13 Wonderful Will Songs: The Next Generation - Vol. 12

Featuring songs by the Only Ones, Deep Blue Something, the Smiths, Kirsty MacColl, the Blue Nile, Brenda Russell, the Darkness, 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. Sonntag, “Even a Miracle Needs a Hand”

We’re kicking things off this time not only with the obligatory cover alert but, in fact, a cover of a Christmas song. Well, more or less, anyway. It’s a cover of a song from a Christmas special - the animated adaptation of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, featuring voicework from the likes of Joel Grey, Tammy Grimes, John McGiver, and George Gobel - but it never actually says anything about Christmas in its lyrics, so I feel safe in saying that it’s okay to listen to it at any time of year. Plus, I just find it a delightfully catchy and uplifting number, which is definitely something that we need no matter what page of the calendar we might be on.

2. The Only Ones, “Another Girl, Another Planet”

I’m trying to remember the first time I ever heard this song, and I can only presume that it was on the Rhino compilation D.I.Y. - Teenage Kicks: UK Pop I (1976-1979), which was essential in educating me about some of the short-lived British bands of the ‘70s. Of course, it’s since been covered by everyone from the Replacements to the Mighty Lemon Drops, but for my money, you can’t beat the original. Although the Only Ones are no longer a going concern, Peter Perrett, the band’s frontman, is still out there recording and touring,

3. Deep Blue Something, “Saint Morrissey”

When I posted this song on social media a few weeks back, I said something along the lines of, “I definitely didn’t foresee that 2024 would find me not only sharing a new song by Deep Blue Something but, indeed, praising it as a great piece of pop.” Truth be told, it’s actually one of my favorite singles of the year.

4. The Smiths, “Handsome Devil”

It just seemed appropriate to follow the Morrissey homage with a song by the band that first brought him to fame, and this is one of my favorite Smiths songs that doesn’t get nearly as much love as it should. It’s also great for belting out in the car or in the shower, which are about the only places that it’s arguably still safe to shout out, “Let me get my hands / On your mammary glands!”

5. Johnny Marr, “All These Days”

I recently saw someone reacting to Morrissey’s quotes about the supposed Smiths reunion that he was agreeable to but Johnny Marr wasn’t, and the person was grousing about how the only reason people were going to Marr’s shows was because they wanted to hear him play Smiths songs. I mean, yeah, sure, that’s one of the reasons, but Marr’s been gradually building a very underrated solo catalog of his own, and this is one of my favorites from it.

6. Kirsty MacColl, “My Affair”

As I type this, we’re one day away from the 24th anniversary of the death of Kirsty MacColl, who saved her son from an oncoming speedboat, only to be struck by the boat herself. It’s one of those losses that I’ll probably never get over, because I loved MacColl’s music so damned much. I wrote a piece on this song from her Electric Landlady album for the A.V. Club back in 2012 - you can read it here - and it’s still one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever written for the site.

7. The Blue Nile, “The Downtown Lights”

This Scottish pop group got a brief belated burst of fame earlier this year when Taylor Swift namechecked them in the song “Guilty as Sin?” from her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. For most Americans, this is perhaps the only song they’d ever heard by the band, and I share it because it’s one of my favorites, but trust me, there’s a great deal more to their catalog that you should explore when you get the chance.

8. Brenda Russell, “Piano in the Dark”

Singer-songwriter Russell first found fame in 1979 with her single “So Good, So Right,” which hit #30 on the Billboard Hot 100 and climbed to #8 on the Adult Contemporary chart. For my part, however, I didn’t even remember that single when Russell found her second burst of fame in 1988 with the beautiful “Piano in the Dark.” I don’t know if Russell is still recording, but I do know that she continued to record until the 2000s, releasing her most recent studio album, Between the Sun and the Moon, in 2004.

9. The Nines, “Jennifer Smiles”

As I write this, it’s the 25th anniversary of my first date with Jennifer Elaine Roe, who would not so terribly long later become my wife, so it seems like a great time to include my favorite song by the Nines, one which featured on a mix tape that I made for Jenn in the early days of our relationship. For our 20th anniversary, I reached out to Steve Eggers, the lead singer of the Nines, and asked him if there was any chance that he might consider doing an acoustic version of the song as an anniversary present. He did just that, and it was wonderful, but the only place you can hear it is on my YouTube channel, so I’ve embedded that version here. The studio version, however, is what’s on the Spotify playlist…but don’t worry, that one’s really good, too.

10. Ramones, “Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?”

So I chose this track because the studio version of “Jennifer Smiles” ends with the sound of a radio broadcast, and I thought, “Well, what song do I know and love that starts with a radio broadcast?” The first one that came to mind was the Merrymakers’ “She’s a Radio,” but I’ve already put that one on an earlier mix, so I opted for this one instead.

11. The Darkness, “One Way Ticket”

I love the Darkness. They’re an extremely fun amalgam of ‘70s British rock and ‘80s glam excess, a combination which results in some really great songs. Americans have never really latched onto their music, which stands to reason, since Americans consistently fail to latch onto extremely British concepts like this one, but I liked them from the beginning, and after I saw them live in 2023, I found myself loving them even more. This is from their second album, One Way Ticket to Hell…and Back.

12. Duncan Sheik, “On a High”

I’ve been a Duncan Sheik fan since his first album, which - as you may recall - featured his first hit single, “Barely Breathing,” and I was extremely psyched when I got tickets to attend a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman and discovered that he was the musical guest. He’s had an interesting career arc, having fallen out of favor on the pop charts, only to turn into a Tony winner for his work on the musical Spring Awakening. His most recent album, Claptrap, was released in 2022, but it was only released digitally and made available via streaming. It’s so weird to think that you can’t buy it in physical form, but I suppose it was a lot cheaper to go that route. Welcome to the modern age of music. Sigh…

13. The Cure, “All I Ever Am”

I haven’t really put together a proper Best of 2024 list, and I don’t know that I will unless someone actually asks me to…and even at that, I’m not really sure what I’d put on it, since I’ll freely admit that my focus on music kind of fell apart after Q Magazine did the same thing back in May. But I do know one thing for sure: the new Cure album is my favorite album of 2024, bar none, and I’ve listened to it in its entirety more times than just about any other album in recent memory that I can think of. It’s the perfect album for this time in history, or at least that’s how it’s hitting for me, and for as many times as I bitched about how long it was taking for Robert Smith to deliver it, I’m so glad we got it when we did.