. . .

William Shatner’s first album, 1968’s The Transformed Man, is definitely one of those records that … well, it’s definitely one of those records. Pairing Shatner’s overwrought poetic monologues with his even more overwrought speak-singing, it routinely listed as one of the worst records ever made. And that might be overrating it.

Not so the follow-up, 2004’s Has Been, which was pretty pretty good.

Of course, a lot had happened to Shanter in the ensuing 36 years. In 1968, he was the lead of a failing sci-fi show that was on the verge of cancellation, even though it had some crazily devoted fans.

In 2004, he was a fucking icon, who understood both the joke and the challenge of naming an album Has Been, and able to get Ben Folds — at the top of his popularityto both produce it and wrangle other musicians to play and sing on it: Brad Paisley, Jon Auer, Henry Rollins, Aimee Mann, Adrian Belew, and Joe Jackson, among others.

And while most of the record was Folds adding music to Shatner’s lyrics, it begins and ends with covers — though the Brad Paisley song at the end was written specifically for Shatner — most notably the lead-off track, Pulp’s “Common People,” which I shamefully didn’t write about back in 2019. Bad Jim!

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s College
That’s where I caught her eye
She told me that her Dad was loaded
I said “In that case, I’ll have rum and Coca-Cola”
She said “fine”
And then in thirty seconds time she said

The arrangement that Ben Folds came up with for Shatner starts off as guitar based new wave, featuring guitars muted and the keyboards playing counterpoint, and the bass doing cool runs, especially on the chorus.

“I wanna live like common people
I wanna do whatever common people do
Wanna sleep with common people
I wanna sleep with common people like you”
Well,? what else could I do?
I said “I’ll see what I can do”

Come to think of it, it kinda reminds me of songs like “Got The Time” and “I’m The Man” from the first two Joe Jackson albums.

Which makes sense, as Jackson himself pops in during the second chorus, and the rest of the song is basically a duet — I almost wrote “duel” — between Jackson & Shatner, both of them ratcheting up the intensity as soon enough, an entire choir joins alongas the guy in the song ratchets up the contempt for the woman who he thinks is just slumming for the experience of it.

Never live like common people
Never do what common people do
Never fail like common people
Never watch your life slide out of view
And then dance and drink and screw
Because there’s nothing else to do

In the end, it goes over-the-top, because where else is William Shatner doing Jarvis Cocker going to go, but because of the ferociousness of the lyrics and the control of producer Folds, it never devolves into parody, and instead leads into an album that was good enough to set up Shatner’s final act, which as of this writing, is still going on, as he’s still doing tours at the tender young age of 95.

“Common People”

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. . .

It weird that a song as perfect and true as “You Don’t Miss Your Water” hasn’t always existed, that a human being sat down and wrote it.

But, of course, that’s always the case — at least for now, until our AI overlords take over the recording industry — and the human being who brought “You Don’t Miss Your Water” into existence was a Stax songwriter named William Bell. A man who, back in 1961, wrote one of the single greatest lyrics anybody will ever write.

In the beginning, you really loved me
But I was too blind and I couldn’t see
But now you’ve left me, oh, how I cry
You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry

The arrangement of “You Don’t Miss Your Water” is as simple as the sentiment: piano, organ, bass (by Duck Dunn), drums and occasional horns, all playing a sad slow waltz to match the sad, slow realization that the guy in the song was a complete and total dick to the best person he will ever have. The reaping and sowing tweet as a song.

I kept you crying, sad and blue
I was a playboy and I wouldn’t be true
But when you left me and said ‘Bye, bye’
I missed my water, my well ran dry

Bell doesn’t really milk it for sadness: he knows that he fucked up, and he’s keeping the crying he sings about out of his voice, which is more resignation than anything. The only crying in the music is by the organ played by Jesse “Spooky” Butler, who slides in during that second verse and sticks around for the rest of the song. Which only has one more verse, because a song this deep doesn’t need to be complicated.

Now, I sit and wonder and how can this be?
I never thought, you’d ever leave me
But now you’ve left me, oh, how I cry
You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry
You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry

Believe it or not, “You Don’t Miss Your Water” started out life as a b-side — which makes sense, give that this sparse take was originally a demo — that got flipped by some smart DJs, who recognized that the rawness of the recording matched the rawness of the lyrics. But even as an A-side, “You Don’t Miss Your Water” didn’t move worlds at first: it stalled out at #95 on the pop charts and didn’t make the R&B charts at all.

But, eventually, word got out about it, and it started getting covered: Otis Redding and the Byrds did the biggest early covers, and Johnny Blue Skies has done the most recent one. But my favorite has always been by Brian Eno, whose incredible version on the 1988 Married to the Mob soundtrack was his first vocal in over a decade, though it could have easily been a Taking Tiger Mountain b-side.

“You Don’t Miss Your Water”

Did you miss a Certain Song? Follow me on Bluesky @barefootjim any of the other 4,876,987 social media platforms that exist. Except for Twitter. Fuck that place.

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No AI was involved in the writing of this post.

. . .

Wild Pink’s 2026 album, Still Coming Down, is barely two months old as I write these words, so I don’t know if this is even going to be my favorite song from it, or the only song I love from it, or just one of many. All I know is that it seems like Wild Pink auteur John Ross — or “John Ross (17)” as he’s referred to in Discogs — has traded in his swirly guitars for some fuzzy ones, which fizzle and fazzle all over the fantastically named “Round of Applause at the End of The World,” which still finds space for an accordion to play the main hook before jumping into the opening verse:

Apparently
John Kennedy
Was joking about dying

Unpopular in the South
Knew it would cost him somehow

At which point, it’s time for a guitar solo before Ross breaks it way down.

He received last rites
Many times in his life

And I don’t know
What my idea of fun is anymore

Whoa. And you just thought this was gonna be a guitar-fueled romp through ancient history, which it also is.

Sirhan, Sirhan
Was likely hypnotized when

He shot Bobby Kennedy
In that hotel kitchen

And now, more guitars! Including a pedal steel from Xandy Chelmis, last seen playing with both Wednesday and MJ Lenderman, two names you should know as much as the Kennedys, even if you’re my age.

All of which sets us a the killer bridge, which starts off with “Jack Ruby atoned / Through his own moral code,” before totally breaking down for one last verse.

A patsy killed a patsy
And they laughed it up in Langley
And Ybor City
And New Orleans

And while I thought we settled who killed the Kennedys (you and me and the devil) a long long time ago, it’s still fun to hear all of this over all of those guitars, especially when it’s punctuated by

And I don’t know
What my idea of fun is anymore
I don’t know
What my idea of fun is anymore

And while I kinda get the sentiment, at the same time, at least one of my ideas of fun is songs that sound like this one.

“Round of Applause at the End of The World” Official Music Video

“Round of Applause at the End of The World” Live at the O+ Festival, 2026

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No AI was involved in the writing of this post.

. . .

I can’t tell you a whole lot about Wild Pink, outside of the fact that they’re an indie band based out of New York and that they specialize in big, atmospheric songs that often get described as “more of a mood than a song.”

I’m not sure, but I think I first noticed them on 2022’s ILYSM, a record that was made after auteur Jonathan Ross had a cancer scare while still in his mid-30s.

And so, even though he was in the middle of making ILSYM when he got the diagnosis and had surgery to remove his lymph nodes, it is clearly part of the final song on the record, the drum-machine and synth-wash filled “ICLYM,” a spoken-word piece that is definitely more of a mood than a song. (See, I told you.)

Outrunning the blues so now I’m never bored
I left the keys in the driver side door
And there’s nobody home but I heard a fork drop in the sink
But this place is totally, completely empty
So I just need to act like the person I want to be
Because your thinking creates your reality

While Ross is reciting that, the music slowly builds and builds, slowly, at first, but then getting ever more intense as Ross does.

And I still do sometimes but honestly it’s only when the mood strikes me
It’s strange to move on and still miss things
Like the view of the moon from my room
And the sight of you walking away up the avenue
And everything I thought was important but isn’t anymore after the year I went through

And then when the it comes fully in as he says “I couldn’t love you more”, it’s beautiful and sad and uplifting in all of the right ways, to the point where the rest of the song is basically a comedown and a deconstruction of itself.

“ICLYM” is one of those songs that I wish I had more time with it in my life so I could think of something more profound to say about it.

“ICLYM”

Did you miss a Certain Song? Follow me on Bluesky @barefootjim any of the other 4,876,987 social media platforms that exist. Except for Twitter. Fuck that place.

Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
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The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

Check it out!

Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)

(I’m also incredibly lame with updating this, as well.)

No AI was involved in the writing of this post.

. . .

The final word from Wilco — so far — was 2024’s Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP, a return to a format they never really bothered with. Released to coincide with their 2024 Solid Sound Festival, Hot Sun Cool Shroud is a quick look at some of the many sides of Wilco.

As always, my favorite side is their weird rock side, where they take what initially sounds like a straightforward rock song and twist it a few degrees to the left. Like “Annihilation,” which starts as a straighforward Velvets-influenced rocker with a Neils Cline guitar hook you’ll wake up in the middle of the night humming, and then just gets weirder and weirder, starting with the words.

Hey
We’re fallen angels
I wish we never learned to fly
Let’s kiss before
Kiss before
We die

By the time it gets to the chorus, Glenn Kotche has started fucking around with the backbeat, alternating between ignoring it altogether and playing it in the wrong places. This is followed up by a disjointed Jeff Tweedy guitar solo

Like many of the greatest Wilco songs, “Annihilation” is equal parts totally catchy and totally fucked up. That they are still doing this 30 years on helps make the case for them as one of the all-time great American bands.

And a band that I took for granted for wayyyy too long, not really grokking how great albums like The Whole Love or Cruel Country really are. And a lot of that comes down to just how great of open-hearted songwriter Jeff Tweedy really is.

While he might have started out as “the other guy” in Uncle Tupelo, he’s really the closest thing to Neil Young our country has ever produced: smart enough to understand his strengths, restless enough to continue to push against those strengths and prolific enough that his next record could be as great as anything has he’s ever done. NIn Tweedy’s case, that’s 2025’s masterclass triple-album Twilight Override, which you should hear if you haven’t already.

What more do you want from a record maker?

“Annihilation”

“Annihilation” Solid Sound 2024