A mixtape of artists with long careers who continue to produce great songs.
Elvis Costello “There’s a Story in Your Voice” (Duet with Lucinda Williams)
Elvis releases so much stuff. Maybe too much stuff. This song is from The Delivery Man (2004), which has about five really great songs.
Lou Reed “Dirty Boulevard”
This song and “Romeo Had Juliet” from his album New York (1990) are as good as anything Reed ever recorded.
Bob Dylan “Most of the Time”
I would like Mary J. Blige to cover this song.
Patti Smith “People Have the Power”
A great anthem. She makes the sentiment not seem trite.
Morrissey “You Have Killed Me”
I imagine that nothing Morrissey records will ever have the impact of his early songs with the Smiths. They were so original, Morrissey and Marr. It’s really too bad that they didn’t keep writing/recording songs together.
Joe Strummer “Johnny Appleseed”
Maybe this is only a good song with a great first verse and chorus. But the melody and singing is so good that you can forgive the lacking secondary verses.
Aimee Mann “Phoenix”
This is the leaving Phoenix answer to the old Jimmy Webb / Glenn Campbell song “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”.
Paul Westerberg “Terri (Who You Gonna Marry?)”
This is on Westerberg’s 49-cent download album called 49:00 (2008). It contains some very loose demo-type songs and cover snippets that he recorded after recovering from a hand injury that left him unable to play guitar for a while.
U2 “White as Snow”
This is Bono doing Orhan Pamuk.
William Walsh is the author of Without Wax (Casperian Books,2008), Questionstruck (Keyhole Press, 2009) and the forthcoming story collection Ampersand, Mass. (Keyhole Press, 2010). His stories and derived texts have appeared in Caketrain, Annalemma, Juked, New York Tyrant, LIT, Rosebud, Quarterly West, Artifice, Quick Fiction, and many other journals.
(LINK: http://questionstruck.blogspot.com)
