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Published: July 7, 2020, 10:45 p.m.

It was a nightmare of the most divine sort to have to pick the artist-per-show maximum of four XTC songs. I could pick almost any four XTC songs from 1980 onwards, from Drums and Wires (1979) to Wasp Star (2000) and do about 100 of these shows filled with a too-short slice of excellent pop masterpieces. But I picked four. ANY XTC record, in my opinion, has at least three or four moments that put most other more popular artists to shame. 

XTC - Across This Antheap (1989)

War planes go over but no wages go 'round. A sign goes up to say hey we're twin towned. The dough is rising but no bread will be baked. The fur is genuine but the orgasm's faked. We're spending millions to learn to speak porpoise, When human loneliness is still a deafening noise.

XTC - Funk Pop A Roll (1983)

Funk pop a roll consumes you whole Gulping in your opium so copiously from a disco Everything you eat is waste But swallowing is easy when it has no taste

XTC - This World Over (1984)

Will you tell them about that far off and mythical land And how a child to the virgin came?  Will you tell them that the reason why we murdered Everything upon the surface of the world So we can stand right up and say we did it in his name?

XTC - Wrapped In Grey (1992)

Some folks pull this life like a weight Drab and dragging dreams made of slate Your heart is the big box of paints And others, the canvas we're dealt Your heart is the big box of paints Just think how the old masters felt, they call

Awaken you dreamers Asleep at your desks Parrots and lemurs Populate your unconscious grotesques Please let some out Do it today But don't let the loveless ones sell you A world wrapped in grey

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The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby (strings only) (1966)

The Beatles - Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight (orchestra only) (1969) 

The Beatles - Something (strings only) (1969)

The Beatles - She's Leaving Home (strings only) (1967)

Gilbert Neal and Ken Ray Wilemon - It's Ok (2019)

The Beach Boys - Life is For The Living (1977) Adult/Child (sometimes typeset as Adult Child) is an unreleased studio album by American rock band the Beach Boys, intended to follow the group's 1977 The Beach Boys Love You. Like The Beach Boys Love You, it is virtually a Brian Wilson solo project with other group members serving mainly as additional vocalists. After it was rejected by Reprise Records, the band released the 1978 M.I.U. Album in its place with an almost entirely revamped song list. A few projected tracks for Adult Child were eventually released on later albums and compilations. Currently, the album is available only as a bootleg recording.

The Beach Boys - Our Team (1978) When a song isn't good enough for The MIU Album, there's a problem. 

The Beach Boys - It's Over Now (1977) Listen for Marilyn Wilson of The Honeys singing the "middle 8". Terribly. 

The Beach Boys - Hey, Little Tomboy (1977) "...now shave your legs for the first time..." 

Donna Summer - Wassermann (Aquarius) (1968) From the original German cast of Haare. 

Moody Blues - Had To Fall In Love (1978) 

Gary Hoffar - Hank's 715th (1974) 

The Hans Staymer Band - Come Together (1972)

Johnny Cash and Rosie Nix - Father and Daughter (1972) Nix-Adams and bluegrass musician Jimmy Campbell were found dead on a bus in Montgomery County, Tennessee, on October 24, 2003. The deaths were initially called "suspicious" by law enforcement authorities but were subsequently ruled to be accidental, caused by carbon monoxide from a propane space heater, used without ventilation, in the bus. Nix-Adams was 45 years old.

Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain - Easy To Say (1960)

The Millennium - There Is Nothing More To Say (1968) 

Genesis - Apocalypse In 9/8 (From Supper's Ready) (1972)