The Stranglers - Golden Brown / Quicksilver Messenger Service - Gold and Silver

It's high time for something lively, wouldn't you say? Howzabout some Golden Brown? Notoriously naughty in their heyday, The Stranglers were as uncompromising a seventies punk band as you could find. Much like their colorful contemporaries X-Ray Specs, Buzzcocks, and Adverts, the Stranglers were volatile and snide, but with a smart sense of humor and (occasionally) had something to say besides "sod off". Penned well after punk heard the dirt hit its coffin lid, it's odd that this harpsichord-driven waltz would turn out to be their biggest commercial success. What say you, good listener - an ode to a beautiful girl, or to heroin? Perhaps a bit of both? (Incidentally, it's always been my opinion that this could easily pass for the first-born son of Quicksilver Messenger Service's Gold and Silver recorded 13 years earlier. Hmmmmm.)

Nick Drake - Black Eyed Dog

Hear ye now faithful reader, the death rattle of a gentle genius. Posthumously hailed by music critics as one of the most influential British folk singers ever, Nick Drake was the proverbial sullen minstrel. In Black Eyed Dog, his darkest musical moment, there's not much left to the imagination. His was a soul in anguish and sadly he died a short time later from an overdose of anti-depressants. (Many believe it was suicide, but his parents and some close friends insist it isn't so.) At least his songs of quiet desperation did not go to the grave with him à la Thoreau.