Pantheon Songs

Yelling, screaming, and theatrics will always be a part of religion. Religion, like any other sector, always needs its loudmouths and grotesqueries because it is a sure-fire way to get new followers, if it means one new follower at a time or five hundred new followers at a time. But the soul of religion—its honest-to-God soul—lies in the calm and the peaceful, the understated. The realest and purest beauty of religion resides in those who have little to say or write; the ones whose thoughts and art speaks for itself and forgoes the task of needing a self-appointed consultant to speak on its behalf. But this post is not about religion—at least, not about things that deal with gods and lessons and morality. This post is about how there is a religion to everything, and how “I Am a Pilgrim” by The Byrds best illustrates this notion.

David Foster Wallace once said that there is no such thing as atheism; everyone worships something. Whether or not music can be worshiped as a single thing that is separate from money is debatable, but there is definitely a religion aspect associated with it in every possible sense (i.e.–appreciation, deification, sainthood, emulation, hagiography, etc.). Like religion, music needs its loudmouths and grotesqueries to get people to its tabernacle, as these things help drive sales and image and marketing. Rock and hip hop needs its middle fingers and “fuck tha police”s and misogyny and destroyed hotel rooms and mythical groupie stories. Country music needs its awkward and politically incorrect social evangelism and its alcoholism and racist undertones. Pop music needs its objectification and sexualized teenagers and vapid commentary. I am not saying that these needs are inherently good, or should always be viewed as acceptable. I am saying that they are all required, in some way, to get the message out there—to ensure that the gospel of music reaches ears on a larger scale. And just like religion, the grotesqueries of music (the misogyny, the racism, the sexualization of youth) allow us to properly adjust and criticize its context in a right/wrong kind of way. Luther Campbell may have made a lot of money, but he will almost always be seen as a clown in any meaningful context. This is the give and take inherent in freedom of speech (and religion). Which leaves us with a lens to focus on the rest of the music landscape—the places inhabited by people who do not rely on spectacle and controversy. (Please do not misinterpret the previous sentence to mean that I am going to transition to the notions of purity and morals and Doing Things The Right Way, or that I am suggesting that the loudmouths never have a point and that the quieter artists should be praised by default based on some delusion that a publicly docile demeanor equals integrity. All artists, just like the rest of us, are flawed in some way. There’s no need for the sepia toned or Precious Moments treatments.)

Within this landscape you will find Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the album by The Byrds that was released in 1968, and on this album you will find “I Am a Pilgrim”—a cover of a traditional song whose lyrics are firmly rooted in a religious purview (as if the title doesn’t already give that away). This song begins with a fiddle played by guest musician John Hartford that introduces itself right off the bat, perhaps a little too loudly for those who don’t like fiddles so much, but it moves at a slow pace and it is accented nicely by the mellow gait of the other string instruments: a bass, a banjo, and an acoustic guitar. Even when Hartford speeds up the fiddle it never comes across as jagged or shrill, or anything suggestive of a hoe-down or cartoon-ish drunken dancing involving people wearing overalls.

The music of “I Am a Pilgrim” is a terrific mixture of modernity and antiquity, of trying to polish something old so as to make it new again; it is the product of Gram Parson’s desire to plumb through the earthy catalog of American country music and update it in a newer studio with better equipment. It’s four kids flying in to Nashville from Los Angeles and leaving having produced something that had never really been done by a rock band (even though they would later be heckled by the crowd at the Ryman Auditorium). This is a song that can act as a bridge back to history, to Roy Acuff and Jimmie Rodgers and Ernest Tubbs and the other pioneers of American country music if you have never given much thought to any of them.

The music is one thing, the vocals are quite another.

Chris Hillman’s vocals on this song are some of the best in any rock or country song I have ever heard. The volume of his voice is perfectly calibrated. His voice is mellow and light but backed up with intangibles that somehow make it sound authoritative. The yellers, screamers, and theatrically-minded singers wear their hearts on their sleeve; the rest attempt to create a direct auditory portal to their soul. Hillman’s voice on this track sounds like a combination of the kind of soft crooning and solemn, eyes-closed-while-singing seriousness that almost every white male singer has tried to emulate since The Beatles released “Yesterday.” His voice paints a picture of recording takes in a darkened studio with a couple candles burning—something requiring an ambiance befitting a religious experience such as this, even if it never happened that way at all.

So with all due respect to “Eight Miles High,” “Ballad of Easy Rider,” “Turn! Turn! Turn (to Everything There is a Season)” and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “I Am a Pilgrim” is the greatest song that The Byrds ever produced. It is a song that can transcend what it means to love a piece of music, and in the process it advances the idea that music can be a religious experience. To be sure, whenever someone loves a piece of art—really really loves it—it can be described as something on par with religious experience. But to hear Chris Hillman sing “I am a pilgrim/And a stranger/Traveling through this wearisome land/I’ve got a home in that yonder good Lord/And it’s not/Not made by hand” it can become a figurative and/or literal manifestation of musical religion.

Amen.

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“Boxing is like jazz. The better it is, the less people appreciate it.”
— George Foreman

“This [holds up cassette] is Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Stockholm, 1963. Two masters of freedom, playing in a time before their art was corrupted by a zillion cocktail lounge performers who destroyed the legacy of the only American art form: jazz.”
— Chad, the babysitter child technician from Jerry Maguire

********************

I, probably like a lot of people, have a complicated relationship with jazz. As a result of this, I am an admitted neophyte when it comes to this genre and I apologize in advance if any true blue-blooded jazz fan reads this post and eviscerates me for A) the song that I have chosen to represent John Coltrane on this site and/or B) if the writing in this post comes across like it was written by a hopelessly uncool guy hoping to sound like he knows anything about anything when it comes to jazz. (Or if it comes across as Ken Burns-ian which, quite honestly, is the last thing I want it to be. In most cases, I think I would rather be tragically uncool than be described as “Ken Burns-ian.”)

Okay, so maybe “complicated” isn’t the right word to describe my relationship with, and feelings towards, jazz but my relationship with it is definitely weirdly personal at times. To me, jazz is like The Federalist Papers: something that partly defines America, but also something that I’ve never been interested in diving head-first into. I rarely ever listen to jazz in my free time. I don’t own any Miles Davis albums. (I can probably only name three Miles Davis albums in total.) I have never sat in a jazz club or ever listened to a jazz band perform live. I cannot name any track titles from the Mingus catalog. I could go on for a while. That said, jazz, because it is such an American style of music and so prevalent throughout much of early 20th century American history, causes me to have a very provincial type of knee-jerk reaction should anyone disparage it. I could give two shits if Russia or China or Iran or North Korea publicly made fun of the US or trash-talked us to no end at an Olympics (or at some regional or international summit).^[1] But if I ever heard some Russian/Chinese/Iranian/North Korean blowhard say that jazz is music for the insane, or that jazz and its asymmetrical nature properly defines the inherent stupidity of Americans, or whatever? Well fuck you, you God-less, soulless harbingers of world destruction. You and all of your minions can all go die your slow Ivan Ilyich death (minus the moment of humanistic clarity at the end) and pretend that you matter in the overall scheme of things.

Like I said: it’s a bit complicated, me and jazz.

As someone who inherently loves to consume and discover great art, I get jazz in a macro sense. Jazz is rambunctious, disorderly, beautiful, and always one step ahead of you. Its voice is inherently primal and raw; its virtuosity is founded on chaos. Is there any other musical genre that acts as a more perfect totem of how America inexplicably works, a country in which potentially combustive contradictions seem to routinely work themselves out instead of creating revolutions and class warfare? Jazz is as American as a Whitman poem cross-pollinated with a Pollock painting.

George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” was significant because it brought jazz to a wider (and whiter) audience. As a result of this, it is probably one of the most important songs in the canon of American music.^[2] Gershwin may have helped pushed jazz into a wider mainstream consciousness but John Coltrane is the face of jazz in terms of mainstream consciousness (a title that is probably shared with Miles Davis). Even if you don’t like jazz you probably know who John Coltrane is, if only by name.

Coltrane died in 1967 at the age of 40 from liver cancer. He had a heroin problem, and he released nearly 160 studio and live albums, EPs, and singles before his death. The last sentence isn’t meant to summarize the man’s life in nineteen cold, blunt words but rather to open the door to something else that is very American: our love for the tragic artist. John Coltrane produced a prolific catalog of music in the short time that he recorded music (the aforementioned 160 releases were made, remarkably, in only a ten year span) and he left an indelible footprint on jazz (the use of substitute chords over jazz chord progression in jazz harmony are called, amongst other things, “Coltrane changes”). He was even canonized.

It is human nature to mourn the early death of an artist by wondering what might have been and by trying to imagine what their art would have become. But it seems that the American way of dealing with the sudden, curtained exit of great artists is to almost rabidly try to keep the artist’s legacy alive. Books, movies, documentaries, letters, remastered and reissued recordings: all of which are firmly engrained in our collective mourning process. (It helps to have the dual creative and marketing powers of Hollywood and New York City in our backyard.)

In talking or writing about John Coltrane it is almost impossible not to talk about his death, because his death was so sudden. Coltrane did not live to see the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, the escalating mess of the Vietnam war, the society-altering event of Watergate, the birth of prog rock and disco, the wild and raw elements that was NYC in the mid and late ’70′s. We were not allowed to hear how he would have processed those things (and countless others) and compile them into music consisting of the kind of beautifully chaotic notes that jazz is built on. As someone who does not entirely “get” jazz on a micro level I will be the first to say that I would love to be able to see that alternate reality in which John Coltrane lived to be 70 years old. I would love to hear the albums that he made that were born out of the tumultuous late ’70′s in New York City. I think about these things because of “Giant Steps.”

“Giant Steps” is the first song on Giant Steps, the first album in which every song was composed by Coltrane and the last album in which he fully embraced bebop (he would move on to more modal and experimental sounds). The name “Giant Steps” is a kind of shorthand for an augmented triad, which is a triad or chord consisting of two major thirds. Thus, the “giant steps” here can be heard by way of the spacing in between Tommy Flanagan’s fingers on the piano at the beginning.

I may not be well versed in the history or intricacies of jazz or of John Coltrane’s catalog but beauty is beauty and great art is great art, and even a neophyte like me can understand the groundbreaking nature of this song. As an entity that helps paint the picture of modern music history “Giant Steps” changed the paradigm of its genre. This song is the jazz equivalent of the opening riffs of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” or Elvis appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. As a piece of music that can be enjoyed without history or context, this composition is a wonderful array of lilting, skipping, and ethereal sounds that come together in perfect harmony. Again, I may not be qualified to give a proper recessional to John Coltrane, and maybe “Giant Steps” isn’t the best song to properly define one of the unequivocal giants of the genre. But to this neophyte, this composition best captures the essence of what jazz is, how it helps to explain America without words, and how music truly is an always-expanding universal language.

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[1] What do I care if North Korea thinks they are better than us? Or if Iran thinks they are superior to us? They are supposed to think that way lest the collective psychological value of their country take a giant hit.

[2] Its significance is also helped by the fact that it is a timeless and beautiful piece of music.

If you are unfamiliar with the name Desmond Dekker he can be properly summed up as such: he was the progenitor of Jamaican music on the international stage; his popularity in the early ’60′s set the table for Bob Marley.

When it comes to modern music, especially post-1962 music, there are really only three categories in terms of geography: Music From America, Music From England, and Music From Everywhere Else.^[1] The Music From Everywhere Else category is what would probably be considered “world music” to most people. This is typically the kind of music heard in coffee shops, at artsy/eclectic dinner parties, at kiosks in big box stores which usually involve a collection of CDs with landscape or beachscape pictures on the covers, etc. World music sometimes involves an instrument you have never heard of (and a white person who is quick to point out the origin and various other trivial tidbits of said previously unheard-of instrument).

World music is typically comprised of equal parts universality and local/native flavor of the song or artist. Desmond Dekker’s universality consisted of standard fare old school ska music (the use of horns, the jabbing riffs that straddle the razor’s edge between mellow and energetic) set to lyrics that had a social commentary whose locality could be understood and applied to a diverse and global audience. Within the context of this site, Desmond Dekker falls into the category of artists (such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Velvet Underground) in which you could quite literally pick any song from their early catalog and use it to explain their role in creating the panorama that is modern music. Dekker’s music is that good and that important in the grand scheme of things. One could easily select “Israelites” or “007 (Shanty Town)” or “This Woman” or “King of Ska” or “Mother Long Tongue” as the song to focus on here. But like The First once said in an episode of Buffy, “we’re going back to the beginning.”^[2] Which is why I am going to go with “Honour Your Mother and Father,” Dekker’s first single, as the song to be displayed in the Pantheon.

Released in 1963 “Honour Your Mother and Father” lays the foundation for Dekker’s legacy. The music possesses all of the minimalist and mellow Jamaican qualities that any truly great ska song should be compared to, and its recorded-on-a-dollar-budget feel gives it a charming and roots-y feeling that could not be easily duplicated nowadays. The message of the song, and the way that Dekker sings it, contains the best kind of idealistic humanity: love your parents as though you love yourself, do unto others as they would do to you. In the era of modern irony, this sentiment is kind of groan-inducing and, well, overly sentimental. It’s the kind of message that whiffs of Precious Moments figurines and televised public access church sermons. It’s not supposed to be the basis for a first single.

And maybe that is exactly why world music (or international music, or whatever you might personally refer to it as) is so endearing and timeless: it can cut through the white noise of our lives and it can cut through our irony barriers easier than the music from our own geography, especially to anyone living in America or England. The world music artists and their instruments and their accents are foreign but the message is universal. Don’t get me wrong, that last sentence is something that we all inherently know; it’s a cliche wrapped in a proverb with a creamy platitude center. And I am not saying that American or British artists are incapable of creating beautifully universal music (songs like “At Last” by Etta James and “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles are so fundamentally gorgeous and accessible that they cut through all social and language barriers too). But there is something to be said about the kind of perspective and beauty and insight that only a foreigner can bring to the table—it’s why books like Things Fall Apart or Anna Karenina draw a powerful reaction to those who are introduced to it. The art is foreign but its greatness makes it all feel so native, and it has the capacity to reduce everything to the most important common denominator when it comes to living life: that we are all people, all connected in some way; we are not a collection of separate tribes.

So when you listen to something like “Honour Your Mother and Father” for the first time the music may hit you first and you may not pay attention to the lyrics all that much. But if you do listen to the lyrics you can hear the heartfelt delivery of them and how they have the power to break through our ironic and cynical wall (as only someone who was not a product of said irony and cynicism could do).

E.E. Cummings once wrote,^[3] “here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud/and the sky of the sky of a tree called life.” The root of the root here is all of the things that artists like Desmond Dekker represent—artists who grow up in different corners of the world, poor corners of the world, who, through luck and timing and talent, make art that reaches people many thousands of miles away from their home.

I do not begrudge anyone who sees “Honour Your Mother and Father” as merely a song (and maybe not even a good one) or Dekker as merely an artist. But in the sky of the sky of a tree called life Dekker was the first musician from Jamaica (or the Caribbean in general really) to become recognizable on a global stage, and isn’t that an inherently wonderful thing: that we are all interconnected in part by songs such as “Honour Your Mother and Father?” It may sound sappy but it is also one hundred percent true—just like you should do unto others as they would do to you.

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[1] This is not to say that music from Germany (Kraftwerk) or Ireland (Van Morrison) or Sweden (ABBA) or any other non-Brit country doesn’t matter in the overall scheme of things. It just means that the scales tip overwhelmingly to the side of England when it comes to universally known artists and bands throughout Europe to the point that I think it’s fair to give England their own 1/3rd for the purposes of this post.

[2] The First, short for The First Evil, was the main villain of the seventh and final season. The quote referenced above is from the first episode of the final season, delivered when it took the form of The Master (the main villain from the first season of the show). The First’s ability was that it could take the form of any dead person/demon/vampire. You probably never expected Buffy the Vampire Slayer to be referenced in a post about about an international ska musician. I’m a bit of a Buffy nerd. Hi.

[3] I couldn’t let the only quote on this post be from Buffy. I’m not that much of a nerd.

“Green Onions” by Booker T. & the M.G.’s is a song that you have heard before numerous times, even if you are thinking to yourself, “Booker T. & the M.G.’s—who? ‘Green Onions’—what? I’ve never heard of either of one of those things” after reading the beginning of this sentence.

But trust me: you have absolutely heard this song before. Probably hundreds of times, depending on how old you are.

“Green Onions” is an instrumental song that was released by Booker T. & the M.G.’s in 1962, originally on the nascent Stax Records subsidiary Volt Records label but later released as an official A-side by Stax. It is a song that has been used in countless movie trailers, movies, television promos, television shows, and commercials. And its generous mainstream use in cinema and television can be tied back to one primary reason: because it is one of the coolest fucking songs ever written. This is a song that wears perfectly fitted sunglasses and laid back clothing without irony.^[1] It is a song that no doubt makes an appearance on everyone’s internal soundtrack when we wish that we could have our own cinema style slow-motion shot of walking down the street, or through an airport, or getting out of a car. It is also a song that very much defines early ’60′s Memphis, not only in musical terms but in social terms too.

Musically, Booker T. & the M.G.’s as an individual band (and Stax Records as a whole) were the yin to Sun Records’ yang even though both were founded by white businessmen (Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton with Stax,^[2] Sam Philips with Sun) and both labels were purveyors of a Memphis sound that forever altered American music and pop culture. Sun had the “Million Dollar Quartet,” Stax had Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Sam & Dave. Sun appealed to a broad American audience, Stax, for the most part, was more regional and more firmly entrenched in the Memphis soul/gospel/blues/funk scene. In addition to being a band that wrote and performed its own music, Booker T. & the M.G.’s were also the official house band for Stax and they played on hundreds of tracks for a wide array of artists. This group is arguably one of the most important bands of the rock era that most people are completely unaware of.

Socially, Booker T. is significant because, well, look at the picture above. Two white guys and two black guys. In a band. In Memphis. In 1962. And while we may nowadays think of the early ’60′s South with images of separate bathrooms and drinking fountains, and German Shepherds and fire hoses unleashed on unsuspecting black people, Memphis was actually quite integrated as far as music went (although having two white guys in a soul band was the Booker T. exception and not the rule). Whatever people’s public opinions were on black people in Memphis in the early ’60′s the private enjoyment of music didn’t have a color bias for many folks. If you would like to delve into this further I would recommend Robert Gordon’s It Came From Memphis for further reading.

In the meantime, I’m going to skip over the socio-political aspects of this band and of early ’60′s Memphis^[3] and cut right to the song at hand—the one that Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Jr., and Lewie Steinberg created. “Green Onions” starts with one of the most memorable openings ever produced by the communion of fingers and electric organ, which is then layered on top of by single guitar riffs that fit so perfectly into place it’s like the word “effortless” is being defined by musical notes rather than speech. Booker T. Jones coaxes the shuffling and strolling out of the organ and Steve Cropper releases the indescribably perfect and minimal moans from his guitar. Lewie Steinberg’s bass trots and skips along with the carefree (but still technically sound) attitude of a child prodigy just whipping something up for fun. And Al Jackson, Jr.’s drums anchor everything together, allowing the song’s cool qualities to breathe and blossom while also reigning everything in so that it never encroaches upon anything too experimental or disjointed. The first thirty seconds of this song alone has enough soul, swagger, and downright fucking awesomeness to gain immediate entry into the Pantheon. Lucky for us this song clocks in at just under three minutes.

You may not recognize the name of this band, the names of its members, or the title of this song, but as soon as you hear those opening notes from Booker T.’s organ you’ll know exactly what song this is: one of the greatest modern instrumental songs that America ever produced this side of Jazz.

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[1] Of course, this song has been used ironically (and cornily). And those people who used this song for dumb and unfunny purposes should be stabbed in the thigh with twenty shrimp forks.

[2] Stax Records was originally founded in Memphis in 1957 as Satellite Records. The name change occurred in 1961.

[3] I feel like the last two posts had enough social and political opinion to get me through for a little while.

Country music is a polarizing genre. On the one hand it represents a sizable portion of the musical and cultural DNA of American society, and on the other hand its significance within the musical and cultural fabric of American society is looked at by some with scorn and bile. Country music is 50% responsible for rock n’ roll^[1] (which is a good thing) but it is also seemingly associated with 98% of All That Is Wrong With America, from the perspective of those who listen to NPR and watch The Daily Show (which is a bad thing). To the elitist^[2] and the boorish, country music can be assimilated to wretched SUVs, gun racks, inbreeding, NASCAR, and birthers. (And dueling banjos foreshadowing forced sodomy in wooded areas.) And while country music as a mainstream genre has made huge inroads into Top 40 radio and Madison Avenue marketing over the last twenty years, it is still very much seen by many as the racist unemployed cousin who you dread seeing the one time a year at Thanksgiving or Christmas. As an institution and foundation of American music as a whole, country music is very much a part of our social DNA but to talk about country music is to talk about the South, where it took root, shape, and form. And to talk about the South is to have the (depending on your perspective) incorporeal specters—or corporeal monsters—of slavery and segregation along the periphery, which is probably why those who identify themselves as being Left have such an easy time discounting country music to begin with: the historical inclusion of slavery and segregation allows them to build an impenetrable demarcation point separating the good (Left) from the ugly (Right). In some cases, the musicians themselves who wholeheartedly embrace the Right can be used as the demarcation point—see: Keith, Toby.

In the mid and late ’60′s country music started to become absorbed by the Counterculture/Left and gradually became co-opted by the West (the polar opposite of the South). In their attempt to deconstruct and revisit and reassemble and take inventory of everything in the mainstream before them, the Left, after having destroyed the nuclear family and the virtue of social obedience by way of irony, performed a successful face-lift on the Right’s last sacred cow, country music, by way of (mostly) simple curiosity. If Bob Dylan can perform folk songs with an electric guitar, and The Beach Boys can record an album that uses dog’s barking and bicycle bells, and The Beatles can integrate Middle Eastern instruments into their music, and The Rolling Stones—a group of white English kids—can be seen as legitimate blues artists, and a collection of bands could give serious weight to the psychedelic genre, then isn’t country music basically the last frontier to conquer?—this is the question that I can envisage crossing the minds of many artists and bands in the late ’60′s.

You could argue about which album ushered in the modern country movement in the rock era but to me it begins with Sweetheart of the Rodeo by The Byrds. The album was initially conceived as being a commentary on 20th century music as a whole but the newest member of the band, Gram Parsons, had a better idea: have the album fully embrace a country music aesthetic. The result is an album that includes covers of songs by Cindy Walker and Merle Haggard, a cover of the traditional folk song “I Am A Pilgrim,” and a country-fied version of William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water.” If you love present-day country music, this album is a terrific throwback; if country’s not your thing but you have a healthy appetite for music, this is one of those albums that you need to hear before you die. It’s a great American album that few Americans, Right- or Left-leaning, have heard.

Within a year Parsons (and founding member Chris Hillman) left The Byrds, formed The Flying Burrito Brothers and released their debut album The Gilded Palace of Sin. Like Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the debut album by The Flying Burrito Brothers is a critic’s darling and a huge influence on modern country music. And the first track on Gilded Palace, “Christine’s Tune,” is one of the best country songs of the rock era.^[3]

“Christine’s Tune” starts with a gorgeous opening by way of an acoustic guitar effortlessly galloping along until met with an electric twangy guitar, followed by a fuzzy, lo-fi guitar in the distance that signifies the end of the choruses. Lyrically, this song is an evisceration of whoever Christine is; a deliberate and epic takedown of a woman who is repeatedly described as “a devil in disguise.”^[4] One of the best group of lyrics, though, is:

“Unhappiness has been her close companion
Her world is full of jealously and doubt
It gets her off to see a person crying
She’s just the kind that you can do without”

And in a stroke of genius, the last lyric is a terrific jab at the guy in the song. The song is basically saying Well, yeah, this woman’s a bitch and heartless and yet… you still have to sleep with her. To me, it’s a great and subtle commentary on the shallowness that can consume males when it comes to sex. It’s sarcastic and it also expands upon the idea of sex as a weapon.

If this song were originally produced by some folks in the heart of Tennessee or the South, there’s a good chance that the last lyrics dealing with the guy’s perspective would be more macho or more humorous. Instead, Parsons and Hillman built in a subtlety into the song: a subtlety that’s invisible if you don’t want to look for it or hear it (because, let’s face it, this is nothing if not a terrific fuck you/breakup song) but if you do notice it it’s a great nuance, which transforms the song from merely being an angry song about a girl to being one that chips at the gilded ego of males.

The Flying Burrito Brothers created a song using an aesthetic that was firmly Right and made it into something that the Left could appreciate without irony factoring into it. The West took a page from the South and made it their own—what a brilliant totem for not only the soul of the counterculture movement but of the metamorphosis of one of America’s most defining musical genre.

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[1] Blues music is responsible for the other 50%.

[2] Please don’t interpret my use of the word elitist here as being a license to assume that I am using it in the same context that The Right uses it, which is to say that they use elitist as an umbrella term for “everything that a liberal or Democrat enjoys” (i.e.–The New York Times, a college education, Whole Foods, etc.). I use the word here to apply to people who reply with “I like all kinds of music… except country music” when asked what music they listen to. You know who you are.

[3] “Dead Flowers” by The Stones is still the best and most definitive country song of the rock era to me but “Christine’s Tune” isn’t far behind.

[4] In fact, if you were to listen to this song for the first time and not know what the title was beforehand you would probably assume that it was called “Devil in Disguise.”

Elvis completely changed the paradigm of how rock music was made and how it was marketed. The Beatles completely changed the paradigm of what it meant to be a rock band and a pop band. They were also probably the first band to have three legitimate no-questions-asked rock geniuses: (in no particular order) Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and producer George Martin. They are the most important band ever. Their music cuts across all languages and cultures. It is nearly impossible to convey their significance—not just to music but to marketing, celebrity, and social change—and to describe their rock intelligence and execution. Some of their music is so profoundly brilliant that they almost single-handedly paved the way for all of us to collectively accept the notion that pop music can have a real impact in our life; that pop music can actually become a totem of our life and can be just as timeless as a movie or any other fine performing art.

To reiterate but with more emphasis, The Beatles are the most important band in the history of rock.

All in all, The Beatles tallied up twenty seven #1 singles on the U.S. charts. The scope of their #1 hits are varied—everything ranging from the gloriously simple “She Loves You” and the smile-inducing “Love Me Do” to the brute-force sadness of “Yesterday” and the textured and superb “Something”—and it would be very easy to pick from one of their chart-topping singles to use as a song for this site. But the song that, I think, best displays the genius of Lennon and McCartney (and Martin) is a song that was never released as an A-side single. And that song is “A Day In The Life.”

“A Day In The Life” is, simply put, one of the greatest pop songs ever written. Looking at this song at its most basic level it is an achievement of creative excellence if for no other reason than this song is pretty experimental with regards to its musical shifts and scales and, yet, it sounds so normal and natural. The orgasmic symphonic swirl that bridges Lennon’s composition to McCartney’s piano-based composition (as well as the final orgasmic crescendo towards the end of the track), this should register as avant-garde (or maybe even psychedelic?) to us and, instead, it sounds so natural and so pleasing. It sounds and feels like a typical guitar solo would. This is almost literally one of a hundred examples as to why The Beatles are so groundbreaking: John Lennon wanted to create a grand orchestral sound, George Martin understood the direction, the band recorded it, and we the audience inherently understood and digested it upon first listen. The Beatles, in many ways, were like Beethoven or Bach in that any boundaries that they pushed were collectively accepted as a normal function of creative growth.^[1]

Looking at this song from a more complex level the discussion pretty much begins and ends with the lyrics and how they serve as a microcosm of who John Lennon and Paul McCartney were as songwriters, and as artists whose creativity would be forever linked to one another. “A Day In The Life” finds Lennon and McCartney at their collaborative zenith, with the song being bracketed by Lennon’s textured composition involving lyrics that revolve around his (albeit embellished) take on current events while McCartney’s composition is stripped down pop that revolve around youthful nostalgia. In many ways “A Day In The Life” is the defining microcosm of Lennon and McCartney as Beatles and as post-Beatle artists: Lennon, his lyrics and music having an important and present day quality about them; McCartney, a master architect of pop, taking something banal and turning it into something magnificent and catchy.

Musically, the symphonic crescendo in Lennon’s composition is perhaps the most indelible part of the entire song and, as I have said before, the exclamatory and thundering piano at the end of “A Day In The Life” is as brilliant and famous an ending for a song as the ending of Citizen Kane is to cinema and the ending of Anna Karenina is to literature. But on a much more personal and individual level I think it is McCartney’s composition that ultimately stays with the listener the longest. McCartney’s piece starts with a very simple piano tune and occasionally unfolds into momentary melodies of gorgeous, fluid beauty that exists in perfect communion with his playful (and almost wistful) lyrics.

When it comes to The Beatles it is nearly impossible to choose just one song that sums up the band’s significance and influence. (Hell, when I first started thinking about putting this site together about a year and a half ago I was sure that “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” was going to be the Pantheon entry. And then I thought for sure it would be “Yesterday.” I even thought about writing about the medley of eight songs that penultimately ends Abbey Road.) But one of the tie-breaking methods I use to include (or deny) songs on this list is the Foreign Exchange Student Theory.

And the Foreign Exchange Student Theory simply asks the question: “If you met (or lived with) a foreign exchange student who had no real knowledge or American or European rock or pop music of the last fifty years and they asked you to explain or talk about x, what would be the first thing that would come to your mind?” If a foreign exchange student asked me which song is the best Beatles song, I’d have to go with “A Day In The Life.” If they asked me which Beatles song they should listen to first, ditto.

And then after they listened to it I would tell them how The Beatles are the most important band of the last fifty years. And I would probably want to get them high while listening to Revolver. And I would want to show them all of the “Paul is dead” stuff, and make sure they knew that Ringo is no one’s favorite Beatle.

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[1] In fact, just look at the run of Beatles albums of Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, Magical Mystery Tour and the white album: there’s quite a bit of diversity in that progression but the progression, for the most part, feels natural as it pertains to The Beatles (whereas with any other band it would probably sound forced or like it was trying too hard).

“In the history of rock & roll, the only artists to rival the influence of The Velvet Underground are The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. [...] (they) essentially invented underground rock. [...] The Velvets’ revolutionary sound—now so routinely imitated that its originality is impossible to convey—emerges from the war between (Lou) Reed’s knowledge of pop songcraft and (John) Cale’s avant-garde training.”

—Anthony DeCurtis, music critic for Rolling Stone

**********

Truth be told, I do not think I can succinctly explain The Velvet Underground—and their significance within the sphere of modern rock—better than what DeCurtis wrote above.^[1] But I will try nonetheless. The best way that I can sum up the importance of The Velvet Underground, and to try to capture the essence of their originality, is this:

While everyone else in 1967 was writing love songs, trippy songs, trippy songs about love, or trying to emulate the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, or Hendrix as best as they could, The Velvet Underground were writing songs about sadomasochism, scoring heroin, prostitution, and the desperation and loneliness of partygoers. They are the progenitors of punk.

And on top of all that, you have the simple reality that there will never be another band like The Velvet Underground again. Ever. Why? Because, mostly, there will never be another Andy Warhol again. I am sure that if you dig deep and far enough you will find some bands and musicians—probably some in NYC too—that were singing songs about dark subject matter (such as heroin or black angels of death) before or around the time that the Velvet’s released their groundbreaking debut The Velvet Underground & Nico. But The Velvet Underground were the only band that included a German model; the only band that Andy Warhol selected to be his house band at The Factory; the only band to include an electric viola player; the only band that had two really large—and oftentimes diametrically opposed—personalities in Lou Reed and John Cale; the only band that Warhol produced an album for; the first band that Warhol produced an album cover for. As you can see, there were quite a lot of proverbial stars that aligned for the band and, thus, why we will probably never see anyone like them ever again.^[2] The other unique wrinkle tied to the Velvets is that even with all of the built-in popularity that being associated with Warhol should have garnered, they wound up becoming the Van Gogh of rock.^[3] The Velvet Underground & Nico is similar to The Starry Night in that both were completely misunderstood during their release but became unquestioned masterpieces after some time had passed.

The first two Velvet albums were assaulting and avant-garde; their final two albums were lyrically driven, classically structured, and more listener-friendly. Their musical catalog is a dichotomy of experimentation and sonic noise and an exploration into songwriting that could arguably be seen as the roots of modern power pop. So, which song is the one worthy of the Pantheon? “Sister Ray,” the 17+ minute cornucopia of raw power? “Sweet Jane,” the song that garnered a retroactive audience after the cover by The Cowboy Junkies? “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” the best song that Nico recorded? “Some Kinda Love,” arguably one of the best songs that Lou Reed wrote? In terms of sheer creativity and from the standpoint of this song best encapsulates the band and best encapsulates their avant-garde ability I think that “Heroin” is The Velvet Underground’s Pantheon song.

Listening to music, especially when we are young, can be akin to religious experience. And in many respects “Heroin” is not merely a song, but an experience. In some ways it is very much like the scene in Clockwork Orange when Malcolm McDowell is strapped to a chair which includes little metallic arms that force his eyes to be open, except in auditory form. Musically, this song attempts to mimic the frenetic pacing of someone on heroin: the mellow parts make minimal use of Reed’s guitar and Cale’s viola, the crazy and paranoid parts—almost always foreshadowed by Reed’s lyrics explicitly referencing the act of shooting up—become faster and faster until Maureen Tucker’s drums sound like a heartbeat that’s about to explode and Cale’s viola becomes a car bomb of jagged scratching.

To be sure, none of this adds up to something that a casual rock listener would probably like. But this is where the “experience” aspect comes in. I would submit that there are some songs that simply need to be listened to in the right environment in order to be properly digested. “Heroin,” I believe, is the type of song that should be listened to with headphones on in a dark room. Really experience the song. Be jack-knifed by the sudden movements. Fully absorb the contrast of Reed’s lyrics that range from the dreamy (“I wish that I was born a thousand years ago”) to the desperately blunt (“I’m gonna try to nullify my life”). Listen to how Reed stretches the word heroin to sound like an elongated “hair-row-win.”

You could certainly make a case for a number of Velvet Underground songs to be the lone song for this site. But what puts “Heroin” over the top for me is that no one else could have ever made a song like this, and no one has ever really tried. This song kind of exists on its own plane.

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[1] Personal side note: DeCurtis’s writings about albums from the ’60′s made me want to be a writer, and it planted the seeds for what would become the music-related sites that I started.

[2] To be sure, we will never see another Beatles either but the story of The Beatles (four self-taught musicians who go from being poor to superstars) is a story that will frequently be duplicated in the future. But the story of a band whose debut album included a German model and was produced by the most famous artist of his day and said band never became popular during their time? That story won’t ever be duplicated.

[3] The similarities between The Velvet Underground and Vincent Van Gogh are pretty fascinating, even aside from the fact that they hardly sold any of their art while they were together/alive. One, both artists were temporarily closely tied to other more famous artists (the Velvet’s with Warhol, Van Gogh with Paul Gauguin). And, two, both artists’ final works were bleak (the last song on the last album by the Velvet’s, Loaded, is called “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’”; Van Gogh’s last painting is Wheat Field With Crows).

You may not think of “White Rabbit” as a protest song in the traditional sense but make no mistake: this song was a giant middle finger to the WWII generation (the “Establishment,” if you will), and it oozed with a contempt that was palpable if you were able to read between the lines. (If you were unable to recognize the contempt, if it was invisible to you, you were probably the mark all along—a sure sign of the kind of the raw anger that Jefferson Airplane was no doubt aiming for.) “White Rabbit”—which is sometimes incorrectly referred to as “Go Ask Alice” or “Feed Your Head”^[1]—is a song that revolves around Alice In Wonderland. Where is the social protest in that, one might ask.

First, there is the music. This song starts off with a drums that mimic a military marching beat. Additionally, the music’s progression throughout its two and a half minutes is one in which it keeps getting louder; the auditory equivalent of an advancing army.

Second, there are the lyrics themselves.

When seen through the prism of 1965-67 you will find very easily the adversarial relationship between the Baby Boomers and their parents, with drugs and music and literature all being some of the most volatile elements in creating that schism. We all know this to some degree, this is not necessarily news to most people. What the lyrics of “White Rabbit” does in expanding this schism is to blatantly broadcast the hypocrisy of the older generation’s condemnation of drug use by pointing out that the fairy tales and children’s stories that the Boomers (and older generations) grew up with are ripe with imagery and writing that lined up just fine with the chemically induced creativity of the counterculture. It was okay for children to read about hookah-smoking characters and girls who entered surreal worlds that played with size and dimensions, but taking drugs and listening to (or creating) psychedelic music or watching (or creating) avant-garde cinema—well that was destroying the fabric of society.

Jefferson Airplane called bullshit on this and what is quite amazing is that they did it without directly calling anyone out. This song summarizes the story of Alice In Wonderland but from the perspective of the listener if he or she found themselves inside of the same rabbit hole and by doing this, and by hiding its intentions of being an ironic attack on authority and accepted levels of imagination, it is arguably one of the first examples of post-modernism to appear in a Top 40 single. What the Jefferson Airplane are basically saying with this song is Wait, we’re weird for coming up with psychedelic and surreal stories and images? Okay, explain Alice In Wonderland. Explain the Mad Hatter. (To the surprise of no one, the Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat started to show up on acid tabs around this time too.) “White Rabbit” sought to expose the fallacy of authority and it did so by way of an implicit modern method.

Another stroke of brilliance related to this song was that you had Grace Slick singing it. Slick, with her raven-colored hair and sexual allure that was equal parts Bad Girl and Girl Next Door, was the perfect antithesis of Alice. And yet at the same time, she was the new Alice for a new generation: a woman who could show an entirely different generation an entirely different rabbit hole. Grace Slick did not possess the presence and intensity of Janis Joplin or the mystery and fragility of Joni Mitchell, but for a brief moment she had every sought-after intangible that you could ask for in 1967. She was the unofficial face of the band that brought Haight-Ashbury to middle America and beyond. Her voice, escalating alongside the music of this song, was like that of a counterculture siren.

“White Rabbit” was the third single off of Surrealistic Pillow (it followed the other huge counterculture anthem “Somebody To Love”) and in many ways it signified the demise of the band. Between heavier drug use amongst band members, the bloated recording sessions for After Bathing At Baxter’s, the sexual dynamics of Slick within the band’s hierarchy (read: whoever was sleeping with Slick held the power), and the decline of Marty Balin’s input (the rest of the band kind of turned on him), Jefferson Airplane’s popularity would never encroach the level of Pillow.

But do not misunderstand: Surrealistic Pillow is one of the most important albums of the modern rock era and “White Rabbit” is one of the most important and greatest songs to come out of the ’60′s. This was not some two-hit wonder band who lucked into success and had little talent to show. They were immensely talented but were forever cursed by in-fighting, an inability to handle success (and LSD), and a misguided desire to try to change gears and sound like Hendrix and Cream.^[2]

But the significance of “White Rabbit” cannot be overstated. It was a song that took a different approach in saying fuck you. It was a song that was instantly able to paint a picture of Haight-Ashbury to a kid living in Nebraska or Rhode Island. It was a song that meshed literature and music effortlessly in a time when cross-pollinating different types of art was starting to become an accepted mainstream practice. It was a song that wanted to point out the hypocrisy of your parents (and, really, isn’t that one of the main tenets that rock was founded on?).

It was a song that demanded that you remember what the doormouse said.

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[1] Ah, the nascent days of Napster and Scour Exchange… wherein a search for “White Rabbit” would bring back 200 results but a search for “Go Ask Alice” and “Feed Your Head” would bring back 1,700 results a piece.

[2] And this is to say nothing about the monstrosities that were committed during their name change to Jefferson Starship and Starship.

The conversation of Woodstock vs. Monterey Pop Festival is, to many people, not even a debate. Woodstock wins. It stands over Monterey like Ali over Sonny Liston.

Woodstock was bigger, more important in the overall scheme of things. Woodstock was like Star Wars: ahead of its time, huge in scope, and containing a message that future generations will never have a problem understanding. Woodstock is East, Monterey is West; in almost all things media- (and history-) related the East wins out.

But the Monterey Pop Festival was significant. It might not roll off the tongue like Woodstock. It might not have the famous documentary but it was a huge event within the history of modern rock. Organized in part by John Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas, the Monterey Pop Festival was an ambitious three day event that famously debuted The Who to an American public, as well as being the first real debuts of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Another significant part of Monterey’s legacy is that this show introduced the world to Otis Redding.

By the time Otis Redding took the stage in Monterey in 1967 he was already known by other artists and by Southern black audiences. He released Otis Blue in 1965 and from this album Aretha Franklin took the song “Respect” and turned it into her own huge hit. But this performance catapulted him to a wider (and whiter) mainstream audience. Redding’s stage presence and energy made him one of the most talked about performers of the festival and, realistically, if Jimi Hendrix hadn’t announced himself with such an otherworldly performance (shocking the crowd with his skills, simulating having sex with his guitar, setting fire to his guitar) it is likely that Redding would have stole the entire show.

Despite all this, though, Otis Redding is most known for one thing, one song.

Released less than a month after his death and recorded three days before he died, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was the first posthumous single to ever hit #1 on a U.S. music chart. It not only cemented the legacy of Otis Redding but it (unintentionally) adds another dimension to the argument that death is sometimes the best thing that can happen to a musician.

The music of Otis Redding is one that was born out two seemingly mutually exclusive influences: gospel music and Little Richard. In reality, these two voices and styles aren’t terribly different—gospel has more soul than rock and roll, Little Richard had more rock and roll than soul. When Redding was a child his family moved to Macon, Georgia, which was also the home of Little Richard. He once said of Little Richard, “If it hadn’t been for Little Richard, I would not be here. I entered the music business because of Richard—he is my inspiration. I used to sing like Little Richard, his rock ‘n’ roll stuff, you know. Richard has soul, too. My present music has a lot of him in it.” Though Redding never sang as wild as Richard he had a definite handle on how to command an audience (the crowd at Monterey was taken by his polished look, gregariousness,^[1] smile, and of course singing ability).

Redding’s studio music was powerful, soulful, and authoritative^[2] and usually backed by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, who to this day are highly revered musicians. Which leads me back to “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” This song is so mellow and gorgeous, and it shows Redding embarking on a different direction of soul—one that was infused with more down-to-earth (and personal) narrative elements. There are some songs that are so perfect that I find it impossible for anyone who considers themselves to be a fan of music to not like. This is one of those songs. If the waves—the literal ones in the background and the elemental ones that the bass guitar creates—and Redding’s voice don’t connect with you in some positive manner then I don’t know what to tell you.

Here’s the $1 million question: is this song great because Redding died right before recording it, or is it great regardless of the circumstances that unfolded?

Unlike Morrison or Joplin or Lennon (or even Cobain), the last thing that Otis Redding recorded was his masterpiece. When all of the other pop/rock icons died they did not leave behind a great, finished track let alone an above average track that made you think of them differently.^[3] If Otis Redding had lived to be 50 years old would “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” have reached #1 on any charts? Maybe not. But I believe it would have still be an iconic song, a once-in-a-lifetime song that would have still acted as an inspiration to countless artists down the line.

We will never know what would have become of Otis Redding had he not died in a plane crash in a lake in Madison, Wisconsin. What we do know is that before he died he recorded this song and it resonated at a powerful clip.

At the end of the day, Otis Redding will always be overshadowed by James Brown and Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield—just like the Monterey Pop Festival will always be overshadowed by Woodstock. But no matter who you put above Redding on an all-time greatest list, none of those artists could have ever produced something as soft and timeless and perfect as this song.

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[1] “So this is the love crowd?” Redding famously said to the audience.

[2] Just listen to “Ole Man Trouble,” the opening track of Otis Blue as an example.

[3] You could maybe make the argument that “L.A. Woman” and “Riders On The Storm”—released three months before Morrison’s death—are an exception, but I would maintain that “Light My Fire,” “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” and “The End” capture Morrison’s essence and mythology better.

“They’re not the best at what they do, they are the only ones who do what they do.” — famous quote from Bill Graham, concert promoter, operator of the Fillmore West, Fillmore East, and Winterland venues, trying to describe The Grateful Dead.

The Grateful Dead are one of the most polarizing bands in the history of rock. (If they do not claim the top spot in your book it is probably fair to assume that they at least crack the top five.)

If you strip everything away about them, they are a band that: a) has never had a singer with a polished voice, and b) is best known for their live performances (and the atmosphere that encompasses their shows). To the cynical person, The Grateful Dead are nothing more than an untalented band whose lifeblood is a blind adoration from countless kids and adults who inhale (or ingest) copious amounts of drugs. To a devoted fan, the Dead are “an experience” and makers of music rich in its own mythology. Some people will even tell you that what the Dead wrote says more about America than anything than guys like Springsteen or Mellencamp or Dylan could have ever written. Where you sit in this debate—even if you are apathetic or neutral—is of no real matter.

And that is because, probably more so than any other band, The Grateful Dead are a mirror. To their fans, the Dead reflect an idea of easygoingness combined with community; a place where the softer spoken (and sometimes perpetually squinty and red-eyed) outcasts can fit in. To a lot of other people, the Dead reflect an image of a series of feelings brought on by an intangible irritation (as only a dogmatic stereotype can produce). What I mean is: to the Dead Head haters, The Grateful Dead are seen as something that should have never lasted in the first place. The Dead should have gone the way of all of those other Counterculture era bands who never sniffed success after the heaviness of the ’70′s set in. For every one person who says “You know, you may like this live version of ‘El Paso.’ You should give it a listen,” there are probably a hundred who thought that Jerry Garcia transcended the word overrated, or that a dancing tie-dye bear is a symbol of indefensible taste. These are also the same people who may flinch when the words ‘jam band’ is used in any context.

Bottom line: trying to sell The Grateful Dead can be an extremely tough sell.

And I am not trying to sell them here per se, but it would be foolish and close-minded to claim that The Grateful Dead have no place in the Pantheon. (Just as it would be foolish to think that N.W.A. or Public Enemy has no place in the Pantheon, even if you do not like rap or hip hop.) Their longevity and amazing ability to cultivate and connect to a wide audience aside, the Dead did produce two noteworthy and very good albums (The Grateful Dead and Workingman’s Dead) as well as a no questions asked masterpiece (American Beauty), and from that masterpiece a truly perfect and beautiful song—“Ripple.”

Most Dead haters, I think, have an image burned into their head of a band that always played thirty minute tracks and were always in Jam Band Mode. While it is true that the Dead performed sitcom-length live versions of “Dark Star” and “Playing In The Band”^[1] from time to time, they were, during the early ’70′s, a legitimately solid band that made some great music. American Beauty is probably the lone Dead album that non-Dead Heads could enjoy with relative ease. If nothing else, it is the album that could be described as “the one with ‘Truckin” on it.”

“Ripple” is the opening track of side two, and it is quite possibly the most beautiful song I have ever heard this side of “Blackbird” by The Beatles, “Sweet Thing” by Van Morrison, and Neko Case’s “John Saw That Number.” To say that the music of “Ripple” is pitch perfect would be an understatement: from the beginning chord that is strummed from Jerry Garcia to the light skipping of Mickey Hart’s drums to Phil Lesh’s anchoring bass to the chorus of uplifting “la la la”s, this is a song that is so wonderfully layered and crafted it could be used as a soundtrack to just about anything, ranging from the shiniest of days on the beach to the memory of someone at a funeral.^[2]

Lyrically, this track is brilliant: its philosophical and spiritual tone is never over-reaching or winking. Sometimes the most poignant words are the ones written when absolutely no one is looking for them or paying attention to them. Written by Robert Hunter during a night of very heavy drinking by himself, “Ripple” was not born out of an orthodox desire to find spiritual truth or answers. It was born out of the thoughts of a flawed but creatvie mind (and those are usually the best and most resonating thoughts).

“Ripple” ends with the lyrics,

“You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone
If you should stand, then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home”

The last line, to me, perfectly encompasses everything about Jerry Garcia: if you love him, this lyric reinforces that emotion; if you cannot stand him, this lyric reinforces your disdain for him. Again, all of it—the band, their music, this song—is pretty polarizing. Few people ever get in to heated conversations about their dislike of Bruce Springsteen or Counting Crows (or Lady Gaga).

But then again, they are not mirrors either.

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[1] As well as uninterrupted, police procedural-length medleys like “Turn On Your Love Light/Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad/One More Saturday Night.”

[2] Or, as a way to convey self-discovery like the indescribably great final scenes of the Freaks and Geeks series finale with Lindsey leaving home for a couple of weeks during the summer, and getting picked up by her new friends.