Nostr notes by Jittery White Guy (Unofficial)

2000 Great Songs #1500: So You Think You're In Love Good ...

2026-10-31T16:29:10Z

2000 Great Songs #1500: So You Think You're In Love

Good freakin' lord, we've been at this for 1500 days. Three-quarters of the way to 2000, do we have the patience (and the songs) to make it all the way? I guess we'll see.
Meanwhile... a little more Robyn Hitchcock. For nearly 50 years (also good freakin' lord!), whether with the Soft Boys or with the Egyptians/solo, he's been belting out jangly pop songs, usually just a little too skewed--whether by his absurdist lyrics or Barrett/Lennon-tinged idiosyncratic delivery--to garner the mainstream recognition he deserves. But what if, at least for about three minutes, he dropped all the hints of strangeness and simply came up with his own Silly Love Song, a straight, unironic, mildly sentimental pop song right from the heart?
Turns out it'd still be pretty amazing, as we see on this charming little gem (off 1991's solid Perspex Island, his penultimate with the Egyptians). And there's even a thoroughly MTV-friendly video. If this couldn't make him a rock star, nothing could. Dummies!
Live on Letterman:
Live (with Emma Swift) a few months ago!
See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable database!

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2000 Great Songs #1499: My World Fell Down I've talked up ...

2026-10-30T16:32:45Z

2000 Great Songs #1499: My World Fell Down

I've talked up short-lived late 60s psych/sunshine pop act Sagittarius before, so no need to rehash all that. Their 1967 debut single (later included on 1968 LP Present Tense), "My World Fell Down," was written by John Carter, a prolific songwriter/producer (and sometime performer) over the decades (we saw him on the list previously in connection with "Beach Baby"). It was first recorded by UK act The Ivy League in 1966, and then Gary Usher (of the Beach Boys' inner circle) opted to create a new version, using various studio musicians and Beach Boys affiliates, not to mention soon-to-be-country-star Glen Campbell on vocals), crediting the track to the not-yet-existing Sagittarius.
It's a wonderful, baroque sunshine pop song, a complex suite that would do Brian Wilson proud; clearly of its era, but musically and vocally stupendous and far more deserving of attention in the classic rock pantheon.
Earlier version by The Ivy League:
Sagittarius extended version:
2023 live performance featuring Evie Sands:
Another 1967 version, by The Buffoons:
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2000 Great Songs #1498: He Took Her To A Movie You know how ...

2026-10-29T16:40:11Z

2000 Great Songs #1498: He Took Her To A Movie

You know how sometimes, when you're waiting for a concert at a small or mid-sized club, or maybe waiting for the headliner after the opening set? And they're cranking up a mix tape over the loudspeakers? And you're wedged in, close to the stage, a captive audience, so all you can do is listen? And sometimes it's pretty great, the sort of music you'd expect to hear playing before the band you're about to see? And other times it's totally incongruous, the wrong genre completely for the gig? While every now and then they'll play something you haven't heard before, maybe not the greatest song in the world, but something that gets so stuck in your head that you spend the whole concert wondering what it was, and slink back home after the show, and though it's really really late and you're exhausted you'll spend an hour online trying to track it down?
So, yeah, this is one of those. The single "He Took Her To A Movie," from British electronica act Ladytron, was the first single off the band's 2001 debut 604 (though it had also been included on a 1999 Japan-only EP). It's not the sort of thing I'd normally be interested in, a synth/club track with an insistent electronic hook (somewhat borrowed from Kraftwerk's "The Model"), with a chilly semi-spoken-word vocal (featuring guest vocalist Lisa Eriksson) largely repeating that title. But I still remember hearing it over the loudspeakers--I don't remember what concert--and being unable to get it out of my head. (It also sort of reminded me of the music from the film Midnight Express, a movie that's haunted my nightmares since I saw it in college, so that made it all the more intriguing.) I managed to track down the record, and while it's not in constant rotation or anything, I kinda like it (as well as later work from the band). But mostly I just like to play that song now and then.
Live 2001:
See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable database!

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2000 Great Songs #1495: Bike Ride To The Moon A second visit to a ...

2026-10-26T16:23:03Z

2000 Great Songs #1495: Bike Ride To The Moon

A second visit to a 6-song EP feels like overkill, but the Dukes of Stratosphear's 1985 release warrants multiple mentions here. Playing dress-up as a faux late 60s psych band, XTC conjure such bicycle-themed chestnuts as Pink Floyd's "Bike" and Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" (and maybe even Hawkwind's "Silver Machine"). Silly lyrics, odd piano lines, trippy sound effects, altered vocals--perfectly replicating dated psychedelic sunshine pop while still gelling into a legit great song, albeit one that's over much too soon.
Andy Partridge demo:
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2000 Great Songs #1491: Scorpio Rising I've always been a ...

2026-10-22T15:52:55Z

2000 Great Songs #1491: Scorpio Rising

I've always been a little tentative on 10,000 Maniacs. Natalie Merchant's vocal style never completely won me over; but they were part of the initial wave of post-R.E.M. Southern jangle pop bands, so I couldn't help but enjoy some of their music from an aesthetic standpoint (particularly on earlier records, when they still had a slight edge). 1985's The Wishing Chair is the one that's stuck with me, particularly "Scorpio Rising." It's one of their most upbeat, rocking tracks (within the narrow band of what one might consider "rocking" for 80s jangle pop). Though as one of those songs I'll always associate with a magical time in my life, a young college student becoming enmeshed in the college radio scene, it's hard to separate out the personal nostalgia from the track itself.
Live 1987 (about 36:15 into the clip):
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2000 Great Songs #1490: Karma Police As I've probably ...

2026-10-21T15:45:32Z

2000 Great Songs #1490: Karma Police

As I've probably discussed previously, Radiohead sit high atop my list of artists I really wish I liked more. (See also, e.g., Steely Dan, Public Image Ltd., Van Morrison, etc.) However much I appreciate their music in principle, I just find the performances a little cold and unengaging emotionally (hearing them as a sort of a contemporary spin on the similarly clinical-to-my-ears Alan Parsons Project). I'll give them a listen on occasion--I made myself a hybrid combination of Kid A and Amnesiac which came out pretty cool, and I've got an old mix I made of my favorite Radiohead songs which I enjoy--but I just don't feel in the mood for these all that often.
Forced to choose, I'd probably go with "Karma Police" (off 1997's OK Computer) as the song of theirs I like most (though there are a few other close contenders we may get to later). Definitely more of an earworm hook than some of their more atmospheric and experimental pieces, shades of old-school 70s prog, with some gorgeous and infectious piano lines, all given a modern sheen.
Live on Letterman:
Live 2016:
Julian Lennon cover:
Jazzed-up Eliza Lumley cover:
See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable database!

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2000 Great Songs #1489: Starship Trooper While my lack of ...

2026-10-20T15:48:19Z

2000 Great Songs #1489: Starship Trooper

While my lack of patience for Jon Anderson's helium-pitched vocals kept Yes at arms-length for a big chunk of my life, I eventually got past it (mostly; I still prefer the musical passages) and came to enjoy quite a bit of the band's music, at least through the mid-70s. So it does feel a bit lazy, for my second Yes pick on the list, to return to the same album as the first. But, hey, 1971's The Yes Album is pretty great, and while I equally love the next few records, I find myself visiting this one more often.
"Starship Trooper" is undeniably peak prog, a multi-part suite with fussy performances; yet it's got a nice pop hook in the main riff, a cool little jangly acoustic bit in the middle, and that soaring extended coda (which, if you fade it early, makes it a more manageable tune which should've gotten a little more classic radio attention). And Anderson is relatively restrained, with some pretty multi-tracked harmonies to boot.
Live 1972:
Live 2004:
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2000 Great Songs #1488: Damage One of the tell-tale signs of a ...

2026-10-19T15:47:18Z

2000 Great Songs #1488: Damage

One of the tell-tale signs of a truly great album is that, even decades later, you still find yourself discovering moments (or even entire songs) you'd overlooked. Take 1997's epic I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, probably my favorite Yo La Tengo album. It's probably a tad overlong, one of those 90s CDs where an artist who would've had one of the greatest 40-minute LPs in history fills out the disc's longer running space with some songs that might've been fine as b-sides. Now, I personally don't mind this; I'm happy to condense a longer CD into a stronger, shorter one on my own, and I appreciate an artist giving me way too much music and letting me choose my own personalized version.
So on this CD so loaded with amazing, widely varied songs, ranging from noisy guitar freakouts to alt.rock pop songs to gentle ballads, there were a few tracks I tended to skip. And for awhile, one of those was "Damage," a quiet, atmospheric tune that, while awfully pretty, tended to get lost in the mix for me. Yet over the years, it's grown into one of my favorite Yo La Tengo songs (I heard a stunningly beautiful live rendition a few years ago, which sent me back to the CD to give it another chance). It's a wash of understated feedback and throbbing bass with some hushed, gorgeous backing vocals, yet incredibly insinuating to the point where I find myself whispering "the damage is done" in my head at the most random times. So, yeah, I'm glad they packed this CD with more music than I really needed and let me take my own sweet time really discovering it.
Live 2025:
Cover by Fiery Crash:
As sampled for this strange sonic piece by Kings of Woolworth:
See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable database!

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2000 Great Songs #1487: The New World There are a number of great ...

2026-10-18T15:46:53Z

2000 Great Songs #1487: The New World

There are a number of great tracks on X's 1983 LP More Fun In The New World competing for my attention, like "Make The Music Go Bang" and their outstanding cover of Otis Blackwell's "Breathless." But I'm a sucker for opening sorta-title track "The New World," if only because the guitar hook is just ridiculous. The riff sounds like some sort of military call-to-arms, a delightfully rousing earworm, but the whole thing is just a terrific anthem, a weird callback to Martha & The Vandellas' "Dancing In The Streets" given a post-punk update.
On tv, 1983:
Live 1985:
Remake by John Doe/Exene Cervenka alter ego band The Knitters:
Poster Children cover:
Pearl Jam with John Doe:
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2000 Great Songs #1486: Metal Firecracker Lucinda Williams has ...

2026-10-17T15:32:17Z

2000 Great Songs #1486: Metal Firecracker

Lucinda Williams has released a ton of great records over the decades, but if I had to pick just one I'd have to go with 1998's Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. Just non-stop great tunes, one after another, right? Hard to pick a favorite, but I've always been partial to "Metal Firecracker." It's much more of a pop-country song that you'll typically catch me enjoying, but the mash-up of twang and catchy hooks is just drop-dead perfect here. I imagine if what passes for "country music" in contemporary American culture sounded like this I'd be much more of a fan.
Live:
Another live one, 2019:
Mary Lou Lord:
The Tallest Man On Earth:
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2000 Great Songs #1480: Seeing One of the virtues of the amazing ...

2026-10-16T07:24:13Z

2000 Great Songs #1480: Seeing

One of the virtues of the amazing Moby Grape was that, probably even more so than fellow mid/late-60s Bay Area acts like the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane, they mined so many divergent genres. For the heavier, more acid-drenched tracks, they typically turned to singer-guitarist Skip Spence; alas, by the end of the decade, Spence had become something of an acid casualty himself, kind of the US iteration of Syd Barrett, and had to be pushed out of the band.
Still, for their third proper LP, 1969's Moby Grape '69 (making a second appearance here), they salvaged an unfinished Spence track known as "Skip's Song," polished it up a bit, and threw it on to the end of the album as "Seeing." And it's a doozy, the band alternating between amped up rock (with a wicked little guitar lick) and gentler interludes. It's a sad but rousing send-off to a sadly departed member; again borrowing that Floyd/Barrett analogy, it's comparable to that band's "Jugband Blues," the sound of anguished collapse. (Earlier demo versions later showed up on various reissues.)
Remarkable 2010 performance by a few original members, with Spence's son on vocals:
Original demo:
Surprising & fantastic Robert Plant cover:
See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable database!

https://www.jitterywhiteguymusic.com/2026/10/2000-great-songs-1480-seeing.html

2000 Great Songs #1483: Silly Love Songs As I've described ad ...

2026-10-16T04:26:40Z

2000 Great Songs #1483: Silly Love Songs

As I've described ad nauseum both here and in my book, Paul McCartney's Ram was the first rock album I heard as a kid, standing out from the other 8-track tapes my distinctly non-musically-cool father would play (i.e. The Carpenters, Barbra Streisand, Herb Albert, various soundtracks). By the time I'd really gotten into music a few years later, at the ripe old age of 9, I'd kinda forgotten about it, a relic of the past which I hadn't heard in some time (the tape was in my dad's car when it was stolen several years earlier, so that was that).
Come spring 1976, just a few months into my AM radio obsession, Paul & Wings released Wings At The Speed Of Sound to much fanfare. I'd mostly lost track of McCartney since the disappearance of that Ram tape, and was excited by his first new release since my musical awakening. So I gathered my accumulated allowance, had my parents drag me to the local mall, and picked up a copy, one of the first albums I'd bought (not long after the Sweet album I've also talked about).
And boy, was I disappointed by the record! A lot of real clunkers. (I'm still not a fan; I think Paul's decision to make Wings more of a democracy led to some weak band contributions, not that Paul's work was that great either; I'm much more partial to the underrated follow-up, London Town.)
Still, the hit single, "Silly Love Songs," was pretty undeniable. It's lyrically lightweight by design, Paul unabashedly embracing John Lennon's slam of his songwriting; but the melody is pure McCartney. And the bass playing is, of course, ridiculous (along with other nifty bits, like that weird mechanical noise intro). The slow section 2/3 into the over-long album version is a bit of a drag (though I like when they sing in a round), but pays off when the band kicks back in at the end; even if 7 minutes feels like overkill, the shortened single seems unsatisfyingly incomplete.
Live Wings:
Inexplicable and horrifying movie version, ugh, but here we are:
Red House Painters borrow the lyrics for an extended 11-minute Crazy Horse-styled jam session:
Kinda terrifying deconstruction by The Replicants:
See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable database!

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