“Uncle Walter” by Ben Folds Five

"Uncle Walter" comes from Ben Folds Five's self-titled 1995 debut, and it's the trio at full tilt: Ben Folds hammering the piano like it owes him rent, Robert Sledge's bass barking underneath, Darren Jessee's drums keeping the whole racket upright. Caleb Southern produced, and the record sounds like it was cut with the windows rattling.

The song carries an uncle's name, but Folds has said the real inspiration was the hard-drinking mother of a kid he played with in a garage band. When he was 14, she would corner him whenever the others ran out for a cord or some beer and talk at him without letup. The Uncle Walter he actually has, Folds added, is a nice guy, and a cousin of the family later described the real Walter as an old farmer with a log cabin in the Virginia mountains.

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