5 Songs to Get You Through the Week #125

5 Songs to Get You Through the Week is a feature I run on Young Ears, Fresh Perspective on Sundays/early hours of Monday morning where I pick out 5 tunes that I think are notable and tell you a bit about them. The point is to give you some rocking music to help you deal with your weekday blues. You can either listen to one each day, listen to them all at once, or any other combination that you feel. As long as you can get through the week without the man getting you down, that's all I care about. Without further ado, here are the 5 tracks I've picked out for this week:

1. Grinnin' in Your Face, by Son House

This tune is a Capella, but it has more soul and passion to it than most songs with instruments these days. In this song the legendary blues man who taught Robert Johnson sings of how one must be careful whom they trust, not worry about how they live, and how few true friends there are out there because no matter what you do people are going to smile to your face but stab you in the back when you aren't looking. You can hear the experience and honesty dripping from his voice, for sure.

2. Howlin' for You, by The Black Keys

This song often gets played and the melody chanted and stomped along to at sporting events. I guess I can kind of understand that given that it does have a pretty big, beefy, memorable riff. Even though I'm not a big sports ball fan, I can still get on board with blasting it at top volume as well because all that aside, it rocks. It's definitely one of the best songs that The Black Keys have come up with since they went the more highly produced commercial rock route.

3. Break-in City (Storm the Gate), by Tenacious D

Even though Tenacious D is not meant to be taken seriously by any stretch of the imagination, I still can't help but rock out whenever this tune comes on. It has such an 80's non-hair metal vibe to it that I head bang right along. The guitar work is tasty as hell and it showcases the fact that Jack Black does actually have some legitimate vocal talent even though he uses it for comedic purposes. Definitely one of the D's best songs if you ask me.

4. Ted the Mechanic, by Deep Purple

Even though there is only a handful of songs post-Ritchie Blackmore from Deep Purple that I'm a big fan of, this one is definitely among them. It shows off that even though the band had just gone through a huge transition and were getting older they could still shake a groove. Steve Morse proves that he is more than capable of handling axe duties and filling the shoes of his predecessor and then some. If you're looking for something with a funky edge to it, look no further.

5. I Love Rock and Roll, by Joan Jett

Who doesn't know and love this song? You can't put on a classic rock station for more than 20 or 30 minutes without hearing it at least once. This is one of those songs that you can tell was meant to fill up and excite a huge arena of people. It just has that gargantuan presence to it. You can feel the unbridled wild passion of Jett pounding away at her guitar and singing her lady balls off into the mic. It is definitely a rock anthem for a reason.