40 songs that made me (part 1)

Get to know me via my birthday playlist

Happy 40th birthday to me! What better way to celebrate than with music? Over the next few weeks, I’ll be launching my Substack page with a write up about this year’s birthday playlist. You can listen to the whole playlist on Spotify, YouTube Music, or Apple Music. 

At an early age, I was drawn to The Monkees on TV in reruns. The first song I remember learning to play on guitar was (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone. E, G, A, C. These are still the first four chords I teach. It was really hard to believe that the sounds coming out of my guitar were similar to the sounds coming from my record player. I was also really into the stuff that I heard on Lake County’s WXLC, 102.3 if I’m not mistaken. Def Leppard and Poison were big for me. Hysteria is still one of my favorite albums. Have you noticed how Armageddon It is kinda similar to Steppin’ Stone? Each one has a lower-octave section and a higher-octave section to most of the verses. Both are basically in the key of E, although Def Leppard tunes down a half step. These songs co-exist in a similar place for me. 

I had the cassette tape versions of both Hysteria and Open Up And Say Ahh! I must have had the censored version of the Poison album. The full version with the tongue still catches me off guard. This is one of the tunes that caught my attention early on for the role of the guitar. Just like Armageddon It, Nothin’ But A Good Time has the lead singer call out for the guitar to play. This happened with The Beatles and The Monkees a ton too. I knew I wanted to be a part of something like that. I still try to emulate this tone, for better or worse, on songs of mine like Rough Draft. 

Once I got a little older and got an electric guitar, I was naturally drawn to groups like Van Halen. I was equally drawn to Eddie’s guitar playing as I was to Sammy Hagar’s voice. I always wanted to play and sing like both of them. There was a time when I practiced Finish What Ya Started every single day after school. I still have most of this tune memorized. When I started teaching 10 years ago, I didn’t know that I’d need to audition for kids in my classes. On the first day of classes, I’d usually have one or two smart asses that didn’t think I could play. Usually boys. So they’d ask me to prove it. I’d only need to play a few bars of this tune before they’d believe that I could play. At first I felt like I was just showing off. But when the students would hear me play, they’d really get a big kick out of it. There’s something really infectious about this guitar part. It’s fun to be able to see the reaction in person when I play this during my auditions for them. 

This is also where I learned how to get the most out of playing legato. Eddie isn’t using his right hand as much as he’s using hammer-ons and pull-offs with his left hand. I always say that a hammer-on or a pull-off is like getting two (or three) notes for the price of one. The less work we have to do, the smoother our playing will be.

Sticking with the 80s for another song, this Steve Winwood solo tune has always been on my radar. But surprisingly it actually was my most listened to song of 2023 according to Spotify. While You See A Chance was written, produced, performed, and mixed completely by Steve himself. This sort of thing really appeals to me since that’s how I’ve always made my own records. Oddly enough, his band Traffic was my top artist of 2023. Are you still free? Can you be?

Beckley Lamm Wilson was a supergroup in the 90s. I remember hearing about this album for a long time but they couldn’t get a label to release it. Imagine telling Robert Lamm of Chicago, Gerry Beckley of America, and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys that you didn’t want to release their record. These are three of the most legendary American singers and songwriters ever! This project would end up to be Carl’s last project before he died of lung cancer in 1998. In fact, this wasn’t even released until two years after Carl passed. Today is the opening track on the album and one of Carl’s finest lead vocals he ever recorded. His voice is so strong on the whole album, you’d certainly never think that he was sick. Flowers bursting through concrete.

The first time I ever heard I’ll Be Doggone was on Bob Weir’s 1982 album Heaven Help The Fool. It didn’t take me long to track down the original by Marvin Gaye. This was one of his earlier tunes, and not quite as well known as some of his later hits. But the groove and his vocal phrasing are it for me. This is one of just a small handful of my go-to karaoke tunes. This one got me to advance to round two of a karaoke competition one time. More on that later. 

My sophomore year in high school was in 1999-2000. I was just starting to get used to letting people hear my singing voice. I was pretty damn shy growing up, and was quite often the victim of teasing, so I really didn’t care to give anyone any more fuel for that. Once I did start to get some positive feedback from others on my voice, it did help with my confidence. And then it even started to get fun. My friend Mitch and I would spend countless hours in his basement, or in mine, either listening to music or trying to play it. When I first met him, he was more of a drummer. He’s since turned into one of the finest blues guitarists I’ve ever known. We put together a little band with our friends Kim and Eric for our high school’s variety show. Mitch’s favorite band is Chicago and we picked Make Me Smile for our song. I think it ended up to be the only song we really learned. I sang lead and played lead guitar, essentially Terry Kath’s part, Mitch played drums, Kim played bass, and Eric played rhythm guitar. I don’t remember a single word that anyone ever said about it or how we played. I just remember how much fun we had. This was in Gurnee, Illinois, so we called ourselves Gurnee Transit Authority. (Chicago’s first album was credited to Chicago Transit Authority.) Somewhere there’s a VHS tape or two with our performances at the Warren Township High School variety show. Just a few days later, I had life-changing foot and ankle surgery. I spent the rest of my sophomore year in a wheelchair. But I made it through! And I can still walk and I’m very thankful for that.

Cry sweet tears of joy, touch the sky.

L-R: Mitch, Kyle, Kim, Eric

A year or two later, we had a sort of a reunion at Mitch’s new high school in South Dakota. We had a trio with Bill on bass and played “Hey Joe” by Jimi Hendrix. I think that was the first time I wore a bandana on stage. That was a weird phase. 

Fast forward several years (I didn’t put these in chronological order, sorry). I started learning Finnish when I got more into my own ancestry research in my early 30s. Just like everything else in my life, I attach music to whatever I’m interested in. I started listening to Finnish music, not really knowing too many words at the time or anything about it. The first title that I could understand was Kaunis Päivä by Anna Puu. The title means Beautiful Day, and I even recognized the artist’s last name as the word for ‘tree’. I fell in love with this song instantly and I fell hard. I watched the video of it over and over.  I learned about the songwriters, which led me to the band Egotrippi (more on them later, I promise). I found the translation online, but it still didn’t make 100% sense to me in English. I realized that Finnish is such a different language than English, a direct translation is sometimes impossible. There are so many beautiful nuances in the language. It made this song come alive even more for me. It wasn’t just something that I could translate and understand. I had to learn the language so I could really get it. I’m still trying to learn, but I’m not fluent yet. It’s really been amazing to learn about this part of me. I got to meet Anna several years ago in Helsinki after an Egotrippi concert. Everyone was so nice to me and I had such a great time that night. Some of my closest friends live in Finland now. I think about returning every day.

I was nine years old in 1993. There was a new channel on cable called MOR Music. It was sort of like MTV. They played music videos 24/7. If I recall correctly, it had a shopping feature too. If you liked the song, you could call the number and order the CD. They only had a small rotation of music videos. I remember “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees just as often as “Happy Together” by The Turtles. The video I remember seeing most often was My Back Pages from Bob Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration. Each superstar on stage sang a different verse. It was magical and perfect. Roger McGuinn took the first verse, and rightly so. The Byrds recorded a great version of this song. Using ideas as my maps. Tom Petty sang the next one and he was already one of my heroes. “The Waiting” and “American Girl” could have easily made this playlist. Romantic facts of musketeers. Neil Young sang the next verse. I told people at school that I was related to him. No one cared. I would have added his song “Powderfinger” to this playlist, for reasons to be disclosed later, but alas this is one of the few times you’ll hear ol’ Neil on Spotify these days. Flung down by corpse evangelists. My goodness, Eric Clapton steps forward to play one of the finest electric guitar solos you’ll ever hear. His tone is so perfect. His phrasing, note choices, everything. I cannot say enough about how great this guitar solo is. And then as if nothing just happened, he sang the next verse. Equality, I spoke the word, as if a wedding vow. Eric then made a flub on the refrain of the song that everyone joins in on. He sang it the way it should logically go, “I was so much younger then…” Thanks to this one little mistake he made, that taught me that it’s ok when I make a mistake. Anytime I’d mess up lyrics, chords, you name it, I would always try to forgive myself because Eric Clapton did it too. I’m still trying to find that guitar tone though. 

And then Bob Dylan himself comes out and sings a verse of his own song. I wouldn’t learn until years later that his lead vocal was overdubbed later. His original performance was kinda rough. Every time I saw the video, still to this day, I wonder what was going through his mind at this Bobfest, as Neil dubbed it earlier in the show. Imagine all of these legends coming together to sing your songs. My existence led by confusion boats. 

What better way to wrap up a performance like this than with George Harrison. My favorite Beatle. I could have filled this playlist with 40 George tunes, but oddly enough this is his only representation on here. George sings so beautifully here. I love his voice so much. He wore such a cool purple suit too. Then Neil Young launches into his own solo. While it might not be as sparkling and clean as Clapton’s solo earlier, it ends up being more like the kinds of guitar solos that I would end up playing. I tried to emulate Clapton’s tone and style on one of mine called "With Only You." But I feel like the majority of my lead guitar playing is much closer to Neil than Eric.

I also need to point out that G.E. Smith was the leader of the backing band. He’s such a tremendous player and I’ve always had so much respect for him. He’s fun to watch throughout all of this, especially as Eric starts his solo. He has a front row seat for all of it. Amazing. 

I loved it when this clip came on when I was 9. I get transported right back there. I think I finally get the refrain of the song now. When I first heard it, I just thought it was funny. I thought it was the most straight-faced sarcasm and I loved it. I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to be able to write or say or sing whatever I wanted. Anything that sounded good or funny or whatever. But now at 40, I get it more. And I relate to it on a deeper level now. I really do think I was a lot older then. I was starting to have some pretty severe depression at that age. I also already had a couple surgeries and was on the road to getting several more very soon. I’m trying to take life less seriously these days, even though I still have a few things that I have to take seriously. At least I don’t feel like I have to let them all weigh me down as much as things did when I was 9. Life was heavy then. Music saved me and got me through to today. 

I’m younger than that now. 

Follow me for part 2 as I dive through my 40th birthday playlist!

Thanks for reading!

~Kyle
bio.link/kyle

Click below for part 2!