My Top 1000 Songs #118: Getting Ready To Get Down

A highlight from singer-songrwriter Josh Ritter's 2015 album Sermon On The Rocks, this is the newest song to make the list so far (indeed, the first track to make the cut from the past 14 years). Is it really the best song of the past 14 years? Dunno, but I've probably played it more than anything else. So, yeah, there's the usual issue of an appropriate waiting period before pulling the trigger and deeming a song a timeless classic, but given how many times I've hit auto-repeat without tiring of it, I'm willing to take the gamble that it's got staying power.

Ritter lends his clever wordsmithery to an upbeat, twangy Americana romp with a percolating beat for a fun little ditty about a Bible Belt girl who refuses to play along. There's a bit of Footloose in the lyrics ("Jesus hates your high school dances!"), and it's such a triumphant, uplifting wonder it makes me smile every time. 

"Mama got a look at you and got a little worried; papa got a look at you and got a little worried. The pastor got a look and said y'all had better hurry, send her off to a little bible college in Missouri. 

And now you come back sayin' you know a little bit about every little thing they ever hoped you'd never figure out. Eve at the apple 'cuz the apple was sweet; what kind of God would ever keep a girl from getting what she needs?"

And live: