Thirteen

Recorded at Ardent in late 1971, it is two acoustic guitars, Chilton's and Bell's, with Chilton singing lead, Hummel on bass, Stephens on percussion and the other three on backing vocals. The band produced it, with John Fry as executive producer. It sits fourth on the first side of #1 Record.

The lyric is a teenage boy's questions to a girl, asking whether he can walk her home from school. Stereogum notes that its nod to Paint It Black would have been out of date for Chilton and Bell's own thirteenth year, so the song is about adolescence in general rather than a memoir. Rolling Stone called it "one of rock's most beautiful celebrations of adolescence," and AllMusic's Bill Janovitz a perfect melancholy ballad. Chilton was more modest, filing it among his "almost-good songs."

After

It was issued as a single on Ardent with Watch the Sunrise on the B-side. Big Star played it at Lafayette's Music Room in 1973, on the 1974 WLIR session and at the 1993 reunion, 28 times in all according to setlist.fm. Other bands have played it far more often: it is the second most-covered Big Star song live. Elliott Smith's version, recorded in 1996, came closest of all, Stereogum's Nate Patrin wrote, to making a Big Star song its own, and Chilton singled out Garbage's cover as one he especially liked. It turns up in four That '70s Show episodes and was sung in the 2020 Disney+ film Stargirl. The upload in the hypersongs web is the #1 Record album version.