A week ago today they had a piece on the CBS “Sunday Morning” TV show that caught my ear.
Here is the intro.
What CBS did was put together a group of persons who then created a list of the “250 most essential American songs” over that same number of years since the Declaration Of Independence.
Of course, being a lists guy, I had to check out the full roster of songs.
I didn’t expect to have huge representation from my collection given a) the music I listen to has all been recorded since 1976 and b) it is not music for the masses.
Guess how many songs in my collection were on the list?
- Zero?
- Two?
- Four?
- Eleven?
- Fourteen?
Wait for it…
The answer is two. 0.008 percent!
Did you get it right?
I actually thought there would be a couple more.
The two tracks are “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M. 🇺🇸 from their 1991 LP “Out Of Time.”
The second was the incomparable track from TALKING HEADS 🇺🇸 entitled “Once In A Lifetime” from the 1980 LP- “Remain In Light.”
(Sire Records- 1980)
Here is the video for the song:
SPOTIFY-
https://open.spotify.com/track/38Ngied9rBORlAbLYNCl4k?si=-1dvoxE6TOyhAQi_eywAqg
Here it is live from the “Stop Making Sense Tour”
SONG 1694)
While I think “Once In A Lifetime” deserved to be on the list, I am ever-so-slightly partial to this gem. It had a ginormous impact on me when I first heard it and still does today.
Here is “Life During Wartime” from their 3rd LP “Fear Of Music.”
Since this song was released before videos were being made or distributed, I did not find a video for this song. Rather, here it is as performed live back the day. That is followed by the studio version on SPOTIFY and then a “Stop Making Sense” Tour version.
Enjoy while I go have some peanut butter for breakfast…
SPOTIFY-
https://open.spotify.com/track/7CqleiaEqHVazV19P532X9?si=YWHRS-2-Q3qKu7ERgix-_A
And live as well-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v0DpBnUznd0&list=RDv0DpBnUznd0&start_radio=1&pp=oAcB&ra=m
(SONG 1695)
Play Loud Or Perish
7/5/2026
underground365 
Leave a comment