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1. Patsy Cline, “Sweet Dreams (Of You).” We start it off this week very sad and very weepy. If you can’t feel the heartbreak spilling out of the speakers when this tune comes on, you may simply not have a heart to begin with.
2. Strangeloves, “I Want Candy.” And now for something completely different. No heartbreak here. A big, bouncy Bo-Diddley beat and a heady dose of young lust.
3. Tom Lehrer, “A Christmas Carol.” Way out of season, of course. But such is the randomness of shuffle play. And, as Lehrer notes in his lead-in, to get a Christmas song on the radio in a timely fashion, one has to start early. Very early. And given the expanding Christmas creep phenomenon, there may already be Christmas displays going up in shopping malls near you even as we speak.
4. Solomon Burke, “‘Til I Get It Right.” From Nashville, Burke’s 2006 followup to his surprising (and wonderful) 2002 “comeback” album, Don’t Give Up On Me. They’re both strong, though I like the latter more than the former.
5. Bonnie Raitt, “(Goin’) Wild for You.” Why did it take so long for Raitt to have a big hit anyway? It’s not like she suddenly got good with “Thing Called Love,” after all, or as if she adopted a new style that worked where the old one hadn’t . . . or even as if her “hit” style was simply something that the rest of the world finally caught up with late. Except in her case. Ah well.
6. Dominoes, “Sixty Minute Man.” My first MMM repeat track, I believe. And it’s certainly a fine one to revisit. All night long . . .
7. P.J. Harvey, “Highway 61 Revisited.” On my iPod courtesy of a “Girlfriend Is Better” mix of mine: songs originally sung by men, covered by women . . . who do them better. Or, at the very least (since some of the originals are pretty damned good), the covers still add something wondrous and different to the original. I think P.J.’s take on Dylan’s tune may fall into the latter category. I love them both. But, on any given day, I’d probably reach to play hers before his.
8. Muddy Waters, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’.” Another track from the aforementioned “First Rock ‘n’ Roll Record” discs. And a much better candidate for the honor than the Arthur Shibley track. (And, yes, for musical historians keeping score at home, “Sixty Minute Man” is on that list too.)
9. Tampa Red, “What’s That Taste Like Gravy?” Ahem. Very old, very saucy blues. In multiple senses of the word. And a rare dirty blues — at least among those sung by men — celebrating the glories of cunnilingus.
10. Gary “US” Bonds, “Quarter to Three.” Probably one of the muddiest mixes to ever hit the Top 40. But some damned fine early ’60s dance party music. And a major inspiration for the E Street Band’s sound a decade and a half later.

1. Amos Milburn, “House Party (Tonite).” A bit of old jump blues that means just what its title says.
2. Rick James & Ike Turner, “Love Gravy.” Leave it to South Park to put together two musical greats — and poster children for domestic abuse — and manage to make it funky.
3. Billy Bragg, “Mr. Love & Justice.” [solo version] I saw Bragg perform at a local musical institution last summer. It was just him and a guitar. No band. He was riveting, smart, and funny. One of the best shows I saw last year. He joked in the middle of a song that he wanted us all to be his Facebook friends . . . except it was no joke. He’s got a Facebook page. Go on. Look for yourself. Then friend him. He won’t bite.
4. Sponge, “Molly.” I can’t pretend to know much about this track, besides the fact that it’s a bouncy little ditty about that ’80s teen starlet, Molly Ringwald. I’d heard of Sponge, but never actually heard them till a friend put this track on a mix CD for me. It does make me smile broadly whenever it turns up in my daily shuffling, though.
5. Ella Fitzgerald, “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.” And now for something completely different. Fitzgerald purrs and growls and swings and scats . . . and it’s all damned good.
6. Dinah Washington, “Teach Me Tonight.” Speaking of purring . . . and let’s just leave it at that for now. Mmm . . .
7. Pirates of the Caribbean, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me).” Heh. This only semi-nautical bit of Disney-esque camp appears courtesy of a pirate-themed birthday mix I made for a friend a couple of years back. The same mix that has two different versions of “The Good Ship Venus” on it. Though this thankfully brief bit of piracy is a far cry from either of those gems.
8. Arthur Shibley, “Hot Rod Race.” There’s a fine little book called What Was the First Rock ‘n’ Roll Record that appears to now be out of print. Which is a damned shame. The book doesn’t resolve the question: it simply offers fifty candidates for the title. And though I don’t think the authors ever intended it to work out this way, those fifty songs happen to fit perfectly on two CDs. Shibley may not sound like “rock ‘n’ roll” to most people’s ears today (mine included), but it is a musical precursor to a host of later (and greater) rock ‘n’ roll car races, from “Maybellene” to “Dead Man’s Curve.”
9. Bruce Springsteen, “My Oklahoma Home.” From the Seeger Sessions CD, which — briefly — made me love Bruce once again. It’s a great retro-roots disc . . . and, even though it’s largely made up of songs that predate rock ‘n’ roll by 10-50 years, it actually rocks and rolls better than anything else Bruce has made in, oh, twenty years or so.
10. Johnny “Guitar” Watson, “Hot Little Mama.” Some fine, old-style Texas blues.

1. Perez Prado, “Mambo #8.” Say what you will about Lou Bega’s cheesy 1999 hit, “Mambo #5.” It was catchy enough to make me want to know more about the sampled song at its core. Which led me to Perez Prado’s infinitely better tune of the same name . . . and while Bega was a one trick pony, Prado was not. I don’t pretend to have tapped his oeuvre very deeply, but what I’ve found makes me very happy indeed.
2. Ray Charles, “What Would I Do Without You?” A weeper and a wailer from Brother Ray. I don’t think this was ever a major hit (not on the pop side of things anyway) — and that’s a cryin’ shame.
3. Elvis Presley, “A Big Hunk O’ Love.” I know. There’s Elvis . . . on my iPod? Surprise. And that’s not really a wishbone in his pocket: he’s just glad to see you.
4. Tom Waits, “Shiny Things.” There’s a lot of Waits on my iPod, too. He’s come up three times now since I started the MMM game. And it’s always been one of the more obscure and less remarkable tracks from Orphans. And so you get an unremarkable bit of commentary here. Ah well.
5. Warren Zevon, “Werewolves of London.” For years, I thought the exclamation point line towards the end of this track was “And his hair was purple!” Why I ever thought it made sense for Zevon to be singing about some sort of punked-out lycanthrope, I dunno.
6. Dinah Washington, “All Because of You.” Straight-up sweetness from the Queen of the Blues.
7. Aretha Franklin, “Call Me.” Speaking of soulful sweetness from musical Queens . . .
8. Gladys Knight & the Pips, “If I Were Your Woman.” Sometimes, the shuffle feature deals you a lovely three-part history lesson. Or at least a sequence of artists, each of whom arguably owes an awful lot to the one who shuffled up immediately before. I don’t plan these things. They just happen. Does the chain continue past Gladys? . . .
9. Eddie Cochran, “Summertime Blues.” . . . No, of course it doesn’t. We jump backwards in time and skip over a genre or two. But this is a nice forward-thinking tune on the first day since October or so where Minneapolis has seen the thermometer push past 60 degrees. Let’s keep that rhythm going now, okay?
10. Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Pride and Joy.” And we finish up with some fine, fine, superfine grind-it-out Texas blues. I gave up on fetishizing most of the guitar heroes of my youth a long time ago. But somehow Stevie Ray’s licks — like the love he has for his pride and joy — never seem to grow old.

So someone who’s evidently too shy to venture off Facebook and comment on my actual blog scribbled the following message on my “wall” this afternoon:

yesterday was monday.

something is missing…..

So I’m trying to offer a “makeup” post today. Ten tunes. But no comments this time. It’s another swamped week, I’m afraid.

1. Professor Longhair, “Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”
2. Todd Rhodes, “Rocket 69.”
3. Lou Ann Barton, “Sugar Coated Love.”
4. Marcia Ball, “Married Life.”
5. Madonna, “Don’t Tell Me.”
6. Asylum Street Spankers, “Beer.”
7. Lyle Lovett, “I Love Everybody.”
8. Cole Porter, “You’re the Top.”
9. Louis Prima, “It’s Good as New (I Painted It Blue).”
10. Dinah Washington, “I Love You, Yes I Do.”

It’s back. I won’t know until I hit “Play” whether it’s better than ever. But it’s back.

1. Dinah Washington, “No Voot, No Bout.” Innuendo-laden jazz, rather than blues or r&b — though Dinah did plenty of those in her day as well. And did them damned well.
2. Wynonie Harris, “Lovin’ Machine.” Hmm. Looks like it’s going to be one of those MMMs. Harris made a good-sized career of saucy jump blues tunes like this one. “You put a quarter in the slot, things light up, out comes your lovin’ in a Dixie cup.”
3. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, “I Want Your Body.” Today’s randomness is definitely all hot and bothered . . . and growing more so by the minute.
4. Joe Tex, “I Want to Do Everything for You.” One of the more underrated figures of ’60s/’70s soul.
5. Fats Witherspoon, “Hook Line and Sinker.” I’ll be honest. I know next to nothing about this track. I think I found it on a compilation of old r&b sides, and it somehow found its way from there onto the iPod. A yeoman-like effort. It won’t make anyone forget Louis Jordan or Fats Domino . . . but it’s also nothing I’d turn away from if it came up on the radio.
6. Al Green, “Let’s Stay Together,” Is there a sweeter voice in ’70s soul than Al Green’s? I know there are many who can compete, of course. And a few who are undoubtedly his equal. But anyone who can put him to shame? I don’t think so.
7. Drifters, “Try Try Baby.” I’m pretty sure this would be the early Clyde McPhatter version of the Drifters. Not one of their bigger hits, but some vintage early ’50s doo-wop all the same.
8. Tom Waits, “Puttin’ on the Dog.” One of the “Brawlers” from Waits’ Orphans three-disc set. Play an old Howlin’ Wolf record at half-speed, lay a whiskey-soaked mashup of lyrics from various Rufus Thomas and Big Joe Turner tunes on top, and you’ve got this track.
9. Four Tops, “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got).” Some classic early ’70s Motown — and the last Top Ten hit for the Tops. The little “Shaft”-like bursts of guitar scattered intermittently in the background always make me smile.
10. Adverts, “One Chord Wonders.” And now for something completely different. Nine straight tracks that all live somewhere in (or at least near) the blues/r&b/soul . . . and then straight into ’70s punk DIY nihilism. I think if you listen close enough to the last thirty seconds, you might actually be able to hear Kurt Cobain being born in the midst of the multiple repetitions of “We don’t give a damn.” No, really, you can. Honest.

Better than ever? Maybe not. But at least one friend told me that MMM has become the highlight of her week, and that she’d missed it during its hiatus. That can’t possibly be true, of course. I’m sure MMM is merely the third or fourth best part of anyone’s week — at best — but, wherever it ranks in your personal pantheon, I’ll try not to take it away again anytime soon.