An extra tasty Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame version to celebrate the new inductees::
Solomon Burke
“Got to Get You Off My Mind”
It’s a classic tune that should have been immortalized long before High Fidelity hit the bookshelves. In it, protagonist Rob Gordon cites “Got to Get You Off My Mind” as the song responsible for his relationship with girlfriend Laura. And let’s be honest, has a bad song ever been responsible for a relationship? Well.okay, I might have opened myself up to some criticism there, what with all the sappy sludge used for dedications on various radio shows across the nation, but I’d counter with this: a song responsible for bringing two people together is by definition a good song, because it did a good thing. In other words, judge the song by what it does, not by what it is per se.
But this one actually is a good song in and of itself, so that’s even better, I imagine.
-Taylor Upchurch
Steely Dan
“Cousin Dupree”
This may be the most striking example of the way in which the Venus-toothed Donald Fagan and his gang of old-timers can get away with expressing a host of potentially objectionable sexual themes and still emerge as cool as ever – and why Eminem cannot. Steely Dan was destined to flirt with incestual drives, just as they have with cradle-robbing, airheads and prostitution. “Cousin Dupree” differs from older commentaries, however, in that it is a lowly and unsuccessful vagabond male (they usually appear as super-sexy Gamma Chi party machines) that becomes the target of sexual commentary, whether or not women again figure as, well, “reduced” characters.
-Bill Bulman
Paul Simon
“Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes”
Of course, there are about five thousand songs that could represent Simon in this meager space, but what better album to represent than Graceland? That 1986 landmark release ignited controversy over Simon’s fusion of African rhythms and vocals with American songwriting, a practice that many thought straddled the line between borrowing and stealing. But absolutely nobody debated the sound (like they did when Simon tried the same trick in South America with Rhythm of the Saints).
“Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” is a compelling argument for the fusion. Call it shameless shoplifting worthy of enshrinement in the Puff Daddy Hall of Fame if you want, but here the vastly different styles sound like they were separated at birth.
-T.U.