"Is your death wish stronger than you are?" Lucinda Williams asks in "Little Rock Star," a cautionary song swathed in guitar noise that someone should instant-message to Pete Doherty, Ryan Adams and Amy Winehouse. While it shows that the 55-year-old barbed-wire country singer is wary of rock's trappings, Little Honey proves she's still crushed out on the music. On "Real Love," amid boogie-rock riffing, she alternately pledges her heart to a guy, a girl and an electric guitar. And "Honey Bee" ranks with Joe Liggins' 1945 hit "The Honeydripper" as one of the nastiest apiological jams ever ("Now I got your honey," she hollers, "all over my tummy!"). There are some throwaways: "Jailhouse Tears," a honky-tonk trailer-trash bitchfest, is playacted too hard by Williams and guest Elvis Costello. But it's useful comic relief between the downtempo numbers that — for all the rock thrills here — remain Williams' most potent showcases. "If wishes were horses," she moans on the sublime song of the same name, "I'd have a ranch." Ride 'em, sister.

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.