Another Girl, Another Planet (2:59)

In a world rife with injustice, the music industry has seen — if not perpetrated — more than its fair share of travesties (the sad saga of Badfinger comes immediately to mind). But one of the biggest involves, arguably, the greatest rock single ever recorded: the Only Ones’ “Another Girl, Another Planet.” The word “timeless” and “transcendent” get bandied about far too often when describing a song or an album, but in the case of “Another Girl,” even those terms are probably inadequate. The song marks that rare confluence of lyrical, instrumental, and vocal poetry that is so complete, so absolute, that it renders everything else — in, on, above, below, and around it — irrelevant while it plays. While frontman Peter Perrett gets — and deserves — a lot of the credit for the song’s majestic squalor, the song truly is a band effort. Released as a single off the band’s formidable self-titled 1978 debut, it’s a pitch-perfect fusion of Perrett’s spectral vocals and doom-laden lyrics, John Perry’s virtuosic guitar flights, and the rhythmic hyperdrive of drummer Mike Kellie and bassist Alan Mair. When Perrett sings “Always flirt with death/I’ll get killed but I don’t care about it/I can’t face your threats/And stand up straight and tall and shout about it,” the regret and despondency in his voice hang like dead flowers in the autumn rain. Yet Perry’s soaring guitar is always there to carry the pain far enough away to keep the song aloft. Suddenly it’s over, and the darkness that you felt dancing behind your back through the entire song now washes over you in waves of almost shivering despair.