Saturday Single No. 480

Some days, it’s just not there. Today is one of those. I’ll be fine tomorrow, but today, I got nothing. So . . .

There are about 200 tracks in the RealPlayer with “nothing” in their titles. (The search finds 269, but we have to account for five albums with “nothing” in their titles.) The earliest “nothing” track is Georgia White’s “Blues Ain’t Nothing But A Woman Cryin’ For Her Man” from 1938, and the most recent titles are a pair of tracks from Keith Richards’ 2015 album, Crosseyed Heart: “Nothing On Me” and “Something For Nothing.”

The shortest track with “nothing” is a line of dialogue from the Game Of Thrones television series: Ygritte’s classic “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” The shortest “nothing” piece of music is “Five Percent For Nothing,” thirty-eight seconds of beeps and sweeps from Yes’ 1972 album Fragile.The longest track that turned up is Chris Rea’s “Nothing To Fear,” a piece from his 1992 album, God’s Great Banana Skin, that runs 9:12.

Alphabetically, the “nothing” tracks run from “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number,” a 1971 effort by 100 Proof (Aged in Soul), to Brooks & Dunn’s “Your Love Don’t Take A Backseat To Nothing” from 1998.

When we go back to sorting the “nothing” songs by year, we find a treat right in the middle: Koko Taylor’s 1993 cover of Toussaint McCall’s 1967 hit “Nothing Takes The Place Of You.” It’s from Taylor’s album Force Of Nature, and it’s today’s Saturday Single.

Tags: Koko Taylor