Children by the Million Mourn for Alex Chilton

It’s one of those years. Nearing the end of March, and already we’ve had to say goodbye to Kate McGarrigle, Mark Linkous, Vic Chesnutt, and now Alex Chilton (and don’t get me started on the Oscars forgetting to mention Bea Arthur). But I’m not here to eulogize – there are far better folks at that than me (Paul Westerberg, for one). Instead, I’d rather celebrate a song that’s meant a great deal to me for a long while, and one of the first things I ever learned how to play on the guitar. (A love song so perfect that it even made its way on WP’s …A Given EP, recorded for the wedding of our dear friends Kevin and Gordon – and that’s just the way I’d like to remember a great songwriter now passed).

• Thirteen [Big Star]