13 Wonderful Will Songs: The Next Generation - Vol. 15

Featuring songs by Joe Strummer, Dusty Springfield, Prince, Pink Floyd, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Brian Eno, and many 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. Joe Strummer, “Love Kills”

Although it has since found its way onto a compilation of Joe Strummer’s solo work, this song first came to my attention via its inclusion on the soundtrack to the Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen bio-pic, Sid & Nancy, directed by Alex Cox. I saw the movie at the Naro Cinema in Norfolk, Virginia when it was originally released in 1987, tagging along with my buddy Tom Nuckols even though at the time I’d never heard a single song by the Sex Pistols. My wife also saw it during that original run, and we might even have seen it the same night, but since we didn’t know each other at the time and neither of us remember if we saw it on opening night or some other night during its run, we’ll neve know for sure. That having been said, however, Sid & Nancy is playing at the Naro again tonight, and we’re going to see it as our Valentine’s Day date…and because he couldn’t resist seeing it again, either, Tom Nuckols will be there, too!

2. Dusty Springfield, “In Private”

I’m in the process of moving around some of the media in my office, and in the process of doing so, my eyes landed upon my Dusty Springfield box set, so I thought, “Say, why not include a little bit of Dusty this time around?” So I went with a song that Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, a.k.a. Pet Shop Boys, penned for her. It didn’t chart in the US, of course, but it was a top-10 hit in five countries and hit #14 in the UK.

3. Prince, “When You Were Mine”

Unless you were a Prince fan from the very, very beginning, my guess is that your introduction to this song probably came through Cyndi Lauper’s cover of the track on She’s So Unusual. Somehow, however, I never owned that album, so I didn’t discover it until Prince finally put out a greatest-hits collection, at which point I absolutely fell in love with it.

4. The Three O’Clock, “I Go Wild”

The first album I ever owned by these guys was Arrive Without Traveling, which I bought on cassette, only to have my car broken into almost immediately thereafter, at which point I suddenly did not own that cassette any longer. Then I bought their album Ever After on CD, followed by a cutout CD of their lone Paisley Park album, Vermillion. It was a slow but steady trawl to finally get all of their albums, but I finally did it. They’re a great pop band, well worth investigating. I sure wish more of their stuff was available on Spotify, though…

5. Pink Floyd, “Bike”

I like Pink Floyd’s overall output, but I love the stuff they did with Syd Barrett in the early years of their career. It doesn’t sound anything like the rest of the stuff they’d go on to do, mind you, but perhaps that’s why I love it so much. It’s pure psychedelia, full of wonderful lyrical nonsense like my favorite line from this song: “I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house / I don’t know why, I call him Gerald.”

6. Roy Clark, “Malagueña”

Since I put the country music spotlight on Buck Owens, it seemed only fair from a Hee Haw hosts standpoint to shine it on Roy Clark this time. Even if for some reason you find it underwhelming in the context of the Spotify playlist, I highly recommend that you watch the video I’ve embedded, because watching that guy play this live… I mean, his playing is absolutely INSANE.

7. Fun Lovin’ Criminals, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”

Obligatory cover alert! At first I’d thought about including the Criminals’ version of the Bond theme “We Have All the Time in the World,” but then I stumbled upon their version of this Tom Petty single, which I’d never heard before, and I fell in love with it immediately.

8. Lloyd Cole, “Like Lovers Do”

I’ve been a Lloyd Cole fan since picking up a copy of Easy Pieces, his album with the Commotions, in a cutout bin at some point in the late ‘80s, and I’ve continued to follow his career from then onward. This is from his second album for Rykodisc, and if pressed, I’d argue that it could be his best solo album, but I’d also argue that he’s never really released a bad album, so even if you feel otherwise, I’d probably be able to rationalize your answer as well.

9. Brian Eno, “Needles in the Camel’s Eye”

The first time I heard this song, it was via a cover version done by Hampton Roads legends Waxing Poetics, but it will perhaps not surprise you to learn that had I no idea that it was a cover song at the time I first heard it. In fact, I’m not even sure when I finally realized that it was a cover…although now that I’m considering it, I’d guess that it was probably when I went to see Todd Haynes’ film Velvet Goldmine, heard it on the soundtrack, and…I don’t know, it probably broke my brain at the time.

10. Wings, “You Gave Me the Answer”

As I mentioned last time around, Press to Play was the first studio album by Paul McCartney that I bought when it was originally released, but that caveat was to clarify that it wasn’t my first Paul McCartney album. The first one I ever actually bought was, in fact, Wings Over America, which is where I first heard this song. McCartney dedicated the song to Fred Astaire, and you can hear why: it’s straight out of the 1940s, and it’s delightful. Indeed, I adored it so much that it was one of the songs that my wife and I danced to at our wedding, smiling along to the line, “I love you, and you seem to like me.”

11. Manfred Mann, “It’s So Easy Falling”

Once upon a time, I owned a 45 of “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy,” and I played it to death. Then I heard songs like “Blinded by the Light” and “The Runner,” and I became aware that there was Manfred Mann, and then there was Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. But then I heard this song “The Mighty Quinn,” which landed chronologically between those two eras of the group, and I really wanted to own a copy of that. It took forever, but I finally did, thanks to a compilation called Chapter Two: The Fontana Years. That’s also where I discovered this song, which is yet another groovy piece of ‘60s pop by the band.

12. Shane MacGowan & The Popes featuring Sinead O’Connor, “Haunted”

The first version of this song I ever heard was by the Pogues - it’s on the soundtrack to Sid & Nancy - and it was the first song I ever heard by the Pogues, but when I heard my second song by the Pogues, “If I Should Fall from Grace with God,” I was, like, “I don’t know what the fuck this is, but it is not the Pogues!” As it turned out, of course, “Haunted” was the outlier, thanks to Cait O’Riordan doing the vocals on that track rather than Shane MacGowan, but Shane had a chance to incorporate the song into his own repertoire a few years later when he recorded it as a duet with Sinead O’Connor.

13. Pray for Rain, “Taxi to Heaven”

Yeah, that’s right, we’re bringing it to a close with one more song connected to the Sid & Nancy soundtrack, and it’s the closing instrumental that actually could’ve been called “Haunted,” since it haunted me as it played over the closing of the film, which - since, as mentioned earlier, the Sex Pistols were almost completely unknown to me - was a bit of a shocker to me, since I didn’t know Sid was dead. Imagine that information coming to you for the first time as this song is playing. You’re damned right it haunted me! And I kept looking for an album by Pray for Rain, but they never actually released one, instead focusing solely on soundtrack and score work. An example: “Money, Guns and Coffee,” from Straight to Hell, also an Alex Cox joint.

Anyway, it’s a perfect closer, so it’s closing things out. Just imagine this popping up as the song ends.