In keeping with my tradition of following Scott’s Friday Fives, let’s discuss luck – both good and bad.

• You Got Lucky – Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
• Hard Luck Woman – Kiss
• Bad Luck and Trouble – Lightnin’ Hopkins
• Lucky Town – Bruce Springsteen
• Good Luck Charm – Elvis

Bonus:  If I could wake up tomorrow with one guitarist’s skills, I would probably choose Brian Setzer.  He’s amazing.  Here’s Brian with the Stray Cats doing “Lucky Charm”

The Fabs

My brother posted a Friday Five of bird songs, and I love them all.  Let’s scour the catalog of history’s greatest band to see if we can find five songs about birds.

1. And Your Bird Can Sing (from my favorite Fabs album, Revolver)
2. Blackbird (how about some rehearsal footage of Paul!)
3. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
4. Blue Jay Way
5. Free As A Bird

There, that wasn’t too hard!

And a handful of solo bonuses:

• Bluebird (Macca)
• Jenny Wren (Macca)
• Cold Turkey (Johnny)
• Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox) (Johnny)

We’re definitely experiencing a cold snap here in the old US of A.  Five songs about freezing your hiney off.

• Albert Collins and Stevie Ray Vaughan – Frosty.  Virtually all of Albert Collins’ catalog would fit this Friday Five, but I just had to include this vid of two of the greatest blues guitarists of all time.
• Bruce Springsteen – Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.  I’ve been on a big Bruce kick lately.  Here’s a GREAT live version of one of my favorites.
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Out In The Cold.  Rock and roll, baby!  Mike Campbell may be the sideman MVP of all time.
• Hank Williams – Cold, Cold Heart.  It’s Hank. ‘Nuff said.
• The Rolling Stones – She’s So Cold.  And that is why Keith Richards can not be killed with conventional weapons.

I’m a Rev, I’m not a Gal, but I am a blog pal to the RevGals.  So here we go – my first RevGalBlogPal Friday Five!

It’s true.

There are only five full days before Christmas Day, and whether you use them for shopping, wrapping, preaching, worshiping, singing or traveling or even wishing the whole darn thing were over last Tuesday, there’s a good chance they will be busy ones.

So let’s make this easy, if we can: tell us five things you need to accomplish before Christmas Eve.

1. All my shopping for Katy.  I always end up having to wait for that last paycheck before Christmas for this one, but our daughter and I usually knock it out in a couple of hours.
2. Finish Sunday’s bulletins.
3. Learn a special for Sunday, preferably with the family.
4. Make a decision (with others from one of the churches) about Christmas Eve communion.
5. Clean out my car.  It’s been too cold and wet to accomplish it.  That’s my excuse!

Sure there are other things I need to accomplish in the next few days, but I’ll get it done.

Some songs are bad.  I’m a pretty open-minded guy, but seriously – some songs are just empirically bad.  For instance, “Rock On” by David Essex – does anyone actually LIKE that song?  Shouldn’t a song about rock and roll actually rock?  Let’s face it, if you’re going to sing about rock music you should begin with Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music,” AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top,” or the classic Johnny Winter / Rick Derringer “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo” as your template.  At least Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away” (Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul; I want to get lost in your rock and roll; and drift away…) has a sweet soulful groove.

Then again, some songs are so bad they’re great.  The music is simplistic or cheesy, the lyrics are nonsensical or vapid or even unintelligible, and yet you can’t stop listening to it.

Let’s begin with my own personal favorite in this category:

1. Surfin’ Bird – The Trashmen.  The Trashmen were actually a legitimate surf-rock band with really good chops and actual talent, but you’d never know it from listening to Surfin’ Bird.  This goofy take on two Rivingtons covers (The Bird is the Word and Papa Oom Mow Mow) was their only real hit.  And it’s a real earworm.  I dare you to listen to it and not have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
2. Barbara Ann – The Regents / The Beach Boys.  When I was a kid I thought the song was called “Bob a Wren,” because that’s what it sounds like.  Of course, I also thought that it might have been written about Vinnie Barbarino because I loved me some Welcome Back, Kotter.  (Wow, I just dated myself there!)  The Beach Boys version with Dean (of Jan & Dean) is great because it contains genuine laughter when they started to sing different verses at the same time.  I’m surprised that Brian Wilson let us hear that, when you consider that his perfectionism was his personal downfall.
3. Ain’t Got No Home – Clarence “Frogman” Henry.  He’s homeless, penniless, with no family to help him and nobody to love but he sure sounds like he’s having a BLAST because he can sing like a girl, a bird and a frog.  This song is the only instance I can think of where simple pleasures so powerfully and literally override basic human needs like food, shelter and love.
4. You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) – The Beatles.  This “song” is a chaotic mess, but the lads are having quite a good larf on all of us.  I get it stuck in my head often, and sing it in the shower.
5. Land of 1,000 Dances – Wilson Pickett / Cannibal & the Head Hunters.  What happens if you string together names of dances so they rhyme, combine it with an irresistible rhythm and hook, and add the infinitely profound lyrics, “I said na, na na na na, na na na na nana na nana na, na na na na”?  Yes, it’s dumb.  Yes, every single dance listed is out of vogue.  Yes, it’s downright awesome!

Art and Scotty have been doing the iPod shuffle.  While I do use iTunes, I don’t have an iPod.  And given that I’m a preacher and it’s Advent, I’ve been one busy dude.  So here I present to you five covers that I think are better than the originals.  Some rules apply – blues and jazz standards don’t count, and the entire careers of interpreters like Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt could go here.

1. Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower (Dylan). Okay, this one’s obvious.  According to the liner notes in Biograph Bob agrees.  This is also possibly my favorite guitar solo in rock and roll music – Jimi stretches out from blues-rock into a kind of pure musicality that I have no words to describe.
2. Dave Edmunds – Girls Talk (Elvis Costello).  Edmunds and Rockpile knew what to do with that chord structure and melody.  Costello struggled with his own tune.
3. Roy Buchanan – Down By The River (Neil Young).  Roy and Nancy (his 1953 Telecaster) inject blues, white-hot intensity, and pure creepiness into Neil’s classic.
4. Manfred Mann – The Mighty Quinn (Dylan).  In general I’m not one of those folks who likes Dylan sung by others, but there are rare instances of others hearing something in the melody that Bob didn’t.  This one is a glaring example.  Dylan’s original with The Band (whom I also adore) is just a sonic mess.  Mann’s cover is pop bliss. Okay, technically Mann officially released Quinn before Dylan did, but the Basement Tapes LP was released to compete with the wildly popular bootlegs of those sessions.
5.  Paul Simon is a certified songwriting genius, and his work with Art Garfunkel in the 60s remains wonderful and timeless.  But I gotta say that the Bangles totally juiced this one up with the perfect electric guitar tone, driving rhythm, and those lush Bangle harmonies.

Just as honorable mentions, there are certain songs that it appears nobody knows what to do with.  I’ve never been satisfied at all with anybody’s versions of Dylan’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door.  There are a lot of decent, even good versions but the great version remains elusive – but nobody can deny that it’s a great song at its core.  I’m waiting for a satisfying version of This Wheel’s On Fire as well.

Next week: songs so bad they’re awesome.

I am not a no-nonsense person.  I like nonsense music.  Thanks to Scotty, here are five songs with absolute nonsense titles.  Prepare to cringe – one of the most godawful songs ever written is posted here.

• The Rivingtons – Papa Oom Mow Mow
• Paul McCartney – Bip Bop
• Creedence Clearwater Revival – Keep On Chooglin’
• The Dixie Cups – Iko Iko
• Phil Collins – Sussudio (I warned you!  Click at your own risk.)

Bonus – The Chips with Rubber Biscuit.  Sure you know it by the Blues Brothers, but here’s the original!

Bonus 2 – The Edsels with Rama Lama Ding Dong

(Seriously I knew I had to atone for posting the crapola that is Sussudio.)

Art has been going crazy lately, so he suggested crazy music for this week’s Friday Five.  As one who wears that diagnosis like a badge, here we go:

1. Somewhere Down the Crazy River – Robbie Robertson.  The former The Band guitarist and songwriter(awkward!) made his solo debut in the 80s with a great album produced by Daniel Lanois.  The video was directed by Scorsese and featured the wonderful Maria McKee.
2. Crazy Arms – the Killer.  I always loved Jerry Lee Lewis’ cover of Crazy Arms, and joy of joys I found a video of him performing it live with the awesome Emmylou Harris!
3. Crazy Mama – J.J. Cale.  Slide guitar with a wah-wah pedal, baby!
4. Blind, Crippled and Crazy – The Derek Trucks Band.  I also have this one by Buddy Guy.
5. Buddy Guy – I Go Crazy.  Feels Like Rain was the first Buddy Guy album I bought, and it’s wonderful.

As hard as it might be for me to admit, the band that made me want to play guitar was KISS.  Did you hear that whooshing sound?  That was my rock geek cred going down the toilet.  I wanted to play guitar because Ace Frehley played guitar.  So this “seventiestastic” eighties hit immediately jumped into my head when putting this list together.  (And, in an attempt to restore my rock geek cred I’m only *ahem* crazy about full-makeup Frehley-Criss era KISS, despite this video).

Honorable Mentions (because I couldn’t find good YouTube clips):

• Are You Losing Your Mind? by Buddy Guy (originally entitled Stone Crazy).
• Crazy as a Loon – John Prine

I love the word monkey.  It’s always funny.  Say it with me.  Monkey.  Monkey.  Muuuuuunnnnnnkkkky.  See?  Anyway, Art suggested Monkey songs for this Friday Five so here we go:

1. Elvis Costello and the Imposters – Monkey to Man, which is a response to the great….
2. Dave Bartholomew – The Monkey (Speaks His Mind)
3. Chuck Berry – Too Much Monkey Business
4. Toots and the Maytals – Monkey Man
5. The Kinks – Apeman (Ray drops an F-bomb in this one, so NSFW)

Bonus:

Money songs this week, since the economy is about to crater.

O.V. Wright – A Nickel and a Nail.  If you’re not familiar with this soul classic, you’ve GOT to click this one.

Johnny Winter and Dr. John – Love, Life, and Money.  Excellent live performance of a classic from Johnny’s excellent Alligator release “3rd Degree.”

Spinal Tap – Gimme Some Money.  As usual, Christopher Guest and company nail it.

Albert “Master of the Telecaster” Collins – If Trouble Was Money.

And the late, great Duane Allman arranges and plays the bejeebers out of Loan Me a Dime.  It’s long, but stick with it.