The Top 100 Songs, Part Five

Amazingly, I actually finished. I'm reasonably satisfied with the list, I suppose. There were some surprises, which is interesting, because can I ever really surprise myself? I guess I can because there were certain songs I expected to be in my top 5 that didn't quite hold up to such a high standard, and others that hit me fresh and supple, like a newborn calf.

The Final List:

20. "Moonage Daydream"-David Bowie

I feel that maybe the bottom of my top 20 is a little weak. "Moonage Daydream" is a great song, but I'm not sure it deserved to make it this high, especially looking at the run of songs between 21 and 26, almost all of which are probably better. The point of the story is that I feel differently on different nights, and some part of me saw "Moonage" as being above songs 21-100.

19. "Perfect Circle"-R.E.M.

Same goes for "Perfect Circle," which isn't really much better than "Pilgrimage" or "Talk About the Passion" on Murmur, two songs that I unfortunately had to omit to keep within my 5 songs/band rule. (And I was still overconcentrated in a handful of bands! It could have been a lot worse if I had gone with my actual preferences in all cases...) A top 30 song, sure, but I don't feel totally great about it winding up in my top 20.

18. "All Things Must Pass"-George Harrison

Enough second-guessing myself. Although I'm not totally certain that this is the best track on the album of the same name, it's a momentous album, filled with hugely cathartic songs. This gets the edge into the top 20 because I thought enough of the lyrics to quote them in my Senior Quotes. That means a lot, man, a lot.

17. "Let Down"-Radiohead

So far, it's been a lot of vapid commentary, and I haven't been talking much about the songs. "Let Down" is worth talking about, I suppose. It's subtly great, but the more I think about it, the more this stands out as clearly the best track on OK Computer. A great melody, but has a lot of layers, and most importantly, builds ecstatically and elegantly, culminating in a mind-blowing harmony.

16. "Rock n' Roll Suicide"-David Bowie

Starts out as a harmless acoustic ballad, but quickly balloons into the shortest epic you'll ever hear. At 3 minutes or so, it's an extremely gripping listen, slapping you in the face and leaving you wanting more.

15. "Mother"-John Lennon

Here is a song that is actually painful to listen to. It's achingly slow, depressing, and ends with Lennon showing off what he learned in 'primal scream' therapy. In other words, an emotional tour de force! Bravo, John John.

14. "Too Shy to Say"-Stevie Wonder

Arguably not as well-written or memorable as a lot of the other songs in the top 20, although there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's just not the sort of song that makes most people sit up and take notice. But this is about personal preference, and how can I deny the power of a song that has made me weep? Deceptively simple and totally disarming, Wonder just kills here.

13. "Sweet Child O' Mine"-Guns n' Roses

Here is a pretty well-known classic. I would imagine most people could predict that I might put this song on here. And why the hell not? It's just a little too bombastic to make the top 10, but otherwise it's a perfectly constructed power ballad, and one that leaves me with a lot of sappy memories.

12. "Here Comes the Sun"-The Beatles

Another entry is the "Makes me cry" sweepstakes, I never gave full credit in my head to this song, but it really is a wondrous number. I kept predicting that I would certainly cry when I heard it at graduation, but that didn't happen at all. I guess I had other things on my mind. The last gasp of George Harrison on this list, and proof that he wrote a lot of great ones.

11. "If I Was Your Girlfriend"-Prince

How far can a song based on a gimmick go? The gimmick, of course, is that Prince distorts his voice to make it sound feminine (yes, it's not a huge difference), and sings from the perspective of a woman. What's amazing is how well it's pulled off. What results is a creepy, harrowing song that's also touching and brilliantly-executed. I even get goosebumps at the spoken-word part at the end.

10. "Knocks Me Off My Feet"-Stevie Wonder

This is a song that should be a well-known American classic. Maybe it just wasn't released as a single, but of all the vaguely obscure songs on my list, this is one where I really don't feel like I'm stepping out of line. Just a quintessential love song.

9. "Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)"-The Beach Boys

Another song to give you Gooooosebumps! Yeah, I think is Brian Wilson's masterpiece. It's just a short ballad, but one with an amazingly dark atmosphere, piercing harmonies, and a simple, but entrancing message.

8. "November Rain"-Guns n' Roses

I had initially projected this song to finish #2 in my rankings. However, when I listened to it last night, it didn't hit me the way it normally does. Maybe I was just in a bad mood, but for once in my life, it seemed a little fake. I still think this is the perfect epic, and the guitar solo always blows my mind. Very labored and elaborate, but it's a perfect song, man. How much can the pretentiousness really hurt it?

7. "When Doves Cry"-Prince and the Revolution

It has no bassline. I think that's about all I need to say.

6. "Layla"-Derek and the Dominoes

Another song that fell, albeit slightly. This was the rare song that I was totally captivated by on first listen. Ultimately a little too disjointed to crack the top 5, perhaps. But god, life is all about that guitar riff. That sounds like a Rob Sheffield-ism, shit. I better watch myself. I knew I shouldn't have been flipping through my Rolling Stone album guide over Thanksgiving.

5. "Losing My Religion"-R.E.M.

Here is a song that surprised me. I've loved this song forever, but recently, I had gotten a little bored with it, since at its core, its just a cute little four minute jangly pop song. But listening earlier today brought all the emotions back. As someone who's always been captivated by Michael Stipe's presence, this is a song where the emotion grabs me entirely, and the lyrics just slay me.

4. "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"-Bob Dylan

So slow, so monotonous, so repetitive, this song is 11 minutes long, and repeates the same verse over and over again, yet if I considered just the best five minutes of this song, maybe it finishes #1. Dylan was probably the ultimate songwriter in a certain sense, and this is probably the most emotional song I know of. It has an amazing melody, but I'm not even sure if that's the point. It's all the singing, the love.

3. "Bohemian Rhapsody"-Queen

There's just something about that first half of this song. It might be my favorite slow song ever, just that part. Maybe the second half is a little bit of a letdown after that, but it's a minuscule letdown. This song defined at least 3 years of my life, and when I was 10, I would listen to it for hours over and over again, and I hate listening to the same song twice in a row. I thought it could never be unseated as my #1 song, although as you can tell, it eventually was. It still holds a lot of weight with me, and what can I say, even with the nonsense-part, which I do find ingenious, it's emotional.

2. "Love Reign O'er Me"-The Who

I wrote a review of Quadrophenia in my reading journal for Ms. Linder last year. In it, I said that this song came achingly close to being the greatest song of all time, which it clearly was trying to be. Ultimately, though, I reasoned that the godly bridge needed to climax in something a little more potent than a nice guitar solo and a heart-rending final run through the chorus. It's nit-picking, but the song is just a little anticlimactic. The build-up is unforgettable though, and the key change at the bridge always gets to me. Every time I sit down at the piano, I try to remember what notes are in the key of D-minor and I try to play the raining intro to this song. I never get it though.

1. "A Day in the Life"-The Beatles

To some of you who have talked to me about this song, this won't be a surprise. Naturally, I considered unseating this song, which I had held in the back of my mind as being the greatest song of all time all along. But to me, it's clearly better than all of the other songs on this list, much as I would love to go with the surprise choice. The only thing that's in its league is the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem. It is the perfect song, and not only is each part perfectly-written, but each section has that intangible 'something extra,' from the cryptic lyrics, to the thrilling string sections, to the best part of all, where McCartney "goes into a dream", and Lennon wails over the pounding orchestra.


There we have it!