Greil Marcus Covers The History Of Rock 'N' Roll In Ten [Surprising] Songs

Veteran rock critic Greil Marcus named his latest book The History Of Rock 'N' Roll In Ten Songs. But the songs that you might expect to see on the list -- songs like "Gimme Shelter," "Johnny B. Goode" and "Great Balls of Fire" -- are nowhere to be found. Even the artists most closely tied to the idea of rock 'n' roll in our collective consciousness, names like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis, don't appear on this list.

"We all know who the great characters are that have to be written about," Marcus told Soundcheck host John Schaefer. "Who would want to go over that again?" 

Instead, Marcus chose to focus on a handful of songs -- like "This Magic Moment" or "In the Still of the Nite" -- with the belief that "any good song would in and of itself carry the history of the music." The ten songs that he writes about in the book often have evolved significantly over time, with versions popping up every few decades that he believes are worthy of pointing out. 

Marcus explains about why The Flamin' Groovies might be more important than anyone initially thought; why "Transmission" by Joy Division contains the kernel for explosive new wave; and why a posthumously released demo from Buddy Holly out-rocks any of his hits. 

The Ten Songs:

Interview Highlights: 

Greil Marcus, on The Flamin' Groovies' "Shake Some Action": 

To me, it captures everything rock 'n' roll has ever wanted to be. It's fast. It's urgent. It's full of despair and desire. It's tremendously exciting. And yet, it's both a victory and a defeat. But what really sealed it for me was that when I listen to this song... is that before rock 'n' roll, before Chuck Berry, before Elvis Presley, before Little Richard -- no sound like the sound created in "Shake Some Action" had ever been heard on earth. So "Shake Some Action" was my little nugget of proof that rock 'n' roll actually was something new under the sun. 

On the evolution of the song "Money Changes Everything": 

One of the things that began to fascinate me was the way in which any given song would be taken up by other people, or returned to many many years later by the people who originally made them. As these songs live their lives in the world, the people who created them kind of stand back and watch that with awe and wonder. One of the things that so struck me was the way that a song called "Money Changes Everything" began in 1978 as a punk single by a band called the Brains in Atlanta, Georgia. It was taken up five years later by Cyndi Lauper, for her first solo album, "She's So Unusual," that enormous breakthrough album. In the Brains' version, it's a guy being left by his woman for somebody with more money... thinking about the terrible thing this woman has done to him. When Cyndi Lauper takes up the song, you'd expect her to simply reverse the gender... but she doesn't do that. She sings it as the woman leaving the man. It becomes this song of just horrible vengeance.