13 Wonderful Will Songs: The Next Generation - Vol. 4

Featuring tracks by Jethro Tull, the Beach Boys, Rush, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Jerry Reed, Syd Barrett and more

That’s right, it’s time for another installment of 13 Wonderful Will Songs: The Next Generation, a series of playlists which are, in fact, in no way distinguishable from the original incarnation of 13 Wonderful Will Songs playlists. So don’t feel as though you need to have listened to those in order to appreciate these, because that’s not the case at all.

Hit “play,” and here’s hoping you enjoy what you hear!

1. Jethro Tull, “Farm on the Freeway”

While I realize it’s an easy target to mock Jethro Tull’s Crest of a Knave, which undeservedly won the first Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Recording over Metallica’s …And Justice for All in 1989, but it was the first Tull studio album that I ever bought, and this track remains one of my all-time favorites across their entire catalog. It’s a song about a farmer who’s forced into selling his land, a situation which results in him bemoaning the situation by arguing, “They say they gave me compensation / That's not what I'm chasing / I was a rich man before yesterday / And what do I want with a million dollars and a pickup truck / When I left my farm under the freeway…”

2. The Beach Boys, “Here She Comes”

Even though the past few years haven’t been filled with great news for Brian Wilson or Beach Boys fans, with the passing of Jeffrey Foskett, the passing of Brian’s beloved wife, and his dementia diagnosis, it must be said that there have been a great deal of beautifully curated expanded versions of the band’s late ‘60s and early ‘70s catalog landing in record stores and on streaming services. This song can be found on the band’s 1972 album, Carl and the Passions: “So Tough,” an LP that’s decidedly different from the majority of the Beach Boys’ output but is worthy of investigation if you’ve never heard it.

3. Rush, “Distant Early Warning”

By including this song - or any Rush song, really - on this playlist, I am effectively saying that my wife will probably never listen to it, but I stand by the decision nonetheless. I saw the band on the Grace Under Pressure tour when they played Hampton Coliseum, and while it wasn’t the sort of transformative event that made me into an obsessive Rush fan for life, it definitely did lead me to love this song forever and have a major soft spot for the album they were touring behind at the time.

4. Lords of the New Church, “Open Your Eyes”

If you look at Stiv Bators in the video for this song, you’d think his music would fall somewhere between Elvis Costello and the Buggles, and you’d definitely never guess that he had his origins with the punk band the Dead Boys. For my part, I was actually introduced to the band through the title track from their third studio album, 1984’s The Method to Our Madness, but this is definitely my favorite song from their catalog and - perhaps not coincidentally - is probably their most famous song.

5. “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Frank’s 2000” TV”

I decided to add a “Weird Al” song after the esteemed Mr. Yankovic announced that he’d be hitting the road again in 2025, this time with Puddle’s Pity Party as his opening act. When my daughter heard about this double bill, she said, “WE HAVE TO GO,” which certainly confirms yet again that I deserve some sort of Best Parenting trophy. I always love to trumpet Al’s original songs, since he does such a great job of doing stylistic parodies of other artists, and this is definitely a spot-on R.E.M. soundalike.

6. The Harvest Ministers, “If It Kills Me and It Will”

To be honest, this was absolutely just a song that I stumbled upon while looking at the “If you like this, then you’ll like THIS!” recommendations on Spotify, but I loved it so much that I ended up listening to their entire album. Fabulous stuff, and deliciously jangly.

7. Waltons, “End of the World”

I don’t know exactly when I discovered this band, but I’d guess it was probably around the time I was getting a number of promo releases from the Warner Brothers family of labels. Also, the Waltons are Canadian, so I probably read something about them in conjunction with Barenaked Ladies, with whom I was very much obsessed for a significant chunk of the ‘90s. Now that I’m considering it a bit more, however, I seem to recall reading a review that pointedly likened their way with pop hooks to Crowded House, so that’s probably what did the trick more than anything else.

8. Taxiride, “Ice Cream”

I’m 99% sure that this was an album that I picked up for a very consumer-friendly price from a used bin at a Virginia Beach CD retailer called Volume, and although I doubtlessly decided it worth the cost of an experiment solely because it was on Sire Records and was produced by Jack Joseph Puig, it turned out to be such glossy pop music from the get-go that I couldn’t help but love it. I particularly dig this track because of the use of trumpet, so definitely don’t write it off until you’ve at least hit that bit.

9. Toad the Wet Sprocket, “Something’s Always Wrong”

I included a Toad song this week because my daughter dropped me a text to ask some details about the first proper concert that she ever attended, which was Toad the Wet Sprocket in 2006, when she was still just a wee thing. We got something signed by the band after the show, and I think she basically just slept through that encounter, but it was a typically great performance by the band.

10. Merry Clayton, “Southern Man”

Obligatory cover alert! You might know Clayton from the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, or you might’ve already known her because she rather famously contributed vocals to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” but if you’ve never heard her tackle this Neil Young song, well, trust me, it puts a completely different spin on the lyrics to have a powerful Black woman singing lines like, “Southern man, you better keep your head / Don't forget what your good book said / Southern change is gonna come at last / Now your crosses are burning fast.”

11. Jerry Reed, “East Bound and Down”

Speaking of the south, if you came of age in the ‘70s, particularly if you did so living as close to the North Carolina border as I did, then you couldn’t help but hear the song, mostly because you couldn’t help but be familiar with the exploits of the Bandit (Burt Reynolds) and his buddy the Snowman (Jerry Reed). For me, this remains the very definition of a driving song that can get your ass in trouble if it comes on and the speed limit is anything under 55.

12. Drive-By Truckers, “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”

I already liked these guys before I heard this song, but after hearing them perform it live at the NorVa, it immediately became one of my favorites.

13. Syd Barrett, “Wouldn’t You Miss Me (Dark Globe)”

So much of my music listening has been defined by discovering artists in a very weird way. In the case of Syd Barrett, I was introduced to him through a buddy of mine who was a Robyn Hitchcock fan, but the first Syd song I ever heard was actually a cover of this tune. Not performed by Syd himself, mind you, but by R.E.M., who covered it on a flexidisc that they released through Sassy, believe it or not…and if you don’t believe it, well, here’s someone actually playing their copy of it! When I finally did procure a Syd Barrett album, it wasn’t one of his two studio albums, it was this odds-and-sods collection that was new at the time I purchased it. In fact, it was an import, which should give you an idea of how obsessed I was with wanting to buy a Syd Barrett album at the time. This is a slightly different, slightly longer version of “Dark Globe,” but it’s still basically the same song, and while it’s probably only just because it’s the version I heard first, it nonetheless remains my favorite version.