as we do now (or at least boomers like me) with 'The Wedding Song (There Is Love),' the Carpenters’ 'Close to You,' Nat King Cole’s 'Unforgettable,' and Billy Joel’s 'Just the Way You Are.'"

Unforgettable - Nat King Cole

"We are descended from ancestors who sealed mating rituals and wedding ceremonies with song, as we do now (or at least boomers like me) with 'The Wedding Song (There Is Love),' the Carpenters’ 'Close to You,' Nat King Cole’s 'Unforgettable,' and Billy Joel’s 'Just the Way You Are.'"

Messiah (HWV 56) - Hallelujah Chorus - George Frideric Handel

"The Psalms of the Old Testament—reportedly written by King David—were all written as songs to commemorate, uphold, and celebrate the world’s fi rst mono the istic religion. The Catholic Mass, Handel’s Messiah, the liturgical chants drawn from the Qur’an, and thousands upon thousands of other songs are intended to do the same."

Song of Solomon - Solomon Amzallay (cantor)

"Many of the greatest music of all time has been religious—from the Song of Solomon to Handel’s Messiah, to 'Amazing Grace.'"

Happy Together - The Turtles

"...what about all those shamelessly romantic love songs I loved so much when I was thirteen? The bubblegum songs?" Imagine me and you, I do
I think about you day and night, it’s only right
To think about the girl you love and hold her tight
So happy together

I can’t see me lovin’ nobody but you
For all my life When you’re with me, baby the skies’ll be blue
For all my life"

Teddy Bear - Elvis Presley

"...what about all those shamelessly romantic love songs I loved so much when I was thirteen? The bubblegum songs?"

Sugar, Sugar - The Archies

"...what about all those shamelessly romantic love songs I loved so much when I was thirteen? The bubblegum songs?"

I Want You Back - The Jackson Five

"...what about all those shamelessly romantic love songs I loved so much when I was thirteen? The bubblegum songs?"

Yummy Yummy Yummy (I’ve Got Love in my Tummy) - The Ohio Express

"...what about all those shamelessly romantic love songs I loved so much when I was thirteen? The bubblegum songs?"

Puppy Love - Paul Anka

'And they called it puppy love.'”

Hooked on a Feeling - B.J. Thomas

"Researchers have identified neurochemical changes that occur during the first few months of a relationship; huge releases of oxytocin (the 'trust' hormone) and feel-good hormones like dopamine and norepinephrine, and at such high levels that they could be regarded as inducing clinically verifiable altered states of consciousness. The Stylistics crooned 'I’m stone(d) in love with you,' B. J. Thomas sang that he was 'hooked on a feeling/high on believing/that you’re in love with me.' Bryan Ferry sang 'Love is a drug and I need to score,' and Robert Palmer sang 'Doctor, doctor, give me the news/I got a bad case of lovin’ you/No pills are gonna cure my ills.' The Beatles harmonized 'And when I touch you I feel happy inside/It’s such a feeling that my love/I get high, I get high' (in Dylan’s famous misunderstanding of the lyric, which was actually 'I can’t hide, I can’t hide')."

Bad Case of Lovin' You (Doctor, Doctor) - Robert Palmer

"Researchers have identified neurochemical changes that occur during the first few months of a relationship; huge releases of oxytocin (the 'trust' hormone) and feel-good hormones like dopamine and norepinephrine, and at such high levels that they could be regarded as inducing clinically verifiable altered states of consciousness. The Stylistics crooned 'I’m stone(d) in love with you,' B. J. Thomas sang that he was 'hooked on a feeling/high on believing/that you’re in love with me.' Bryan Ferry sang 'Love is a drug and I need to score,' and Robert Palmer sang 'Doctor, doctor, give me the news/I got a bad case of lovin’ you/No pills are gonna cure my ills.' The Beatles harmonized 'And when I touch you I feel happy inside/It’s such a feeling that my love/I get high, I get high' (in Dylan’s famous misunderstanding of the lyric, which was actually 'I can’t hide, I can’t hide')."

Cupid’s Got a Brand New Gun - Michael Penn

"The drug aspect of love is reflected as more sinister in other songs, such as 'Cupid’s Got a Brand New Gun' This quick opiate
might wear the wings of angels
that’s when you realize
you’ve been shot down
wounded unto death by something called love"

Wicked Game - Chris Isaak

"Having had romantic love and lost it can be one of the most painful things we experience—so much so that, like the person who drank too much alcohol the night before, we resolve never to do it again: 'No, I don’t want to fall in love (this love is only gonna break your heart)' (Chris Isaak); 'I don’t want to fall in love' (Tonya Mitchell); 'I don’t want to fall in love with love' (Sam Phillips)."

I Don’t Want to Fall in Love - Sam Phillips

"Having had romantic love and lost it can be one of the most painful things we experience—so much so that, like the person who drank too much alcohol the night before, we resolve never to do it again: 'No, I don’t want to fall in love (this love is only gonna break your heart)' (Chris Isaak); 'I don’t want to fall in love' (Tonya Mitchell); 'I don’t want to fall in love with love' (Sam Phillips)."

Lemon Tree (Lemon tree…impossible to eat) - Peter, Paul and Mary

"...Sting says, “you really have an aspect of knowledge songs and love songs combined—they’re trying to
teach you about love, to be wary: ‘Don’t put your faith in love, my boy, my father said to me/I fear you’ll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree/Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet/But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.’ ”

Downbound Train - Bruce Springsteen

"Perhaps the second most common song in pop music, after the romantic love song, is the breakup song, or the song of love lost... She just said, 'Joe, I gotta go We had it once, we ain't go it anymore'"

Buddha Buddha - Parthenon Huxley

"Love is about feeling that there is something bigger than just
ourselves and our own worries and existence. Whether it is love
of another person, of country, of God, of an idea, love is fundamentally
an intense devotion to this notion that something is bigger
than us.
Everything I do
Buddha did with love and that’s what I aspire to
Try to rise above the petty things I run into
I think of love when I do everything I do"

The Smartest Monkeys - XTC

"The band Devo (named for the principle of de-evolution) satirically wrote in their song 'Jocko Homo': 'God made man, but he used the monkey to do it.' Or as XTC sang, 'We’re the smartest monkeys.'"

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Paul Simon

"‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ is an example of where I don’t have the voice I wanted, so of course I got Artie to sing it"

Cecilia - Paul Simon

"He [Paul Simon] first explored these [polyrhythms and indigenous musics] in 1970 with “El Condor Pasa” and “Cecilia,” further developed them on “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard” and reached his artistic peak with them on a trilogy of albums, Graceland, The Rhythm of the Saints, and Songs from The Capeman."

When I’m Sixty-Four - The Beatles

"Paul McCartney seemed to be trying to capture both the sound and the aesthetic essence of a forties dance-hall tune in a string of songs beginning with 'When I’m Sixty-Four' (written in 1958, recorded in 1967), 'Your Mother Should Know' (1967), and 'Honey Pie' (1968). With each one, he got a little closer, until 1976, when he released 'You Gave Me the Answer,' with production and orchestration sounding almost exactly like a Fred Astaire record. McCartney never attempted a dance hall–style song after this, and so I assume that he fi nally met his artistic goal and moved on to other experiments and other challenges."

Honey Pie - The Beatles

"Paul McCartney seemed to be trying to capture both the sound and the aesthetic essence of a forties dance-hall tune in a string of songs beginning with 'When I’m Sixty-Four' (written in 1958, recorded in 1967), 'Your Mother Should Know' (1967), and 'Honey Pie' (1968). With each one, he got a little closer, until 1976, when he released 'You Gave Me the Answer,' with production and orchestration sounding almost exactly like a Fred Astaire record. McCartney never attempted a dance hall–style song after this, and so I assume that he fi nally met his artistic goal and moved on to other experiments and other challenges."

I Walk The Line (Revisited - I'm back on board…in the sticks) - Rodney Crowell

"One of my favorite songs by Rodney Crowell is a song about his favorite song. In 'I Walk the Line, (Revisited),' he writes about the first time he heard the famous song by Johnny Cash: I’m back on board that ‘49 Ford in 1956
Long before the sun came up way out in the sticks
The headlight showed a two rut roadway
Back up in the pines
First time I heard Johnny Cash
Sing 'I Walk The Line' Note Rodney’s use of internal rhymes for board and Ford (and then before in the next line), plus the alliteration of back on board, forty-nine Ford and nineteen fifty-six. The phrases 'back on board' and ' ’49 Ford' have the kind of percussive consonant quality that conveys an early rock ’n’ roll feel....In the middle of the song, Johnny himself makes a cameo, singing the famous chorus from that famous song."

I’ll Get You Back ("Slow down…favorite") - Juliana Raye

"The role of instinct and pheromones in human mating decisions is also very strong, but it seems to hang in an uneasy balance with rationality, or at least self-delusion and justification masquerading as rationality. This is one of the reasons that the song 'I’ll Get You Back' by Juliana Raye (brilliantly produced by former ELO frontman Jeff Lynne) is so bitingly ironic and funny: When you ran away from me you never looked to see
I was right behind you running just as speedily
Slow down, would tell you me where you’re going
‘Cause I need to know if you’ll be back in time for supper
I cooked your favorite The vocal is delivered with a kind of upbeat, twisted, clueless delusion. Her boyfriend is running out of the house—not walking but running—and she chases after him to fi nd out when he’s coming home for dinner. And oh, by the way, she yells after him, 'I COOKED YOUR FAVORITE!' In the second verse she tells us that she knows about all the affairs he has had, but she doesn’t care, as long as he practices safe sex. Launching into the singsongy, nursery-rhyme chorus, she
sings: I will get you, I will get you, I will get you back
I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back
I’ll get you back! As the last note of 'back' reaches a pitched crescendo, the highest note of the song, the evil quiver in her voice forces us to confront the ambiguity in the chorus: Does she mean that she is going to 'win him back' or that she is going to 'get back at him' by some awful retaliation? The second meaning is invoked more strongly as we learn of a heart-stopping violation of trust right along with the singer in the last verse: Sister Mary always had the kindest words to say
She said when she looked at you her doubts would melt away
I swear, sister Mary’s baby looks a lot like you, you know
Oh! Say, it isn’t so!

I will get you, I will get you, I will get you back
I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back
I’ll get you back! But something in the delivery tells us that she still wants him, that she still hopes somehow to win back this man who has mistreated her so."

I’ll Get You Back ("I swear…isn't so!") - Juliana Raye

"The role of instinct and pheromones in human mating decisions is also very strong, but it seems to hang in an uneasy balance with rationality, or at least self-delusion and justification masquerading as rationality. This is one of the reasons that the song 'I’ll Get You Back' by Juliana Raye (brilliantly produced by former ELO frontman Jeff Lynne) is so bitingly ironic and funny: When you ran away from me you never looked to see
I was right behind you running just as speedily
Slow down, would tell you me where you’re going
‘Cause I need to know if you’ll be back in time for supper
I cooked your favorite The vocal is delivered with a kind of upbeat, twisted, clueless delusion. Her boyfriend is running out of the house—not walking but running—and she chases after him to fi nd out when he’s coming home for dinner. And oh, by the way, she yells after him, 'I COOKED YOUR FAVORITE!' In the second verse she tells us that she knows about all the affairs he has had, but she doesn’t care, as long as he practices safe sex. Launching into the singsongy, nursery-rhyme chorus, she
sings: I will get you, I will get you, I will get you back
I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back
I’ll get you back! As the last note of 'back' reaches a pitched crescendo, the highest note of the song, the evil quiver in her voice forces us to confront the ambiguity in the chorus: Does she mean that she is going to 'win him back' or that she is going to 'get back at him' by some awful retaliation? The second meaning is invoked more strongly as we learn of a heart-stopping violation of trust right along with the singer in the last verse: Sister Mary always had the kindest words to say
She said when she looked at you her doubts would melt away
I swear, sister Mary’s baby looks a lot like you, you know
Oh! Say, it isn’t so!

I will get you, I will get you, I will get you back
I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back, I’ll get you back
I’ll get you back! But something in the delivery tells us that she still wants him, that she still hopes somehow to win back this man who has mistreated her so."

I Want to Hold Your Hand - The Beatles

"Some love songs celebrate the earliest stages of romantic love: Oh yeah I’ll tell you something, I think you’ll understand
When I say that something, I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand, I want to hold your hand and they capture the giddy, lighter-than-air feeling of first loves and crushes:
And when I touch you I feel happy inside
It’s such a feeling that my love, I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide!

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes - Crosby, Stills, & Nash

"Rather than denying our feelings and vulnerability, we sometimes say to our love interest, 'I am yours' (Stephen Stills in 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes') or 'Take all of me . . . I’m no good without you' (Marks and Simons), or as Irving Berlin writes in 'Be Careful, It’s My Heart,' from the musical Holiday Inn: It’s not my watch you’re holding, it’s my heart.
It’s not the note I sent you that you quickly burned.
It’s not the book I lent you that you never returned."

Be Careful, It's My Heart - Frank Sinatra

"Rather than denying our feelings and vulnerability, we sometimes say to our love interest, 'I am yours' (Stephen Stills in 'Suite: Judy Blue Eyes') or 'Take all of me . . . I’m no good without you' (Marks and Simons), or as Irving Berlin writes in 'Be Careful, It’s My Heart,' from the musical Holiday Inn: It’s not my watch you’re holding, it’s my heart.
It’s not the note I sent you that you quickly burned.
It’s not the book I lent you that you never returned... The heart with which so willingly I part.
It’s yours to take to keep or break,
But please, before you start, be careful, it’s my heart."

The Forsaken Maiden - Hugo Wolf

"Jonathan Berger, about the maiden: 'She’s waking up in the morning and in the song she starts singing this love song. And, over the course of the song, realizes that she’s been forgotten, and forsaken, and left. So it’s this process of dream to awakeness, of having the love and losing the love, and the melody and the harmony are constantly playing with this ‘Am I dreaming, am I awake? How aware am I?’ The music defines everything in the text. In other words, the song itself, the way it is composed, becomes representative of love itself.'"

Big Long Slidin’ Thing - Dinah Washington

"In the forties and fifties, artists recorded risqué R&B records such as Bull Moose Jackson with 'My Big Ten Inch' (about a phonograph record of a band that plays the blues) and Dinah Washington singing 'Big Long Slidin’ Thing' (ostensibly about a trombone player)."

The Lemon Song - Led Zeppelin

"Early heavy metal songs made no attempt at clever innuendo or subtlety…"

Feel Like Makin’ Love - Bad Company

"Early heavy metal songs made no attempt at clever innuendo or subtlety…"

Coyote - Joni Mitchell

"The Stranglers sang of 'walking on the beaches/looking at the peaches,' and Joni Mitchell about how a lover 'picked up my scent on his fingers/while he’s watching the waitress’ legs.'"

Chuupon Gye Chuupon Gye - Nadia Ali Mujra

"Lusty songs are not limited to American or even Western culture, from the Pakistani singer Nadia Ali Mujra’s 'Chuupon Gye Chuupon Gye' (I want to suck on the mango) to several songs on the Cantonese Top 40."

Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets

"'I think the most lecherous song in our lifetimes is "Sweet Little Sixteen" by Chuck Berry,' Rodney says. 'You’ve got this adult lusting after a sixteen-year-old, almost a predator. And the song exists as a pivot tune between innocent rock and roll—like "Rock Around the Clock’"—and a kind of perverted sexual lasciviousness. The lyrics themselves are innocent of course, but every eighteen-year-old boy and sixteen-or seventeen-year-old girl knows exactly what this dirty old man is talking about. All the cats wanna dance with Sweet Little Sixteen" is a metaphor of course. And we now know enough about the man who is Chuck Berry—I mean, the guy who later put a hidden camera in his bathroom is the guy who wrote "Sweet Little Sixteen." And of course all the chords have that flat seventh, which is diabolical sounding.'"

Part II c - Keith Jarrett

"In music, many of us respond strongly to the caring of the musical artist for the medium of music—through the textural layerings of Pink Floyd or the Beatles, or the sheer technical skill of instrumentalists such as Keith Jarrett and Cannonball Adderley."

Pierrot Lunaire - The Moonfleck - Arnold Schoenberg

"Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, often regarded as among the first atonal pieces (1912) had an important impact on classical music, which in turn influenced later twentieth-century jazz, rock, and experimental music."

The Randall Knife - Guy Clark

"'The Randall Knife' is a story about a father and a son. The father has died, and the son is talking about the death of the father, and in a sense the song symbolizes both the death of the relationship and the birth of the relationship. Obviously, there’s the physical death of the relationship as the father is no longer of this world, but you hear in the song a real transformation in the narrator’s perspective that leads you to believe that the relationship with his father is now only beginning. My father had a Randall knife
My mother gave it to him
When he went off to World War II
To save us all from ruin
If you’ve ever held a Randall knife
Then you know my father well
If a better blade was ever made
It was probably forged in hell

My father was a good man
A lawyer by his trade
And only once did I ever see
Him misuse the blade
It almost cut his thumb off
When he took it for a tool
The knife was made for darker things
And you could not bend the rules

He let me take it camping once
On a Boy Scout jamboree
And I broke a half an inch off
Trying to stick it in a tree
I hid it from him for a while
But the knife and he were one
He put it in his bottom drawer
Without a hard word one

There it slept and there it stayed
For twenty some odd years
Sort of like Excalibur
Except waiting for a tear

My father died when I was forty
And I couldn’t find a way to cry
Not because I didn’t love him
Not because he didn’t try
I’d cried for every lesser thing
Whiskey, pain and beauty
But he deserved a better tear
And I was not quite ready

So we took his ashes out to sea
And poured ‘em off the stern
And threw the roses in the wake
Of everything we’d learned
When we got back to the house
They asked me what I wanted
Not the lawbooks, not the watch
I need the thing he’s haunted

My hand burned for the Randall knife
There in the bottom drawer
And I found a tear for my father’s life
And all that it stood for"

Bring ‘Em All In (1st chorus) - Mike Scott

"'Bring ’Em All In' by Mike Scott (the lead songwriter and singer for the Irish band the Waterboys) is to my ears among the most perfect love songs ever written. It is the yearning of one human to feel at one with the world, to embrace all that is contained in it. It is a love song to all of us, to the good and the bad, to the great and the small. It is the song of one man alone with his thoughts, by himself, trying to reach out to become connected. Out of his loneliness and despair he discovers the deepest love, the love of the idea of living, the love of love itself, a willingness to open his heart to everything, even the pain that he knows will be let in when he does so. The song opens with a rapid, almost Spanish strum (technically very difficult to do), played with the fingers and not a pick, to give a delicate gentleness to the moment the fingers strike the strings.
Chorus:
Bring ’em all in, bring ’em all in, bring ’em all in
Bring ’em all, bring ’em all in to my heart (2×)
Bring the little fishes, bring the sharks
Bring ’em from the brightness, bring ’em from the dark
(Chorus)
“Bring ’em all in” functions as a mantra. The melody scoops
up on the word “heart,” as though lifting up objects from the floor
or from the depths of the sea. The half-whispered voice sounds
like a prayer, an intimate song to oneself and one’s creator.
Bring ’em from the caverns, bring ’em from the heights
Bring ’em from the shadows, stand ’em in the light
(Chorus)
Bring ’em out of purdah, bring ’em out of store
Bring ’em out of hiding, lay them at my door
(Chorus)
In a double chorus in the middle, the singer’s voice becomes
even softer, nearly crying, the song takes on the quality of a lamentation, the pleas of a man who is spiritually dying and opening his heart for one last hopeful time as he sings the last verse:
Bring the unforgiven, bring the unredeemed
Bring the lost and nameless, let ’em all be seen
Bring ’em out of exile, bring ’em out of sleep
Bring ’em to the portal, lay them at my feet"

Bring ‘Em All In - Mike Scott

"'Bring ’Em All In' by Mike Scott (the lead songwriter and singer for the Irish band the Waterboys) is to my ears among the most perfect love songs ever written. It is the yearning of one human to feel at one with the world, to embrace all that is contained in it. It is a love song to all of us, to the good and the bad, to the great and the small. It is the song of one man alone with his thoughts, by himself, trying to reach out to become connected. Out of his loneliness and despair he discovers the deepest love, the love of the idea of living, the love of love itself, a willingness to open his heart to everything, even the pain that he knows will be let in when he does so. The song opens with a rapid, almost Spanish strum (technically very difficult to do), played with the fingers and not a pick, to give a delicate gentleness to the moment the fingers strike the strings.
Chorus:
Bring ’em all in, bring ’em all in, bring ’em all in
Bring ’em all, bring ’em all in to my heart (2×)
Bring the little fishes, bring the sharks
Bring ’em from the brightness, bring ’em from the dark
(Chorus)
“Bring ’em all in” functions as a mantra. The melody scoops
up on the word “heart,” as though lifting up objects from the floor
or from the depths of the sea. The half-whispered voice sounds
like a prayer, an intimate song to oneself and one’s creator.
Bring ’em from the caverns, bring ’em from the heights
Bring ’em from the shadows, stand ’em in the light
(Chorus)
Bring ’em out of purdah, bring ’em out of store
Bring ’em out of hiding, lay them at my door
(Chorus)
In a double chorus in the middle, the singer’s voice becomes
even softer, nearly crying, the song takes on the quality of a lamentation, the pleas of a man who is spiritually dying and opening his heart for one last hopeful time as he sings the last verse:
Bring the unforgiven, bring the unredeemed
Bring the lost and nameless, let ’em all be seen
Bring ’em out of exile, bring ’em out of sleep
Bring ’em to the portal, lay them at my feet"

Der Ring des Nibelungen - Die Walküre -Ride of the Valkyries - Richard Wagner

"Musicologists generally make a distinction between 'song' and longer musical forms, and a 'song' is typically understood to have words. This distinction is meant to imply that song is a subset of music, and this does seem to follow intuition. Most of us don’t think of Wagner’s Ring Cycle or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as songs. But suppose you had never heard the latter before, and then one day, you hear your grandfather puttering around the yard humming 'bum-bum-bum-baaah, bum-bum-bum-baaah.' You would be perfectly justified to ask him just what is this song you
hear him bum-bum-bumming, and neither the language police nor the musicology marshals should have any cause for alarm that important communicative barriers, essential to the maintenance of an orderly society, have been breached."

Annie's Song - John Denver

"The melody for 'Annie’s Song' is very close to the main theme for Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, Andante cantabile, during the part when John Denver sings 'You fill up my senses.' For the next line, 'like a light in the forest,' Denver writes a variation of that theme, staying well within Tchaikovsky’s original harmonic context."

A Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash

"The hero of the song is a man who himself was named Sue by his father. Johnny is singing the song as Sue. In fact, at the end of the song the narrator sings 'If I ever have a son I think I’ll name him Bill, or George—anything but Sue!' So the proper way to make the joke would have been to ask Rosanne if it was true that her father was named Sue, not her brother."

Venkatachala Nilayam (example of Indian karnatic classical music) - M. L. Vasanthakumari

"Jamshed Bharucha, a music cognition professor at Tufts University and former editor of the journal Music Perception, adds: 'Many experiences of pleasure and displeasure, including disgust, outrage, liking, pleasantness, are the result of cultural familiarity or violation thereof...I have come across teachers of Western classical voice who find the Karnatic classical voice to be nasal and ugly—it goes against everything they teach. Many highly trained classical musicians have a hard time appreciating the classical musics of other cultures.'"

This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie

"There have been movements over the years to adopt it [God Bless America] officially as America’s national anthem. Woody Guthrie reportedly wrote 'This Land Is Your Land' as a musical reply to 'God Bless America.'"

White Christmas - Bing Crosby

"The RIAA, a recording industry lobbying group, along with the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored a Greatest Songs of the Twentieth Century project in 2001, and voted 'Over the Rainbow' as the top song, followed by 'White Christmas.' Such lists are not just subjective, but can yield bizarre results. Is 'Fight for Your Right (To Party)' by the Beastie Boys (#191) four songs better than Cole Porter’s 'Night and Day' (#195)? What kind of list puts 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' (#8) above 'You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ' (#9). And how did 'Achy Breaky Heart' (#258) beat out 'All Along the Watchtower' (#365) and 'How High the Moon' (#317)?"

Night and Day - Fred Astaire

"The RIAA, a recording industry lobbying group, along with the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored a Greatest Songs of the Twentieth Century project in 2001, and voted 'Over the Rainbow' as the top song, followed by 'White Christmas.' Such lists are not just subjective, but can yield bizarre results. Is 'Fight for Your Right (To Party)' by the Beastie Boys (#191) four songs better than Cole Porter’s 'Night and Day' (#195)? What kind of list puts 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' (#8) above 'You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ' (#9). And how did 'Achy Breaky Heart' (#258) beat out 'All Along the Watchtower' (#365) and 'How High the Moon' (#317)?"

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ - The Righteous Brothers

"The RIAA, a recording industry lobbying group, along with the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored a Greatest Songs of the Twentieth Century project in 2001, and voted 'Over the Rainbow' as the top song, followed by 'White Christmas.' Such lists are not just subjective, but can yield bizarre results. Is 'Fight for Your Right (To Party)' by the Beastie Boys (#191) four songs better than Cole Porter’s 'Night and Day' (#195)? What kind of list puts 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' (#8) above 'You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ' (#9). And how did 'Achy Breaky Heart' (#258) beat out 'All Along the Watchtower' (#365) and 'How High the Moon' (#317)?"

All Along the Watchtower - Bob Dylan

"The RIAA, a recording industry lobbying group, along with the National Endowment for the Arts, sponsored a Greatest Songs of the Twentieth Century project in 2001, and voted 'Over the Rainbow' as the top song, followed by 'White Christmas.' Such lists are not just subjective, but can yield bizarre results. Is 'Fight for Your Right (To Party)' by the Beastie Boys (#191) four songs better than Cole Porter’s 'Night and Day' (#195)? What kind of list puts 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' (#8) above 'You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ ' (#9). And how did 'Achy Breaky Heart' (#258) beat out 'All Along the Watchtower' (#365) and 'How High the Moon' (#317)?"