Click to listen to Jack White's 'You Know That I Know'

Using Hank Williams' lyrics notebooks to imagine songs he never finished, The Lost Notebooks turns a vaguely necrophiliac idea into a startling reincarnation. Bob Dylan's mariachi waltz, "The Love That Faded," is a sweet-croaked séance; Lucinda Williams and Jack White, in different ways, show how much room Hank's writing gives singers to emote. The ghostliest moment is Alan Jackson’s "You've Been Lonesome, Too." Stoic and emotionally devastated, Jackson reconnects Williams with the country tradition he fathered. Today's Nashville stars can still learn a lot from Hank.

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“Ambling Alp”

The "Ambling Alp" was the nickname of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall Primo Carnera. Though the song is named after the Italian-born 1930s heavyweight champion, Yeasayer are actually paying tribute to boxing legend Joe Louis with this first-person psychedelic dance-rock tune. “I was always interested in writing a song that had boxing mythology in it,” Yeasayer’s Chris Keating said. “It’s pretty fascinating: There were so many amazing characters, and it was so closely entwined with 20th century history.” Yeaseyer also invokes German champ Max Schmeling and hints at the historical significance placed on the historic bouts between the Nazi-era boxer and the African-American Louis.