Crossfire

The posthumous context makes this track almost unbearable in its irony — a song about surviving forces that try to destroy you, delivered with absolute conviction by someone who had, at the time of recording, genuinely survived his own near-destruction and was working at peak capacity. The guitar playing here has a precision and confidence that differs slightly from his earlier work, a sense of mastery rather than hunger, still burning but controlled. The groove is relentlessly forward, the band locked in a way that leaves no cracks, Vaughan using the solid foundation to take more chances in his solo phrasing. The lyric charts a journey through adversity to something like resolution — not triumph exactly, but continuation, the act of still being present having its own value. The production is clean and modern by his standards, which some fans resist, but which here serves the directness of the song's message. Reach for this when you've come through something and need the music to acknowledge it.