Tuesday Top Ten: Pre-1960 Social Distancing Songs

I realize I've been slacking on the Tuesday Top Tens lately.  Obviously, I've been super busy, what with the sitting in my house for the last 50 days and all.  But as one of my high school football coaches used to always say, excuses are for your mother.  Now that we have that behind us, let's make with the Tuesday Top Ten.

It should come as no surprise to you that I've been building a Spotify social distancing music playlist over the past seven weeks.  I have welcomed music of all genres and time periods, as long as it relates to keeping distance, staying at home, longing for human interaction, getting sick, overcoming sickness, doctors, or pretty much anything else that could relate to what we're all going through right now.  It is imperative that I share this with you.

Over the next several Tuesdays, I'm going to do a Tuesday Top Ten featuring social distancing songs from different decades, at least up to the 2000s.  I don't know if I have enough newer-fangled songs on the playlist to get myself up to ten for the 2010s, but by mid June, perhaps I will.  First, we'll go with songs from before 1960.  It's heavy on the blues, since the blues dealt with some shit.  I'm just going in alphabetical order.

1.  "A Thousand Miles Away" by The Heartbeats
This doo wop ballad was written when one of the members' girlfriends moved to Texas.  Even things that are right next to us now seems a thousand miles away, but thankfully we have Grub Hub, Zoom, and the internet.


2.  "Death Letter" by Son House
Letters seem to be making a comeback in these strange times.  Thankfully, I haven't received a death letter, like the one seminal blues man Son House describes in this early blues classic, later covered by The White Stripes and John Mellencamp, among others.


3.  "Ramblin' On My Mind" by Robert Johnson
Arguably the most influential and infamous blues musician that ever lived -- and founding member of The 27 Club -- Robert Johnson only released a couple dozen songs in his short life, but those songs set the stage for not only blues musicians to come, but for rock and roll.  We never knew how much we wanted to ramble until we couldn't, so "Ramblin' On My Mind" made the list.


4.  "Fever" by Peggy Lee
Anyone who has had a fever in the last few months was probably freaking out.  Let Peggy Lee's classic 1958 song "Fever" provide some solace.


5.  "Long Lonely Nights" by Clyde McPhatter
After experiencing success in the early '50s as a member of Billy Ward & The Dominoes and then The Drifters, Clyde McPhatter went solo and had a successful solo career from the mid '50s to the early '60s.  "Long Lonely Nights" hit #1 on the Billboard R&B charts.  Though he died at 39 in 1972, McPhatter would go on to become the first musician to be inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, both as a solo artist and as a member of The Drifters.


6.  "Lonesome Town" by Ricky Nelson
This was one of the first songs I had in my mind when everything started to get canceled and stay-at-home orders started to become more and more prevalent. It seems like six months ago, but it was still just under two months ago.


7.  "Prayer of Death, Pt. 1" by Charley Patton
Charley Patton was an early blues legend, who recorded songs between 1929 and his death in 1934.  His voice was haunting, and this song seemed to be an appropriate one, depending on how bored or sick you might be.  Either way, I hope you pull through.


8.  "Long Distance Call" by Muddy Waters
If COVID-19 had been COVID-89, rest assured long distance phone bills would be through the roof.  Party lines would be the Zoom.


9.  "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by Hank Williams
Don't cry.  We'll get through this.  If you're feeling so lonesome you could cry, might I suggest writing a letter to a friend or making a long distance call to a relative.  Or check out Derry Girls on Netflix.  That cracks me up.


10.  "It's Sad To Be Alone" by Sonny Boy Williamson II
Technically, this was released in February 1960, but presumably it was recorded in 1959, and that's close enough for me.  Sonny Boy Williamson II, a.k.a. Rice Miller -- and not to be confused with the other blues musician Sonny Boy Williamson, who died in 1948 -- was a great harmonica player who played with Elmore James prior to branching out on his own and becoming one of the many Chicago blues legends of the '50s and '60s before dying in 1965.