Eleven Songs To Help You Through "Trouble"
Folk Pioneer John Gorka Once Sang "He Comes From Trouble and He's Always Going Home"
Without Trouble, The Music World Would Suffer
Even though school has been back in session for only a few weeks, most veteran teachers can already predict which students are going to be the source of most of their troubles. Some of those young individuals have already neglected turning in assignments or ignoring teacher instructions or unfortunately harassing their peers.
Having spent thirty years in a high school classroom, I can aver with experience that those darlings causing disruption this early will most likely continue. Rather than lose valuable sleep fretting about those imps, as I did way too often, I suggest to all educators that they use music to escape the dread of another morning.
In the world of music, trouble can sometimes bring about a positive result. Consider two of the best albums from the late Seventies, Supertramp's Breakfast In America and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
Both of those Grammy winning records were recorded during personal troubles among band members, including two divorces within the quintet of Fleetwood Mac.
More often the trouble leads to individual songs, like these eleven that even include the word in their titles. One of them, in fact, managed to take trouble to the number one spot on the Billboard charts.
1. Trouble With Dreams by Eels
Mark Oliver Everett was at his creative peak on Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, the album highlighted by this single.
2. Double Trouble by Lynyrd Skynyrd
After calling for fun control on the previous album's "Saturday Night Sprcial," the band demanded their bullets back with the threat inherent in this title.
3. Trouble Waiting To Happen by Warren Zevon
Alt rockers REM helped out on Sentimental Hygiene, the album highlighted by this autobiographical pop classic.
4. Troubled Times by Fountains of Wayne
While Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlessiger usually write catchy pop tunes with bits of humor, they can like in this track from Utopia Parkway leave you with an aching heart.
5. Troubles and Care by John Gorka
Old Futures Gone is the contemplative title of the folk singer's ninth album, which contains this song which his wife Laurie Allmam helped compose.
6. Turns Out I'm Trouble by the Old 97s
Rhett Miller admits the truth of this metaphor on his band's latest album, Graveyard Whistling.
7. Trouble Comes Running by Spoon
Personification when applied to trouble is always approaching in a hurry, as Britt Daniel melodically points out on this track from the Transference album.
8. Trouble In Paradise by Huey Lewis and the News
The optimism pervading hits like "Do You Believe In Love" and "I Want a New Drug" has been abandoned on this follow up single.
9. Trouble In Mind by Willie Nelson
Other artists like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash have recorded this standard, but Nelson nails it better than anyone else.
10. My Troubled Heart by Christopher Owens
After the demise of his group Girls, Owens released an excellent solo album, rife with catchy country-tinged tunes like this one.
11. Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel
Based on the title alone, fans of the duo should have predicted that this beautiful ballad would be their last number one hit before their split in 1970.
