Stephen Young is the latest Irish artist to take on our Guestlist series and chat about the 10 songs that shaped him and his music. Young made his name touring with the brilliant Stephen Young & The Union, an Irish Americana band, whose second album Eagle Fort Rumble was lauded by the good folks at No Depression as "a manna from music heaven". Young and his ever-changing line-up have toured their native Ireland along with tours in the US and dates in the UK and across Europe. Check out Stephen's ten selected tracks below. Also, be sure to have a listen to the band's brilliant track 'Shiver'.
Tom Waits – Big Joe And Phantom 309
Tom Waits possesses the power to make you either cower in fear, or cry. This song falls into the latter emotion. It could have been a poem or a piece of flash fiction, but instead it’s a spoken-word, slightly sung, six-minute song about a hitch-hiking man and a ghostly truck driver, who died jack-knifing his rig to save a bus full of school children. I love writing story songs, and this is one of the best you listen to and learn from.
Bob Dylan – Shelter From The Storm (alternative version)
Bob wrote a shelf full of story songs, and quite a few appear on the album Blood On The Tracks, but my favourite take of Shelter From The Storm is from the bootleg of that album that’s got outtakes and alternate takes of pretty much everything that eventually went onto the official release. The Blood On The Tapes version of Shelter From the Storm carries along at a sweeter rhythm than the other take, and lyrically it’s just magic.
The Beatles – Hey Bulldog
I could have picked 30 other Beatles tunes easily, but I’ve always just loved how the band sound like they’re having so much fun on this song. Apparently, it was recorded quite quickly – even by their standards and it feels that way. I don’t mean that in a negative way at all. Quite the opposite. It feels spur-of-the-moment, and it captures their personalities brilliantly. And it rocks.
Tears For Fears – Everybody Wants To Rule The World
As far as guilty pleasures go, mine lie in the 80s. It was a toss-up between this track and Real Gone Kid by Deacon Blue. I love the unabashed eighties-ness of this song, but honestly the melody and title hook line are so memorable. The intro evokes an entire decade, in the same way Marvin Gaye does with the intro to I Heard It Through The Grapevine – boom, straight into the 60s. Songs that do are so rare, and as a songwriter, it’s something you are always chasing.
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – Custard Pie Blues
I remember hearing this song for the first time after a DJ friend of mine gave me a CD of these two wizards performing live. I had been on a deep dive into Robert Johnson, Leadbelly, Son House and Howlin’ Wolf. But hearing the combination of Sonny’s harmonica playing with Brownie’s guitar was a revelation, and absolute bluesy bliss. The content of the lyrics, as with most delta blues up until then, do not literally concern the topic of custard pies. This song is an education in metaphors in song, and what they let you get away with.
Paul Simon – Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard
Paul Simon became something of a musical man of the world after running, full pelt, from Art Garfunkel’s chasing fro. But before he was experimenting with African rhythms, he went a little samba for this absolute gem of a song. From the opening line to those last slowly fading beats, the song is one long hook. Simon always had a knack for writing hooks, and I could easily have opted for Cecilia or Mrs Robinson or You Can Call Me Al here, but Me & Julio is just perfectly doggerel.
Johnny Cash’s version of Glen Campbell’s – Gentle On My Mind
The production is very Rick Rubin. So, it’s stripped back, skimpy on the reverb, and Johnny singing Glen Campbell’s beautiful melody and lyrics with his voice sounding just about as good as it was at around the time of the American Recordings. This is “old country” before “bro country” took the mainstream, and it’s everything good about what that genre was. Beautiful acoustic guitars pick alongside the strummed chords, backing up a sweet melody and the honest, well-crafted lyrics. They literally don’t make ’em like this anymore.
Fleetwood Mac – Oh Well
I’m a fan of Lindsey Buckingham as much as I’m a fan of Peter Green. Both guys wrote some of the most memorable riffs in rock. The Chain could easily have been here. But there’s something about Oh Well, and the first time I heard it. It’s the riffiest riff blues rock has ever given us. The vocals are sparse as the song stops and starts, barely stringing together at times as Mick Fleetwood keeps time. But when it bursts, it explodes. Part two takes a huge risk, and divides opinion, but I think the dive south of the musical border, with flamenco guitars is beautiful second act. This song is riff-writing school!
The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil
This is another slot where two or three other Stones songs could have been instead, but Sympathy opens with bongos and Mick Jagger yelping for the first twenty seconds, and you know you’re in Stones land, but just somewhere they’d never gone before. It builds and builds, pulling in some of the most memorable backing vocals in rock history – the owl-ish “who-whos”, the stronky guitar solo and finally some Mick falsetto, as you can almost hear him strutting around the vocal booth. Perfection.
The Velvet Underground – White Light ⁄ White Heat
Alongside Heartbreaker by Ryan Adams, this was the other album that was in joint rotation while we were in pre-production on our first album, Wilderness Machine. This is Lou Reed coming into his prime. The energy off this track is palpable. It drives along as Reed scats his lyrics in a similar way to Adams on To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High). I just fell in love with that style and delivery, as the band punch and stride along, high in the mix. When post-
Covid normality finally returns, put this song on at a party, and watch the atmosphere lift.