The Top 10 Americana Songs of All Time: Mark Whitfield

For all the years I’ve been Editor of AUK, I’ve been itching for us to do a best song of all time feature. We’ve had so many “best of” series in recent years covering artists, albums, particular periods of time, but never one which has covered specific songs. The main pushback has understandably been “how can you choose 10 songs out of the millions which have been recorded?” And it’s a good point – for some of those americana albums which are widely considered to be part of the essential canon of the genre, how can you even settle on one song from 12? But I suppose for me that’s part of the challenge and fun with this kind of exercise. A cursory glance down my “soft and samey” (© 2024) own list will probably drive some readers to violence, particularly the inclusions which are from lesser-known acts, and I know that when we come to compile our overall top songs ever recorded, they will be quickly forgotten. But how well known a song is doesn’t always relate to how good a song it is (exhibit one: My Way).

I have to give a shout out to some songs which didn’t quite make the list – Starpainter’s Even in a Car, Toad the Wet Sprocket’s California Wasted, Great Lakes’ Precious and Reckless, Darlingside’s Singularity, Silver Jews’ Sleeping is the Only Love, and Richard Shindell’s State of the Union and of course officially my favourite three songs of all time, Family of the Year’s Hero, Fountains of Wayne’s Fire in the Canyon and Fruitbats’ From a Soon to be Ghost Town which are literally perfect songs but which I feel there may be some pushback around whether they’re americana or not. Arguing over genre is a fool’s errand but they are stone cold classics and I will fight anyone to the death who says otherwise.

But for me, at this moment in time, these are the americana songs which I adore so much that I actively don’t listen to them in case they lose their magic (does anyone else do this?). These are my desert island disc songs which I would take with me to my grave (probably eaten by monkeys). And as I often make the point, long after albums have ceased to be the norm for listening to or categorising music, the songs will remain.

Number 10: Laura Cantrell The Whiskey Makes You  Sweeter from Not the Tremblin’ Kind (2000)

Laura Cantrell is one of those artists whose songs are just so damn good that if all that was left after the apocalypse for her to play them on was a £20 guitar from Argos, they’d still sound great. Cantrell famously caught the ear of John Peel, who once declared the album this track is taken from, Not the Tremblin’ Kind, as “possibly one of the favourites of my life,” which was praise indeed, and entirely deserved. Apart from anything else, how can you have an americana top 10 without the mention of alcohol, and whiskey specifically? The lyrics are poignant and comedy gold at the same time: “Now the haze has lifted I can see that the whiskey makes you sweeter than you could ever really be”. We have all been there.

Number 9: Grandaddy Watercooler from Blu Wav (2024)

Oh my God, the melody on this song. “Most of my relationships have involved girls who worked in office settings”, frontman Jason Lytle said about it. “This song is about the end of one, or perhaps a few, of those relationships. Listeners will also notice the pedal steel on this track…  It’s a first for Grandaddy, and I couldn’t be more thrilled about this fact”. It’s a sound which fits the band (essentially aka Lyttle himself these days) perfectly. The album it’s taken from Blu Wav which melded americana with bleeps (I have always always said there are not enough bleeps in americana) was just stunningly beautiful, 45 minutes kind of tripped out ambient americana to break your heart into a million different pieces.

Number 8: Jason McNiff I Remember You from Nobody’s Son (2004)

Way back when I first started running AUK back in the early 2000s, promos of CDs started to trickle through the letterbox – some were great, others were let’s say over-confident, but occasionally something would hit the doormat that just blew me away. Hastings-based Jason McNiff’s Nobody’s Son was one such record, and one of my lasting memories of the first listen to the track I Remember You was shortly afterwards visiting my auntie in New Brighton where I insisted she, my mum and various other members of the family crammed into my tiny car to listen to it. They were bowled over too of course, and its Dylan-esque structure still sounds as fresh today as when it was first released. Fittingly for the song, I’ve never forgotten it.

Number 7: Dar Williams When Sal’s Burned Down from The Honesty Room (1993)

If I had to choose one album that reminded me of my twenties more than any other record, I’d go for New Yorker Dar Williams’ The Honesty Room released back in 93. It takes me back to little gigs in Telford’s, Chester with a painted lounge backdrop and Williams’ gentle played songs which as an angst-ridden twenty-something after 3 pints I struggled to get through without sobbing uncontrollably. As the song begins: “Are we the fools for being surprised that a silence could end with no sound?” Her lyrics are still exceptional at times.

Number 6: Darren Smith Dogtown Mines from Last Drive (2006)

Seattle-based Darren Smith released an album called Last Drive in 2006, which was more phenomenal than a debut had any right to be. The opening track Dogtown Mines is a six-minute epic that still doesn’t even come close to outstaying its welcome. With lines like “Misfortunes fell down like a cold dark cloud” it’s a song for our times, but not without redemption. Why he never became better known is one of life’s great mysteries to me (that and why people used to find Boris Johnson “funny”)

Number 5: Josh Ritter A Certain Light from The Beast in its Tracks (2013)

Josh Ritter has appeared in a few lists in this series but as evidence of the old adage about one man’s meat, not only did this particular song not get included in anyone’s list but it didn’t even make the “Top 10 Josh Ritter Songs” piece which Andrew posted a couple of years back. A Certain Light is taken from Ritter’s Beast in its Tracks album from 2013 and was apparently written about his divorce and remarriage to Haley Tanner which as one reviewer noted at the time, kind of sums up the core of the whole album. It’s hesitant but hopeful and just incredibly authentic in the way it captures those two emotions. Just a beautiful song.

Number 4: The Jayhawks It’s Up to You from Sound of Lies (1997)

When Mark Olson left the Jayhawks it felt to me like one of the most beautiful songwriting partnerships since Lennon and McCartney was being torn apart like matchwood. Who knew then that the Jayhawks’ first album sans Olson would be one of the most beautiful records ever recorded. There were many songs that felt like classics but for me it was It’s Up to You, with its wonderful lines like “Six green olives and a champagne basket/Paid the bill with your boyfriend’s plastic” that stood out the most. Almost 30 years on, every time I hear it now the hairs on the back of my neck go up. Long live the Jayhawks.

Number 3: Son Volt Creosote from Straightaways (1997)

When americana pioneers Uncle Tupelo split in 1994, it was like cutting a worm in half. They both grew new heads. Or tails. Whatever allegedly happens when you cut a worm in half. One of those heads was of course Jay Farrar who went on to found Son Volt, and in americana’s version of Blur vs Oasis, I have to confess I was always more of a Son Volt man than I was Wilco. Though their debut Trace was always heralded as the classic, 1997’s Straightaways has always held a more special place for me in their canon. Apart from anything else it contains the track Creosote, my favourite song by Son Volt and one of the most perfectly rounded americana songs ever recorded at the dawning of the UK bringing the genre to its bosom. Blair should have invited Farrar to Downing St instead of Noel Gallagher, one of the many “what ifs” of history.

Number 2: Whiskeytown Houses on the Hill from Stranger’s Almanac (1997)

It’s sobering to think that North Carolina band Whiskeytown formed 32 years ago now (!), and while they’re best known for being Ryan Adams’ first project, they were more than the sum of their parts and very much a group effort, with Caitlin Cary and Mike Daly in particular being a key part of what made their sound so appealing (notably the Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha was a member of the band at one point too). Houses on the Hill was the highlight of the elegiac Strangers Almanac album and not just Whiskeytown’s canon but Adams’ whole output for me. The lyrics about the loss to the brutality of war against the mundanity of remembrance along with the melody are still unbearably moving, and regardless of anything that’s gone on personally for Adams, I will always love this song dearly.

Number 1: Sam Outlaw Who Do You Think You Are from Angeleno (2016)

Sam Outlaw first hit my radar when he played the aftershow party for one of the first AMAUK yearly awards gatherings, years before the organisation hit its current wall, and immediately became a fixture here on AUK. His first album had plenty of highlights, perhaps Ghost Town for a lot of people stood out the most. But it’s the opening track of the album Who Do You Think You Are which over the years has become part of the furniture of my life.  It’s just perfect in my mind, the melody is killer but so is the arrangement and production, the mariachi horns making it far less parochial than so much middle of the road americana. That said, there’s a video somewhere buried in the deep recesses of my iPhotos library of my mum and dad dancing and embracing with such love to this song which is etched into my brain – it’s also one of those songs I used to belt out with my mum but comically we’d always have to intentionally fumble the words of the second chorus. Following her unexpected passing in 2021, it’s now a song I can barely listen to, it just feels too painful. But it means on occasion over a late night something strong it can still absolutely floor me.