Dear listeners,
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Even if you’re not Irish, or a Shamrock Shake enthusiast, there are still plenty of reasons right now to be feeling green. Though it might not feel like it here in New York today, spring is indeed just around the corner. And as our pal Kermit the Frog reminds us in his signature song, “Green’s the color of spring.”
So regardless of what you’re celebrating, today is a great day for a green playlist. Though not a Green Day; I decided to limit myself to songs that mention that vividly verdant color in their titles. That still left me plenty of great ones to choose from, and you’ll hear some of my personal favorites from artists like Lorde, Tim Hardin and Booker T. & the M.G.’s.
And if you’re looking for something more explicitly Irish, check out this Amplifier playlist I made last St. Patrick’s Day, featuring 11 artists who hail from the Emerald Isle.
Who says it’s not easy being green? Just press play.
Like the color when the spring is born,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. Booker T. & the M.G.’s: “Green Onions”
One Sunday in the summer of 1962, the Stax Records house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s were supposed to be recording with the blues singer Billy Lee Riley, but for some reason Riley went home early. With the studio to themselves, they started jamming and eventually laid down what would become one of the most iconic instrumental tracks of the 1960s, this funky 12-bar blues led by Booker T. Jones’s Hammond organ. As he recalled in a 2019 interview, the song is “deceptively simple. There’s a magic in there that’s hard to capture. To get it right, I still have to practice.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. Lorde: “Green Light”
On this cathartic opening track and lead single from her 2017 album “Melodrama” — still her masterpiece, in my humble opinion — the New Zealand pop star Lorde chronicles the aftermath of a messy breakup in excruciating detail, dreaming of a day when she’ll give herself permission to move on: “I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it!”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. The George Baker Selection: “Little Green Bag”
The Dutch musician George Baker quit his job at a lemonade factory shortly after this 1969 debut single from his pop group the George Baker Selection became a smash hit. (It was originally titled “Little Greenback,” and possibly got its official name after a misunderstanding.) The song had a resurgence 23 years later, when Quentin Tarantino used it in the opening credits of his first full-length movie, “Reservoir Dogs.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Creedence Clearwater Revival: “Green River”
Creedence Clearwater Revival had an astonishingly productive 1969, and this swampy single was the title track on the second of three albums it released that year. John Fogerty has said that the song was inspired by nostalgia for childhood vacations spent near Putah Creek in Northern California, but the title is a nod to his favorite brand of lemon-lime soda.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Tim Hardin: “Green Rocky Road”
Though first popularized by the Greenwich Village musician Dave Van Ronk, this humble ditty has since become something of a folk standard — so much so that Oscar Isaac sang it in the Coen brothers’ great 2013 film, “Inside Llewyn Davis.” (Here’s an interesting piece by the music historian Elijah Wald, tracing the song’s history.) I love the laid-back soulfulness that the singer-songwriter Tim Hardin brings to his rendition, released on his 1966 debut album.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Roger Miller: “Little Green Apples”
In 1968, O.C. Smith released the most famous version of this charmingly down-to-earth love song written by Bobby Russell, but I’m partial to this more muted rendition recorded earlier that year by the king of the road himself, Roger Miller. His mumbling delivery fits perfectly with the song’s rumpled realism.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Joni Mitchell: “Little Green”
Perhaps the most heart-wrenching song on Joni Mitchell’s landmark 1971 album “Blue” (though there are certainly other contenders), this lilting, incandescent ballad finds Mitchell, in typically poetic fashion, offering bittersweet blessings to the child she gave up for adoption: “There’ll be icicles and birthday clothes, and sometimes there’ll be sorrow.” One of the most thrilling things I’ve gotten to do in my whole career is interview a bunch of musicians in depth about “Blue” for its 50th anniversary, and I remember what David Crosby told me, still in awe, about this song: “She doesn’t pull her punches, man. And she doesn’t pull her punches on herself, either.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Ray Charles: “It Ain’t Easy Being Green”
Finally, although this 1970 ballad was written for none other than Kermit the Frog, it’s also been covered effectively by plenty of other non-amphibian musicians, including Van Morrison, Frank Sinatra and Ray Charles — who gets extra points for having duetted with Kermie himself.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“8 Great Songs That Make It Easy to Be Green” track list Track 1: Booker T. & the M.G.’s, “Green Onions” Track 2: Lorde, “Green Light” Track 3: The George Baker Selection, “Little Green Bag” Track 4: Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Green River” Track 5: Tim Hardin, “Green Rocky Road” Track 6: Roger Miller, “Little Green Apples” Track 7: Joni Mitchell, “Little Green” Track 8: Ray Charles, “It Ain’t Easy Being Green”
Bonus Tracks
I’ve been a fan of the Brooklyn indie-pop musician Grace Ives since hearing her catchy and magnificently odd 2022 album, “Janky Star.” A few weeks ago, I recommended a song from her lovely upcoming album “Girlfriend,” and I just published a new profile of Ives, who was gracious enough to open up to me about the personal journey that led to that record. She was also gracious enough to ask me to meet her at one of the few places in Brooklyn that still serves chocolate egg creams. Read the profile here, and check out “Girlfriend” when it comes out on Friday.
Read past editions of the newsletter here.
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Lindsay Zoladz is a pop music critic for The Times and writes the music newsletter The Amplifier.
The post 8 Great Songs That Make It Easy to Be Green appeared first on New York Times.
