"Way of the World"

And here's the song that broke the log-jam, that fused the lights and reminded me that there is nothing, nothing, like a tightly-wound song to reach deep down your throat and put the squeeze on your gut.

Listen to Bun E. Carlos' drumming - it's spare, economical yet it's a force of nature that just will not stop. The portly, doleful-looking guy behind the kit, with the ever-present cigarete drooping out of his mouth, turns out to be the best kind of drummer a band could ever have - a solid, dependable base from which the song can fly.

Listen to Rick Neilsen's guitar - it's an amalgam of Tom Petty's chiming Rickenbacker, Tom Scholz's precise squall and Jeff Lynne's airbrushed fuzz. It's like every major guitarist of the last 30 years was in a car crash, and out of the tangled wreckage stepped this goofy-looking nerd with an unholy genius for hooks.

And because two ugly dudes like Carlos and Neilsen wouldn't exactly pull the punters in, they roped in ahem...better-looking guys in singer Robin Zander and bassist Tom Pederssen. And surprisingly, it's Zander's voice that really tops the cake to perfection here.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Cheap Trick may not have invented power pop, but by God they perfected it.

Couldn't Resist....

Normal service (well, what passes for normal) is resumed. After drying up over the course of a long and somewhat distracting summer, the executives at SongsWithoutWhich Towers have decided that enough outrageously good music has been created in the last 50 years that it would be churlish, nay miserly of us not to continue to bring it to your attention.

The select few of you who follow links will know that I've occasionally contributed to the very eclectic Music to Grow Old To as well. And if I can (ka-tish) do it there, I can do it (ka-tish) anywhere.

It also reflects the belated discovery of YouTube around these here parts, and the realization that it is the work of a moment to embed a video of a particularly fine song so that you, dear reader, can listen, watch AND read at the same time! Assuming, of course, that you're all women, because we all know that men can't multi-task.

On with the music.....