131. "Human Nature" by Michael Jackson

I've heard this song a thousand times, and I always love the descending synthesizer. It has been three decades, and this song feels brand-new. Some novelty is forever. If it pops on in the car these days, my sons celebrate.

A novel song about craving novelty has proved timeless.

You can be the biggest pop star of all time and still feel confined by the "four walls" of your personal situation. It is human nature. No matter how many adventures you skip off to, the moment you settle into anything new, the walls begin growing up again. Understanding this phenomenon is part of the wisdom of this song. It's all about using those four walls to make some beautiful music.

130. "How to Disappear Completely" by Radiohead

I love the sequence where the band drops out, leaving the orchestra and Thom Yorke's vocal swirling around each other into increasing disarray, until the cacophony gets spliced out and replaced with the band once again at a distinctly softer dynamic. It's a great jump cut at a dramatic moment.

So much of Radiohead's effectiveness rests not on their diverse instrumentation, soundscapes, song construction, or any of these other touted aspects, but simply on the creativity of bass lines played by Colin Greenwood. His bro Johnny gets more spotlight. But while Johnny is creating intermittent guitar whale song here, it is Colin's looping duplet bass line that acts as the song's compelling core. 

Many bassists are assigned supporting roles, holding root notes and asked to just provide a steady, nonintrusive low end. Colin Greenwood, by contrast, devises melodies in his bass lines that are independent of any other ideas in Radiohead songs and contribute as much as any other lead instrument. Without his parts, many songs would be left with chasms. There are notable examples of this I'll eventually point out in other Radiohead entries, but here is an underrated one.

129. "How Many More Times" by Led Zeppelin

Let's say you're new to Led Zeppelin but you're curious to appreciate their music. However, you've also been warned that starting by listening to their staple radio hits is about as tasteful as a bucket of piss.

Yeah, yeah, "Whole Lotta Love," "Heartbreaker," "Ramble On," "Rock n Roll," and the song that shall not be named are all fantastic. But come on, have a little sense of adventure. Your integrity is at stake here.

I have the perfect prescription for you. Go get a copy of Led Zeppelin I, vinyl very strongly recommended. Drop that needle down on the last track. Make sure you don't have any plans for at least the next nine minutes. Probably just block off an hour for what's coming.

A smooth, blues bass line will begin, with a hip, jaunty swing cymbal accompanying. You will immediately become aware of its boggling catchiness. If you screwed up and made plans for the next 20 or so seconds, they will be ruined now due to not being able to pull away from the music playing. Relationships could be at stake, and you will not care. The guitar hasn't even entered yet. 

At first, you may not notice you are hearing a guitar. That psychedelic wahing noise salad that pops in over the drums and bass, that is a guitar being played with a violin bow, a trademark technique of Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. It's okay, you're allowed to make any sounds of pleasure that come naturally to you.

But now it'll become unmistakable that you're hearing a guitar, as it will now be played traditionally. It will enter with just perfect, Page-ean minimal gain, exactly doubling the bass line. But before it can get going, John Bonham on drums will conjure its appearance with one of the best triplet drum introductions committed to magnetic tape. Now, as the bass and guitar play that blues pattern in unison, the drums play a full pattern and become a legitimate voice in your head urging you to give up all your ambitions and concentrate only on wagging your head in rhythmic fashion.

Congratulations: You are in the midst of a song that will make you love Led Zeppelin. The True Led Zeppelin.

Now, here is Robert Plant. He sings in this group. He specializes in blues scales, but as a true artist, he is not going to be bound by any orthodoxy and will demonstrate this by eventually unleashing sounds that go beyond tonality. But for now, just enjoy his perfectly charismatic work on these verses. Due to him, you almost think this song is going to be just a regular pop song with verses and choruses and a quick ending.

You may notice there actually are no choruses in the song. This could leave you feeling uneasy. What selling point is there for a song if there is no chorus to flag it into your memory? Patience. Just let go. 

Yes, that is a drum solo now.

You're right, it is pretty neat. He's a good drummer.

No, it's not ending anytime soon.

You see, they've just added two overdubbed guitar solos within the drum solo. You're forgetting about what you were doing before you started this song, aren't you? Perfectly normal.

I don't want to alarm you, but yes, this song will now build, add a bravura guitar harmony mid-build, then build intensely even more afterward.

Good thing you cancelled those plans. Because the song is not done. The instrumental portion is not even done.

And there it is, after that tremendous build - more instrumental. Jimmy Page went and grabbed his violin bow again. The rest of the band will just be at work growing musical stalactites within your dreams.

I'll be back for you shortly.

Okay, you made it. Here is a funky jam. You earned it. Man, this is my favorite part too. Listen to how all the instruments shift, adapt, and finally coalesce into fully realized groove. They all get in order just in time to leap into a raging resolution. That bass playing is magnificent isn't it? John Paul Jones is the bassist's name. He looks like a different person in every photo of him.

Okay, I'll just let you be now. The rest is all yours. Repeat as needed. You're going to be fine.

128. "Honey Bucket" by The Melvins

As much as I truly enjoy Gluey Porch Treatments, this will be my only Melvins song on the list, so I'd better make it a good one.

"Honey Bucket" is a spleen shot. It is a successful spleen shot, destroying the spleen. You thank it for taking the trouble to liquify your spleen.

The opening instrumental of this song is what the Melvins typically were: Arrogantly savage, rhymically insane, ugly as sin, no regard for coherence other than the goal of rather surgically undoing the very source code of musicality. Other less "poppy" Melvins songs take this "anti-music" idea to absurd lengths (emphasis on length). This is a "poppy" song. Then the song jump cuts into a new scene, abruptly finding a four-beat time signature. Just the most divine down-chopped guitar part, such a crunch. The vocal barks into action. It is a pop song, see, complete with "choruses" of sludgy doom-hammer drum solos. It ends in three minutes sharp.

There are no lyrics. The Melvins are my heroes for rarely writing lyrics, simply inventing the guttural sounds necessary for selling the idea of what lyrics might be appropriate, should they exist. This is at once so meta and workmanly pragmatic. What ideas would you expect this song to contain anyway? The meaning is literally in the utterance. Buzz Osborne is the guitarist and vocalist. As a youth playing music in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington, he took in a wannabe kid named Kurt Cobain, let him watch the already competent Melvins rehearse, and showed him that a musical life will sustain you in whatever state you and the music are in. 

The drumming is of a kind of angelic brutality that takes your breath away with blunt force. I think they technically make no sound, detuned as low as they are. They are to music as infrared waves are to the light spectrum. Their sophistication, especially the opening movement, is belied by the desecration they are committing. Without the drumming, there is no "Honey Bucket." This song, in a way, is Dale Crover's "Moby Dick."

I had the pleasure of meeting the Melvins after a show in Minneapolis many years ago. They were standing outside, next to the white minivan they were touring in. I approached Dale Crover...

I will never get to meet John Bonham, Dave Grohl, Mitch Mitchell, Matt Cameron, or Keith Moon. This was the one drummer in the pantheon of true legends I had standing before me, captive to my most grandiose etudes.

I told him: "You drum good."

He smiled and bowed, giving me a twirly, courtly salute. 

We talked about road travel for a while. They were all very personable, modest guys. Small town guys.

127. "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Unique, silly song built on great melodies, sung and played, and a sneaky good chord structure carried by a fluidly played guitar. The song is funny but delivers a passionate message about connection and making a family.

How often are duets written anymore? There are plenty of two-vocal songs, where some guest star pops in for a highlight moment or two. But when last were there two parts that interacted with each other and the interaction was part of the story of the song?

I love songs that take a melody line and reprise it later with the rhythm or note sequence slightly altered, usually fitted over a subtly altered chord sequence. That's the "Alabama Arkansas" in the ending for me. Writing my own music, I loved finding these opportunities.

Lyrically, so many songs are purely vagaries passed off as insight. This is especially true of love songs. "Home" goes into details of this couple's experience. We are given concrete details of their memories together, down to the payphone calls. Their spoken conversation in the middle development is novel, sweet, and again gives us a legitimate portrait. They speak so respectfully to each other. This is no generic "can't get my mind off you" love ode. I'd like the song even more to know that this story is totally fictional, because it would further show the super imagination at play, and I use the word "play" specifically.

Songs are more than a good beat, sexy singing, and templates of genre conventions. Songs are incarnate imagination. They can be creative joy, just like families.