I used to play the piano at Bar Mitzvahs. At one Bar Mitzvah, a kid close to my age approached the piano and asked if I knew Billy Joel’s “Rootbeer Rag.” I was stumped. “No,” I said. “Sorry.”

I could tell he was unimpressed. And it stung all the more because I play by ear and, at that time, could play almost any Billy Joel song or, for that matter, Elton John song. So when I got home I bought the CD with “Rootbeer Rag” and set out to learn it.

But I couldn’t learn it. It’s so complex; and even now, when I listen to this track and try to play it, I can’t really do it. I can fake it, slightly. But not really. And that’s the genius of Billy joel and his song about root beer. If you’re ever at a Bar Mitzvah, don’t ask the piano player to play it. It’s too hard!

I had forgotten how much I really love Falafel. It’s salty flavor drenched in hot sauce and wrapped in a heated pita is one of the most perfect lunches. In Manhattan there are about two places that I prefer for my falafel and other shawarma-related tastiness. There is also something to be said for unique takes on Falafel, like when you put it in a crab cake.

I’ve never personally cooked or made my own Falafel, but there are some things I would prefer to leave to the experts. In my mind, the best middle eastern food I ever had was when I lived on Edgware Road in London. There were about six-hundred kebab shops in a row on my street, but the best place of all (in name only) was Beirut Express, a fast food joint that I never actually entered, but only dreamed of the deliciousness that must have been sold there.

To say that we’re living in politically charged times would be a vast understatement. The economy’s in the shitter, there’s a war in Iraq, an election is looming–should we be talking about food and songs at a time like this?

Sure, especially if we’re talking about Ben Folds’s angry masterpiece, “All You Can Eat.”

The lyrics are simple; he’s painting a picture of mass consumption, of a culture that “gives no fuck” as it gorges on food (”What do you think they weigh?”), crusing around in SUVs and chewing up the Earth. It’s a piercing screed against American selfishness and it uses food and our own fatness as a powerful metaphor for what our nation has become and what we need to address to make it better.

Yet, the tune is bouncy and the lyrics almost folksy. It’s Folds’s particular gift that he can make his point–he can basically tell you that you live an ethically compromised lifestyle–and leave a smile on your face in the process. When the smile goes away, though, you’ll still hear the hook (”They give no fuck”) and wonder where you fit on the spectrum. A powerful food song indeed.

I posted about Fried Chicken almost a week ago, but I just can’t get enough. I had the most amazing, tender, juicy and delicious dish of it on Saturday night that I needed to post again. The whole meal, actually, was amazing. We started out with bacon peanuts, a fresh baked soft pretzel and then moved into a meal that consisted of said chicken, some chicken fried pork ribs and for dessert a homemade ho ho. Hostess, I’m sorry, but there’s no returning to nuclear-resistant shelf food after that.

Another thing I liked about this song: ska. Back in the early-to-mid-90s, I skanked to many a ska show. I didn’t care if it was punk-ska, reggae-ska, fun-ska or whatever. There was something about horns, guitars and drums that just did it for me. While it brings a little tear to my eye to think that the movement has disappeared, I suspect that we’ll see a revival soon. Ska comes in waves and I’m sure it will be back.

When I was a kid, my Dad took me to McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Papa Ginos and, my all time fav, D’Angelo’s (seriously - I love this place) on a regular basis. We met once a week on Wednesdays and we’d choose one of those places. Now, lucky me, in an all too Hello Kitty-way, that idea has been captured on video.

I am no stranger to songs about fast food as I wrote a song in high school called the “7-11 Song” that was a hit with about twelve people (if we get enough requests — 100 — I’ll post it). This song, however, is unique cause it has both the catch with its combination GoGo’s, Aqua, Waitreses musical appeal along with it’s clever Pokemon/legos look and feel. Oh and that shake looks dope.

My parents have a story that, on a trip to Las Vegas in the 70s, a note was slipped under their hotel room door meant for Sammy Davis, Jr. It said: “Hey Sammy, meet us in the lounge at 7 o’clock.” My parents, curious and eager to see what was up, snuck down there and sure enough there was Sammy Davis, Jr. meeting his wife and another couple. My mom got a picture with young Sammy and that was the first of a million celebrity pictures my parents have accrued over the years (dont even ask!)

Watching the above video, you can appreciate the man’s gift for making a song as innocuous as “Candy Man,” to use his phrase, “groovy.” Of course, “Candy Man” is a term that, for bands like the Grateful Dead (which also has a song called “Candy Man”) means something slightly more sinister than just the man who brings you candy. But all drug references aside, this song takes me back to my Willy Wonka days; that opening montage of all that candy and the big chocolate bar with the gold seal inside. Groovy, indeed.

I had the privilege of watching the season premiere of Saturday Night Live in person this weekend and it got me to thinking about some of my favorite classics from that show. When I was in high school, I knew the show backwards and forwards to the point where I had several years worth of collections on videotape, at one point. I know, I am a total comedy geek, but what makes it all worse is that I recently had to get rid of my collection due to space constraints my NYC apartment.

This song was always one of my favorites, though. It tackles a pretty important issue we can all have burning memories of and shows up Chris Farley and Adam Sandler doing what they do best. I remember hearing this when I first got Sandler’s “They’re All Going to Laugh at You” CD and thinking how brilliant the whole album was. But I always loved rocking out to “Lunch Lady Land” and having panic attacks of being assaulted by good ol’ Sloppy Joe.

Here’s how I do foodsongs: I go on to my iTunes and look for songs with food lyrics, titles or themes. Then I go on to YouTube and look for corresponding videos. Sometimes the videos enhance my enjoyment of a song–like watching The Muppets do “Lime in a Coconut”–other times a video disappoints or there are no corresponding videos (like the one I crave for Patty Griffin singing my favorite food song, “Makin’ Pies.”)

Or, you might be looking for a video of Bessie Smith singing “Pigfoot,” only to find a video of five white girls doing a dance routine from a Southern Bell Swing Bash.

Depending on how much you enjoy Southern choreography and white girls, you may want to ignore the visual and concentrate on Bessie Smith’s deep, soulful, yearning voice and her call for a pigfoot and a bottle of beer. For a food song, “Pigfoot” captures the almost sexual need we sometimes have for food. She doesn’t just want a pigfoot and a bottle of beer, she WANTS a pigfoot and a bottle of beer. I’ve never had a pigfoot and a bottle of beer, but this song makes me wish I were in a smoky room somewhere near a body of water with Bessie Smith singing this on stage while these five dancing girls serve me and my friends pig’s feet and bottles of beer. Then we all do their magic dance and laugh until the morning.

I don’t know if I would go as far as commenter dkc2112 to call Nas “pure genius,” but this song certainly does try to attack the stereotypes surrounding African Americans and fried chicken. Why does delicious, crispy, savory fried chicken have to get caught up in the race wars at all? It should be uniting us. Does the grease not make us all fat? Do we not all sometimes just want to eat the skin? Haven’t all of us gone through a bucket of KFC in record time? I say we have.

Thanks to Serious Eats, by the way, for sending this video my way. The other reason I really appreciated this song was because Nas is able to say lot more in two minutes and fifty seconds than R. Kelly ever did with all six thousand parts of “Trapped in the Closet,” a debacle of musical vomit that Wikipedia calls and urban opera. Yeah, I think musical vomit is more accurate.

When Stephen Sondheim is presented with a potential musical collaboration, he looks at the book, or the idea for the book, and asks himself: “Does it sing?”

This I know because Stephen Sondheim is one of my heroes and I’ve read many, many interviews with the man. It would be no great exaggeration to say Sondheim is one of our greatest living artists: for both his lyrics (which many claim to be the greatest ever written) and music (which is comparable to many of the 20th century’s greatest composers), the man is not only a living legend, he is to musical theater what Picasso is to painting (a comparison made by Broadway legend Barbara Cook during her Sondheim tribute concert); he constantly reinvents himself and in each reinvention, he shatters conventions and forges a new path for musical theater.

That’s pretty heavy-handed. Speaking of Sondheim with so much reverence, you miss the fun, the pure joy of the man’s creations. And the above video, the Act One clincher of “Sweeney Todd,” showcases the man’s ability to turn the darkest of the dark (a sadistic plot to kill people and turn them into pies) into a joyous exercise in wordplay and social commentary. The puns might be punny, but you could say the same of Shakespeare; here the humor comes from the contrast between the bouncy, waltz-like song and the grim, gory subject-matter.

And to think that, at some point, Sondheim considered the plot of Sweeney Todd and said to himself: “I could write a song about that.” Who knew that singing about people pies could be so much fun?