10. “Television”
Robyn Hitchcock (2004)
This is an intimate love song of sorts. The melody is beautiful and sad, like a plea or an apology to a lover — but the loved one is TV, “the devil’s fishbowl.” The singer holds the remote, so in some ways he is in charge; but then the TV is more formidable, with lies that are addictive. Rather than simply trashing TV, Hitchcock is getting at the more complex emotional relationship a person can develop with the box “deep inside” our homes. Lovely harmonies by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings add to the pathos.

Pictured: Robyn Hitchcock performed at The Grand Ballroom of The Manhattan Center on April 9, 2008.