Like many of Chilton’s fans in my age bracket, I first heard of him via The Replacements’ song about him, but it took a few years to actually hear what the fuss was about. So when Rykodisc released Big Star Live and the definitive version of Third/Sister Lovers in 1992, I snapped them up. They had clearly lived up to the hype, and I could hear where not only The ‘Mats, but also Matthew Sweet and Teenage Fanclub, both of whom were huge in my life at the time, had gotten a lot of their inspiration.

But I was still missing the first two records. The problem was that they were only available on compact disc, and I didn’t yet have a CD player. Thankfully, my buddy Mike, whose musical knowledge and taste would shame pretty much every member of the Popdose staff (then again, it should be pretty obvious by this point that we have precious little shame), made a cassette copy for me.

Although I knew many of the songs via Big Star Live, to the original studio versions blew the doors off them. From #1 Record’s opening cut, “Feel,” to Radio City’s closer, “I’m In Love With A Girl,” I was spellbound by its fusion of singer-songwriter introspection and aggressive rock, of intricate production and accessible songs. The closest South Florida had to alternative radio at the time was a way left-of-the-dial suburban high school station that signed off around 9:00 (I don’t live there anymore so I don’t know if it’s gotten better). So in the land where Jimmy Buffett and Gloria Estefan were the King and Queen, having the Big Star catalog made me feel like the hippest guy in town (apart from Mike, of course).

So although I’m tempted to pick out a lesser-known song from their catalog, because there are so many brilliantly subtle moments throughout (oh, the glory of the bridge on “When My Baby’s Beside Me”), I have to go with the obvious choice of “September Gurls” from Radio City. When I was listening to it Wednesday night, something about it struck me in a way that I had never noticed before.

We often described jangly melodic rock songs as “Beatlesque,” but the brilliance of “September Gurls” is how Chilton, at his prime, showed he could be three members of The Beatles at once and yet sound entirely original. Its effortlessly catchy melody and singable chorus is straight out of Paul McCartney’s Big Bag O’Hooks; the bitterly introspective lyric, notably the couplet, “I loved you, well, never mind/I’ve been crying all the time” would have made John Lennon take notice. And that bright and shiny guitar tone is straight out of George Harrison’s Sonic Blue Stratocaster on “Nowhere Man.”

Even with the increased exposure this week, it’s hard to envision a situation where Alex Chilton’s death would increase his sales beyond a handful of curious people. But that doesn’t bother me too much. Chilton’s appeal to us music geeks lies as much in his status as one of rock’s greatest cult heroes. But in the 2:49 it takes to listen to “September Gurls,” we can all imagine 73 million tuning in to the Ed Sullivan Show to see Paul Westerberg’s dream of children by the million screaming for Alex Chilton come true.

I first heard of Richard Thompson in 1991. I was reading a lot of guitar mags at the time and every few months or so, one of them would have an article about “the best guitar player you’ve never heard.” When Rumor And Sigh came out, that became the easiest angle to take for them to spotlight the record. But the reason why Thompson’s music stayed with me longer than Roy Buchanan or Danny Gatton was because his solos, however flashy they may be, exist to serve the song, and Thompson can write a song like nobody else.

“From Galway to Graceland” was first released in a live version on Thompson’s 1993 three-CD retrospective, Watching The Dark. I don’t think a studio recording exists, but it’s been on a few other concert CDs and compilations over the past 15 years, and he frequently plays it in his acoustic shows.  So I’ve heard it a bunch of different times, and it has never failed to leave me spellbound.

Thompson is never better when he allows a story to unfold slowly, revealing just enough detail in each verse to keep you interested and then leveling you as the song comes to a close. It starts innocently enough, a middle-aged woman who leaves her husband in the middle of the night to fly from Ireland to Memphis to visit Elvis’ home. But in the second, you learn that she’s more than a typical fan.

She was humming Suspicion, that’s the song she liked best
She had Elvis I Love You tattooed on her breast

I made my own pilgrimage to Memphis and Graceland seven years ago. And yes, there were plenty of people who dressed like one of those souvenir shops on Elvis Presley Boulevard exploded onto them. I distinctly remember one English guy with a mullet and a black party shirt with Elvis’ face down the left side. He was there by himself.

When you see people announcing their obsession in public like that, you keep your distance. And ever since I saw Big Fan, I’m a little more wary of making eye contact with them. But at Graceland, it’s kind of sweet.  We’re all there to celebrate Presley’s life and his musical legacy, so why not go all out with it?

That question is answered by the end of the verse.

She was down by his graveside day after day
Come closing time they would pull her away

We all have our favorite artists and deal with them in our own way. We feel a connection to them that we don’t think anyone else shares. They understand us better than we do.  That’s why “Killing Me Softly With His Song” resonates so deeply and why Bruce Springsteen’s cameo in High Fidelity is so funny. But for some, hero worship turns into delusion. And Thompson, in his typically unflinching style, blows the thing up as the song concludes.

Then they dragged her away it was handcuffs this time
She said, “My good man, are you out of your mind?
Don’t you know that we’re married? See, I’m wearing his ring.
I’ve come from Galway to Graceland to be with the King.”

I have to admit, when I was in the Meditation Garden, I wasn’t reflecting on Elvis’ impact on us all or the tragedy of his death the whole time. I was also thinking of this woman, looking around to see if there was anybody who matched her description. Fortunately, everybody around us was quiet and respectful.  But I still wonder about that English dude.

Happy 75^th birthday, Elvis.

For my final column of the year, I figured I should write about my favorite song of 2009. “Waving Flag” by K’Naan made a few serious challenges at the title, when I first heard it when NPR released his show at South By Southwest as a podcast and again last month when it came up on Shuffle Play. I defy anybody to listen to it and not feel uplifted by its message of hope and positivity amid destruction.

It fell just short, but it was recently named as the official anthem of the 2010 World Cup, so I don’t think K’Naan is too disappointed by finishing second on my list. It’s a far better choice than when UEFA had “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes blaring out of every stadium during Euro 2008, even if it doesn’t work as well as a terrace anthem.

But my Song Of The Year award goes to “This Tornado Loves You” by Neko Case, whom I recently named as Artist Of The Decade on my own blog. In the end, it was, as with everything Case touches, the voice that did it for me.  I’ve listened to this song more than any other this year, with settings ranging from my bedroom with the lights out to crowded bars and Case’s vocals never cease to cut through whatever setting I’m in. To be fair, my local doesn’t have “Waving Flag” on its jukebox, but it does have Middle Cyclone, the album from which “This Tornado Loves You” is taken.

It took a few listens for me to get into the song. I felt that its premise, the notion that a storm is a living entity with the needs as animals, was too confusing to grasp. And while I still don’t buy it, Case sells the concept by inhabiting the character beautifully. She describes the destruction she is causing in search of her estranged love.

I have waited with a glacier’s patience
Smashed every transformer with every trailer
‘Til nothing was standing
Sixty-five miles wide
Still you are nowhere, still you are nowhere
Nowhere in sight
Come out to meet me, come out to meet me
Come into the light

That’s how Case makes the convincing argument. She realizes that the storm can only express its emotions by destroying everything it touches, (probably why her lover left), and the result is heartbreaking. It reminds me of the scene in Edward Scissorhands where Winona Ryder asks Johnny Depp to hold her, only to have him show his grotesque hands and reply, “I can’t.”

But it’s not just the lyrics that sell the song. Throughout the decade, Case has grown as a songwriter because she has a wonderful understanding of song structure but isn’t restricted by it. On “This Tornado Loves You,” she opens with a melody that doesn’t re-appear until shortly before the coda, there’s no chorus, and the bridge, at 37 seconds, is longer than the verse (21 seconds). But it sounds perfectly natural, in part because Paul Rigby’s insistent staccato electric guitar grounds the song while symbolizing the tornado’s menace throughout the song.

There are other wonderful little touches that never fail to move me, like Kelly Hogan’s background vocals, the “I miss” section in the bridge, and the way the drums pick up at 2:14, when the opening section is repeated.

Case has said in interviews that the tornado is not meant to be seen as a metaphor for herself, but there’s no way that she could have written this without understanding its narrator. After all, a traveling rock band is, in essence, a force that briefly blows through town, and changes the lives of those it affects, all in search of the love of the audience. And her cries of “What will make you believe me” as the song’s title is repeated at the end – desperate the first time, dangerously seductive the second – can rip your heart out.

This past Tuesday saw the return of one of my favorite sitcoms to the airwaves, Scrubs.  By the way, if you haven’t seen my Popdose colleague Will Harris’ interview with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence, do it now. One of the hallmarks of the show has been the musical montage. Now it’s ubiquitous, but when Scrubs debuted it brought a cinematic device to the small screen. After all, who didn’t get a little misty when Turk proposed to Carla to “Question” by Old 97s, or turned on when J.D. and Elliot got it on while The Coral’s “Dreaming Of You” blared from the TV?

One of the best montages they did was midway through season 2 on an episode called “My Sex Buddy.” After their annual attempt at what Dr. Cox referred to as “nerdy sex” (the aforementioned use of “Dreaming Of You”), J.D. and Elliot decide that its best if they become “friends with benefits,” a perfect source of conflict on sitcoms. But by the end of the show, J.D. realizes that he wants more from her than she can give. As he is forced to let her go, “Tell Her This,” from Del Amitri’s 1995 album Twisted, comes up on the soundtrack.

Written by bassist/singer Justin Currie and guitarist Iain Harvie, the music on “Tell Her This” is sparse, just a couple of acoustics, bass, and accordion, with a sweeping waltz reminiscent of “Half A World Away” by R.E.M. Lyrically, it deals in familiar territory for Del Amitri. They’ve had a fight, the result of too much drinking, and now he’s trying to get her back. But she’s not speaking to him, so he’s asking someone to be the intermediary and tell her that he’s ready to commit. There’s no chorus, bridge, or solo, only five verses.

On paper, that doesn’t seem like much, but it succeeds for two main reasons. The first is the way the melody fits the lyric. It gives so much space to breathe after each line that the emotion explodes in your cranium. The second is that Currie’s vocal is simply beautiful. He brings out the darker tones in his voice while not losing sight of the melody. And Currie’s phrasing, the most underappreciated aspect of singing, is impeccable, drawing out the lyric without over-emoting. It’s a very nuanced performance, and one that is incredibly difficult to copy.

Del Amitri never got the credit they deserved. Because they were a pure pop group (as opposed to power pop) during the alternative era, their three Top 40 singles sounded more like a reaction to the then-current trends, and therefore didn’t translate into album sales. While it’s easy to think of them as a poor man’s Crowded House (smart, melodic songs but without a unifying anthem like “Don’t Dream It’s Over” or “Weather With You”), to do so overlooks their status as creators of some of the best pop music of the 1990s.

Universal doesn’t allow the original video to be embedded, but you can find it here. Instead I’m embedding a video of Currie performing the song during his tour behind his excellent 2007 solo album What Is Love For.

Like nearly all the great early songs by Old 97′s, the beauty of “Barrier Reef” is how it simultaneously works within the confines of country music while standing them on its head. It starts off with a simple guitar riff by Ken Bethea, followed by the rhythm section of drummer Philip Peeples and bassist Murry Hammond crashing in with a loping shuffle. If that wasn’t enough to scream “COUNTRY!” Rhett Miller’s lyrics seal the deal.

The Empty Bottle was half-empty
Tide was low and I was thirsty
Saw her sitting at the bar

Isn’t that perfect? Within the first 25 seconds, you’ve got a bar with a great name for the local honky-tonk, and a girl just waiting for some guy to put the moves on, which is what Rhett does in the second verse.

So I sidled up beside her
Settled down, shouted “Hi, there!
“My name’s Stuart Ransom Miller
“I’m a serial ladykiller”

Only guys who look like Rhett Miller can get away with lines as cheesy as that and have them work. It also helps when she responds with “I’m already dead.” In the third verse, they dance all night, then decide to get the hell out of there as the song builds up to the chorus.

What’s so great about the Barrier Reef?
What’s so fine about art?
What’s so good about a Goodtimes Van
When you’re working on a broken, working on a broken
Working on a broken man?

Turns out the self-proclaimed “serial ladykiller” is anything but. The lyrical shift is matched by the music, as the guitars kick in and Miller’s tone changes from seductive to desperate. After the guitar solo, Miller tells us what went wrong.

My heart wasn’t in it
Not for one single minute
I went through the motions with her
Her on top and me on liquor
Didn’t do no good
Well, I didn’t think it would

Remember that classic scene in Say Anything… where Lloyd’s friend tells him that, in order to get over Diane, he needs to “find a girl that looks just like her, nail her, and then dump her?” Thankfully, Lloyd didn’t take his advice, but Miller apparently did, and it turned out as well as expected. But at least he got laid, right?

As great as “Barrier Reef” is on its own, it works best in conjunction with “Timebomb,” the song that precedes it on the band’s 1997 Elektra debut Too Far to Care. “Timebomb” features Miller crazy about a “stick-legged girl” who’s “gonna kill me/and I don’t mean softly.” So when “Barrier Reef” comes in immediately afterward, it comes across as the aftermath of “Timebomb,” and forms one of the great one-two punches for an album of the past 15 years.

Unfortunately, the otherwise excellent jukebox lacks this particular masterpiece, and had to wait until I was done for the night when I could crank it up on the journey home. But I didn’t realize that my iPod was set on Shuffle, so after “Rocks Off,” I didn’t get the breathless rush of “Rip This Joint,” but rather “Let It Loose.”

Some albums hit you on first listen. Others remain outside your grasp for years no matter how many times you keep coming back to them. Then, one day, it all starts to make sense, opening up worlds you never thought existed. Exile is one of those albums. I knew “Tumblin’ Dice” and “Happy” from classic rock radio, but, like most double albums, it was too sprawling. The other albums the Stones put out in that period, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers, were more accessible, more compact. Even worse was a muddy mix that made most of Mick Jagger’s vocals unintelligible. I could only pay it lip service, repeating what others had said about it, for fear of losing my credibility.

But every once in a while, usually when the Stones would release yet another newly remastered version, I’d give it another shot. At some point, maybe 12 years after a friend first dubbed a cassette copy for me, I finally began to hear what the critics always were raving about. And yet, there are still layers I haven’t been able to peel back, and that just drives me deeper into it to find out its mysterious secrets, another one of those things the critics love about it.

The key to unlocking “Let It Loose” is in Keith’s guitar playing, which is heavily influenced by Pops Staples in its tone and use of hammer-ons. The song starts with a familiar arpeggiated descending run based on a D chord (with a capo on 3) that takes a detour through an A major before getting back to the D. It repeats itself, then the detour is through an E minor, which is also played twice.

As a result, “Let It Loose” simultaneously exists in two keys (D and G). Given their blues roots and that the song only has five chords, I don’t think they intended that when they wrote it. Most likely Keith just came up with a riff he liked. But its bitonality, as well as the progression’s refusal to stay on any full chord longer than one bar, gives the song its restless, late-night vibe. As the song builds, Keith stays with the arpeggios rather than switch to strumming, which grounds the song in, paradoxically, that sense of restlessness.

But the real star of “Let It Loose” is Jagger. Throughout his career, his vocals have so frequently become the subject of cliché and parody (both by comics and himself) that it’s easy to forget how incredible he could be sometimes. He finally learned the lessons from the soul and gospel records that infuse Exile – that it’s about holding back until you no longer can, and his pain is palpable.  Maybe his vocals are low in the mix because he saw too much of his vulnerabilities on lyrics like “Bit off more than I can chew/And I knew what it was leading to,” “I can’t resist a corny line,” and “I ain’t in love/I ain’t in luck,” and the famously guarded Jagger wanted to bury them.

Even better is when he comes out of the bridge, changing the point of attack by beginning the vocal on the A rather the D. It’s such a subtle move that I never realized it until I played along with it the other day in preparation for this column, and one I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. It’s not so much a key change as it is taking advantage of the song’s bitonality.

Maybe because it’s buried deep in the album (the last song on Side Three on the original double LP), but it wasn’t until its use in The Departed that “Let It Loose” revealed itself to me. By the way, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Martin Scorcese movies, it’s that if you’re in a bar and an obscure Stones song starts playing, settle and get out quickly and quietly. Someone’s gonna get hurt, and it could be you. Maybe it’s a good thing my bar’s jukebox doesn’t have Exile.

Essentially, this column will look at a different song each week, but unlike, say, Scott Malchus’ incredibly moving Basement Songs, I won’t be dealing with my personal connections to the songs. There will be some of that in there, but, for the most part, I’ll be focusing more on the songwriting aspects, breaking down crucial parts of the music and lyrics to get a better understanding of why, in the words of Craig Finn, certain songs get so scratched into our souls.

Although I have yet to purchase it, the new Big Star box set (thanks in part to Ken Shane’s excellent review) has put that much-celebrated, little-heard band into my head over the past week. But while the first song of the new Infinite Play series is on that set, it’s not by the seminal power pop band, but by founding member Chris Bell. “You and Your Sister” was originally the B-side to “I Am The Cosmos,” the only solo release by Bell in his lifetime.

The song functions as a sort of response to Alex Chilton’s classic “Thirteen,” from Big Star’s debut, #1 Record. Both are gentle acoustic ballads and are even in the same key (Bb, played in G with capos on the third fret). I don’t know if that was intentional on Bell’s part, but it does help in understanding why Chilton and Bell were such a perfect match for each other. Let’s look at the second verse of both songs.

“Thirteen”

Won’t you tell your dad to get off my back?
Tell him what we said about “Paint It Black”
Rock and roll is here to stay
Come inside now, it’s OK
And I’ll shake you

“You and Your Sister”

Your sister says that I’m no good
I’d reassure her if I could
All I want to do
Is to spend some time with you
So I can hold you, hold you

Both feature family members looking to break up a relationship, that’s really the only lyrical similarity. “Thirteen” is about teenage sex, while “You And Your Sister” is about adult love. And although Chilton’s voice is rougher and more menacing, Bell’s yearns in a way that breaks your heart in the best possible way.

But even though that is Chilton on background vocals, “You And Your Sister” is all Chris Bell. It hasn’t been as covered as often as “Thirteen,” probably because of the gorgeous falsetto in the bridge can be intimidating to most singers. It’s also a beautiful arrangement, with the strings and flutes (real or Mellotron?) lifting that bridge to a place that “Thirteen” can’t touch. And the fingerpicking melody that comes out of the verse isn’t nearly as difficult to play as it sounds, which is something I always love to find out when I’m strumming along with a song.

It’s not enough to say that, in Big Star, Chilton was the grit and Bell was the heart. The beauty of the partnership was that they could play each other’s roles while maintaining their own personalities. Chilton had his share of lovely moments (“Watch the Sunrise”) and Bell could rock out something fierce (“Feel”). But “You and Your Sister,” along with the rest of the I Am The Cosmos CD that was released in 1992, is proof that there was more to Big Star than just Chilton.