Afghan Whigs, "Retarded"
Uh, yikes.
"Television's gone / I'm alone with Lucifer / what a drag" is such an outstanding summary of Greg Dulli's lyrical work with the Whigs. Shame about the slurs, though.
The Temptations, "I Wish It Would Rain"
A thing that gets a little lost about Motown is that a lot of it is reduced to just the same handful of the biggest hits these days. And those songs are great, sure, but there's so much awesome stuff just a tiny bit deeper in their catalog. This was a decent hit back in the day, but has largely disappeared from people's memory, and it's a great tune.
Mono Puff, "Dr. Kildare"
Mono Puff is John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants doing a side project which frankly just sounds like TMBG, only with no Linnell songs. If that sounds like your bag, they put out two albums, just in case you get through the estimated 802 TMBG albums.
They Might Be Giants, "Santa's Beard"
Right on time, shuffle! This song was originally on Lincoln, but this comes to us courtesy of They Might Be Giants in...Holidayland, a holiday EP that means there are at least 803 TMBG releases.
Firewater, "The Man on the Burning Tightrope"
This album, of which this is the title track, represents in my mind the final act of Firewater's first phase. This record really took the demented cabaret thing about as far as it was going to go, and with the subsequent albums, Tod A took the band in more of a demented world music direction. And on this record, there are no songs that are more like a carnival gone wrong than this one.