Greg Kihn - "For You" (1977)

A handful of years before before "Jeopardy" and "The Breakup Song" made them New Wave heroes, The Greg Kihn Band was a talented hard-working group who toured constantly and put out a few fine power pop albums.

Those early albums had a cult FM radio following, and Kihn was shrewd enough to cover an early Springsteen song for his second album, Greg Kihn Again. Taking a page from the Byrds' re-arrangement of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" with a straight 4/4 beat, Kihn did the exact same thing with "For You," cutting out a couple of verses, bringing out the jangling guitars and harmonica.

Springsteen's original is quite emotional, a plea for his suicidal girlfriend to stay alive. Kihn's version is less drastic, far more straight ahead, almost as if he was telling a story.

An album or two later, Springsteen returned Kihn the favor by giving him another excellent certified rocker, "Rendevous," which later appeared on The Boss' Tracks compilation.

When Kihn made a stop in the early 80's at My Father's Place in Roslyn, I got a chance to not only see him but interview him as well for the alternative music magazine The Aquarian. Kihn was no exceptional artist, nobody who was going to break sales or even be cited for being a heralded musical influence. He made it clear to me that he was just about making great rock music with a four-piece band, and cited some of his favorites such as The Byrds and Creedence Clearwater Revival. His club gig was exactly as you'd expect for a guy who was on the road perfecting his craft -- catchy songs, guitarist Dave Carpenter doing all the pyrotechnics, crack arrangements, and rowdying up the crowd, feeding off the sheer exhilaration of Kihn loving what he does. I'm still surprised his live shows didn't make him bigger than he was.

Here's my homemade video of Kihn's superb cover of "For You," featuring many photos and albums of him and the band through the years.

Led Zeppelin - "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)" (1969)

While shooting bumper pool at the East New York YMHA's teen lounge, this song thundered out of the jukebox (literally) and stopped everything. I walked over to peer behind the glass to see the red and green 45 spinning around playing this song. From then on, I was poking the request digits for this song, as it just blew me away every time.

To this day, I remember everything about this three-minute song that pushed a button for me: Robert Plant's untamed and biting vocals ("ohh, you got it!" at the end of Jimmy Page's guitar solo), the machine-like thump of John Bonham's drums, the building guitar chords after each chorus ("So you better lay your money dow-w-w-wn!") and that crazy lead figure that leads to "Living... loving... she's just a woman."

That was enough for me to scrape together enough money and buy the Led Zeppelin II at some department store that is probably long out of business (Korvettes?). I didn't have the greatest phonograph player when I was 12, but it didn't matter. I loved every second of this album and damn, this was the second longest drum solo on an album I had ever heard (next to Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," of course). Right after "Living Loving Maid" was the hiss and crackle that lead to the soft acoustic strumming of "Ramble On." Still, this was by far the loudest record I owned at the time (not much competition at this point either with Seals & Crofts' Summer Breeze).

There are tons of online videos showing amateur guitarists demonstrating the riffs and solos of this song, and Lord knows how many cover bands, including this out-of-nowhere one from a local Canadian morning TV show that must have woken up the audience immediately. With no live Zeppelin videos, here's a nice homemade tribute which really is all about the song and definitely not the visuals.

The Kinks - "Father Christmas" (1977)

One of the best rock and roll Christmas songs ever, maybe the only one you can do air guitar to. Recorded at the same time as their impressive Misfits album, the Kinks released this riff-laden ode to the real meaning of the holiday in December 2007.

While 99% of Christmas songs performed by pop artists are slicked-up versions of old standards, the Kinks dared to be original and true to who they were -- satirists and observers who can rock at the same time.

Christmas is not my holiday, although when this came out, people weren't as inundated with holiday music as they are now. "Father Christmas" appeared during the Kinks' big second wind of success, when they were on a roll with Arista Records, with albums like Sleepwalker, Misfits, Give The People What They Want, and Low Budget. They were helped along by New Wave's rock resurgence, band songwriter Ray Davies at the top of his game, and some hits like "Come Dancing."

The narrator remembers the good old days when his dad dressed as Santa Claus, so when he gets older and it's his turn to do St. Nick in front of a department store, he gets mugged by a gang of kids.

Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys.
Well beat you up if you don't hand it over
We want your bread so don't make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys.

Don't give my brother a Steve Austin outfit
Don't give my sister a cuddly toy
We don't want a jigsaw or monopoly money
We only want the real McCoy.

No mush on this song, but walls of electric guitars, a jingle bell-like piano, a snapping drummer, and brother Dave Davies whipping out searing solos.

Below, the Kinks shot this video in their Konk Studio for the great British music series "Old Grey Whistle Test." The audio and video are not that great, but it's a treat to watch.