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Music is so culturally centered: what is hot in one place or time is not in another. What gets in our heads when young becomes what we want to hear later in life, or so it seems. That's why I would never make a list of the "ten best songs," but I would make a list of the tens songs (or more) that make a difference. Why do they make a difference? Because for some reason, words or music, a performance, a particular context, they change things.
When you write HTML, you have to make decisions, like whether to use an "ordered list" (<ol>) or an unordered list (<ul>). This is an ordered list because this is number one that makes a chill go down my spine:
"Gimme Shelter"
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
This song has been covered by by dozens of fine performers, including background singer on the original track Merry Clayton. But the most haunting version is the one done by Meatloaf on his "Three Bats Live" tour (search for it on YouTube): without the redeeming verse of "Love, sister..." we see the true vision of the apocalypse.
"Long Time Gone"
"Wooden Ships"
Crosby, Stills, and Nash
There was just something happening in the late 1960s that produced words of such outrage and despair.
The true roots of Rock: how about the great blues men of the 20th Century: Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Howl'n Wolf, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy (still going in the 21st), just to name five.
No, not Frank Sinatra (nor Tony Bennett)
"On the Beautiful Blue Danube"
by Johann Strauss II,
Is there a soul so bereft of feeling that it does not stir during the the Pan Am space-plane's flight up from Earth to the space station? Could Strauss have ever imagined?
"May I"
"What Kind Of Fool Do You Think I Am"
by Bill Deal & the Rhondels
A delightful, and in most places, unknown genre, an author at Wikipedia has contributed a fine critique of beach music: listen to Bill Deal (by visiting his family's tribute web site to him), and then go exploring at your leisure
"Breaking Us in Two"
by Joe Jackson
"Tangled up in Blue"
by Nobel laureate Bob Dylan
"Southern Cross"
by Stephen Stills
"City of New Orleans"
by Arlo Guthrie
Not a dry eye in the house.
And does anybody notice that in Harry Potter/Half Blood Prince that Ginnie Weasley really does bend down to "tie the laces of [his] shoe"?
Anything really, but let's make special mention of
From the tragic to the rollicking.
Anything really (didn't I just say that?), but let's make special mention of
Anything really (didn't I just say that? And so did the Nobel committee!), but, in addition to the above, let's make special mention of
And sometimes "Young" as well. There is just something magic in their harmonies.
I saw Frank Zappa at what I believe was opening night of his last tour, February 1st at the Palace in Albany, 1988. He was registering voters; at the end, maybe an encore, he did "Stairway to Heaven," a transcendental experience in itself.
Imagine creating a genre of music. Imagine having the world play it. A number of years ago I was sitting at a cafe on a small island off the Australian coast, listening to a Bob Marley album playing, and I realized I knew the order of the songs: it was the Legend album. I laughed: "wrong ocean!"
An interesting note: Bob Marley's wonderful "Buffalo Soldiers" is about the former slaves in the United States Calvary on the Western Frontier. John Ford's Sargent Rutledge is about those very same buffalo soldiers, and calls them by that name.
"Steppin' Out"
Joe Jackson
"Gimme Some Lovin'"
Spencer Davis Group
"Running on Empty"
by Jackson Browne
Back a few years, after running the Long Island Marathon, a friend asked me if I could have run it any faster: I replied that at the time I was conducting operations in the Jackson Browne mode. He knew exactly what I meant!
"Heroine"
by Lou Reed
Probably best known as performed by The Velvet Underground
"Cocaine"
by J. J. Cale
Probably best known as performed by Eric Clapton.
Back in grad. school I was in the habit of sleeping with the a.m. radio on at night, usually listening to WLS out of Chicago. In the middle of one night Clapton's Cocaine is in my dream, and then I wake up and I realize, about the London-subway graffiti: it's true!
"Black Magic Woman
Santana
Back around 1970 or so, on a pouring-rain spring day, I was standing in the Lafayette Electronics store on Jericho Turnpike in Syosset (buying coax and an antenna, this after having bought my very first amateur radio from just down the road at Heath, a Heathkit 2-meter "Lunchbox"), listening to the demo set-up of their quadraphonic stereo system: this was the song they were playing. A chill went down my spine through the instrumental as it rotated around the four speakers and still does to this day whenever I hear this: see it live before you die.
[I have: August 2nd, 1995 at SPAC, the Santana/Jeff Beck Tour.]
The Boy from New York City
The Ad Libs
Eve of Destruction
Barry McGuire
A Little bit of Soap
The Jarmels
The very best of the one-hit wonders
Thick as a Brick
Jethro Tull
OMG, what can you say about this (and it does require a fairly long stop of "what I'm doing").
"A Lover's Concerto"
The Toys
One of the most nearly perfect songs, based on the 18th Century "Minuet in G major" of Christian Petzold.
"Coming into Los Angeles"
Arlo Guthrie
"Can't You Hear Me Knocking"
The Rolling Stones
"Doctor My Eyes"
Jackson Browne
"Radar Love"
Golden Earring
"Roundabout"
Yes
"The Weight"
The Band
"Closer to Home/I'm Your Captain"
Grand Funk Railroad
"The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys"
Traffic
"I've Got a Line on You"
Spirit
"Journey to the Center of the Mind"
Amboy Dukes
Why do fools fall in love
Joni Mitchel
A bit over the top, but a very nice sound.
So there are a few that seem to mean something: no, not the world's top ten, but still pretty good all told.
| revised 27 November 2023 | [ TOP ] |
