Seven Song Spin: Accordion to Who

In my blink-and-you'd-miss-it tenure as a deejay at KSCR, my college radio station, I hosted a show called "Mixed-Up Roots" on which I played the music I was into at the time, a blend of folk and Americana and post-punk and pop and country, etc. I happened to notice that among the "carts" they had to break up songs (I don't think they had any official paid advertising) was one that put into audio form the bumper-sticker meme "Play an accordion, go to jail!" I took that as my cue to play every song I could find that had rock cred and also happened to use an accordion, from Los Lobos to the Pogues to Ry Cooder to the Waterboys, and between each one I played that anti-accordion cart. I remember the odd smile on the face of the deejay who was preparing to follow me as he watched me go through this perverse ritual—it conveyed a mix of mockery and disbelief, as my plumping for this much-maligned instrument must have seemed to him the definition of insanity.

And hey, I get it—the accordion is an obstreperous, extremely uncool box of wheezing, wheedling air. Except when it's not! This playlist doesn't include all the songs I played on "Mixed-Up Roots" 30-some years ago, but it does contain some choice squeeze-box cuts.

This complete playlist can be found here.

All those mad men's eyes: "London Girl" is hardly the most characteristic Pogues song, but I've always loved its irrepressible pop energy, combined with its salty, site-specific lyrics. And Jamie Fearnley's accordion rocks at least as hard as his great memoir of his time with the band, Here Comes Everybody.

Green shoes, haircuts, and cake: Lots of great Los Lobos tracks to choose from, but I especially love the way they use the accordion amid the swirl of instruments and images in "Kiko and the Lavender Moon"; its sounds like a wind instrument with a knife's edge. (I wrote about the album it's from here.)

Please come back: I used to own a great live record by Queen Ida her Bon Temps Zydeco Band. "La Louisiane" remains my favorite track here, not just for her accordion but for the fine guitar work of Al Rapone.

The dirtiest job in town: I don't know what this genre of music would be called. Zydeco-billy? In any case, I'm hard pressed to think of anything more joyful-sounding than Ry Cooder's take on Johnny Cash's "Get Rhythm," with Flaco Jimenez on the keybox. (I wrote about the great record it's from here.)

Tango, Tragedia, Comedia, Quilombo: Technically Astor Piazzolla plays the bandeneon, not the accordion, but to the layman's ears this is a fine distinction. The badass opening of his great late collection Tango: Zero Hour made me an instant convert. Who said this instrument couldn't do dynamics?

Tus negocios sucios: While we're in the tango neighborhood, I would be remiss if I didn't highlight (again) this choice cut by Shakira, "Te aviso, te anuncio," which doesn't just have accordion but also big, twangy guitars. Irresistible.

What you done to its eyes: If any single band is responsible for reclaiming the accordion for me, it would the Texas polka-punk outfit Brave Combo, whom I discovered when I was writing music previews for the local paper in Arizona 35 years ago, and who did a lot of other reclaiming of disrespected or misunderstood musical genres and forms. Case in point: This exquisite cover of Krzysztof Komeda's gorgeous lullaby for Rosemary's Baby, which in their rendition is suitably haunting but seems to me entirely shorn of the creepy-crawly of its original version.