Okay, I’m totally stealing this idea from a Website where even I’m not geeky enough to join in the fun. And I’m not saying that I’ll do this all the time, but I feel the need to burn off a little mental energy, so…



Happy Birthday, silent_spring
Five Great Rolling Stones Songs From Before Sticky Fingers

1. “Paint It Black,” Aftermath (1966): They come close with “Gimme Shelter,” but there’s no other instance of menace fuelling one of their songs quite as effectively as here.
2. “She Smiled Sweetly,” Between the Buttons (1967): I love the simple eloquence of all of the lyrics, matched by the plain solution presented by the “she” of the title: “She smiled sweetly/And said don’t worry.” The sort of thing that makes you swoon a little inside.
3. “Yesterday’s Papers,” Between the Buttons (1967): There’s something enjoyable about the jauntiness of this that reminds me of what The Kinks were doing around the same time. And I really like what The Kinks were doing.
4. “She’s A Rainbow,” Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967): I hated hearing this commandeered for Mac commercials. This might be my favorite Stones song, period. It’s almost certainly my favorite Stones song not sung by Keith Richards.
5. “Jigsaw Puzzle,” Beggars Banquet (1968): I guess this is usually dismissed as kind of a subpar Dylan rip-off, but I just like how rubbery all the music sounds. I always think of Susan endlessly poring over jigsaw puzzles in Citizen Kane every time I hear the chorus. I have issues.


Happy Birthday, studiesinsecret
Five Super-Sad Songs

1. Billy Bragg, “Tank Park Salute”: “A tree taps on the window pane/That feeling smothers me again/Daddy is it true that we all have to die….”
2. Neko Case, “The Tigers Have Spoken”: “It was the last time he had felt alive/When he saw that brown-haired lady/She fed him with a bottle as a baby/And he recalled her face and smile/They shot that tiger on his chain….” (This song damn near makes me cry every time I hear it.)
3. Bob Dylan, “If You See Her Say Hello”: “We had a fallin’ out/Like lovers often will/And to think of how she left that night/It still brings me a chill….”
4. Robyn Hitchcock, “Raining Twilight Coast”: “And I remember when I was young/They said, ‘Work hard and die suddenly/Because it’s fun’/And so I tried it—I did what I could/It made no difference, it never did any good….”
5. Rilo Kiley, “The Good That Won’t Come Out”: “You say I choose sadness/That it never once has chosen me….”




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