Bill's Notes

[Industrialblog, January 18, 2005]
Best Rock Songs Ever?
Norm has one list of the 10 greatest rock songs of all time. Michele has another. Here's my Top 25, in no particular order:

Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
Personality Crisis, New York Dolls
What's Going On? Marvin Gaye
Little Wing, Derek & The Dominos version
Memory Motel, Rolling Stones
Country Comfort, Rod Stewart
Thank You, Led Zeppelin
Let It Be, the Beatles
The Weight, The Band
Baba O'Reilly, The Who
From a Whisper to a Scream, Elvis Costello
Riders on the Storm, The Doors
All Along the Watchtower, Bob Dylan
Wouldn't It Be Nice, Beach Boys
Hold On, Ian Gomm
Lightning Crashes, Live
I Saw the Light, Todd Rundgren
Let's Stay Together, Al Green
I Think We're Alone Now, Tommy James
Down to Zero, Joan Armatrading
Who'll Stop the Rain, Creedence Clearwater Revival
I Don't Want to Go Home, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes
I'm So Anxious, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes
Prove It All Night, Bruce Springsteen
Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen
Local Girls, Graham Parker

Not very original, I know. But them's my favorites.


Update: Hmm...how did no Van Morrison make the list? Probably because Brown-Eyed Girl is severely overplayed.

I once heard someone say that your favorite songs are what you listened to when you were 19. Pretty close for me ...

UPDATE 2: I added one more. So there's 26.





Paul Burgess (www):
Oh, well, I'm about as musical as a fencepost. But, since I was formed in my musical tastes from the mid 60s on up through the early-to-mid 80s, here's my list— not of the best rock songs, probably, but just a few of my favorites:

Incense and Peppermints, Strawberry Alarm Clock
White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane
Jackie Blue (long version), Ozark Mountain Daredevils (gee, is that rock? well, I don't care :)
Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (definitely not rock— but it was the music for the opening credits of A Clockwork Orange)
Journey to the Center of the Mind, Amboy Dukes
Mighty Quinn, Manfred Mann
Venus, Shocking Blue
There Is a Mountain, Donovan
Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall, Simon & Garfunkel
Midnight Confessions, Grass Roots
I Am a Rock, Simon & Garfunkel
Fragile, Yes— the entire damn album
Electric Guitar, Talking Heads (also, off the same Fear of Music album: Heaven and Paper)
Seen and Not Seen, Talking Heads
The Other Side of Life, The Moody Blues
Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello
I Want to Know What Love Is, Foreigner
Like the Fingers on a Windmill, Damnation
Revolution 9, The Beatles (yeah, well, I'm weird)

LOL! I guess that comes to 20 songs, plus one entire album. A lot of this became favorite music for me simply because I was young, and I was there, and there it was.
1.20.2005 10:56am
Bill (mail) (www):
I like your selections, Paul.

But hey, I thought I was from the 60s! Check out your psychodelia.
1.20.2005 3:16pm
Harry (mail) (www):
I could never make a list like this. How do you decide what to put on, and what to leave off? I heard three songs today that blew me away: The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin, Sweet Melissa by (I think) The Allman Brothers, and Dream by The Everly Brothers. If I were making a list right now, each of these would have very good reasons to be on it. But what about the next dozen songs I hear? How do I decide "these songs are better than all those other songs"? Ehh, I just like music.
1.20.2005 6:53pm
Bill (mail) (www):
Harry ... we almost agree.

I just picked stuff that I've liked for a long time and would still never turn off the radio if they came on.
1.20.2005 7:39pm
Bill (mail) (www):
BTW, Harry, The Immigrant Song was ruined for me by a Heart cover back in the early 80s.
1.23.2005 7:20pm