These tracks have nothing in common other than I discovered them listening to XM’s Loft.

I didn’t want satellite radio, didn’t need it, but when Lee Abrams reached out and insisted they put a radio in my car I acceded, eventually. And the very first day I was blown away, when I heard Steve Miller’s "Seasons" on Deep Tracks, a phenomenal cut from "Brave New World" which I’d never heard on the radio ever. I was closed. Immediately.

But Deep Tracks featured oldies. I discovered some unknown cuts, like the twenty minute version of Fleetwood Mac’s "Rattlesnake Shake", but it was the other station on my presets that fascinated me, the aforementioned Loft, which was programmed by one person and one person only, Mike Marrone.

He had a way of excavating nuggets, that were in my mind, that I thought only I knew.

And he also had the ability to find the one track by an act I knew but had never cottoned to that made me a fan overnight.

Here are some of my greatest discoveries:

1. "Motel Blues" Loudon Wainwright

Just one man and his guitar is enough. If he knows how to get it right. And Loudon Wainwright III does. None of the endless seventies hype reached me, but hearing this cut once on the Loft opened my eyes and made me a fan.

There are multiple iterations of this song. My favorite is the live one in which Loudon tells an audience member to shut up. But every version is good. You just can’t wreck a great song.

Everybody thinks the life of a traveling musician is glamorous. The lights, the groupies. But talk to someone who’s been there, especially those who are not superstars, and you hear tales of desperation…

In this town television shuts off at two
What can a lonely rock and roller do

Hard to believe, but in the seventies, television was not 24/7, you just couldn’t turn on the box and zone out, unless you were thrilled by the test pattern.

The bed’s so big and the sheets are clean
Your girlfriend said you were 19
The styrofoam ice bucket is full of ice
Come up to my motel room, treat me nice

How creepy is that? He’s almost begging.

I don’t wanna make no late night New York calls
I don’t wanna stare at those ugly grass mat walls
Chronologically I know you’re young
But when you kissed me in the club you bit my tongue
I’ll write a song for you and put it on my next LP
Come up to my motel room, sleep with me

Puts a twist on the Taylor Swift paradigm, don’t you think?

This is how the less desirable rock star convinces a reluctant fan to give it up.

There’s a Bible in the drawer don’t be afraid
I’ll put up the sign to warn the cleanup maid
There’s lots of soap and lots of towels
Never mind those desk clerk scowls
I’ll buy you breakfast, they’ll think you’re my wife
Come up to my motel room, save my life

Save my life. That’s what it feels like on the road alone, that you’re never gonna make it through the night. Want to know the truth of the traveling musician? Listen to "Motel Blues".

And it may not have been a hit on the radio, but the musicians know it. There are multiple covers on Spotify, be sure to listen to the one by Big Star.

2. Jay Ferguson "Real Life Ain’t This Way"

This is an anthem. The kind of thing you can listen to for a day straight, it just makes you feel good all over.

Jay Ferguson was never recognized as a genius in Spirit, Randy California got most of the credit, but look back and his fingerprints are all over those records, and if you don’t know "Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus", you’re in for a treat.

When the band split in half, Jay ended up with Jo Jo Gunne. Which I never got, but I now understand after going back after hearing "Real Life Ain’t This Way".

In the winter of ’78, after going solo, Ferguson had a surprise hit with "Thunder Island". Unfortunately, so stunned he’d finally connected, Ferguson went on to repeat the formula, "Shakedown Cruise" was too close to what had come before and Ferguson was dismissed. But on that 1979 album is this gem, the title track.

It’s the keyboard intro, the horn interplay, the way Jay reaches for the high notes…

And a great pre-chorus and a great release when Jay sings the title.

There’s even a bridge!

Jay knows how to write a song.

If you ever liked Pablo Cruise, and "A Place In The Sun" was a marvelous track, if you wear something other than black, you’ll understand this.

And, real life ain’t that way. It’s not like it is in the movies, in books, it’s got twist and turns, it’s disillusioning. Never has such negative sentiment been wrapped in such a beautiful sound.

No, that’s not true. This is what music does best. And it allows you to keep on keepin’ on.

3. Eels "Jeannie’s Diary"

For a while there, this was the most played track in my iTunes library.

I’d purchased "Beautiful Freak", I got it. But hearing "Jeannie’s Diary" made me a fan for life, made me always be interested in what Mark Everett has to say.

Yes, "Jeannie’s Diary" is about obsession. But not the creepy stalker kind, but the type you know, unrequited love, when you’re dying to be around them but you can’t, because your heart starts to pound and you become tongue-tied.

You create an entire fantasy life. Not only sex, but laughter and hanging at the beach and…

If she’d only say yes.

But she never does.

And you never quite get over it.

How does her world spin
Without me in her nest
Could there really be such happiness

How can she live without me?

Oh, she’s got a dark side too
Even murderous
But I love that
Just like her

She’s not a model, she’s not two-dimensional. We don’t fall in love with the pinups, but the imperfect, the ones with rough edges to go along with the smooth. We love everything about them.

Yes I am intense
Maybe quite obsessed
Everything she does is curious

If I had a dollar for every time someone called me "intense"…

That’s what’s wrong with the songs on the hit parade. They’re made for everyone, not me. I look at the movies and I don’t see anybody like me. But I’m in this song.

Oh, she’s going to let me in
I just know it’s so
Then again, who do I kid

Alternately hopeful and then disillusioned and depressed. That’s what a crush, that’s what love from afar, is like.

She could have anything she wants
So why not me
She could have anything she dreams
Oh to be, one single page
One single page
In Jeannie’s diary

Once you start rationalizing, once you stop going for the brass ring, you’re screwed. Either she loves you with all of her head and heart, you’re the one, or you have no chance.

Still, you’d be satisfied with just one night.

And the track sounds like a well-dressed schoolboy making his best pitch.

Whew!

XM merged with Sirius. The Loft still exists, but Mike is not the only deejay.

But when Mike is spinning the records, you never know when one of them is going to sneak up on you and get under your skin.

It’s something Pandora can’t do, it’s got nothing to do with algorithms, none of the above tracks is similar, that’s the essence of music, it’s all different but there’s a thread, a human thread, that’s what Mike establishes. He turned me on to these tracks, they’re now in my DNA.

Spotify link

"Motel Blues" Loudon Wainwright III "Album II"

"Motel Blues" Loudon Wainwright III "Recovery"

"Motel Blues (Demo)" Big Star "Keep An Eye On The Sky"

"Real Life Ain’t This Way" Jay Ferguson "Real Life Ain’t This Way"

"Jeannie’s Diary" Eels "Daisies Of The Galaxy"