What a classic this is! It’s one of those songs that lifts your spirits the moment you hear those opening chords. American Girl’s got one foot in the past (the jangly guitar of The Byrds) and one foot in the present (the driving rhythms of the New Wave). On top of that, it’s just a stone-cold classic.

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Over the years there have been songs that caught my imagination without the artist ever finding a place in my musical life. This is one of those songs – and Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band are one of those artists.

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Here’s an oddity from the depths of my punk-era singles collection. It was only decades later that a friend picked this obscurity out and recognised two of the names on the sleeve – not as musicians, but as music journalists.

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I never heard this when it came out back in 1975 – I was listening to Wish You Were Here until Horses came along – but I’ve heard that drum break sampled dozens of times in hip hop and house tunes since then.

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A Taste Of Honey were one of the few disco outfits to write, sing and play their own tunes. This was their debut single – and their only hit.

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One of my favourite singers; one of my favourite songs. What more could you want – a killer dub by The Revolutionaries? It ticks that box too.

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Jerry Williams Jr is one of the great cult figures of 20th century American music – better known by his eventual stage name Swamp Dogg.

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Fifty years ago this week Gram Parsons died in Room 8 of the Joshua Tree Inn in California, filled with morphine, barbiturates and alcohol, at the age of only 26.

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There was no escaping this song in the summer of ’77, though I was far more interested in the Pistols and the Clash than chart-topping disco tunes.

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I don’t know how I forgot this one when I was trawling through the songs of my childhood. It wasn’t a big hit but back in 1974 it seemed to be everywhere.

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