A week ago Friday my lovely wife Debbie & I went to see alternative folkie (my description) Dar Williams at a Six String Concert Series show. And right towards the end of Ms. Williams’ “The Babysitter’s Here,” I leaned over and whispered, “This is a perfect song.”
Which brings us to the subject of what I consider a Perfect Song; i.e. a tune in which I wouldn’t change one word of the lyric or one second of the music or arrangement. There’s not very many of those in my musical universe, here’s the first five* off the top of my head…….
(*Bear in mind: these aren’t my Five Favorite Songs, or what I consider The Five Best Songs, they’re 5 Perfect Songs.)
THE LEFT BANKE / “PRETTY BALLERINA” / released 1966
MANITOBA’S WILD KINGDOM (offshoot band of THE DICTATORS) / “NEW YORK NEW YORK” / first released 1981 by The Dictators
(to clarify; the first studio recording of this song was by Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom (1990), but it was - and always shall be - a Dictators tune)
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND / “CANDY’S ROOM” / first released 1978 (this live version also ‘78)
(in some cases, live performances of Perfect Songs will be used here, because they’re SO PERFECT live versions can’t/don’t diminish them)
DAR WILLIAMS / “THE BABYSITTER’S HERE” / first released 1993
ELLIOTT MURPHY / “DUSTY ROSES” / released 1982
The “election time” mentioned in this song was 1980, Ronald Reagan’s first election. In 1984 Reagan won 49 of the 50 United States in the biggest landslide of my 72 years on the planet. I think of this tune every time an election doesn’t go the way I want it to, i.e 2024. Please remember that four years after that 1984 Republican drubbing the American people elected a Democrat president. And please try to formulate your own resistance to this presidency.
Ricki C. is 72 years old and has two dresser drawers full of black rock & roll t-shirts, which he wears incessantly. He also has a hand-tooled leather hippie belt from 1972 that still fits. He has congestive heart failure and prostate cancer and KNOWS that all this rock & roll nonsense has to stop someday.
But not yet.
By his count, he has lived through 40 years of Republican presidential rule and 32 years of Democratic. He would fervently like to outlive Donald J. Trump.