5 - "Portland Oregon" Loretta Lynn
The Van Lear Rose album comes credited to Loretta Lynn. That's probably more a case of deference to her reputation, cause by rights this record should obviously be crediting producer and performer Jack White as at least a full partner.

He's got Loretta going places she ain't never been, and he proves capable of taking her there. Besides just youthful vitality, Jack White adds a certain ambition for artistic experimentation. Yet his expressions of that are generally made in earthy blues or countryish idioms.

Here he's making some hot blues guitar. The whole first minute is like a separate catchy little jazz blues thing in its own right.

Whatever else it was, though, it became an unmistakably country song at 100 seconds in, when Loretta comes in explaining her barroom exploits, seducing poor Jack, and drinking slo gin fizz by the pitcher.

6 - "The Name of This Thing Is Not Love" Elvis Costello
This is a technically polite waltz, but it swings really hard and it's just loaded with compelling dark drama. "There's a bruise on her arm/ And some blood on the floor/ But the name of this thing is not love" He's got this dark night of the soul which ambiguously seems to end with a body in the wild rushing river. This is some scary cold stuff.

7 - "America, F*&^ Yeah" Team America Soundtrack
The key to understanding the whole Team America film is to understand that this determinedly over the top theme song is essentially sincere. They wrote a pumping rock song just like a big Jerry Bruckheimer action film. It's self-consciously juvenile (the terrorists can "lick my butt") and jingoistic. It acknowledges these serious faults both in America and in Jerry Bruckheimer movies, but this song celebrates both sincerely, in a very catchy and memorable manner.

8 - "There's a Story in Your Voice" Elvis Costello
Elvis and Lucinda Williams come crashing into town like the world's most hard living cowpunks ever to make that hard swinging Western sound. Funny, but neither one seems to regret this ill fated barroom romance. It ROCKS, right through to Ms Williams climactic yee-haw in the last seconds. The joy is compulsive.

9 - "Women's Prison" Loretta Lynn
Here's a nicely psychotic little death row tale. The sentiments would be much more likely a Johnny Cash thing, and Loretta is surprisingly effective as the condemned prisoner having visitations from her dead mother.

The basic song is probably not quite up with the "Folsom Prison Blues," but Jack White has some exceptionally good guitar to complete this song in the last minute far beyond anything from classic era Cash.