Playlist: Songs About… Light/”The” Light/Lights

I can’t get over what a dark time it is right now in the history of the world. We don’t speak about world events here, this is a rock n roll blog, but damn…

Perhaps because my spirits have been buoyed of late by the recent Black Crowes concert here in KC, and that communal celebration of rock n roll that is live music, I felt the need to inject some positivity into the universe. Either that or I’ve just been drawn in by the title track of Peter Frampton’s great new LP, Carry The Light.

Coincidentally, I was thinking the other day, we need a little light in these dark, contentious times. Maybe it’s because I heard “Blinded By The Light” and “White Light/White Heat” back to back…one never knows. Because believe me, “positivity” is not my forte. I’ve always preferred the shadows.

Anyway, since I am a rock n roll obsessive, I immediately began thinking about a playlist of songs about light or lights. I don’t care if it’s a green light, red light or the bright lights of the city, we need a beacon… a lighthouse if you will… to guide us back toward the good and out of the dark.

This is certainly not a religious playlist – I’m more of a Pagan, if I’m being honest – but it does point toward something sadly lacking these days… Hope. I know there can be no appreciation of the light without the dark, but uh, enough already.

Light can symbolize a lot of things. Steering toward the light inherently means steering away from the darkness, I suppose. That could be spiritual, if you’re so inclined, or about mental health/despair, depression vs joy. Light can certainly refer to the Hope I referred to earlier, or at least something that certainly vanquishes the dark. As the man sang, “Got to kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight.”

And while I was at it, I went very literal with songs about actual lights (Red Light/Green Light anyone?)… Not every track can be a profound mediation on existence or man’s quest for meaning. And a few of my songs suggest “shooting out” the lights… I am who I am.

Often times when we refer to “seeing the light” or someone “turning the lights on” it has to do with clarity. Meaning we’ve come to our senses or we can finally see how things really are, especially in terms of romance. A lot of people seem to be in the dark these days about current events… That can probably be blamed on where they get their news.

Whenever I hired someone for a new job I used to tell the newbie that taking a new job is like waking up in a dark hotel room… you’re disoriented and aren’t quite sure where you are, but you know you’re not home… you start feeling your way down the wall until you find the light switch.

When you hit that light switch, you’ll figure out where you are and what you’re doing. It takes a while to get down the wall. Weird, maybe… but it worked with people. We’re all just feeling our way down the wall right now. Everything is dark and disoriented.

As usual, I’m all over the place on this playlist. I’ve done separate playlists for the Sun and the Moon, which covered sunlight and moonlight so I mostly avoided repeating myself. At 72 songs this is my shortest playlist in a while…relatively speaking. It killed me to delete Television’s “Guiding Light” but I tried to stay mainstream. “Tried” is doing a lot work in that sentence.

While Styx and Journey made my list of sellout bands who disappointed me in the 90s, their early stuff still finds a way to my playlists, “…they pull me back in.” And 13 year old me wouldn’t allow me to delete Meatloaf. I left out the Doors’ “Light My Fire” as it prominently featured on my Songs About Fire playlist.

Here are the tracks I chose, but by all means, if you’ve got a good song I missed (or deleted in the service of relative brevity), put it in the comments and I’ll add it to the playlist. My remarks about each track are below.

• Bruce Springsteen, “Blinded By The Light” – I’ve never been a bigger Springsteen fan than right now.
• Rush, “Limelight” – From the great Moving Pictures. 
• Robert Plant, “Shine It All Around” – Latter-day Robert Plant is so sensational. What a solo career!
• U2, “City Of Blinding Lights” – I’ve always loved this song.
• Traveling Wilburys, “Headed For The Light” – George Harrison (mostly) takes the lead vocal here.
• David Gilmour, “Blue Light” – Perhaps his best known solo track. Great song.
• The Who, “Trick Of The Light” – I love this track although I might ask John Entwistle who wrote it, “Who hurt you, man?”
• Van Halen, “Light Up The Sky” – Even deep tracks from VH sound fantastic.
• Audioslave, “Light My Way” – We don’t talk enough about how great Audioslave were.
• Styx, “Light Up” – Well there’s more than one way to defeat the darkness… “Light up everybody, join us in this celebration,” indeed. They’re outlawing weed in Texas… damn Puritans.
• Traffic, “Light Up Or Leave Me Alone” – Good advice?
• Rush, “Available Light” – I had almost forgotten this one… Geddy Lee’s vocals are exceptional.
• Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, “Light Of Day” – A Springsteen penned song… from a movie.
• The Rolling Stones, “Shine A Light” – Mick wrote this for Brian Jones. “Could not seem to get a line on you…”
• Led Zeppelin, “In The Light” – Fabulous, trippy song featuring John Paul Jones on keyboards. From Physical Graffiti.
• U2, “Ultraviolet Light (Light My Way)” – Perhaps it’s a deep track, but this has always been a favorite.
• The Velvet Underground, “White Light/White Heat” – Heavy weirdness from Lou Reed & the band. Bowie used to cover it live.
• Billy Joel, “Miami 2017 (Seen The Lights Go Out On Broadway) – Live” – I picked the live version as it’s the definitive one, in my book anyway. Futuristic track at the time, that is now past.
• The Stills-Young Band, “Let It Shine” – Great, oft overlooked Neil song. Wish there’d been more Stills-Young Band music…”Eat a peach.”
• Steve Winwood, “Different Light” – After his “pop” period, he went back to Traffic-sounding jams. I always did love Back In The Highlife.
• Peter Frampton, “Carry The Light” – Great title track from his new LP. As mentioned above I’m addicted to it.
• Bruce Springsteen, “Party Lights” – Great outtake from The River. 
• The Black Keys, “Shine A Little Light” – Opening salvo from “Let’s Rock.”
• George Harrison, “The Light That Has Lighted The World” – I believe it was a Muslim scholar who wrote, “There are many lamps in the world, but they all cast the same light.” From Living In The Material World.
• U2, “Red Light” – Great song from War. 
• Gary Clark, Jr, “Bright Lights” – This guy makes me hopeful for the future of the guitar.
• Little Steven, “I Saw The Light” – From the great Soulfire. 
• Stevie Nicks, “The Lighthouse” – Powerful, recent protest track.
• Creedence Clearwater Revival, “As Long As I Can See The Light” – CCR giving us hope in the darkness. Great, bluesy classic. Keep one eye on the light to guide you home.
• Bobby “Blue” Bland, “Turn On Your Love Light” – I think Bob Seger covered this track… so many have.
• The Velvet Underground, “Beginning To See The Light” – From their third and perhaps most accessible album.
• Todd Rungren, “I Saw The Light” – Big hit from a genius double-LP.
• Bob Marley & The Wailers, “Turn Your Lights Down Low” – Bob making a great plea for mood lighting.
• Smashing Pumpkins, “With Every Light” – For reasons unclear I’ve been heavily into the Pumpkins of late. I always have been, I suppose.
• Madonna, “Ray Of Light” – This may be the first Madonna song on one of our playlists, ever.  I’m not a fan of her pop songs, but I’ve always had a soft spot for this bit of electronica. This song sounds more like late-90s Lenny Kravitz than her usual stuff.
• The Cult, “Elemental Light” – From the oft overlooked gem Choice Of Weapon.
• Meatloaf, “Paradise By The Dashboard Lights” – Again, 13 year old me wouldn’t allow me to cut this epic track from the list…
• Styx, “Lights” – I hear this and I’m in junior high school again…As is usually the case for me and Styx, it’s a Tommy Shaw track.
• The Cult, “Avalanche Of Light” – From another great late-era Cult LP, Hidden City. 
• Neil Young, “Shining Light” – Obscure Neil Young is often better than a lot of folks well known tracks.
• Richard & Linda Thompson, “Shoot Out The Lights” – These two made some sensational music. In terms of this song, I get it, sometimes you just want to kill the lights. Try again tomorrow.
• Journey, “Lights” – Steve Perry song about L.A. that the band repurposed for San Francisco. Love that first stanza where the lights are turning off and the sun comes out… how many dawns have I seen something similar? Ah, the old days…
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Bastards Of Light” – From the recent Unlimited Love. With Dream Canteen, they could have called this era, Unlimited Songs. 
• Pink Floyd, “Let There Be More Light” – This one is just for me… great psychedelic rock from the early, pre-Dark Side Of The Moon era of Floyd.
• Simple Minds, “See The Lights” – One for the Rock Chick.
• U2, “Lights Of Home” – This one takes me back to my traveling salesman days… racing to get home from some far flung city. From U2’s Songs Of Experience. 
• Annie Lennox, “Downtown Lights” – Annie – whose voice is heavenly – doing a track originally from The Blue Nile. Rod Stewart also covered this song.
• Beady Eye, “Bring The Light” – Who doesn’t love a song with the line, “I see no point in what you’re thinking, I’m going out, I’m taking you drinking.”
• Pearl Jam, “Low Light” – Ethereal, acoustic track from Yield. 
• Lou Reed, “City Lights” – Jaunty bit of strangeness from Lou.
• Green Day, “See The Light” – One of so many great songs from Green Day.
• The Rolling Stones, “2000 Light Years From Home” – More trippy psychedelia, this time from the Stones. Would have loved to see them do something like this on the sensational new Foreign Tongues, just to freak people out.
• The White Stripes, “City Lights” – An acoustic track, really Jack solo, from a compilation album.
• The Cult, “Speed Of Light” – From their sensational Beyond Good And Evil. The first tour I got to see them on.
• Dave Gahan &. The Soulsavers, “Shine” – From the Gahan side project with the Soulsavers, Angels & Ghosts. That voice.
• Jack White, “Blue Light, Red Light (Someone’s There)” – Groovy, almost jazzy B-side from Jack.
• Neil Young & Crazy Horse, “Standing In The Light Of Love” – Great rocking track from Toast. 
• The Black Keys, “When The Lights Go Out” – Great breakup song with the lyric, “You know what the sun’s all about, when the lights go out.” We don’t appreciate the light sometimes until it’s dark.
• Jimmy Reed, “Bright Lights Big City” – One of my favorite songs by Jimmy Reed. He’s a blues guy I need to dig deeper into.
• Richard & Linda Thompson, “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight” – Linda on lead vocals here. Great track about getting out, spending a little money drinking and blowing off some steam in the city.
• Aerosmith, “Light Inside” – Deep track from the oft-maligned Just Push Play, but there’s something I always liked about it.
• Green Day, “Lights Out” – B-side from the “Know Your Enemy” single.
• Pearl Jam, “Light Years” – Probably my favorite track from Binaural. 
• Robbie Robertson, “Shine Your Light” – Great ballad from a soundtrack album.
• The Rolling Stones, “Dancing In The Light” – From the deluxe version of Exile On Main Street. 
• Thin Lizzy, “Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Got Me In It’s Spotlight)” – As I said, I’ve covered the moon/moonlight so I avoided those songs… except for this one. It includes a spotlight, so why not?
• Billy Joel, “House Of Blue Light” – Big horns on this blustery rock song.
• The Jayhawks, “Real Light” – Every now and then I just have to include an obscurity… again, just for me. Great song, though.
• Yes, “Run Through The Light” – My brother had this album, Drama. I can remember hearing it coming from his room through the wall. “Not everything is okay…”
• Bush, “Red Light” – From their first LP back from a decade long hiatus in 2011. I always dug this record.
• Rod Stewart, “It’s Not The Spotlight” – From the great Atlantic Crossing. 
• Billy Joel, “Turn The Lights Back On” – I love this great single from Billy and it seemed like the perfect song to end this on, a plea to please turn the lights back on. Please!

These are my favorite songs about light(s). Well, at least the ones I didn’t cut from the final list, anyway. I’ve always spent a longtime in the darkness… I’m like the Stones who sang, “The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.” But I think we could all use a little light in our lives these days.

Crank this one up loud with a tumbler of the good stuff. Again, if you’ve got a good song that fits the theme, drop it in the comments. What is your favorite song about light/the light/lights? Let me know.

Cheers!