This excellent solo record by My Morning Jacket guitarist Carl Broemel is a rare thing: a woodsy little indie-folk record that refuses to brood. On All Birds Say, Broemel spreads cheer with every pluck of his acoustic guitar, singing short, endearingly sweet songs about love, nature, drinking wine and other worthy topics. Broemel writes hooks that sneak up on you through simple singsong melodies. His lyrics sound like hippie beatitudes: "Everybody's on the way/Whether or not they know it. . . . /There is space in the garden." Even his come-ons are beatific. "Let's go home and be friends," he chirps in "Heaven Knows." And then he bursts into a whistling solo.

“The Pretender”

This song wasn't part of the planned track listing for 2007's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and was put together in a day. "It happened after we recorded a lot of stuff," said Dave Grohl. Yet it ended up as the album opener and the lead single. Grohl called it "a stomping Foo Fighters uptempo song with a little bit of Chuck Berry in it." The singer hinted at the lyrics' political overtones: "Everyone's been f---ed over before and I think a lot of people feel f---ed over right now and they're not getting what they were promised."