This isn't Bastille Day weekend, what's all the fuss edition

1. Sunrise- The Who

• "You take away the breath I was keeping for sunrise, you appear and the morning looks drab in my eyes, and then again I'll turn down love, having seen you again, once more you'll disappear, my morning put to shame." I'm too lazy to dig up the liner notes for "The Who Sell Out" at the moment but if memory serves Pete Townshend wrote this song to prove to his mother that he could write jazz. Take that Mrs. Townshend. "Sunrise" is quite unlike any song you've heard from The Who. We have Pete Townshend on vocals and acoustic guitar (channeling his inner Barney Kessel) while the rest of the band is nowhere to be found. It's not obvious what the remaining members of The Who would have done on this song. The results of "Sunrise" are in fact quite jazzy. As far as I know The Who never performed this song live. Hearing "Sunrise" reminds me how each Who song started out as a Townshend demo. The Lifehouse Demos box set (for the avid fan) or Lifehouse Chronicles compilation CD (for the faint of heart) as well as the "Scoop" collections provide brilliant insight into the origins of a number of Who classics.

2. Talking About My Baby- The Impressions

• "I wanna talk about my baby (yeah yeah), she does the walk real nice (yeah yeah), there's no questions about maybe, for her I'd make any sacrifice." The first 6 seconds of "Talking About My Baby" are heaven sent. Curtis Mayfield gives us a soulful guitar lick for the ages....it's so pure. When the horns and the rest of the band kick in the sound gets even better. By the time the vocals (and backing vocals) arrive we've gone to another level. If you are a fan of soul music, "Talking About My Baby" ought to be in your collection. When Curtis Mayfield passed away I remember reading a quote (which may have been from Mayfield himself) that said his particular style of guitar playing was passing away as well. If you listen to Mayfield's lick here it is impossible not to hear how he influenced Jimi Hendrix. On top of the great guitar sound his voice is so distinctive there is no mistaking it. "Talking About My Baby" gets an A+++.

3. In Da Club- 50 Cent

• "Go shawty, it's your birthday." I can remember the 1st time I heard this song. My friend Mike D played it for me at the Days Inn (State College) on a burnt CD, playing on a Sony PlayStation connected to the hotel room TV. I was told it would be a popular song. I had no idea. Now it's hard to remember life before 50. These days gangsta rappers are spokesjacks for things like Vitamin Water (50 Cent) and Dr. Pepper (Dr. Dre) so we can't escape them even if we wanted to. One of the more memorable lines from "In Da Club" is "Banks told me, go ahead switch the style up, and if 'they' hate then let 'em hate and watch the money pile up." Of course Kanye West took the lyric and ran with it in "Good Life" on 2007's "Graduation". "Graduation" was released the same day as 50's "Curtis" LP. 50 boasted (hip hop does encourage boasting) that he'd retire if "Graduation" outsold "Curtis". Of course it did and he didn't. "In Da Club" will go down in the all time pantheon of great hip hop songs and I'm not one to argue.