Top 10 Americana Songs of All Time: Tim Martin

My colleague Paul Kerr asked the key question in his entry for the Top 10 Americana Songs of All Time. What exactly is a great song? I took what might be seen as the coward’s way out to compile my list. Rather than agonise in front of a shelf full of records, I wrote down the dozen or so songs which came to mind first. The fact that these had all stuck in what passes for my memory meant that they must have something about them. Having played them, only a couple fell by the wayside, and I had my 10. Putting them in order was another matter altogether. I can’t even compare it to trying to pick a favourite child, as I only have one of those. Number one ended up being the song I found stuck in my head for the whole time I was working on this piece. The rest then fell into place behind that. There are songs which will doubtless appear on plenty of lists and outliers where only I’ve loved them enough to include them. But that’s the point of pieces like this, and I’ve already got a little list of artists to revisit and songs to try from the early entries. So once again, an AUK feature looks set to add to my music collection and leave me, as usual, in the Poor House. Speaking of which…

Number 10: Flying Burrito Brothers ‘Sin City’ from “The Gilded Palace of Sin” (1969)

I found this song on the Uncut magazine compilation ‘Sounds Of the New West’, which arriving in 1998, was just in time to feed the americana “boom.” Written by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons and called a “loping lament” or a “cautionary dirge,” it’s where I started to think that there might be something in this country stuff after all. If there’s a better lyric than “On the thirty-first floor a gold-plated door, won’t keep out the Lord’s burning rain”, I’ve yet to hear it. The cynicism and bitterness of the words are apparently aimed at ex-Byrds manager Larry Spector, who Hillman claims was “a thief, it was as simple as that. And his condo, he lived on the 31st floor behind this awful, garish gold door.”

Number 9: Peter Bruntnell ‘By The Time My Head Gets To Phoenix’ from “Normal for Bridgwater” (1999)

I first came across Peter Bruntnell at Matt Owens’ 7 Hills festival held in the grounds of Bath’s American Museum in the summer of 2022. His explanation of his songs and their often-oblique titles, ‘You’d Make a Great Widow’ being another of his best. The fact that someone from Surrey by way of New Zealand knew the phrase “Normal For Bridgwater” was surprising, but gratifying. The Wikipedia entry, which describes the phrase as “an informal, ungenerous abbreviation that has been used to describe the outdated perception that people in Bridgwater, Somerset, are somehow different,” can only have been written by someone who has never been to Bridgwater. The Douglas Adams of songwriting.

Number 8: Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers ‘I Need To Know’ from “You’re Gonna Get It” (1977)

Americana crept up on me over many years, starting with Tom Petty with the release of this album. The first flush of punk enthusiasm had worn off, and I was starting to think that songs were what was important, and this hammered its way in on Stan Lynch’s Ringo beat and Benmont Tench’s piano chords. A proper old-fashioned rock and roll song, Short, simple, and with a proper ending. Maybe not his best album overall, but with its share of genuinely great songs. ‘Listen To Her Heart’ could have been in this list as well. Lisa Marie Presley did a great version of this as well.

Number 7: Brinsley Schwarz ‘Surrender To The Rhythm’ from “Nervous on the Road” (1972)

Nick Lowe should be in every list about songs ever compiled. Selecting just one of his compositions was hard. Bob Andrews’ organ should have a blue plaque or a statue in Trafalgar Square. There simply is no better use of the Hammond B3. If you can sit still to this song, then we may not be friends. The Old Grey Whistle Test video shows the band clearly loving playing this masterpiece of pop songwriting. Short (again), an economical arrangement with a choppy guitar snapping against the drums and the gorgeous organ sound floating above it all.

Number 6: The Byrds ‘All I Really Want To Do’ from “Mr. Tambourine Man” (1965)

A jangly Rickenbacker guitar has been such a big part of the music I’ve listened to over the decades, from Paisley Underground to more country-based americana. And this is where it started. My favourite early Byrds song. Less well known than the big hits, but along with ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’, ‘All I Really Want To Do’ is quintessential Byrds, and as close as I got for many years to Bob Dylan.

Number 5: Joni Mitchell ‘Free Man In Paris’ from “Court and Spark” (1975) and “Shadows and Light” (1980)

Famously written about David Geffen and describing a trip the two of them made to Paris. The second verse: “I was a free man in Paris, I felt unfettered and alive. There was nobody calling me up for favors. And no one’s future to decide. You know I’d go back there tomorrow, but for the work I’ve taken on. Stoking the star maker machinery behind the popular song” is one of the best observational lyrics in the whole of music. The essential version is on the live “Shadows and Light” album with a band so good it gives me goosebumps just reading the names. On this song, Michael Brecker and Jaco Pastorius bring their best to some of Mitchell’s finest words.

Number 4: The Band ‘Rag Mama Rag’ from “The Band” (1969)

John Simon’s tuba and Rick Danko’s fiddle transport us back to the 1860s. A song which could have been an electric country rock song turns into something ancient and almost uncategorisable. Recorded as an afterthought, it is one of the highlights of an album packed with songs any one of which would have set the album on fire. “Rollicking” doesn’t begin to cover it. Shall we dance?

Number 3: The Delines ‘The Oil Rigs At Night’ from “Colfax” (2014)

Willy Vlautin is one of the finest songwriters of our time. This is from the Delines’ first album, which tends to get unfairly overshadowed by the more recent ones. This is one of his best songs as short stories and has rightly been compared to ‘Midnight Train to Georgia‘ as a tale of leaving and longing. Given the high regard in which Vlautin and his bands are held by many of the AUK writers, I’ll be amazed if one of his songs doesn’t make the final top ten. The only problem is that there are so many gems to choose from that we may all pick different ones.

Number 2: Over The Rhine ‘Latter Days’ from “Good Dog Bad Dog” (1996)

I make no apology for continuing to champion this song. Karin Bergquist’s ability to emote a lyric is better than almost anybody else. This stately hymn of a song has been a place to go for comfort for many years. To quote myself in a previous piece for AUK, “if ever there was a song that proved to me the redemptive power of music, this was it.” I tried very hard to replace this with another OTR song, just to avoid sounding like a stuck record. ‘Meet Me At the Edge Of The World’ and ‘Born’ got close, but this song is where the word “masterpiece” is wholly inadequate.

Number 1: The Long Ryders ‘Looking For Lewis & Clark’ from “State of Our Union” (1985)

So, what could beat ‘Latter Days’ to number one? A song, and indeed an album, which is still sadly relevant today. Sid Griffin could put as much venom into the words on stage in 2024 as he could in the mid-eighties, for much the same reason. I don’t know how I failed to find the Long Ryders at the time, despite loving many of the Paisley Underground bands. The blazing guitars and politically charged words should have been right up my street then, as they are now.