Deer Tick's John McCauley has a wobbly voice and a wobblier sense of self. "Raindrops like bullets on my fragile skin/Insecurities I've had are creeping within," he croaks on "Twenty Miles" over chiming guitar and swelling backing vocals. Like all the songs on The Black Dirt Sessions, "Twenty Miles" is pretty, atmospheric — and too self-serious. Dirt has more mood pieces than songs, and the lyrics get just plain goofy. "Like a heart that's hung in the sky," he sings in "Christ Jesus," "The hard-on when I die."

“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.