LISTENING: itunes shuffle

1. Demolition Man (The Police)
No explanation needed.

2. Give Me Flowers While I’m Living (The Knitters)
X gone country. Simon loves this song and requests it often on our morning commute.

3. Born to Be Wild (The Knitters)
Wait for the refrain before you call this cover a blasphemy.

4. Hava Nagila (Dick Dale)
When we played this surf guitar version for the chair dance at Steve C.’s wedding, the look on his very Jewish (LongIsland) mother’s face was priceless.

5. Punk Rock Girl (The Dead Milkmen)
Catchy, yes. Punky, no.

6. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (The Thompson Twins)
Pitch-perfect cover on the Cole Porter tribute album, Red Hot + Blue.

7. We Can Work It Out (Stevie Wonder)
Beatles cover, replete with harmonica and R&B guitar.

8. The Cutter (Echo and the Bunnymen)
What’s not to love about Ian McCulloch, though chances are good Julian Cope wrote this.

9. Save It for Later (The English Beat)
This would be the lead title on the 80s portion of my personal soundtrack.

10. You Know I’m No Good (Amy Winehouse)
She’s the real deal but sweet jeezus she needs to go to rehab. Again. I’ll be highly suspicious if she manages a third album. And, yes, the whole release-the-second-album-as-her-first-album in the States, which qualifies her for a best new artist Grammy, is crap.

11. Can’t Stand It (Velvet Underground)
Again, no explanation needed.

12. Love Train (Wolfmother)
Led Zepplin junior. Quite frankly, there aren’t any clunkers on their really tight debut album, and this is one of my favs.

Bonus video