261. "Sail to the Moon" by Radiohead

Here are my super-subjective Radiohead eras:

Early: Pablo Honey, The Bends
Epiphany: OK Computer, Kid A
Middle Searching: Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief
Maturity: In Rainbows, King of Limbs, A Moon Shaped Pool

That middle searching period is not as legendary as the "epiphany" high point or the latest successes of a more mature band. But there is still a lot to love there. "Sail to the Moon" is such a strange song, both beautiful and ugly, with an ending that dissembles itself with abrupt, rapid key changes into vapor. 

It's one of the best examples of the prettiness of Thom Yorke's long falsetto voice.

So many great instrumental choices.

A feeling like almost no time signature at all.

260. "Rusty Cage" by Soundgarden

Yes, Johnny Cash did a version of this song. Yeah, he adapted the metal cubist masterpiece into a cool western ballad. No, it's not on any kind of par with the original.

When I first heard this song, I wasn't quite sure what time signature it was in. It's actually not in any special time signature, not for the most part. It starts in just a common, quick 4/4 time. But how the rhythms and musical parts combine push "common" time into most uncommon places. The guitar parts are extraterrestrial. The vocal, especially the chorus, are the primal exquisiteness of Chris Cornell, flowing out over much longer phrases and resolving in odder rhythmical units than most musicians feel entitled to. That arrogant entitlement to its grandiosity is the basis of Soundgarden's existence, and the movement Soundgarden started.

The blitz-attack first half of the song is so great.

The slow haymaker swing of the second half is the definitive Soundgarden heavy. How can something so rhythmically fractured hit down so hard?

The drumming of Matt Cameron is always exceptional, but in this last heavy section, he makes his hall of fame case. Whether it's in his complex but composed rhythm on hi-hat, kick, and snare or in the punishing fills at the turns, just appreciate that there would be far less fun in this music math morass without the control his precise performance maintains.

259. "Rocky Raccoon" by The Beatles

This was the song that solidified my admiration of the Beatles as a teenager. It happened to be on the radio one night, which may seem strange to have such a deep cut off the White Album playing on FM radio, but songs that tell stories about "out in Dakota" tend to get some preference out in Dakota where I lived. At the time, I had limited experience with, and thus my doubts about, the creative depth of the Beatles. But I remember speeding backroads alone, over rainbows of hilly prairie road, randomly hearing "Rocky Raccoon" for the first time, and being so taken with the idea that a little song like this could tell one compact, complete, coherent story, beginning, middle, and end. Multiple characters are introduced in a distinct setting; motivation is established; there is a surprising, poetic climax; and there is even a pithy denouement. The music itself is so tuneful, with such an overpowering sense of foreboding, with an outstanding instrumental digression.

There may not be a Paul McCartney song I love more.

258. "Roadhouse Blues" by The Doors

Dirty, stompin' blues, alloyed with Jim Morrison's suicidal addict nihilism.

Let it roll.

257. "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors

Beethoven had his 6th Symphony; the Doors had "Riders on the Storm."

In a way, it's such a simple song, just a little walking bass, a cool ascending organ part, minimal drums, and a melody that is certainly iconic but not too far away from many other crooning Jim Morrison melodies.

It's the atmosphere. It's the dread. It's the way the Doors understood that quietness is to sound what darkness is to sight.

It's the sound of rain, the best foleyed sound effect in rock music.

The lyrics describe a killer on the loose. I've said before, that before the success of the Doors, there might not have been much difference between Jim Morrison and Charles Manson. Jim Morrison clearly had more talent and a handsome face. He was also the well-off son of a Navy rear admiral. But he wasn't entitled to the fame he craved. And if he hadn't found the fame he did, would he have sought it in a different way?

Anyway, there was a cultish vision to Jim Morrison. There was something off. And maybe even he knew it.

The lyrics name check the rather nihilistic idea of "thrownness," which is often expressed, as in this song, through the metaphor of a dog's life. And maybe this song was Morrison's attempt to stop and look at what a wild spot his circumstances had led to, not unlike Paul McCartney's stopping and looking back in "Let It Be." Maybe he acutely felt the random, thrownness in his life, and how maybe he could've ended up on a different track with just slightly fewer things going his way. And maybe, like McCartney, there is just a little ambivalence about the positives and negatives of that.

Like "Let It Be," "Riders On the Storm" seemed to know that the ride was about over. Even Beethoven's 6th was about the end of the beginning, making a creative leap, leaving the nice music of the past for a future of greater maturity.

Beethoven succeeded in his next phase.
McCartney never really surpassed his past.
Morrison never got the chance.