Recently by Graeme Whitfield

Further proof that no-one tells stories better than Loudon Wainwright III: the not quite three minutes of OGM are alternating devastating and hilarious.

After yesterday's choice, I am in sore need of restoring my credibility, so I'll opt for the none-more-cool Lambchop.

Up With People is from their 2000 album Nixon, which is very much their creative peak, I reckon.

I saw the band live a couple of years later at the Journal Tyne Theatre and was thrilled at the fact that they jameed about 14 musicians onto what seemed like a very big stage.

No, honest. Mona, by Craig McLachlan (and his band Check 1-2!!!) is today's Song of the Day.

I realise that you should probably never pick Craig McLachlan - Neighbours' Henry Ramsay, of course - if you want people to respect your music blog.

But what can I say? This is catchy, I used to sing it all the time in the summer of 1990 and at least the song is by Bo Diddley (phew, some cred saved at the last there...) Mona was the B-side of Bo Diddley's seventh single Hey Bo Diddley! and was also covered by the Rolling Stones on their first album.

Lucinda Williams is best known for her 1998 album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, but you would be a fool - a fool, I tells ya - to ignore Passionate Kisses, from her 1998 debut LP.

Like quite a few songs on this blog, I first it heard it on the old Andy Kershaw show on Radio One. It is two-and-a-half minutes long, which is great, and pretty close to being pop perfection.

Williams has loads of great tunes worth checking out, but for a none-more-drawly bit of singing, I would also point to you to her duet with Steve Earle, You're Still Standing There.

There are certain songs that you find yourself singing along to even though you haven't got a clue what they mean; one of these is Cannonball by The Breeders.

The lead single from their 1993 album Last Splash - and NME's single of the year - Cannonball has a twisty bassline, some great guitar and then a great tune on top.

But they lyrics? "Spitting in a wishing well/Blown to hell crash/I'm the last splash." That would appear to be nonsense but I've still sung it at the top of my lungs many a time...

Not quite sure how it's taken me 127 songs to pick something by Tom Waits, but I hope this will make up for my tardiness.

Downtown Train is from Waits' 1985 album Rain Dogs, which no home should be without. (It was described by one critic as "bony and beautiful" which sounds about right.)

The video was directed by trendy Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Mondino and features the boxer Jake LaMotta, whose life was the basis of the film Raging Bull.

Elvis Costello is currently in a country music mood, which probably infuriates many of his old fans but pleases me no end.

His current album Sacred, Profane and Sugarcane is a bit of a mixed bag, but it's still got some cracking tunes and The Crooked Line - co-written with long-time collaborator T-Bone Burnett, and with Emmylou Harris on backing vocals - is great.

According to Costello: " 'The Crooked Line' is a song longing for constancy. It's the only song I've ever written about fidelity that is without any irony."

Feeling sexy? Listen to Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield and you certainly will be.

From his debut album Curtis - described by one critic as "practically the Sgt. Pepper's album of '70s soul", Move On Up was never a hit in America but spent 10 weeks in the British charts, peacking at Number 12.

(It was sampled in 2005 by Kanye West for his song Touch the Sky).

Echobelly: criminally under-rated or second-division Britpop also-rans? Discuss.

A bit of both, I'd say. They weren't Pulp or Blur, obviously, but they did have some rather spirited tunes, intelligent lyrics and a decent frontwoman. Better than Sleeper, certainly.

I particularly the swooping chorus of Insomniac, though Great Things is also splendid.

It takes a fairly hard heart to not love a song called Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.

Written by Ed and Patsy Bruce, it was made famous by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, whose version was first released on their 1978 album Waylon & Willie. The brilliantly humourless description of the song on wikipedia says that "the song's lyrics advise mothers to raise their children as doctors or lawyers rather than cowboys, who seem to be 'always alone'."

I first heard it sung by a pre-troubles Andy Kershaw, sat on an oversized rocking chair somewhere in Texas, for a Channel 4 TV Show. Listening to it now makes me think: "Get well, Kersh."