My Tribute to Jimmy Buffett

I've been a Jimmy Buffett fan since I was a teenager in the early 1990s. Two of my all-time favorite Buffett tunes are Floridays, from the 1986 album of the same name, and Brahma Fear, from his 1974 album Livin' and Dyin' in 3/4 Time. 

As a musician, I realized long ago that these two songs have similar chord structures. In fact, the chord progression in the verses is identical. 

The similarities led me to create a medley of these two songs, one flowing naturally into the next. I've been playing this medley on my guitar for years. 

I've covered a lot of Buffett songs on my YouTube channel, but I wanted to do something special this time as a memorial. So I decided to do a piano version of the Floridays/Brahma Fear medley. 

Neither of these songs is among Buffett's most well-known. You have to be a pretty dyed-in-the-wool Buffett fan to know them. So I realize a lot of people won't want to listen to 7 and a half minutes of unfamiliar cover songs. But if you're interested, here's my memorial to Jimmy. 

 

My Latest Piano Piece

A couple of years ago, I wrote an arrangement of the song "I Dreamed a Dream," from Les Miserables. I've never actually seen the play (or movie), but who doesn't love this song? I recently finished learning it, and I think it's a pretty good arrangement. You can watch it below. And here's a link to follow my YouTube Channel. 

Clair de Lune

Two of the most famous classical piano pieces are named after the moon. Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven was one of the first classical pieces I ever learned, back in high school. The other is Clair de Lune by Debussy, which literally means Moonlight. Beethoven didn't name his piece - he called it "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia" - meaning simply "Sonata almost like a fantasy." (A fantasy was a type of semi-improvisational solo piano piece.) 

Debussy, on the other hand, did name his piece Clair de Lune, although that wasn't his original name for it. Written early in his career, around 1890, he originally called it Promenade Sentimentale - "A sentimental walk." It was the third movement of a 4-movement piece. But he didn't publish it at the time.

Fifteen years later, in 1905, a publisher convinced him to publish it. He agreed, but only after making significant changes to the music. He also decided to rename the third movement Clair de Lune, after a poem that he liked. 

I can remember my Dad playing the opening of Clair de Lune when I was a kid. He'd learned it when HE was a kid, and still remembered the first few bars. He did the same thing with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It was his tinkering with Moonlight Sonata that first inspired me to learn that piece when I was a teenager. But I never played Clair de Lune back then. 

So this year, I decided to learn Dad's old favorite. I don't think he ever learned the difficult middle part, so I've managed to outdo him on this one. (I outdid him on Moonlight Sonata too, learning the more difficult second and third movements, as well as the first.) 

Two New Songs

My uncle is an old Buddy Holly fan, and he asked me to do a Buddy Holly song. I decided to do Oh Boy, because it's always been my favorite Holly tune. 

When I was in high school, M and I spent a lot of time talking on the phone. For some bizarre reason, her phone picked up a local oldies radio station. Anytime she was on her bedroom phone, you could hear the oldies station in the background. So old 1950s rock n' roll hits were frequently the background music to our hours-long conversations in high school. Oh Boy was played frequently and I loved the background vocals - they were so emblematic to me of 50s pop music. 

Anyway, this is my rendition of Oh Boy (without any backing vocals of course). I created the backing track online by writing out the drum and bass lines and then playing it in the background as I played and sang guitar live. 

And the next song is Goodbye, by Elton John. This is the last track on his 1971 Madman Across the Water album. I have no idea what it's about - like a lot of his songs from the early 70s, it doesn't really make any sense. But I love its melancholy beauty. 

Elegy for the Victims of the Pandemic

I never intended, planned, or expected to be working on the front lines of a global pandemic. If you had told 25-year-old Scott that he'd be doing this at age 45, he'd have probably fainted.

But the winding, hilly, curvy, tortuous path I've followed in life has led me to be in this place, at this time. I am an X-ray tech at a hospital in downtown Cincinnati. I work at night and spend the vast majority of my 12-hour shifts X-raying patients in the Emergency Room and on the various floor units of the hospital.

My hospital has spent the last few weeks preparing for a surge of COVID-19 patients. They've placed zippered, air-tight curtains over all the ED rooms that don't have doors; they've cleared out a whole wing to accommodate COVID-19 patients; they've banned all visitors from the hospital; and they have ceased all elective procedures and surgeries. We've seen a steady increase over the last week or two in patients with respiratory symptoms and expect the numbers to continue to increase.

As my friends and family know all too well, my religious beliefs these days wax and wane depending on my mood. As this blog testifies, I have long ago given up the traditional beliefs of my youth. But in these last few weeks, I've found myself continually thinking of the countless sermons and Sunday School lessons I heard growing up about great biblical characters who were faced with circumstances they didn't exactly ask for. 

I think of Abraham and the famous story of God asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac, only to stop him at the last second after Abraham proved his faithfulness. I think of David, the shepherd boy, facing off with Goliath, the warrior champion of the Philistines. And I think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, begging God not to make him "drink this cup." 

I don't want to drink this cup. I don't want to be on the front lines of a global pandemic. But this is where my life's path has brought me. I don't normally talk about things like this, but I have always felt that I was built/made/designed for something important. Maybe that's just my white, privileged, upper middle class, male ego talking. But it's how I've always felt. 

To use words I might have used in my youth but wouldn't normally dream of using now ... being on the front line of this pandemic is what God has called me to do, whether I like it or not. I'm here, and I have to do it. It's important. And I'm made for important work.  

I realize that, as an X-ray tech, I'm not exactly saving lives or even risking my own health as much as others. Nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists are putting themselves at far greater risks than I am, if for no other reason than because they spend more time with the patients than I do. But I'm part of the team that is fighting this battle, and I've accepted the cup that I've been given. I intend to do the best job I can with it.   

All of this is sort of a long introduction to a piano piece that I have written to honor and remember those who have lost their lives in this pandemic. I originally intended to write a really sad lament, but it turned out a little different than I expected. Though I began it in a minor key, I very quickly transitioned into the relative major. Those of you who aren't musicians won't understand what I mean by that, but minor keys are usually associated with sad or dark music, while major keys are typically associated with happy or upbeat music. 

Writing a sad song in a minor key is easy. It's been done a million times. But I've always appreciated and enjoyed sad songs written in major keys, because it's harder and less common. Maybe you'll think this song is sad, and maybe you won't. But whether it's sad or not, it's my tribute to those who have lost their lives in this pandemic - a pandemic that I have been called to risk my health and devote my services to. 

Ranking Elton John Albums - Part 1, Nos. 31 through 21

I've been an Elton John fan for just about as long as I can remember. From the age of 9 or 10, I began listening to my own music and generally gravitated towards guitar-driven rock (Van Halen, Dire Straits, eventually Guns n' Roses, etc.). But before all of that, there was Elton John.

His first Greatest Hits album, from 1974, was basically a family playlist. I guess my earliest family music memories are of Amy Grant and other Christian singers, but once my parents decided it was okay to introduce their precious children to secular devil music, it was basically Elton John, and maybe some Alabama.

On vacations and other long trips, this album would also get played through a least a couple of times. I knew all the songs on it by heart. As I got older, more compilations were put out and I eventually had his Greatest Hits volumes 1, 2, and 3.

For a long time those were the only Elton John albums I had, and the songs on those albums were basically the only Elton John songs I knew. Then, in college, I got a book with note-for-note transcripts of a bunch of Elton John songs. Many of them were songs I wasn't familiar with. There was one in particular - Indian Sunset - that I really enjoyed playing and I was dying to hear the real, actual song. (Children, this was back before Al Gore invented the Internet.)

So I figured out which album that song was on (it was Madman Across the Water) and I bought the CD. I ended up liking every song on the album, which didn't surprise me, since I'd always liked every other Elton John song I'd ever heard.

Still, after that, I never bought another Elton John album. Up until a few years ago, I was okay with only knowing the same 35 or so songs I'd had on my greatest hits albums and my one studio album.

But then I got a subscription to Amazon Music and discovered they had every single one of his past albums available. So I created a playlist with 372 songs on it. I've been listening to it very regularly now for the past few years.

And now I've decided I'm qualified to make a list ranking his albums from worst to best.

I am ranking the 31 studio albums that Elton John has released as of 2019. I have not included any live albums, compilations, or collaboration albums he's done with other people. I also am not including the five or six movie soundtracks he's done over the years. These are just the 31 solo studio albums that he has put out since 1969.

I didn't actually intend for this introduction to be so long, but hey, shit happens. Anyway, here's the first part of the list. Let me know what you think, although be aware that if you disagree, you'll be wrong.

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31. VICTIM OF LOVE

If you've ever heard this album, then you are like me: a victim of Victim of Love. This is a no-brainer. I can't imagine a ranking of Elton John studio albums that didn't put this album as the very worst. It's not just Elton's worst album, it has to be one of the worst albums that's ever been recorded by a major act. It's remarkably bad. It is absolutely unbelievable that a star of Elton's caliber agreed to do an album this awful.

Here's the thing: It's a freaking disco album. The first song is an 8-minute disco version of Johnny B. Goode, if you want an idea of how awful it is. I think all the other songs are originals, but they are just terrible. And it's not just because disco is terrible. Even by disco standards, these songs suck. I guess if you were high as a kite in orange bell bottoms on a disco dance floor in Germany in 1979, maybe it would've been fine, but I can't imagine any other setting where this album isn't just fucking terrible.

I don't know the background of the album, but it seems to have been a record company gimmick to cash in on the disco fad of the late 70s. Released in 1979, Elton basically only participated by singing the songs. He didn't write any of the music or play keyboards (or any other instrument) on any of the songs. And he's never performed any of them live. The record company seems to have wanted something, Elton was too fucked up on coke to produce anything, so they brought in studio musicians and songwriters to write and record a disco album, and then just brought Elton in to sing the lyrics and put his name on the cover. That's what it appears to be, anyway.

Regardless, it's terrible. I skip the songs when they come on.

30. THE THOM BELL SESSIONS

I haven't seen the Elton biopic, so I don't know if it addresses this, but the late 70s seem to have been a bad time in Elton's life. This is another terrible album from that time.

Thom Bell was a famous producer who had developed a sound called Philadelphia Soul. Elton had written a stand-alone single called Philadelphia Freedom in 1975 that tapped into this sound. After that, he apparently wanted to work with Bell for a whole album. Evidently the two didn't get along well and they ended up only recording 6 songs before calling it quits. Even though the recording sessions took place in 1977, the album wasn't released until 1979, and then it was only a 3-song EP. One of those songs (Mama Can't Buy You Love) did end up going to #9 on the charts.

In 1989, the album was re-released, this time with all 6 songs.

With the exception of Mama Can't Buy You Love (which is a decent song), both incarnations of this album suck. Maybe if I was into 1970s Philadelphia Soul music, I would like it. But I'm not. The background music is heavy on brassy orchestration and apparently one of the gimmicks of this sound is to repeat a catchy chorus about 435 times at the end of the song. I mean these songs just go on and on and on, and it's not NEW music, it's the same hook, over and over and over again. If you're familiar with Mama Can't Buy You Love, you'll know what I'm talking about.

With the exception of Mama, I skip all these songs when they come on.

29. WONDERFUL CRAZY NIGHT

This is Elton's most recent album, released in 2016. It was a tough decision to put it here, because there are no "bad" songs on it. And I don't want to be one of those "all his new music sucks" guys.

But the problem is that there are no really good songs on it. It's basically just 10 very average, forgettable tracks. A few of the songs have a catchy beat or a catchy hook, but all in all the music is just not great. It feels very much like what it is ... an album by a 70-year-old former pop/rock star who has long since graduated into the low end of the Adult Contemporary arena.

I also can't stand the cover of this album. In my opinion, Elton John is remarkably bad at album covers. He's got some really, really awful ones in his catalogue. This is one of them. The expression on his face and his body language on the cover reminds me disturbingly of my mother-in-law. And the music can probably also be described as Music Your Mother-In-Law Would Like.

28. ICE ON FIRE

This album is from 1985 and it's like he wasn't even trying at this point. There is one gem on this album in the song Nikita, but that's about it. Wrap Her Up is catchy, but it's ultimately just bubble-gum pop by two gay guys (George Michael sings back-up) pretending to be straight.

And besides those two songs, the others are all "meh." Some are basically skippers, but even those you don't skip are basically songs you never need to hear again.

27. A SINGLE MAN

Back to that bad period in the late 70s again, and another album that's just not that good. This was the second album Elton did after "breaking up" with his longtime writing partner, Bernie Taupin. The first was the aforementioned Thom Bell Sessions and the third was Victim of Love. This one, at least, was a straightforward studio album with Elton writing the songs and performing them, albeit with a different lyricist.

I put this album above Ice on Fire simply because A Single Man has the song Georgia on it. I absolutely love this song. It's probably in my top 10.  Elton had made his fame playing a style of music I like to call piano-driven Gospel Rock, and in the late 70s, he moved away from that sound, pretty much permanently. But Georgia was like one last hurrah of that classic Elton, piano-driven Gospel Rock sound. I just love this song.

There are a few other decent songs to be found here, but all in all it's not a good album. Elton just wasn't the same during the 5 or 6 years that he and Bernie Taupin weren't writing together.

As a bit of trivia, Elton frequently recorded songs during his recording sessions that didn't make the final cut for the album. They were sometimes used as "B-sides" for singles, and other times just stuck into the vault unreleased. Years later, they would frequently make it onto compilation albums of "rare" songs or included with re-releases of the studio albums they were recorded with.

One of those songs for this album was called Flintstone Boy. It was originally the B-side to a single. It's now included on the reissue of A Single Man. It's the only song I know of where Elton John wrote the music and the lyrics. Elton is famous for his playing and songwriting, but lyrics are not his forte, which is why he's always used a lyricist to write with him.

I guess maybe in the wake of breaking up with Bernie Taupin he decided to try his hand at writing some lyrics. The result is this song. And it is absolutely awful. It seriously must be the most inane, asinine set of lyrics I have ever heard. And I guess because the lyrics were so uninspiring, the music he wrote for them was also pretty terrible. It's just a bad song. Definitely a skipper.

26. THE ONE

This is an album from 1992. It reminds me a bit of Wonderful Crazy Night in that it doesn't have any bad songs, but it also doesn't have anything really all that great on it. I need an album to have at least a few gems, and this one doesn't deliver. The songs are all okay, but there's just nothing here that I would ever intentionally go and play. The title track was a top 10 hit and it's probably the best song on the album.

25. THE DIVING BOARD

This is another recent album, having been put out in 2013. If you like albums that sound like basic jazzy piano bar music, then this is an album for you. As a pianist, I like the piano-driven aspects of the album, which includes 3 brief piano solo instrumentals scattered among the regular songs (called Dream #1, Dream #2, and Dream #3).

The Ballad of Blind Tom is a good one that tells the story of a real-life pianist in the late 19th century. He was a black man born into slavery who was a blind piano prodigy. He could also apparently mimic any voice he ever heard and repeat long speeches and soliloquies from memory. He was diagnosed as mentally handicapped during his life, but he was likely an autistic savant. Someone could play him a song he'd never heard before, and he could immediately play it back to them, note-for-note.

If there's any problem with this album, it's just that it's a little too piano-lounge for me. You need to have a glass of brandy, a book of philosophy, and a tweed jacket on when you listen to this album.

24. THE FOX

We're beginning now to reach the stage where the albums are more good than bad. This album comes from 1981 and Elton had begun to write with Bernie Taupin again, although Taupin only wrote the lyrics for about half the songs.

Just Like Belgium is probably the best song on this album. There aren't any bad songs here, although a couple of them are just sort of boring. Carla/Etude/Fanfare are three songs that all run together on the original B side of the album, comprising about 6 minutes of instrumental music. Why there are three different titles to what is basically a single 6-minute instrumental is anyone's guess. The music then runs directly into the next track, called Chloe, which is the only one of the four that actually has lyrics.

But all in all, this is a decent record with some good hooks and laid back grooves that make for a decent 80s soft rock album.

23. EMPTY SKY

This was Elton John's first album, released in the UK in 1969. It was not released in the U.S. at the time, which is why his second, self-title album, is frequently named as his "first" album. Empty Sky didn't get released until 1975 in the U.S., at the height of his fame.

This album's main strengths lie in its hints of the greatness that was to come, and in its novelty value. If you're familiar with "classic" Elton John, you notice immediate differences when you listen to this album. His voice sounds different, and many of the songs have a very 60s, psychedelic sound to them. He bizarrely opted to play harpsichord instead of piano on a number of the songs, which gives them a very foreign, artsy kind of feel.

The best song on the album actually wasn't even on the original album released in 1969. It's Me That You Need was one of several singles released independently at that time. The song has since been included on reissues of the album.

Another song from the album, Skyline Pigeon, is easily one Elton's best songs, but not the early version found on Empty Sky. On this version, he plays harpsichord, and it totally ruins the song. A few years later had the sense to re-record and re-release it, and that second version is one of my favorite Elton John songs.

22. TOO LOW FOR ZERO

This is actually Elton's best-selling album of the 1980s, but as a whole, I think it's actually among his worst. But that doesn't mean it's a bad album.

To begin with, it has I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues on it, and that's one of his best songs (maybe his very best song) of the 1980s. It also produced several other hits that are decent, including I'm Still Standing, Kiss the Bride, and the title track. Kiss the Bride is another one of those bubble-gum pop songs that Elton did so well in the 80s and which sound funny today because OF COURSE he didn't want to kiss the bride.

In any case, the reason this album is lower than most of his other 80s albums is because besides those hits, the rest of the songs on the album are pretty weak. A set of pretty much forgettable songs.

21. THE BIG PICTURE

According to the Wikipedia article, lyricist Bernie Taupin lists this album as his least favorite, because he apparently thinks his lyrics weren't very good. Considering how bizarre and sometimes even silly his lyrics can be, I don't necessarily understand what his problem with this particular album is.

In any case, this album is from 1997 and its very heavy on orchestration. Some of the songs give a sense of elevator music. It's definitely strongly in the Adult Contemporary camp. But over time, this album has grown on me.

A lot of the songs are very dramatic and theatrical (he wrote a number of movie soundtracks in the 90s, including The Lion King and several others, so he must have just been in that mode when he went into the studio to do this one). If you let yourself, you can kind of get swept away in the drama of a few of the songs, with their big, sweeping orchestrations and their booming climaxes.

Something About the Way You Look Tonight is probably the last truly great song Elton John wrote. It got a lot of attention and airplay because it was the B-side to his standalone single Candle in the Wind 1997, the tribute to Princess Diana, which is to this day the best-selling single of all time.

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Keep watching for my next post, which will continue the countdown from 20 to 11. We're going to start getting into some really, really good Elton John albums. 

Bohemian Rhapsody

So in the early spring, I bought a book of Queen songs arranged for piano. I started learning Bohemian Rhapsody and very quickly decided the arrangement was lacking. So I decided to make my own arrangement.

Between the time I took creating the arrangement and the time it took me to learn it, I've been working on this piece for most of the year.

I finally got a version of it recorded that is at least halfway decent.

Here it is.

The 10 Best Songs of Willie Nelson

So, in years past, I've done various "10 Best" posts about music. Today, I decided it was time to do another one. It took me approximately 2.73 seconds to determine whose catalog to feature.

While intently studying this list for future reference, please keep in mind that I have given exactly zero consideration to whether a song is famous or well-known. These songs are the Willie Nelson songs that I think are his best, regardless of whether you ever heard Paw-Paw play them.  Also, I have limited this list to Willie's solo efforts - which means I'm ignoring several hundred duets he's done.

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10. I Gotta Get Drunk

The title pretty much says it all. Willie recorded this song in 1970 for his Both Sides Now album. If you like Willie, and you like to drink, I highly recommend this song while drinking. Or when sober.



9. Sad Songs and Waltzes

This classic is from 1973's Shotgun Willie album. After 15 years in Nashville and 15 prior albums, it was his first really successful effort. It was the album that really set him on the path to super-stardom. When you listen to his albums chronologically, you can definitely hear a change on this one. As the title implies, this is a sad song in 3/4 time about a broken-hearted singer who tells his ex not to worry about becoming famous in a country music song, because no one's currently buying sad songs or waltzes anyway.



8. When I've Sung My Last Hillbilly Song

From what I've read, this was literally Willie's first song. He was working as a DJ in Texas in the mid-50s when he recorded it on a reel-to-reel tape at the radio station. He later added a few more verses and included it on a boxed set in the early 2000s. The song is about a country singer contemplating the end of his life and career. Very ironic to listen to now, knowing it's his earliest recording and he's now 65 years older and there can't possibly be many more songs left.

(Couldn't find a YouTube version of the 2000's version of this song...only the original version from the 50s, which is really, really low quality...if you've got a streaming service, look it up there.)

7. Red Headed Stranger

This is the title track to Willie's signature album. The Red Headed Stranger album made Willie one of the biggest names in country music in 1975 upon its release. It's biggest single was Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain. It's actually a concept album, telling the story of a cowboy who kills his wife and her lover and then flees and attempts to put his life back together. The title song was written in the 50s by a duo of professional songwriters. Willie built his album around it 20 years later. The song tells the story of a cowboy whose wife has died (on Willie's album, it's explained in other songs that he actually killed her for cheating on him). While still in mourning, he goes ahead and shoots a prostitute who dares to lay a hand on his dead wife's horse. It's pretty violent and non-PC to be honest. But this is 'merican country music, so that makes it okay.



6. Help Me Make it Through the Night

This song was written by Kris Kristofferson and Willie recorded it twice. The most famous version of the song is by a female country singer named Sammi Smith. Willie first recorded it in 1972 on his The Willie Way album. He then recorded it again in 1979 for his Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson album. It's that second version that I'm referencing here. Just a perfectly written and perfectly sung country music song.



5. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

It's really hard to put this song at #5, because I freaking LOVE this song. But that just goes to show you how good Willie is. This is another song that was written by someone else, but Willie made it famous. This is probably the earliest Willie song that I can actually remember. I recall my mother playing this song when I was a kid. It made me want to be a cowboy.



4. It's Not Supposed to be That Way

This song comes from 1974's Phases and Stages album. It was the album that came after Shotgun Willie and before Red Headed Stranger. Like Red Headed Stranger, it's a concept album, telling the story of a break-up. The front side of the record tells the woman's story, and the back side tells the man's story. It's Not Supposed to be That Way is part of the man's story and it's just a really freaking good country music song. Love it. It's Willie at his best.



3. Healing Hands of Time 

Basically, the top five could probably be in any order, depending on the day. Healing Hands of Time is an absolutely incredible Willie Nelson song. It was released on his third album in 1965, Country Willie: His Own Songs. With a great little acoustic riff that backs up the song, this is one I can just listen to over and over again.



2. Are You Sure

How did Country Willie: His Own Songs not make Willie Nelson famous? Both this song and the last one are from that album. Neither was released as a single at the time. And yet they just have some kind of magic about them that I can't really put into words. When either of these songs comes on, everybody has to shut up to let me listen and sing.



1. Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground 

This is Willie's signature song in The World of B. Scott Christmas. It's a song that he wrote and recorded for the movie Honeysuckle Rose in 1981. He also starred in the movie. It's a live recording, taken straight from the film. He also recorded a version in the studio, but that version was only included on compilation albums and it's not the one I'm referring to here. The Honeysuckle Rose version is the one you need to listen to. This song never fails to give me chills and it's absolutely one of my favorite songs of all time.



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EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS! 

Of course no normal person could come up with just ten songs on a Willie Nelson best songs list, so here's a bonus song that could probably go just about anywhere in the list above.

The Pilgrim: Chapter 33

This is another song written by Kris Kristofferson and included on the Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson album. I guess Kristofferson probably recorded it at some point too, but I've never heard his version. Willie's version is excellent. It's a song that reminds me a bit of myself. It's a self-reflective song of a person who (presumably) has just turned 33 and is looking at his life and who he is. 

He's a poet, he's a picker
He's a prophet, he's a pusherHe's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stonedHe's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.

Some Random Commentary on Beatles Songs

I've been listening, for the first time in a while, to my Beatles collection, and since my brain never stops running, I've thought of numerous things I want to say about some of these songs, but have no one to say them to. So they're going here, on my blog.

Basically, my blog is my only friend.

Please Please Me (1963)

1. I Saw Her Standing There: This is one of my favorite "early" Beatles songs, a great rock n' roll number sung by Paul that holds up well over time. In addition to the original Beatles recording, Elton John did a live duet of this song at Madison Square Garden with John Lennon in 1974 which is pretty good too. (Listen to the Elton John/John Lennon version here.)

2. Boys: Ringo generally sang one song per album, but they're almost always among the best tunes on the record. Like "I Saw Her Standing There," "Boys" is a rollicking, upbeat rock n' roll song that also still holds up really well. Ringo's vocals are perfect.

3. Love Me Do: This was the Beatles' first single (recorded and released several months before the album) and it's only okay, but it's noteworthy because Ringo doesn't play drums on it. When they went into the studio to record this song and "P.S. I Love You," the record company wanted to use one of their session drummers, a guy named Andy White. So Ringo just plays tambourine on the song.

4. Twist and Shout: This is my favorite early Beatles song, edging out several others. I've liked this song since it was featured in its entirety in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. John's famously scratchy vocal track was apparently unplanned, as it was the last song they recorded on the album, and after a week of nonstop rehearsing and recording, he was losing his voice.

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

1. If I Fell: About halfway through this song, there is a noticeable spot where Paul is singing background vocals, and his voice breaks and he cuts off mid-note. I'm not sure if it was always noticeable and they just left it in, or if maybe it only became apparent after the original song was remastered and digitized, thus removing tape hiss and other stuff that may have masked the sound. But if you listen for it, it's pretty funny. It's at about the 1:45 mark on the phrase "was in vain."

Beatles For Sale (1964)

1. No Reply: This song is basically about a guy whose girlfriend has dumped him and made it clear she's not interested, so now he's stalking her.

Help (1965)

1. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away: John Lennon is clearly attempting to channel Bob Dylan in this one. He even sounds like Dylan in the vocals.

Rubber Soul (1965)

1. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown): So let me get this straight: the singer goes home with a girl expecting to get laid. She leads him on and then refuses to put out. After she leaves for work the next morning, he burns her house down. Gotcha.

2. Nowhere Man: One of my all-time favorite Beatles songs. It's also the first song written by the Beatles that did NOT have anything to do with girls or romantic relationships in some way, shape, or form.

3. In My Life: Another song in my top 10. This is a great little tune where Ringo's drumming is just perfect and really fills out the song well.

4. Run for Your Life: Literally a song where the narrator threatens to kill his girlfriend if she cheats on him.

Revolver (1966)

1. Doctor Robert: On the surface, this song appears to be about the singer's favorite doctor. Apparently it's actually about a drug dealer. In any case, it's literally one of the dumbest songs in the Beatles' catalogue.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

1. Within You Without You: This is one of several songs written by George Harrison with heavy Indian influence, and I've always thought it stuck out like a sore thumb on this otherwise masterpiece of an album. It's not that the song isn't good - it's fine, although a bit boring, in my opinion - but it just doesn't fit on this album. It would have made better thematic sense on either Revolver or the White Album.

2. A Day in the Life: The Best Beatles' Song of All Time. In my opinion. In the remastered version, you can hear one of the engineers counting off measures at the end during the big orchestral finale.

The Beatles (the White Album) (1968)

1. Wild Honey Pie: This double album has several songs on it that qualify as "dumb bullshit" and this is one of them.

2. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill: Yoko Ono has a solo on this song, and her voice sounds like the voice of a little girl who can't sing.

3. Happiness is a Warm Gun: So much greatness and awfulness side by side on this album. Absolutely love this song.

4. Piggies: George Harrison at his worst, by far.

5. Rocky Raccoon: Paul McCartney at his worst.

6. Julia: John Lennon at the top of his game. This is a beautiful ballad to John's mother, who died when he was a teenager. I love the vulnerability of the opening line: "Half of what I say is meaningless. But I say it just to reach you, Julia."

7. Yer Blues: Another of my absolute favorites. The Beatles were so diverse in the styles they could play. This song is straight-up hard rock blues and for a band that did very little of this style of music, they pull it off amazingly.

8. Savoy Truffle: Another really bad George Harrison effort. How does the guy who wrote "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" - on the SAME ALBUM, no less - also write and record "Savoy Truffle" and "Piggies"? I just don't get it.

9. Revolution 9: This isn't a song. It's 8 minutes of noise and recorded nonsense. The worst "song" in the Beatles' catalogue. By far.

Abbey Road (1969)

1. Maxwell's Silver Hammer: I really wish I could've been a fly on the wall when Paul brought this one in for the band to hear. It's literally about a serial killer who murders people (including the judge who's sentencing him to prison) by bashing them over the head with a silver hammer. It comes complete with hammer-on-nail sound effects during the chorus. They were definitely straining for material by this point. Still a fun little song.

2. Octopus's Garden: Oh Ringo. The only song he wrote that the Beatles' recorded and it sounds like a Wiggles song. Still, like all songs Ringo sings, it's a good one.

3. I Want You (She's So Heavy): Like a lot of the songs on this album, this is only half a song. But because they needed to fill the space on the A side of the record, they extended it out by repeating the coda over and over and over again. It would be a great song at 3:45. At 7:47 it's a bit much.

4. Mean Mr. Mustard: At one point, the lyrics of this song reference the Queen of England. Isn't it weird to think the same exact monarch referenced in this song is STILL on the throne? It always gives me a strange sense of continuity with the past. Queen Elizabeth is the constant.

5. Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End: The Beatles at their best. This medley runs a close second to "A Day in the Life" for best Beatles' tune.

Past Masters (a compilation of all Beatles' songs released as singles and not found on albums)

1. Long Tall Sally: This is another in the same group with "Twist and Shout" and "I Saw Her Standing There." Just a great classic rock n' roll tune.

2. Don't Let Me Down: I love this song. It's the best one from their "Let It Be" sessions, but was left off the album and released only as a single. It was one of the songs they performed during their famous "roof top" performance in 1969 - their last public performance together.

A Year With the Piano

It was one year ago today that the piano came back into my life.

Wow. Actually sat down and practiced the piano tonight. Strange but fun. pic.twitter.com/bPsdS6TJ8z

— Scott (@BScottChristmas) August 1, 2016

At my mother's insistence, I started taking piano lessons in, I think, 2nd grade. I continued them until 5th grade, when I finally convinced my mother to let me quit.

It wasn't that I didn't like playing the piano. What I didn't like was having to play the crap the teachers wanted me to play. I wanted to play what *I* wanted to play. This continued to be a problem for me well into college. I wish I could go back now and change that.

In any case, I continued playing the piano on my own time, finally restarting lessons in the 12th grade, before going to college to major in music. My music major eventually became a minor and once I graduated from college, I didn't play the piano much anymore, primarily because I didn't have a piano

A year ago today, I finally got a digital console piano. Hopefully it's just a first step towards eventually getting an actual acoustic piano (maybe I should start a Go Fund Me?).

I am absolutely thrilled with the progress I've made in the last year. Despite hardly playing at all for 20 years, I very quickly got back into the swing of playing and at this point - a year later - I can say I'm a better pianist now than I ever was at my peak in the old days.

To give you an idea of my progress, he's a short clip with my very first recording last August, picking out the opening of Beethoven's "Für Elise," compared to the same piece today:



In any case, when I think back to what started me on the path to a serious love of the piano, it has to be the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. This was one of only two songs my Dad could still remember how to play when I was a kid (actually, he could only remember part of it), and at some point - maybe late middle school or early high school - I started learning it myself.

I eventually learned all three movements, including the quite advanced third movement. This became sort of my "signature song" that I would pull out to impress people.

I recently completed re-learning the first movement, and I am a day or two away from having the second movement down as well. I started working on the third movement last week. So in honor of a year with the piano back in my life, here is the piece that started it all: the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata:

New Piano Arrangement

I've started doing some arranging for the piano and one of the first pieces I did is a somewhat obscure Stephen Foster song called My Hopes Have Departed Forever. It's a really pretty piece, though, and I think my arrangement is fairly good for a first try. I've since done a few more and have many more on deck. If all goes as planned, I hope to publish them in a songbook by the summer. It'll be a book of piano solos based on old classics.

I also would like to do a songbook of hymns for solo piano as well as one for traditional Christmas songs. (If you're wondering why all my plans are for old songs, it's because if I want to sell them, I can only do songs that are no longer copyrighted.)

We'll see if all that pans out, but for now I'm enjoying the arranging I'm doing. I've been using a great little website I found called NoteFlight.com to write the scores.

If anyone happens to be interested in getting a PDF of the sheet music for this piece, just ask, I'll be glad to send it to you.

Since it's an old piece, I made the video look like old cinema. Nice effect, don't you think?

The 10 Best Jimmy Buffett Titles

As the heading indicates, you don't have to be a Jimmy Buffett fan to enjoy this post because it's not about Jimmy Buffett songs as much as it is about Jimmy Buffett song titles.

If you know anything about Buffett, it's that he fancies himself a comedian, working clever turns of phrase into his songs and occasionally coming up with funny song titles to go with it. This is, of course, a tradition in country music, and Buffett has always first and foremost been a musician out of the country-western tradition.

Not all of these songs are among his best tunes, but they are without question among his cleverest and, sometimes, surprising titles.

10. Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season

This is one of Buffett's better known songs, if only because it's on his seminal 1974 album A1A. If you haven't heard it before, it's worth a listen because not only does it have a clever title, but it's a fantastic song to boot.

9. God Don't Own a Car

This is from Buffett's pre-major label period. Recorded in 1971 as part of his second album on tiny Barnaby Records, neither the song nor the album was ever released because the sales of his first album with Barnaby were so poor. Barnaby actually claimed to have "lost" the master recordings when they explained to him why they weren't releasing the album. After he achieved mainstream success in the mid-1970s on a different label, Barnaby magically "found" the master tapes and finally released the album, to limited appeal, in 1976. After going out of print for years, most of the songs on the album (including this one) were released on a compilation CD in 1991 called Before the Beach. It's an apt title because these songs don't sound like anything Buffett did later. They are more like 60s folk rock songs.

In any case, God Don't Own a Car isn't a great Buffett song, but the title is eye-catching nonetheless.

8. Earl's Dead - Cadillac For Sale

This is a track from Buffett's most recent studio album, Songs from St. Somewhere. Like a lot of his recent music, this song is only okay. He definitely doesn't have the songwriting chops of his heyday, but that's okay. I still love everything he does and this song is clever if nothing else. It's about a circus performer who has died and whose widow is trying to sell the Cadillac that was an integral part of their life together.

7. It's Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet

This is a song from the 1982 album Somewhere Over China. It's about a gambler in a casino trying to win it big with "one more bet."

6. If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me

This is a really good song from the 1985 album Last Mango in Paris (the title track, which follows this one on the album, was considered for this list, but didn't quite make the cut). This song is clearly based on Buffett's separation from his wife, which occurred in the early 1980s. They finally reconciled around 1987 and have been together ever since. He wrote a lot of break-up songs during that period.

5. What if the Hokey-Pokey is All it Really is About?

This is from 2002's Far Side of the World album. It's not one of my favorite Buffett songs. It's a song that gives one the impression that it began as a funny title - probably something that someone said while drunk - and then a song was built around it. This song has five songwriters credited, including Buffett, and I've found there is an inverse relationship between the number of songwriters on a Buffett song and how good the song is.

In any case, the title's still funny.

4. We are the People Our Parents Warned Us About 

From Buffett's classic 1983 album One Particular Harbor, this is a great song that pokes fun at what the Baby Boomer generation was growing into in the early 1980s, and how that related to their parents' views on life in the 1950s.

3. Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost

Religion has long been a theme in Buffett's music, and this song, from 1994's Fruitcakes album, is no exception. Growing up Catholic (he was even an alter boy), Buffett jettisoned his religious trappings in adulthood and apparently never looked back, but his religious upbringing has influenced a lot of his lyrics.

This song is only okay, but the title is eye-catching and the lyrics discuss childhood fears that Buffett had - namely vampires, mummies, and the Holy Ghost. "These are the things that terrify me the most." Which is pretty funny.

2. The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful 

A classic Buffett title, this song comes from the Coconut Telegraph album of 1981. Like a lot of Buffett's tunes, it could easily be turned into a short story. It's about a New York businessman who runs away from his life and moves to the Caribbean, only to find that even paradise sucks after a while, and he ends up heading back home to his old life. Buffett has stated that he got the title from graffiti he saw in a bar bathroom.

1. My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don't Love Jesus 

Unquestionably Buffett's best song title, this one comes from 1976's Havana Daydreamin' album. The song is about a killer hangover and the title describes how Buffett feels about it. Humorously enough, the Oak Ridge Boys, of gospel music fame, sing back-up on this song, which has a real ragtime feel to it. They apparently were afraid their largely southern Christian audience wouldn't get the joke and asked not to be credited in the liner notes.

The 10 Best Songs You've Never Heard Before

Okay, so to be fair, some of you have undoubtedly heard some of these songs. But I'm fairly confident most of them are unfamiliar to most of you.

Like other similar lists I've done in the past, this list is, of course, my own creation based on my own likes, dislikes, and experiences. You might pick different songs. That's okay. We're different people.

I've tried to put some semblance of "ranking" here, just because it makes for good reading, but you could probably mix up any or all of these numbers and it would be the same difference.

Finally, I decided not to pick more than one song by any one artist. Narrowing down great deep cuts by my favorite musicians was probably the hardest part of this exercise.

And now ... on with the countdown!

10. Don't Damn Me - Guns n' Roses



This is a highly underrated GnR song from Use Your Illusion I that has been one of my favorites since I bought the album on the day it was released in 1991. It was written by Axl Rose and Slash (with additional credit given to someone named Dave Lank, who must have been a friend or something) and it's got one of Slash's best guitar riffs, matched with a great vocal performance by Rose. The guitar solo near the end is pretty kick-ass too. The lyrics are Rose's attempt at justifying (and kinda sorta apologizing for) some of the controversial things he said and did back during GnR's heyday in the late 80s and early 90s.

9. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot 




This is actually one of Gordon Lightfoot's better known songs, but I still think it deserves to be on this list simply because most people under 50 aren't familiar with Gordon Lightfoot or his music. The lyrics tell the (mostly) true story of the sinking of the ship in the title during a storm on Lake Superior in 1975. This is the only Lightfoot song I know, but it's a really good one. I heartily recommend drinking a Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter while listening to the song.

8. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy - Queen



This song appears on one of Queen's greatest hits compilations but it's only claim to fame is being a minor hit in 1977 in the UK. It's from Queen's hugely popular A Day At The Races album. Written by Freddie Mercury, he described it as a "ragtime" song. It's piano driven and sounds like parlor music, particularly at the beginning. Maybe my love of ragtime parlor music is why I like this one so much. In any case, it's also kind of funny because you can't help but remember how flaming gay he was while listening to him serenade an unnamed lover in the song.

7. Leningrad - Billy Joel 




Despite being a Billy Joel fan since I was a kid, I had never heard this song until a few years ago. It's from his later period and was never released as a single in the U.S. (It apparently did chart briefly in a few European countries, which is undoubtedly why it was included on one of his greatest hits compilations.) It tells the story of a visit Billy made with his daughter to Leningrad when Russia was still the Soviet Union. It's a great Cold War song with emotive music and poignant lyrics that aimed to humanize the Russian people during a time when they were frequently still demonized in the American popular consciousness.

6. Pillar of Davidson - Live 




In the same way that Appetite for Destruction by Guns n' Roses provided the soundtrack to my high school years, Throwing Copper by Live was the soundtrack to my time in college. I absolutely love this album, which offers an hour of great song after great song. Pillar of Davidson was not one of the many hits off this album, but it's perhaps the best song on what is undoubtedly one of the best albums of the entire 1990s. Like a lot of the album's songs, the lyrics are vague and make no sense at times (for instance, I have no idea what the title means or how it relates to the theme of the lyrics), but it appears to be a song about the plight of factory workers and laborers in the U.S. But it's the hard-hitting riffs and vocals (especially the chorus, which is downright glorious) that really make this a magnificent song.

5. I Feel Like a Bullet (In the Gun of Robert Ford) - Elton John




If you know anything about the history of the Old West, you'll know Robert Ford (more commonly called Bob Ford) was the man who shot and killed Jesse James. As evidenced by this an other songs, Elton John's lyricist, Bernie Taupin, apparently had a fascination with American history. In any case, the song is actually about the breakup of a relationship, but uses Jesse James' murder as an analogy. Between the great music and vocals, and the lyrical themes (I'm a big fan of the Old West), this has always been one of my favorite lesser-known Elton John songs.

4. Migration - Jimmy Buffett



This is the best song from Jimmy Buffett's best album, and it's been one of my favorites since I began listening to Buffett in the early 1990s. You won't hear it on his multi-platinum greatest hits collection or in concert, but trust me ... it's one of his best songs. It's the quintessential beach bum song and it includes a line about buying a parrot and teaching it to cuss and drink. What more could you want?

3. Are You Sure - Willie Nelson



Willie Nelson has had a slew of hits over the years but what is perhaps more remarkable is how many great songs he has that never were radio hits. This is one of them. I'd never heard this song until a demo version (released in the 2000s) was used during an episode of the first season of Lost. The studio version, as released on his Country Willie album in 1965 (his third album) is the one I like best and it's the one featured above. It's a great little ballad that highlights everything about Willie that makes him the greatest of all time.

2. Headlong Flight - Rush




It's me, so of course Rush is going to be on the list and be ranked near the top. Headlong Flight is from their most recent (and probably final) album, Clockwork Angels, released in 2012. Unless you're a major Rush fan, you've likely not heard this song, as it certainly didn't get any radio airplay. But trust me, it's one of the best songs of their 40-year career. With their recent retirement (at least from touring), it's become in my eyes their final masterpiece, after four decades of masterpieces. You may or may not like Rush, but if you don't think this song kicks all manner of ass, you just don't like hard rock. It's three virtuoso rock musicians at the height of their collective power.

1. Was I Right Or Wrong - Lynyrd Skynyrd 



Though it was recorded in the 1970s, this song was never released on any Lynyrd Skynyrd albums during their heyday, but sat in the vault until released during the 1990s on several compilation albums. This is remarkable to me because with the possible exception of Free Bird, it may be their best song. It tells the story of an aspiring musician who goes out to pursue his dream against the advice of his parents. He succeeds, but then comes home to find both parents have died. The story is perhaps a bit sappy but the guitar riffs are unbelievable. I just love, love, love this freaking song.

Special Bonus Song!

The Green Fields of France - Dropkick Murphys 



When picking songs to include on this list, I came up with 11 instead of 10. Instead of dropping one, I just decided to add one as a bonus. You're welcome.

The Dropkick Murphys are a Celtic punk band - yes you read that right - from Massachusetts. This song is a remake of a folk song written in the 1970s by a Scottish singer named Eric Bogle. In it, the singer reflects on the grave of a 19-year-old who was killed in World War I. In my opinion, this is not just the greatest anti-war song ever written, the Dropkick Murphys' version of the song is hands down one of my favorite songs of all time. I can't listen to this song without getting chills. Watching the video above while listening to the song intensifies the impact even more.

The 10 Best Guitar Songs

Since I've been doing these top 10 lists about music lately and getting pretty good feedback, I figured I'd keep the series going.

For this one, I am considering the best guitar songs.  By "guitar," I mean "electric guitar" - there are certainly some fantastically-intricate and incredible acoustic guitar songs out there, but you won't see them on this list (Stairway to Heaven, anyone?).  My main criteria is not just guitar solos, but the overall guitars within the song as a whole (although the solo is a big part of it).  Like my list of the 10 Best Songs of Hard Rock, I have taken into consideration how widely known a song is, because no one wants a top 10 list of songs no one has ever heard of, even if they do have kick-ass guitar parts.  Be that as it may, I have not limited myself to only those songs that get a ton of airplay.   

Also, unlike that other list, I have not limited this list to just one style of rock music.  I've considered all possibilities, from the lite rock of the 70's to the most hardcore thrash metal.  You'll notice there are no songs on this list later than 1988.  That's not because I didn't consider songs of the last 25 years.  Instead, it's simply a sad reminder of how guitar-driven music has died a slow and painful death over the last two decades.  

10. Aqualung - Jethro Tull

British prog-rock band Jethro Tull has never been a particularly popular band in the United States, but they've been around since the late 60's and have sold (according to Wikipedia) more than 60 million albums worldwide.  "Aqualung" was the title track from their 1971 album, and it showcases a kick-ass guitar riff from beginning to end, together with a perfectly executed guitar solo in the middle by perennially underrated guitarist Martin Barre.

9. Telegraph Road - Dire Straits 

"Telegraph Road" isn't a Dire Straits song you're likely to hear on the radio, but if you think you've heard the best Mark Knopfler has to dish out in songs like "Sultans of Swing" and "Money for Nothin'," you are sadly mistaken.  "Telegraph Road" is, quite simply, a masterpiece of guitar music. The guitar solo at the end is overlaid with the sounds of a thunderstorm and, if you listen creatively, the solo, itself, plays the role of the flashing lightning.  It's musical and creative brilliance and never fails to give me chills.

8. Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan 

Stevie Ray Vaughan was the quintessential guitar musician, and it was difficult to decide which of his masterpieces should be in this list.  Honorable mentions go out to "Texas Flood" and, especially, the live version of "The Sky is Cryin'," found on his Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan compilation.  In the end, however, "Pride and Joy" makes the list because it is his most widely-known song.  It showcases Vaughan at the height of his powers and never ceases to elicit a twist of the volume knob when that tell-tale opening riff roars out of the speakers.  Perhaps no guitarist in history could make his guitar wail like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

7. Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd 

David Gilmour is, quite simply, one of the greatest guitarists of his generation, and his guitar work doesn't get any better than his performance on "Comfortably Numb."  If this list had been strictly about guitar solos, this song would have been easily in the top 3. The solo that closes out this song is simply one of the best of all time.  The song itself, however, despite having some lead riffs, isn't heavily guitar-driven, so #7 was as high as I could place it in good conscience.

6. Bodhisattva - Steely Dan

If you love guitar music, and you've never heard this song, you should YouTube it right this instant.  It's a weird song with odd lyrics, but the guitar work is absolutely brilliant.  Walter Becker is a guitar virtuoso.

5. Do You Feel Like We Do (Live) - Peter Frampton 

When it comes to kick-ass guitar music, it doesn't get much better than Peter Frampton.  His 1976 live album is one of the best-selling live albums of all time and is by far his most successful album. Frampton must be the only artist in history who is known primarily for a live album.  In any case, "Do You Feel Like We Do (Live)" is a classic guitar-driven epic of nearly 14 minutes, including an almost 10-minute guitar solo.  The song hits its peak around the 11th minute and just explodes into a frenzy of pure guitar rapture.  It's an orgasm in music.  

4. One - Metallica 

I was introduced to this song in 1989 by a friend of mine who is now a Presbyterian minister.  He bought the cassette single while we were on a youth group trip in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and we listened to it in the church van.  I was absolutely blown away.  For me, this song is the quintessential heavy metal song.  Kirk Hammett's solos are perfectly executed and the song just kicks so much ass that it's hard to say which part I like best.  Speed metal at its finest.

3. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns n' Roses

I love Guns n' Roses.  There has simply never been a better hard rock band than Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff, and Stevie.  They were the climax of hard rock music.  Everything before them was leading up to them, and everything since has been a slow, steady decline.  Like Stevie Ray Vaughan above, I had a hard time choosing which song of theirs should be on this list.  "Coma," "Don't Damn Me," and "Civil War" get honorable mentions.  Also like Stevie Ray, I ultimately went with their most popular song.  "Sweet Child O' Mine" is a guitar masterpiece, from the the intro, which is one of the most recognizable guitar riffs in history, to the solo near the end, which demonstrates Slash at his creative and prodigious best.  This was the first song I ever heard by Guns n' Roses, and it's still one of my favorites.

2. Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd

If this list was just about guitar solos, "Freebird" would not only be #1, it would be #1 by such a enormous margin that no other song would be anywhere even remotely close to it.  But this list isn't only about guitar solos, so Freebird falls into the #2 spot.  Does anything even need to be said about this song?  If you're not aware of what an epic, timeless guitar solo Allen Collins throws down at the end of this song, you don't like guitar music.  My favorite version of this song is the 13-minute extended live version from the band's Essential Lynyrd Skynyrd collection.  Steve Gaines, who joined the band just a year or so before their fateful 1977 plane crash (in which Gaines, together with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, died) adds a second guitar to the solo and the effect is just epic guitar euphoria.  Let's also not ignore the slide guitar work in the first part of the song by Gary Rossington.

1. 2112 - Rush

Probably a dark horse winner for many, but not for me.  You may not know much Rush music, and/or you may not like Rush, but if you are not able to recognize "2112" for the astounding, overwhelming, and utterly unmatched guitar masterpiece that it is, you don't know guitar music.  "2112" is the title track from their breakout 1976 album of the same name, and it is a brilliantly-conceived and flawlessly-arranged prog rock epic of more than 20 minutes, taking up the entire front side of the original vinyl album.  Alex Lifeson, undeniably the most underrated guitarist in rock history, weaves together an intricate tapestry of guitar artistry and brilliance, while Geddy Lee adds his trademark virtuoso bass lines, ultimately forming a song that simply represents everything you could ever want from guitar music.  "2112" is the greatest guitar song ever recorded.

The 10 Best Songs of Jimmy Buffett

Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, I never heard of Jimmy Buffett.  But when my family moved in 1988 to Cincinnati, a city that has long had a love affair with him, I was very quickly introduced to the man, the music, and the myth.

I didn't take his music very seriously at first (my musical tastes at that time were almost exclusively used up by Guns n' Roses and a few other hard rock bands), but he slowly began to grow on me, particularly after his 1990 live album, "Feeding Frenzy," became a staple on the family CD player.  

By the time I graduated from high school in 1993, I had begun buying all of his back catalogue and completed it within a year or two.  Since that time, I have counted Buffett among my very favorite artists.  

After posting a list of the 10 best hard rock songs of all time, a friend of mine - who used to hear me playing Buffett nonstop through the walls of our adjoining dorm rooms in college - jokingly said he'd like to see a list of my 10 favorite Buffett songs.  I decided to take him seriously and make it happen. What follows is the result.

It's important to note that, in making this list, I did not take into consideration how popular or widely-known a given song was.  I have simply chosen the ten songs that I think demonstrate Jimmy Buffett at his very best.  

10. Livingston Saturday Night

This song first appeared on Rancho Deluxe, which was a movie soundtrack Buffett did in 1975. He then rerecorded the song (rewriting some of the lyrics to make it a bit less raunchy) and released it on his 1978 album Son of a Son of a Sailor. I've always said this was the closest Jimmy Buffett ever came to doing southern rock - and that's also why I like the song so much.

9. Tryin' to Reason With Hurricane Season

This is one of the few well-known Buffett songs that gets anywhere near my top 10.  A classic beach bum song from his best album, A1A, this was one of my first Buffett favorites.

8. L'Air de la Louisane

As the title implies, this song is sung entirely in French.  It's not an original Buffett composition, but was instead written by a singer/songwriter named Jesse Winchester, who is, apparently one of Buffett's friends.  Buffett has covered a number of his songs, and this one is easily the best.

7. School Boy Heart

From 1997's Banana Wind, this is one of Buffett's many autobiographical songs, and it has a great chorus and lyrics that have always inspired me.

I've got a school boy heart
a novelist's eye
stout sailor's legs
and a license to fly

6. Railroad Lady

This song is from Buffett's first major label album, A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, and it was later covered by Willie Nelson.  It's the only Buffett song that mentions Kentucky, but that's not why I like it.  It's a perfect example of acoustic country western music from the 1970's.

5. I Heard I Was In Town

This is a song from the mid-80's in which Buffett sings about going back to Key West after having lived there for a time in the 1970's.  As the title implies, it's an introspective look at coming back "home" after becoming famous.  This has always been the quintessential Key West song for me.

Changes have come like the storms of the season
but time here still moves slow

4. Tin Cup Chalice

One of three songs on this list from A1A, this song is quite simply the definitive beach bum song.

Give me oysters and beer
for dinner every day of the year
and I'll feel fine

3. Coast of Carolina

Easily my favorite Buffett song of the 21st century, and (obviously) one of my favorites of all time. 2004's album License to Chill wasn't a great Buffett album, but this song blew me away from practically the moment I first heard it.  In it, Buffett reminisces about his long relationship with his wife, and the lyrics have always hit home deeply with me.  If I let myself, I can actually choke up listening to this song.

From the bottom of my heart
off the coast of Carolina
after one or two false starts
I believe we've found our stride

2. Migration

This was the song that made me a Jimmy Buffett fan.  Back in the late 80's and early 1990's, I had, of course, heard all his standard hits, but when I heard this song from A1A, I realized that I really, really liked Jimmy Buffett.  Forget Margaritaville...for me, Migration is Buffett's signature song.

1. Brahma Fear

This song is sort of a dark horse winner.  It's not a widely-known Buffett song, nor is it one you hear discussed very often even among diehard Buffett fans.  He virtually never plays it in concert. It's just a plain old song buried deeply on his second album, Livin' and Dyin' in Three-Quarter Time, from 1974.  But it is, and has been for a very long time, my favorite Buffett song.  There's nothing spectacular about it, and the lyrics are typical of the kinds of songs he wrote during that era, but somehow this song just has a perfect sound, a perfect representation of acoustic, folksy, beach bum music from the 1970's that Buffett did, does, and always will do, better than anyone. In my opinion, Brahma Fear provides the best blend of all the unique elements that have made Buffett famous.  

The 10 Best Songs of Hard Rock

Despite having fairly broad musical tastes, my first true love has always been hard rock.  The first album I owned was Van Halen's 1984 (I was 9 when that album came out), and I later became a disciple of Guns n' Roses and other hard rock bands of the late 80's.  Even though I'm now more likely to be found listening to "80's on 8" or "Willie's Roadhouse" (classic country) on Sirius XM, hard rock still most definitely holds a special place in my heart.

So with that in mind, I decided to rank the top 10 greatest hard rock songs of all time.  It should go without saying that this is my list.  It's the songs I think represent the best of hard rock.  I've taken into consideration popularity and how widely recognized a song is (because a top 10 of obscure songs no one has ever heard of would be boring), but otherwise, the main factor is how much a song moves me and makes me want to run marathons and leap tall buildings in a single bound.

It's also important to note that I delineate a fine line between hard rock and heavy metal.  For that reason, don't be surprised to see no entries on this list from bands like Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest, or even Metallica.  

10. Black Betty - Ram Jam/Starstruck

Black Betty - YouTube

This southern rock anthem became a hit for Ram Jam in the late 1970's.  Ram Jam's version of the song was adapted from an old folk tune by blues musician Lead Belly, and was originally recorded by an indie Cincinnati band called Starstruck.  Starstruck dissolved soon after and the guitarist, Bill Bartlett, took the song to a record company, who immediately formed a band around Bartlett (Ram Jam) and released the song nationally.  The recorded version is simply an edited version of the original Starstruck recording, but was included on the debut Ram Jam album.  

This song kicks a whole lot of ass.

9. Love Song - Tesla 

Love Song - YouTube

When this song starts, you think it's just going to be another typical hair band power ballad.  But it goes way beyond typical.  This song just kicks more and more ass the farther along it goes.  The guitar solo gives me chills.  

8. Thunderstruck - AC/DC

Thunderstruck - YouTube

Speaking of kicking ass.  If you can hear this song and not turn the volume up, you don't like hard rock.  

7. Rooster - Alice in Chains

Rooster - YouTube

Alice in Chains had a bunch of songs that were ah-mazing, but Rooster has always been my favorite.  It's one of those songs that starts off sort of soft and slow, and yet it's so full of dark menace that you know it'll just explode later.  It's about the Vietnam war, and Vietnam songs never fail.  Layne Staley's voice is perfect on this song.

6. Slither - Velvet Revolver 

Slither - YouTube

A combination of Slash, Duff, and Matt from Guns n' Roses, fronted by Stone Temple Pilots' lead singer Scott Weiland, there was no way that Velvet Revolver wasn't going to be awesome.  If you can listen to this song's leading riff and not bang your head, you should try the Brittney Spears station.  Between his playing chops and his persona, Slash may be the greatest hard rock guitarist of all time.  

5. Kickstart My Heart - Mötley Crüe 

Kickstart My Heart - YouTube

I've always thought the members of Mötley Crüe were all pretty much shameless, self-promoting douchebags, but damn they have some songs that just rip the skin off your face.  This was the best of the bunch.  From the opening riff that sounds like an engine revving, to the driving, chest-thumping chorus, this song just kicks all manner of ass.  

4. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Bohemian Rhapsody - YouTube

Forget the sub-category of hard rock, Queen's ambitious magnum opus from 1975 is undeniably one of the greatest songs of all time.  Although only the third segment of the song really constitutes the classic definition of "hard rock," the opening segment qualifies as a legitimate power ballad. Furthermore, the guitar solos that pepper this song are magnificent - some of Brian May's best work.  

3. Tom Sawyer - Rush 

Tom Sawyer - YouTube

As a certified Rush disciple, it was hard for me not to put Rush in the #1 position, but in fairness to the strict category of "hard rock," this is as high as I could reasonably put this prog rock band's signature song.  Tom Sawyer could end after 15 seconds, and it would still be a fantastic hard rock song.  Undoubtedly the best opening chord in rock history.  The instrumental in the middle of the song is a brilliant display of this 3-man band's collective prodigious playing skill.

2. Welcome to the Jungle - Guns n' Roses

Welcome to the Jungle - YouTube

A few years back, Welcome to the Jungle topped VH1's "100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs."  They weren't far off the mark.  The first song on Guns n' Roses debut album was a brilliant example of what hard rock should be in its purest, most powerful form.  One of the best vocal performances in hard rock history.  An unforgettable riff and chorus.  The archetypal image of 80's hard rock by a band at the absolute height of their powers.  This song still gives me chills after more than 25 years.     

1. War Pigs - Black Sabbath

War Pigs - YouTube

On the off-chance that you've never heard this song, click the link above right this second. There simply is no better hard rock song than War Pigs, from 1970.  It has all the elements required to create the ultimate hard rock song - a kick-ass riff, amazing drums, a goose-bump-inducing solo, brilliant vocals, and gritty, poignant, utterly in-your-face lyrics.  Perfection in every way.  The quintessential guitar song.  The quintessential anti-war song.  Quite simply, the quintessential hard rock performance.