The 50 Best Songs Ever Written

Of course, what I mean is “In My Opinion – The 50 Best Songs.” But that would have made for an unwieldy title, and it’s understood anyway. Any list of “Bests” has to be subjective.

I want to issue a proviso that I really haven’t listened to a great deal of music in my lifetime. I’ve always driven older cars whose radios (if there were any) were unreliable, so I’ve traveled in silence, even on the longest road trips. At other times, I usually didn’t have any radio playing in the background.

As this list makes plain, a lot of the listening I have done centered around what has been considered “country” music. Before readers groan in dismissal (many people tend to sneer at country music), I want to specify that I listened to country music primarily through the 70’s and 80’s when the term “country” was often a catch-all term applied to songs that weren’t either quite folk or quite rock. So the designation included a lot of music that was distinguished simply by strong individual voices with distinctive timbres and by songs that told a story or painted a picture in ways that transcended any musical categories. I was introduced to Leonard Cohen’s music when he appeared on “Austin City Limits,” presumably a country venue.

Also, it’s often hard to say whether I’m choosing the singer or the song. In many cases, the two are indistinguishable. There is often a mystical union of the two under ideal circumstances, so that, as Emerson and others wrote, “I am the singer and the song.”

This list was admittedly built on shifting sands. If I were to have posted it yesterday, it would likely have been different. I’m continuously thinking of other songs that deserve inclusion, and I’m re-evaluating songs that were included, sometimes finding on a fifth or sixth listening, that they aren’t really that great after all. Sometime in the future, I might add a list of “Runners-Up” to this count-down, acknowledging all the songs that I remember too late.

Furthermore, the precise ordering of the songs, especially past the first ten or so, is rather arbitrary. There really was no way to say which song should be No. 38, while making another song No. 41.

Finally, I’m only considering popular songs that contain the traditional elements of lyrics, rhythm, and melody. So I haven’t considered songs from such genres as opera, hip-hop, or rap.

I include a little of the history of each song, or else some of my personal associations with it and the reasons I consider it to be one of the best.

So with a nod to Casey Kasem, here’s my Countdown of the 50 Best, working from the bottom up –

50. Happy Days Are Here Again, by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen, as sung by Annette Hanshaw/ as sung by Barbra Streisand

The reason I included this song and so many others on this list is because of their hidden complexity, their special potential for duality, for light and dark, cheer and tragedy. I return to credit this trait in the first song on my list. But “Happy Days” certainly has had that dual nature brilliantly revealed. On the one hand it has had singers such as Hanshaw who rendered it as the rousing, bouncy campaign song that propelled FDR and others to office. But then along came Streisand who found the almost unbearable cry of paradox and pathos inherent in the song.

49. Summertime, by George Gershwin, as sung by Ella Fitzgerald

This song steeps the listener in a summertime I really would never want to spread my wings and fly away from.

48. Broken Arrow by Robbie Robertson, as sung by Rod Stewart

This song was likely intended to refer to a Native-American’s love offering – not the fancy, store-bought thing that Europeans consider a suitable gift, but just the small, personal token that has some buried history attached to it. Because of this, some people have objected to Rod Stewart’s coopting the song. But I think Stewart’s touching voice carries the meaning. His accompanying video is also one of the most visually striking I’ve ever seen, although since it doesn’t have any reference to Native-American life, it might be a reason to object to its association with the song. However, whatever the song’s intentions, I find myself humming it, thinking of it often. As I’ve mentioned in other essays here, I have a number of friends who are hoarders and who take delight in the kinds of gifts others would spurn. As I trudge up to a friend’s door carrying some tattered, muddy artifact I found in the alley, I often catch myself quietly singing, “Who else is gonna bring you a broken arrow; who else is gonna bring you a bottle of rain.”

47. Is That All There Is?, by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, as sung by Peggy Lee

With this song, I’ve already broken my rule about nominating only songs that have a continuous melodic line. This song is largely spoken narrative with no musical back-up. However, the chorus is sung and gives meaning and music to the whole. It also, sadly, too often reflects my reaction to life. As I stood in front of the Eiffel Tower, lit up at night, my companion’s eyes filled with tears. I, on the other hand, heard Peggy Lee’s let-down murmuring in my head. I wished I could have been my companion then, feeling her same intensity of response to the beauty.

46. Waltzing Matilda, lyrics by Banjo Patterson, as performed by the Australian Army Band/as sung by Noel Watson

The melody of this song is another one that is inherently bipolar. It can be a spirited march, or a sad refrain. It has the strange capacity to evoke longing, a sense of lost love waltzing off beyond one’s reach. And yet, that isn’t what the lyrics are about. In Aussie slang, “waltzing Matilda” just refers to walking around with your knapsack. I was shocked when I learned about this prosaic reality. It was as disillusioning as some children find the revelation that there is no Santa Claus. But the melody, filtered down from a variety of traditional sources, carries the day. The listener can perhaps choose to forget about the knapsack and return to picturing the beautiful Matilda in her swirling skirts, waltzing away into history.

45. Role Me on the Water, by Bonnie Koloc, as sung by Bonnie Koloc

This is the most sensuous song I ever heard, sung in that crystalline voice by the woman whom many describe as “the best singer no one has ever heard of.” Well, few people outside of Chicago’s “folk” scene have heard of Koloc, and perhaps she is just as happy about that. Perhaps she’d agree with Emily Dickinson when she wrote, “How dreary to be somebody, how public like a frog.”

44. The Gambler, by Don Schlitz, as sung by Kenny Rogers

Some people sort of laugh at this song as being too facile, too folksy a piece of wisdom. But it’s true - so much success in life depends on knowing when to stay and when to go, although a lot of that is luck. But to the extent it’s a reasoned knowing, I perennially seem to have lacked such an instinct. I have lurched from one private Viet Nam to another, always throwing the good after the bad, always staying too long in hopeless efforts. I have yet to learn when to “fold em” so that I might break-even in some day of final reckoning.

43. Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night, by Tom Waits, as sung by Tom Waits

This is one of the cases where the singer and the song are inseparable. It takes the marriage of music, lyrics, and Waits’ gravelly, gin-soaked voice to boost this song into the top 50.

42. Like a Rock, by Bob Seger, as sung by Bob Seger.

I first heard this song when it was used to advertise Chevy trucks on TV. Some people felt that Bob Seger sold out by lending his song to such commercial purposes. But I was grateful that corporate profits had led to my being introduced to this stirring backward look that a man takes to the years he was in his prime.

41. You’re the Top, by Cole Porter, as sung by Ethel Merman and Bing Crosby

It was almost a toss-up whether to include Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” here, or whether to give precedence to this friendly tennis match of a song ripe for a duet in which compliments are lobbed and returned. “Anything Goes” has a unique chain-link sort of melody with interlocking phrasing, but its extended lyrics include too many references to scandals and jokes of the 1930’s that date the song. More of this song’s references stand the test of time.

40. The Wayward Wind, by Stanley Lebowsky and Herb Newman, as sung by Gogi Grant

This is the most onomatopoetic song I ever heard. When I was a child, I’d run into the room whenever this song came on the radio – to hear the wind blowing the drifter away from his border town.

39. Geronimo’s Cadillac, by Charles Quarto and Michael Murphey, as sung by Hoyt Axton

This song conveys the sharp edge of the cynical, cruel treatment that Native Americans often received at the hands of their white captors and of whites in general. In the early 1900’s, while Geronimo was being held as a prisoner of the U.S. Army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he would occasionally be trotted out for a “photo-op” in the hokey spirit of a Wild West Show. He never really got to own or drive a car. In an almost mocking spirit, he was just allowed to sit behind the wheel of one. Hoyt Axton, with his resonant growl, makes us feel the injustice of Native Americans being stripped of everything worthwhile in their cultures – while being given a meaningless “Cadillac” in return. (Antique car buffs say it wasn’t even a Cadillac that Geronimo is shown at the wheel of, but actually a less prestigious “Locomobile.”)

38. It’s a Wonderful World, by Bob Thiele and George Weiss, as sung by Louis Armstrong

This song makes you look around, feel, and appreciate.

37. Man on Fire, by Alex Ebert, as sung by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Ebert irresistibly invites the whole damn world, “over heartache and rage… over panic and strange” – to “come dance with me.” The original accompanying video, filmed in New York at the Brownsville Recreation Center, is kinetic triumph.

36. Out Among the Stars, by Adam Mitchell, as sung by Joe Sun

This song tackles the unlikely topic of “suicide by police.” It’s particularly relevant now, with police shootings of “ghetto” youth having made headline news so often. It brings the listener into the pain and weariness on both ends of the gun when this happens. Many leading singers have covered this song, but the version done by Joe Sun, a great and under-appreciated country singer, is by far the best. As he represents the shame the boy’s father feels with that snarling catch in his voice - we can understand how the boy got to such a tragic point in his life. His parents are more concerned with what people think than with simply loving their child.

35. The Last Morning, by Shel Silverstein, as sung by Dr. Hook

Here on the heels of “Out Among the Stars” is another song about suicide – possibly. This mournful, despairingly evocative song was on the soundtrack of the wandering, surreal movie “Who is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” In addition to including this “best” song, the movie featured another best in the performance of Barbara Harris in a supporting role. The end of the movie presents the song’s meaning as being less equivocal.

34. A Couple More Years, by Shel Silverstein and Dennis Locorriere, as sung by Dr. Hook

When I first heard this song, with its refrain of, “I’ve got a couple more years on you babe, and that’s all. I’ve had more chances to fly and more places to fall” - I pictured having an older man sing the song to me. Now, several decades later, I have to picture myself singing the song to a younger man.

33. Let It Be, by Paul McCartney, as performed by The Beatles

Paul McCartney has generally been reluctant to pin down the meaning of this song. Is “Mother Mary” a reference to his own mother, or to the Virgin Mary? Either way, this is a beautiful encouragement to accept – the things we cannot change.

32. Glory Days, by Bruce Springsteen, as sung by Bruce Springsteen

Here’s a moving take on the barroom regrets of a couple of characters who peaked too early in life.

31. Take Me Home, Country Roads, by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver, as sung by John Denver

This was recently adopted as West Virginia’s official State Song, replacing earlier, less poignant evocations of the beauties of the State. Every time I hear the song, I want to get on the Greyhound bus and go back there where I’m lucky enough to have some acquaintances and always have a place to stay. One evening as I sat in my overalls on a rocking chair on my friends’ front porch and looked out at the rolling hills – I had to chuckle how I had become the perfect embodiment of the song’s “mountain mama.”

30. I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry, by Hank Williams, as sung by Bernadette Peters

Elvis Presley said this song was “probably the saddest I’ve ever heard.” (Its authorship was contested by Paul Gilley.) Whoever wrote it, it is the quintessentially train whistle of mournful song.

29. Born to Run, by Bruce Springsteen, as sung by Bruce Springsteen

This song perfectly captures America’s infatuation with the natural mix of revving engines, sex, speed, and leaving. After I had worked 20 years at ushering my 1948 Chrysler through the restoration process, it was ready to hit the roads. A friend and I drove out to Lake Shore Drive on a Sunday dawn when there was little traffic in order to “see what she could do.” As we were picking up speed, a motorcycle gang, decked out in chains and all, pulled alongside us and signaled. The race was on. We accelerated to over 80 mph and beat the gang to the second off-ramp we passed. (Well, it’s possible the gang let the old car win.) But as we were speeding up, leading the pack, the same song automatically occurred to both my friend and me simultaneously. We both broke out with a rousing declaration of – “Tramps like us, baby we were born to run.”

28. I’m Always Chasing Rainbows, adapted by Harry Carroll and Joseph McCarthy, as sung by Judy Garland

Judy Garland could always be counted on to vocally paint the arc of a rainbow. This song makes art of the scientific fact that you can never touch a rainbow, no matter how far and fast you walk in its direction.

27. Auld Lang Syne, by Robert Burns with traditional folk melody, as sung by Rod Stewart

This song, with exquisite sentimentality, recalls the importance of honoring old friendships.

26. Brilliant Disguise, by Bruce Springsteen, as sung by Bruce Springsteen

This is a piercing reflection on the question of whether we ever really know the person we’re looking at. The song has a kind of twist ending as Springsteen turns the metaphoric mirror to face the other way. It’s also accompanied by one of the best music videos ever made.

25. The End of the Line, by George Harrison and The Traveling Wilburys, as sung by The Traveling Wilburys

If anyone you know is in despair and is considering ending it all, have them listen to this song. It’s almost sure to jounce them out of that mood.

24. All I Want Is You, by U2 and Bono, as sung by Bono

The haunting poetry and instrumentation of this song (“You say you’ll give me a river in a time of dragons… a highway with no one on it”) strips away all the non-essentials that clutter weddings and relationships in general, and leaves the listener with the simplicity of “When all I want is you.”

23. Ol’ Man River, by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, as sung by Paul Robeson

A classic. This is a rare instance when two white men really seem to captured some appreciation for what black people went through. Ol’ Man River (the Mississippi) – “he don’t plant taters, he don’t plant cotton, but them that plants ‘em are soon forgotten.” We thank soldiers for their service; this song makes me realize how we should also thank all the nameless people for their toil through the centuries - creating all the goods of our lives.

22. When Johnny Comes Marching Home, lyrics by Patrick Gilmore set to Civil War tune, as performed by any marching band, as sung by Angel Snow

This song has an inherent undertone that contradicts the rousing cheer of its apparent theme. In this instance, the dual nature of the song likely wasn’t intentional since the melody has filtered down from a traditional Civil War-era folk tune. However, that tune was strangely composed and transmitted in what is likely an ancient form of the Dorian scale of music, different from our conventional modern major or minor scales. The song has different intervals than we are accustomed to hearing. That difference somehow automatically conveys a tone of sarcasm and derision of the cheering words that got attached to the song, resulting in what so easily can be heard as a moving anti-war protest.

21. Joan of Arc, by Leonard Cohen, as sung by Leonard Cohen

This song has imaginative lyrics that give a new, poignant meaning to being “consumed by fire.” Fire is personified as Joan’s groom as he declares he loves her because of her “solitude and pride.” That line alone is arresting because women almost never have been loved for such traits. It reminds me of the way Marlo Thomas shattered all conventional gender expectations when she opened her 1974 “Free to Be You and Me” TV special by reciting a fairytale about a Princess “beloved by everyone in the land because she was so – brave.” Rarely before or since has a woman been sincerely loved for anything but her “beauty” – until Leonard Cohen came out with these “Joan of Arc” lyrics.

20. He Played Real Good For Free, by Joni Mitchell, as sung by Joni Mitchell

This is a beautiful song which contains a beautiful encouragement to be alive in the moment and to appreciate what is all around us, even if it is presented “for free.” A famous violinist once sat out in front of Carnegie Hall where he was scheduled to play that evening at a charge of at least $100 a seat. The man played on the street corner a lot of the same music he was going to play inside in a few hours. Most pedestrians walked right by him, some actually registering disdain and dismissal of this presumably homeless man playing for his supper. A few tossed a coin or two his way. This song pays homage to all those people who play for free. May there be more of them, and more people awake to their contributions.

19. I Remember Loving You, by Utah Phillips, as sung by Fred Holstein

This touching song evokes the hardships of the 1930’s Depression, when only love could provide a person with a lasting, fond memory.

18. Bird on a Wire, by Leonard Cohen, as sung by Leonard Cohen

This is one of Cohen’s most famous songs. It contains the memorable line: “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir - I have tried, in my way, to be free.” As I’m writing this, it’s 20 degrees below zero in Chicago, but many of the homeless are still refusing to go to shelters, preferring to stay outside on the streets, free of the regulations and impositions and danger they often face in the shelters. They are illustrating Cohen’s famous observation about our most persistent attempts to be free.

17. What’ll I Do?, by Irving Berlin, as sung by Bernadette Peters

This is one of Irving Berlin’s most plaintive songs – a simple question, posed by a true musical genius.

16. He Went to Paris, by Jimmy Buffet, as sung by Waylon Jennings

A person would never guess this mild philosophical retrospective of a song had been written by Buffet, who is most known for his party-hearty booze bingeing songs. I don’t know if Buffet had the any particular man in mind when he wrote this, but it’s the biography of someone who drifted through life, frittering away his talent and time – something I can relate to only too well. But the listener is left with the feeling that perhaps such lack of ambition is OK after all. The man “had a good life all the way.”

15. Both Sides Now, by Joni Mitchell, as sung by Joni Mitchell

The last time I was on a plane, I looked out the window and saw a bank of particularly fluffy clouds – below me. I inevitably thought of this song, and of how “I still don’t know clouds at all.”

14. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, by Sharon Vaughn, as sung by Willie Nelson

This song and Willie Nelson’s tumbleweed-in-the-wind voice are the perfect marriage, and end up perfectly portraying the used-up fate of a drifter.

13. If It Be Your Will, by Leonard Cohen, as sung by Antony

This is one of the few songs that Cohen wrote that is sung better by someone else. Antony’s version is unearthly beautiful.

12. Starry, Starry Night, by Don McLean, as sung by Don McLean

This was one of my favorite songs even before I knew it was the story of Vincent Van Gogh and before I knew how perfectly it reflected Van Gogh’s talent and struggles. “The world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.” With all my youthful angst and ego, I thought the song was made for me.

11. Forever Young, by Bob Dylan, as sung by Rod Stewart

The qualities and the kinds of luck needed to maintain a youthful spirit are beautifully rolled out here. Stewart’s video is also irresistible, with the young boy who’s riding along on his lap - tweaking his nose as they go.

10. Strange Fruit, by Abel Meeropol, as sung by Billie Holiday

This song contains what is perhaps the most searing metaphor in all of English literature. With Billie Holiday singing in her calm, liquid, almost matter-of-fact tone – the horror of racism is brought home all the more keenly. A 96-year-old friend of mine said she came upon a couple of trees hung with this fruit as she was walking through the woods outside of Macomb, Georgia, in her youth.  

9. Endless Road, by Hoyt Axton, as sung by Hoyt Axton

The beautiful harmonics of this song lead the listener home. When Hoyt Axton, who arguably had “the best pipes in the business” forms that final chord with the music – it’s chillingly beautiful.

8. September Song, by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, as sung by Willie Nelson

This is a timeless reflection on love sustained through the long years.

7. Blowin’ in the Wind, by Bob Dylan, as sung by Odetta

This has rightfully been the anthem of the Civil Rights movement and of freedom movements everywhere. It was likely a key element in winning Dylan his Nobel Prize for literature. As a result of my having joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when I was in high school, a classmate wrote a stanza from this song in my graduation book. The song is eternally relevant.

6. Sunday Morning Coming Down, by Kris Kristofferson, as sung by Johnny Cash

This song perfectly captures the retirement quality of Sunday mornings. No job to go to, not many stores open, not many people out, no mail delivery, nothing at all coming your way. Even the sun seems to shine gray on these Sundays. It only sheds enough light for you to sit and notice the dust filtering through its rays, with no stir in the air - settling down and covering your furniture, your life.

5. Love Me Tender, adapted by Ken Darby from Civil War ballad Aura Lea by W. W. Fosdick and George Poulton, as sung by Elvis Presley. (Aura Lea version sung by Frances Farmer)

The minimalist version of this song that Elvis sings in his movie debut is the ultimate demonstration of how moving a simple song, sung by someone whose voice has a beautiful timbre – can be.

4. This Land Is Your Land, by Woody Guthrie, as sung by Pete Seeger

This song should be our national anthem. Its rousing, welcoming, all-embracing spirit is America, or what America should be. Now they call it “inclusiveness” – a quality this song has in abundance, without being self-conscious or politically correct about it.

3. Over the Rainbow, by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, as sung by Judy Garland

This classic needs no commentary.

2. Good Ole Boys Like Me, by Robert McDill, as sung by Don Williams

This poetic narrative of a song speaks volumes. It distils the works of Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and other southern writers, into a glass of smooth bourbon. It speaks for the southerner who has been disenfranchised in the modern world, whose plight and heartache is disregarded in the rush to give priority to the disenfranchised represented in rap music. But there’s pathos in the way the poor white southerner has come too. When an acquaintance of mine proudly tells me how his father thumped the Bible and thumped him a whole lot harder - I hear the strains of this song. When I see the incomprehension in his eyes as he’s confronted by this world of political correctness – I hear the strains of this song. As he walks away from me, in beleaguered, impotent rage at my suggestion of evolution and equality, I hear the central question of this song - “So what’ll you do with good ole boys like me.”

1. Blue Skies, by Irving Berlin, as sung by Harry Richman

This song, seemingly such a simple ditty, has that underlying complexity that makes for a great song. If it’s sung at a cheery pace, there is still that inevitability of tragedy hiding behind the lilt, peeking out. If it’s sung as a slow blues wail, there is still that inevitability of joyousness peeking out. I had a hard time finding a singer who allowed this split personality to reveal itself sufficiently. It seemed that Harry Richman’s version came the closest. Richman, one of my favorite singers, had the advantage of singing the song close to the time it was written, when that 1920’s singing style usually had the in-a-tunnel, megaphone quality that carries such an automatically touching resonance. It automatically evokes a combination of nostalgia and happy expectation.

It’s hard to sing this song badly, but in my opinion, Al Jolson, another one of my favorite singers, uncharacteristically accomplishes that butchering when he bursts out with his eye-rolling, chopping- block rendition of the song in The Jazz Singer, the movie credited as being the first “talkie.”

In any case, the song was the first song to be heard when the modern media era was ushered in, and it might well be the last song to be heard when our time on this planet comes to an end. Then it will be “nothing but blue skies, from now on…”

Whacked By a Loquat

A friend of mine recently moved into a house in California which had an unusual tree in the back yard. The tree was loaded with yellow fruits that weren’t quite mangoes and weren’t quite plums. She did research on the Internet and found she had a loquat tree. She sent me a picture of the preternaturally laden growth that seemed almost as if it might have been planted by space aliens in her garden - to flourish from mere floral effulgences into paunchy human simulacra.

Ah, loquats! That brought back memories of what had been one of my own more outlandish experiences - memories of a colorful, roaring twenties-style episode in my life.

Back then, I was dating a man from Sicily. Without meaning to play into any ethnic stereotypes, this man in fact bragged that he had friends who were “connected.” That is, he had friends in the mob. He brought one of these pals along on one of our dinner dates. The two had grown up together, getting into minor smuggling mischief along the coasts of Cefalú and Taormina. They had come to the U.S. around the same time. Spencer Tracy/Humphrey Bogart fashion, they had taken different paths here – the good and the bad.

This pal turned out to be a perfect embodiment of the Joe Pesci character in Goodfellas, except he was taller. But he was fore-square and burst forward with a burly sense of always having the right-of-way. Again in embarrassing stereotype, he wore a tailored dark suit (even on that hot summer night) and drove a black Cadillac.

He said we should go to Chinatown. He was ripe for a meal at one of his favorite hangouts there. So we loaded into his Cady, all three of us crammed onto the front bench seat, with me in the middle. I soon learned that Jimmy not only looked like Joe Pesci, but he was filled with the same erratic, dangerous kind of presumption.

He soon apparently lost his way, but of course it was impossible for him to admit as much. He said he was taking “a short-cut.” After a long course of twists and turns along unfamiliar streets, we found ourselves at the entrance to an abandoned railroad siding on Chicago’s south side. “No Trespassing” signs were posted along the periphery of this desolate acreage. We were further meant to be warded off by a heavy anchoring chain that had once been stretched across a side road leading onto the property. But the chain had rusted and fallen onto the pavement. Jimmy took this as a come-on. He gunned his engine and shot over the heavy chain and over some other twisted metal as if he were Evil Knievel ramping up and over the hurdles in an obstacle course.

My date meekly observed, “I no think we suppose to go this way. The signs say about Tres…, Traipsing…”

“Those signs no apply to us!” Jimmy asserted with supreme bravado, as he shot over a spool of cabling.

As we jounced along, I was slung against him and became aware that he was “packing.” When I told this story to a friend of mine, she suggested the alternative that he might just have been glad to see me. But no, he actually was wearing a shoulder holster. This was well before the days when carrying concealed weapons had been made legal in Chicago. So no wonder the reason for the heavy suit jacket even in the heat of summer.

Miraculously, we finally made our way out of that terminus of abandoned railroad cars and railroad detritus, without either us or the car having suffered any damage. We actually found ourselves in a neighborhood within striking distance of Chinatown. Jimmy felt vindicated, although what should have been a twenty-minute drive had taken us over an hour. “I knew it a short-cut,” he pronounced. He parked the car and we walked.

On the way, we passed a thin, elderly black man who was weaving towards us down the street. The black man was obviously very inebriated and was having trouble steering a straight course. To my shock and horror, Jimmy grabbed the black man by the T-shirt as we passed him. He shook the man and yelled into his face, "Hey you! This Chinky town! You a Chink? I no think so! No you ain't! You no belong! Get off of da street!" With that, he flung the man aside toward the curb as if he was a sack of garbage. I guess Jimmy wanted his Chinatown to be like a DisneyWorld experience, peopled only by authentic Chinese actors.

I couldn’t believe it! Neither could the black man. The reality of this virulent rebuff clearly didn't register on him. He rolled his eyes as if trying to bring reality back into better focus, as if he believed he must be suffering from D.T.’s and just had some hallucination more exotic than the usually cited pink elephants. He staggered on without making any reply to what he’d obviously taken as some figment of his imagination.

Of course Jimmy had no sense of the irony of his objecting to a black man walking down the streets of Chinatown, while he himself, distinctly NOT Chinese, was walking there. But again, his conviction that none of the rules applied to him carried him forth, undeterred. With him leading the way, we finally got to his hangout, the King Wah Restaurant on Wentworth, the main street of Chicago's Chinatown.

There was more harrowing, illogical rough-talk from him during our meal. Jimmy’s politics were staunchly Republican – Republican to the death.  He vehemently took the side of the latest Republican Senator to be embroiled in a scandal. He said all the man’s opponents should be lined up against a wall and shot! Jimmy illustrated his point by pantomiming a St. Valentine’s Day-style massacre right there on the spot as he pointed his arms toward a wall of the restaurant.  He was filled with such violent partisanship. There were no gray areas for Jimmy. He was either all for or all against.

The mobster stereotypes kept coming hot and heavy. He said he was “in construction,” with the quotation marks floating almost palpably around his statement. He said he poured a lot of concrete. When my date rather disingenuously asked him what job he was currently working on, Jimmy said he had something he had to do out of town the following day. He said he was leaving for Detroit, to “straighten something out.”

Was Jimmy’s whole life a pantomime of mob affiliation? Was he just a wannabe? I’m not sure, but I have it from reliable sources that he did in fact leave for Detroit the following day, and my date was convinced his boyhood pal had become the real thing. He recommended him as someone you could always go to if you ever wanted a problem fixed. As we sat there, I felt no doubt that Jimmy would in fact straighten out whatever – or whoever – was fated to meet with him in Detroit.

But then it came time for dessert. This is where loquats played such a memorable role.

Jimmy imperiously snapped his fingers, and our elderly Chinese waiter eventually came over to our table, none too compliantly though. The waiter had a sour, disinclined look on his face. Jimmy had some trouble describing what he wanted for desert. “You know, that fruit, lo…lo…somethin’ like that,” he groped after the word.

The waiter said "Loquat? We no have that. Just what on menu." The waiter pointed testily to the absence of any mention of loquats on the menu. (This became a case of dueling dropped articles of speech.)

"No," the mobster tried again, although with clearly flagging spirit. "No, I think I have here before. Lo, lo - yeah loquat."

Then I remembered. It was true, I used to see lychee nuts, but occasionally loquats too, offered as desserts in Chinese restaurants. They would bring the fruit on dishes of chipped ice – cool succulences to end a spicy meal. But maybe now only the most expensive Chinese restaurants offered such delicacies. I hadn’t seen them in mainstream Chinese restaurants for a long time.

In any case, our waiter at this restaurant was definitely not willing to make common cause with Jimmy’s hankering for loquats. Like a teacher reprimanding an unruly child, the waiter sternly repeated, "No, we have no loquat. We have what on menu. You no see on menu - we no have!"

Amazingly, the mobster, the hit man - melted in meekness into the cushion of his booth before this onslaught of refusal. He backed down, all sheepishness, "Oh, OK. I thought... It OK. I wrong. Just... I guess we'll just have the fortune cookies. That OK. Yeah, we want fortune cookies," he said with face-saving assurance, as if that’s what he’d really wanted all along.

After all his rough talk, the mobster had been cowed by a waiter. Well, I guess NO ONE can intimidate a senior Chinese waiter.

The next day, my boyfriend passed along a message to me. He said Jimmy had liked me and had asked if I’d be interested in becoming his mistress.

I have to admit - despite the man's vicious racism and absurdist approach to life - I was tempted. I thought how nice it would be to be ushered through this world on the arm of a man who could “straighten out” all my adversaries. I thought of a popular tune sung by country/western star Joe Sun back then – “Shotgun Rider.” In the lyrics, Joe Sun asks his girlfriend to “Let me be your shotgun rider.” He says, “I will protect you from the rain and the cold.” I guess the term originally referred to armed men who’d ride on the sides of stagecoaches and shoot away all would-be stagecoach robbers. Then later the term was applied to the roaring 20’s mobsters who’d stand on the running boards that cars had then. They’d stand outside flanking their boss who rode in more secure luxury inside. These latter-day shotgun riders carried machine guns and Tommy guns, ready to blast away any impediment or enemy who crossed their path.

Yes, it would be nice to have a person like that running interference for me, in a metaphorical sense of course. I wouldn’t want anyone to actually get shot – I guess. But more generally, I longed to be in the company of a man who could umbrella me under his conviction that the rules – “They no apply to us!” For a moment there, I felt that with someone like him, I could break through the chains that warded mere mortals off sacred property. With such audacity by my side, all the “No Trespassing” signs, all the chains, and even death itself - would not apply.

But even then, I was wise enough to know that men who spout violence like that rarely can be counted on to aim their violence in the right direction. They usually end up wreaking their violence on their mates, while they coweringly cave-in when the real world presents a challenge. They’re too afraid of appearing foolish to ever ask for directions. They’re nowhere to be found when a repairman presents a grossly padded bill. And they back down when a sullen waiter refuses to bestir himself to produce loquats.

I sensed Jimmy would fail me in all those more vital everyday categories. I could picture him furtively siding with the plumber who charged me $250 to change a faucet washer – slipping him the money against my protests while he rolled his eyes to indicate that I could be a little moodily difficult, at certain times of the months. And he had shown himself to be incapable of standing his ground to get us those loquats that would have been so cool a refreshment on that hot summer night. All he could do was bully elderly black men on the street – men who weren’t in a position to fight back.

So I politely sent back a message declining Jimmy’s offer. I used the excuse of my loyalty to my current boyfriend – although we both knew that was a crock. Ours was just a casual summer liaison.

So to this day, I’ve never had a loquat. I don’t see them in the grocery stores where I shop, and I’ve never again seen or heard mention of them in any Chinese restaurant. My friend in California said she would send me some from her tree – except she found hers got mushy the day after being picked. They’d never make the trip. So all I have of loquats is the picture she emailed to me – and the memory of a hit man years ago who didn’t have the ammunition to get a loquat on our table.