After sidetracking last week for an important theme for me I thought I’d return to where I left off, with a second set of wrong songs. As I said before, there don’t seem to be as many of these as there are for right, and two of today’s set of six even have that in their title too! That doesn’t stop these being good tunes, though, and even if you don’t like them all I sure do! These are album tracks, for the most part, so I’m anticipating that they may be new for you, so prepare for a little voyage of discovery!

Even if you don’t know this first song, you’ll have heard of the guy, I’m sure:

Bruce Springsteen, of course, with Wrong Side Of The Street. I’m not sure what the video was intending to show, if anything, but at least it got me round the restrictions that applied to the official ones! This was a track on The Promise, a compilation album released in November 2010, which was a collection of previously unreleased songs that were recorded during the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions in 1977–1978, with some vocals and additional instrumentation overdubs recorded in 2010. It was released in 2CD and 3LP formats, and peaked at #16 in the US, going Gold for sales. It fared much better on this side of the pond, though: #1 in Germany, Sweden and Spain, #4 in The Netherlands, Italy, Ireland and Switzerland, and #7 here in the UK. Collections of unreleased songs can sometimes be a little patchy in quality – maybe there was a reason they were left off the original album?  But that doesn’t apply to this one, which is up to The Boss’ usual high standard.

Next up is a real beauty of a song:

Right To Be Wrong was the opening track on Joss Stone’s second album, Mind Body & Soul, which was released in September 2004 and made #1 in the UK and #11 in the US. The album sold well in many other countries, too, reaching the top ten around the world. It has sold more than 1.3m in the US (Platinum), 940,000 in the UK (3x Platinum), and a further million across Europe. The song was released as a single, peaking at #29 in the UK. This video is from her performance at the 2005 Brit Awards, at which she won British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act awards, and was later nominated – without winning – for three Grammys. She wasn’t the most prolific of artists, and has to date released just nine albums, the most recent in 2022 after a seven year hiatus, during which she found love, marriage and children (three plus one adopted), and now lives in the US. If she never releases another record she has given us a great legacy, and that smoky voice of hers really is a thing of beauty.

Going way back now, for one of my favourite usual suspects, at the time he was part of a duo with his then-wife:

For Shame Of Doing Wrong was a track on Richard and Linda Thompson’s third album as a duo, Pour Down Like Silver, which was released in November 1975. They had converted to the Sufi faith in 1974 and were conflicted in making this record, between a contractual obligation under which they owed Island Records one more album, and a Sheikh who was less than supportive of music. But they managed to come up with a very good album, with several songs of a religious theme including the album closer, Dimming Of The Day, which is simply stunning.

As I have said before, this next band have a very special place in my heart:

Think That You Might Be Wrong was the opening track on Great Lake Swimmers’ fifth album New Wild Everywhere, which was released in April 2012. It is a lovely record which I played to bits at the time, and it was one of the things that helped to bring me out of the long period of depression which caused me to be off work for more than nine months. I have described before how they were the first band I saw play live after that period, on a very cold, wet London night in November 2012, and they were fantastic. I was directly in the line of view of Miranda Mulholland, the lovely fiddle player, and was caught often gazing admiringly in her direction! On the way home I tweeted the band to thank them for the show and much to my surprise got an almost instant reply from Miranda. If only I had been able to stay for the encore, but I’d have missed the last train home…

I’m probably on more familiar ground with today’s penultimate one. There are loads of versions of the song, and this is my favourite:

Rod Stewart released his cover version of (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right on his eighth album, Foot Loose & Fancy Free, which came out in November 1977 and got to #3 in the UK and #2 in the US, though it did reach #1 in Australia, Canada, The Netherlands and New Zealand. It sold more than 3m copies in the US and 300,000 in the UK – respectable, but not his best! The song was written by Stax Records songwriters Homer Banks, Carl Hampton, and Raymond Jackson, and was originally intended for The Emotions. It has been performed by many singers, most notably by Luther Ingram, whose original recording in 1972  topped the US R&B chart for four weeks and made #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rod’s album credits the song as a ‘Luther Ingram cover.’

I’m closing today with another by someone of whom you have probably heard, but you may not know this lovely little song:

Mike Rosenberg, aka Passenger, with The Wrong Direction, a track from his fourth, and big breakthrough album All The Little Lights. This song was released as the first single from the album in January 2012, but only made the charts in The Netherlands, where it got to #28. The album was released the following month and was a huge hit, based on the success of the second single, Let Her Go – still one of my all time favourites. That single has sold 4m in the US and 3.6m in the UK, and helped the album to #3 in the UK and #26 in the US, as well as top ten placings in many other countries. It is a lovely album, another that I bought and played a lot during my recovery from depression, and if you only know the big hit single take it from me – you’ve been missing out!

That’s it for today, and for wrong songs. I’ll dream up a new theme for next week, so do drop by again then to see what the deeper recesses of what I laughingly call ‘my brain’ have dredged up. Until then, be well and happy 😊

[And as I have taken to doing at the end of these posts, I’m linking to the sites on which I will be sharing this. Firstly, Esme’s Senior Salon Pit Stop, and then Cathy’s Monday’s Music Moves Me. Both well worth some of your time]