Top 11: Favorite Songs of All-Time

A couple of weeks ago, my wife Crystel made the mention that “Let it Be” by The Beatles was her favorite song of all time. Hard to argue with her choice there. That got me thinking, what would I consider my favorite song of all time. For a music junkie, that might be the single hardest question you could ask. See, I figure it’s harder for someone who really loves music to choose as opposed to casual listener. The choices are exponentially greater. My wife insisted that it be only 10 songs, as I lobbied for the list to expand to 25 or 30. She wisely said that it had to be restricted it to 10.

I settled on 11, and this will be the first in an ongoing series of posts titled Top 11. Hopefully I can come up with interesting topics in the future to post within this framework.

I didn’t choose these songs because I think they are the consensus best songs ever, but because they are my favorites. There is never a time when I wouldn’t want to listen to any of the songs on this list.

Anyway, here is my shot at listing my top 11 favorite songs of all-time. Inevitably some will be left out, and maybe I’ll write an honorable mention post in the future.

11. “Carolina In My Mind” – James Taylor: James Taylor is undoubtedly one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time. With dozens of excellent songs to his credit, this one is definitely my favorite. I could listen to the guitar alone and be happy, and if you think all singer-songwriters do is strum a few chords, try to play this one note for note. “Gone to Carolina” perfectly captures the feeling of longing for home, and I guess all of us have felt that from time to time.

10. “Ripple” – Grateful Dead: This song by the Grateful Dead was partially the inspiration for the name of this blog, and it is definitive proof that the Dead weren’t just a jam band. They had a string of outstanding songs and albums in the late ‘60s and early 70s, and to me, this is the finest of the Hunter/Garcia compositions (with Friend of the Devil a close second). With a guitar run that sounds like bluegrass on valium and lyrics like: Ripple in still water/where there is no pebble tossed/ Nor wind to blow, this has always been my favorite Dead song.

9. “A Long December” – Counting Crows: Counting Crowes are intermittently either my first, second or third favorite band depending on my mood, and this is my favorite song of theirs. The song has such strong imagery, and says so much without being too literal. Like everything Adam Duritz writes, the lyrics are pretty much perfect and the line: If you think you might come to California/ I think you should, gives me chills nearly every time I hear it.

8. “The Only Living Boy in New York” – Simon & Garfunkel: Sometimes it takes hearing a song in the right context to make it really stand out. When “The Only Living Boy in New York” popped up on the Garden State soundtrack, if took on a whole new life. I’d heard the song many times before, but in this context it seemed new again. The same thing happened when their song “America” was featured in Almost Famous. This tune is all about mood, and Simon & Garfunkel were the masters at this type of song.

7. “Everyday” – Buddy Holly: Everything about this song is as near perfection as a pop song can come. The production, lyrics and vocal performance were spot on. Holly was a genius in a world of cookie-cutter pop stars, and had he not died in that fateful plane crash, he would have surely gone on to be the biggest thing in music. “Everyday” is at its core a song about wanting to ask a girl on a date, but it is so much more than that after you get past the surface. It touches on the fact that the longer we wait to pursue what we want, the faster it runs away from us. That’s a message we could all stand to take note of.

6. “Try A Little Tenderness” – Otis Redding: Here, we have one of the strongest vocal performances from, quite possibly, the best vocalist of all time. Starting out with a gently strummed electric guitar and building into a frenzy by the end, this was Otis at his prime. Plus, all of us gentlemen could stand hearing lines like When she gets weary/Try a little tenderness, a little more often. The message of the song is: no matter what troubles your woman, don’t fight it, just try a little tenderness. That sounds better than fighting doesn’t it?

5. “Black” – Pearl Jam: My take on “Black” is that it’s a song about the end of a relationship that you put everything you had into, really focusing on that brutal period right when the heartbreak is the worst. The song begins with the main character singing: Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay/ Were laid spread out before me as her body once did. From there the song is about dealing with this aftermath when your world has been turned upside down. Every picture and memory has turned dark and bitter, and while he knows she’ll be a “sun in somebody else’s sky” he wonders why she can’t be the sun in his sky. Given the Pearl Jam treatment, “Black” takes this subject and instead of making a mopey ballad, makes one of the most emotional and powerful rock songs ever recorded. This is also my favorite song to play and sing on guitar.

4. “Don’t Think Twice it’s All Right” – Bob Dylan: For all the complexities of many of Bob Dylan’s songs, he was many times as his best when he simplified things. This song is a perfect example. This song can be interpreted differently by everyone, but to me it’s about ending a relationship, moving on and saying he’s okay with it. In my opinion, he’s only saying he’s okay because it’s too painful to talk about, since he contradicts You’re the reason I’m travelin’ on/But don’t think twice it’s all right with But I wish there was something you would do or say/to try and make me change my mind and stay. She wanted something he couldn’t give, he thinks she could have done a lot of things differently (probably so could he, though the blame seems mostly aimed away from the songs character), but “Don’t think twice it’s all right.” It can also serve as a metaphor for a lot of things in life.

3. “Tiny Dancer” – Elton John: Written after Elton and Bernie Taupin’s first trip to California, this song is about what America (and specifically L.A.) looked like through the eyes of two British tourists. Of course there is an American love interest (the “Blue jean baby/L.A. Lady/Seamstress for the band”). There is speculation that it was about Taupin’s first wife, but that’s pretty irrelevant, as it’s the California imagery that makes this song one of the best of all time. Like number 8 on this list, “Tiny Dancer” benefitted greatly from its inclusion in a movie. This time, movie was Almost Famous and the unforgettable bus scene.

2. “If We Make it Through December” – Merle Haggard: While this song was originally released on Haggard’s Christmas album, it’s far from your typical holiday tune. The song is about a father who was laid off from his job, and wonders how he can afford to bring Christmas cheer to his family. I’ve never really considered this to be a Christmas song, just a really good song by one of the best, most underappreciated songwriters of our time. With its gentle, memorable acoustic guitar lines and Haggard’s simple poetry, this is simultaneously one of the most heartbreaking and hopeful songs I’ve ever heard.

1. “Beast of Burden” – The Rolling Stones: This late 70s gem from The Stones was written mostly by Keith with Mick filling in the verses. Keith has been quoted as saying that he imagined the song as a sort of thank you to Mick for shouldering the burden while Keith was going through his drug problems throughout the 70’s, though the song isn’t literally about that (or anything for that matter). It’s really a song that’s all about feel and attitude that’s pretty much perfect from start to finish. I can’t imagine a song with better guitar work. Guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Woods lock into a groove, trading licks throughout the entire song. Neither guitarists are playing rhythm nor lead, but both are locked in perfectly with the rhythm section. When the guitar intro plays and the first drum beat comes in, it is virtually impossible not to partake in a little air drumming.

So there they are, my favorite songs of all-time.  What are your favorites?

When Grunge Took Over

I don’t remember any music genre or movement having the profound effect on me that “grunge” had in the early 90s. I mentioned in a previous post my feelings about a photograph of Kurt Cobain I viewed at a recent art exhibit. We’d been through a pretty long stretch in the late 80s and early 90s where mainstream music mostly consisted of regurgitations of what had been successful previously and formulaic reinterpretations (much like a lot of today’s mainstream country). A glance at the charts before and after the grunge movement helps to validate this opinion. While I understand that music trends tend to be cyclical, grunge was the first major music movement of my generation. It completely changed the musical landscape. It didn’t last, but a lot of the doors grunge kicked open are at least still unlocked today.

A lot of grunge’s success is attributable to timing. Grunge didn’t kill hair metal as is so widely reported. Rather, hair metal killed itself, and grunge just moved into the vacant house. With the exception of a handful of bands, the music of this time wasn’t even that great when compared to previous music explosions (see the music of the late 60s for another, much higher quality game changer). What grunge did, however, was bring passion back to music. Most of the early grunge pioneers were just doing it because they couldn’t really see themselves doing anything else. In the beginning, it wasn’t about the money or the success (although it eventually became more focused on these things, and the music suffered).

Music meant something again when Nirvana came around, and for kids like me, it helped to ignite my passion for music. Grunge was the first music to hit the mainstream that truly belonged to my generation and was completely foreign to our parents. I suppose hip-hop could fall right in with grunge, but I didn’t run and pick up a guitar because of Doggystyle or The Chronic. When I heard Nevermind and my cousin taught me to play "Come as You Are," it wasn't long before I bought my first guitar. A lot of other kids did the same thing.

So what made grunge so successful? I only consider a few of the albums “classic.” Dirt, Jar of Flies, Nevermind, In Utero, Superunknown, Temple of the Dog, Purple by STP, Siamese Dream and pretty much any Pearl Jam album (this last one is certainly a personal preference and not the view of most people) instantly come to mind. Of course there were other albums I enjoyed, but these were the big ones. As I mentioned earlier, it was largely because of timing. Most of the best grunge bands were hitting their peak at the perfect time and, for the most part, all at the same time.

Of course, grunge’s stranglehold on the music world didn’t last, and soon we had the often tragic breakups of many grunge bands, a thousand grunge imitators (see Creed), the boy band movement (which actually brought better music than most of the grunge imitators) and generic Hip-Hop (I don't consider all Hip-Hop to be generic, just most of what became popular in the latter half of the 90s into the 2000s). Grunge’s lasting influence is that “fringe” artists that don’t fit the perception of mainstream can be successful. Green Day probably wouldn’t have become mega stars without Nirvana kicking in the doors open. Countless other bands would have never gotten their time in the spotlight either.  Artists like Beck who had little in common with grunge (and probably would have been laughed out of the building had they made a pitch to a record company while the Warrant posters were still on he wall) were given opportunities by the majors.

Today, this movement wouldn’t be so profound. The internet has taken a lot of power away from the people who used to control what we see and hear. In the early 90s, a kid like me from small town Mississippi only had access to the music of MTV and the radio, which were controlled by a lot of people who focused only on how much money they could make from the music. It was the same way for most people back then. Now the internet allows me to get music recommendations from people I don’t even know, quickly go and check out that music, and if I like it, allows me to make an instant purchase. This environment hasn’t really been good for the traditional music industry (especially the large labels), but it has vastly improved the music available to most people.

Here are a few videos of my favorite performaces from the grunge era:

My favorite Soundgarden song, "Fell on Black Days."



And my favorite Nirvana song, "Lithium."



Here's Alice in Chains doing "Rooster" unplugged.



And finally, here's Smashing Pumpkins' video for "Cherub Rock"...I reallize they weren't from Seattle, and neither were STP (mentioned above), but like it or not, they were part of the grunge scene.



What are your impressions of the grunge movement? Do you think its ultimate influence has been good for music? What music movements most influenced you?

My Favorite Albums of 2009 (20-11)

Since I am new to the world of blogging, I figured it best to give a little insight to the kind of music that interests me. What better way to do that than share my favorite albums of 2009. I'm not making a case that these are the most important albums of the year. These are just the albums that helped pull me through a year that saw much of the world in a somewhat depressed state (bad economy, Yankees winning the World Series, etc).

So here we go with #20-11. I'll follow up with 10-1 in a few days.

20. Charlie Robison - Beautiful Day: The man who was once married to a Dixie Chick makes an album about dealing with divorce, but surrounds it with music so sunny you don't feel the least bit depressed while listening.

19. Phish - Joy: The closest band we have to a modern day Dead regroup and make their best album in years. Listing to this album takes me back to my high school years when my friends and I would ride around and listen to Billy Breathes and A Live One...this album is almost that good. Try listing to the song "Backwards Down The Number Line" without a smile on your face.

18. Drive-By Truckers - Live From Austin TX: This one would place a lot higher if it actually contained any new music. This set comes packaged with a DVD of the entire concert. Check out the excellent versions of "Let There Be Rock," " The Living Bubba," and " 18 Wheels of Love."

17. Cross Canadian Ragweed - Happiness And All The Other Things: This may not be one of the boys from Oklahoma's best albums, but it had enough stellar songs to keep it on my iPod for most of the year. The version I have includes a bonus track of Cody playing the Willie Nelson classic "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground" acoustic. This song alone is almost worth the price of the album.

16. Son Volt - American Central Dust: After Uncle Tupelo disbanded in the early 90's, Jay Farrar formed Son Volt and made the excellent album Trace. In all the years since then, this is as close as he's gotten to matching Trace's greatness. After many years of experimenting with new sounds, Jay Farrar finally steered Son Volt back into the realm of pure Alt-Country.

15. Steve Earle - Townes: Mr. Earle takes on his mentor, Townes Van Zandt's songs. While the entire album consists of covers, all the songs are undeniably Steve Earle as he manages to make each song his own. My favorite track on the album is the duet with his son Justin Townes Earle (yes, named after Van Zandt)"Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold."

14. Brad Paisley - American Saturday Night: I'm not much of a mainstream country fan these days, but Paisley is a master of his craft. He is the total package of musician, singer, performer, and songwriter. This is his best album. With songs like the title track and "Water" this was a great album enjoy on those hot southern summer nights.

13. Drive-By Truckers - The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008): The second Drive-By Truckers album on this list. This album has a few throw-away tracks, but the majority is way above average for a B-Sides album. The cover of Tom Petty's "Rebels" is a personal favorite along with "TVA," "George Jones Talkin Cell Phone Blues," and "The Great Car Dealer War." Too many covers, reworked songs and not enough contributions by band members not named Patterson or this one would be much higher on my list. I can't wait for the new album in March of 2010.

12. Pearl Jam - Backspacer: One of my favorite bands released the most pop-oriented album of their career. Many of my friends don't care for this album because of it's simplicity. It's not their best work, but I think it was the right album for them to make at this stage of their career. I saw an Eddie Vedder quote that said something to the effect of "we've made difficult records, and I'm sure we'll make more difficult records in the future." For this one, they just wanted to rock. Who can blame them for that?

11. Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology: In my opinion, this is the strongest album from Adams since Jacksonville City Nights. The songs are more polished than we are used to seeing from him. He stated shortly after this album was released that he would be taking a break from music, presumably to focus on his new wife Mandy Moore. Check out the song "Magick" for one of the best feel good rock songs of the year.