Yacht Rock and Moi

Below is a list of Classic Rock songs that I am UTTERLY POWERLESS in the face of...by which I mean I am overwhelmed with such a strange combination of nostalgia and rock and high school yearning, that I can't do anything but shake my head around and look like a man possessed. If I have a significant other who is having a baby someday, and I'm driving her to the hospital, and one of these songs comes on...I'm apt to forget what I'm doing. Very much the Desperado/Seinfeld situation.


Even though this isn't the type of music I listen to most often by any means, it is the type that has the deepest roots. Somehow while growing up amidst the Northwest adoration of grunge and alternative music, I became a devotee of 70s guitar rock. When I was learning to play guitar, I would leave Portland's area classic rock station KGON on ALL NIGHT while I slept....I think the unconscious night-long listening caused me to learn the rotation patterns so well, I could usually guess what song would come next. I've just hypnotized myself when it comes to this kind of stuff. Anyway, here are the songs that I can think of that seem the most powerful to me:

BTO - Let It Ride
CCR - Susie Q
Foghat - Fool for the City
Supertramp - Breakfast in America
Neil Young - Southern Man
The Guess Who - These Eyes
Atlanta Rhythm Section - So Into You
BOC - I'm Burnin' for You
Steely Dan - My Old School AND Peg (Steely Dan rules)
Eagles - One of These Nights
ELO - Strange Magic
Toto - Love Isn't Always on Time
Cream - White Room
Fleetwood Mac - Big Love
Tom Petty - Breakdown
Heart - Kick It Out
Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath
Santana - Everything's Coming Our Way

(OBVIOUSLY Led Zeppelin and Hendrix are in another category, both for being earlier, not yachty, and also way too good to elevate one or two songs of theirs over any others (although I almost added Zep's "In The Evening" to this list because it reminds me so much of many of these other songs in terms of just reducing me to a quivering mess beside the radio))

Listen to those 17 songs and tell me that something doesn't stir in your soul, and I'll call you a lost cause!!!


Ok, so I probably should have included the first episode...but I couldn't refuse the one where Oates tells Hall to "Get your dick out of your heart!!" Which is a line I resolve to use as often as possible.