My Top 1000 Songs #740: Cruel To Be Kind

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.] 

Not much to say about this one other than--the perfect pop song, perhaps? Ok, we've hit on a pretty good selection of "perfect pop songs" on this list, but it seems awfully obvious for Nick Lowe's "Cruel To Be Kind" (a song he'd played with Brinsley Schwarz but polished up a bit for 1979's Labour Of Lust). No great pretentions of greatness, just every conceivable element of a song you could hum forever. And yet another essential part of the Great Lost Rockpile Album.

The original Brinsleys version (recorded as a demo, insanely not officially released at the time:

Acoustic live with Daryl Hall:

Letters to Cleo cover (from the 10 Things I Hate About You soundtrack):