For Chris Hall's article "The Top 5 Rock 'n' Roll Songs Of All Time" (Courier-Journal, Feb.12) I wrote the following:
The word "song" made me think of a composition that would be great regardless of a particularly fantastic recording, which eliminated possibilities like Miles Davis' "Flamenco Sketches" and "Everybody's Got Something To Hide "Except for Me and my Monkey)" by The Beatles. So:
1. The Needle And The Damage Done - Neil Young
2. Shoot To Thrill - AC/DC
3. Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
4. Stella By Starlight - Ned Washington and Victor Young
5. Workin' in a Coal Mine - Allen Toussaint
I felt good about my list because I didn't pine over it. It was done in 20 minutes. So far, the only song I've thought of that should have been on the list is Gram Parson's "$1000 Wedding" which would enter at #1, except that my criteria sort of disqualifies it because Evan Dando did a shitty version of it a few years ago.
Anyhoo, my friend Bill Born sent me an e-mail for his top five which he based on a different criteria:
1) can't be more than 2 1/2 minutes
2) It's gotta rock
3) You hafta remember where you were when you first heard it
Bill's criteria was inspiring - especially the last point.
Years ago when my Mom was sick she and I drove West. She had never been and I only knew what I'd seen while on a King Kong tour in a van, which was very little. On our way north from Seattle to Vancouver, we stopped at a mall and picked up some tapes to listen to. She found an Eddie Fischer (sp?) tape that excited her. We had been listening to Sinatra for hours (Sinatra would die later that night). Anyway, when Mom put the tape in the player it was immediately apparent to me that Eddie was, um, I guess he was clearly a star, but especially after listening to Sinatra, it was also clear that he had nothing unique or interesting going on.
I started closing down my ears and enjoying the drive when my Mom said, "You know, this music isn't that good, but I like it becauae it reminds me of where I was when I heard it."
In remembering this it hurts me because I didn't ask the obvious question: So Mom, where were you when you heard Eddie Fischer? I was too consumed. Consumed with the ride, with our life, and with ideas of my personal relationship to music which is confused at best. Still, I did manage to gain some powerful insight: different people identify with music for different reasons, and (for those fooled into thinking they can create music) the power of music goes far far beyond one's ability or intention tot create.
This is an insight that turns in my brain as of late, still deepeing my relationship to what I experience with music.
So here's the immediate list that I made before my heard and mind were flooded, based on Bill's Criteria #3:
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover and Southern Nights, both were deep tranmissions from 70's a.m. radio, when I started coming alive and talking to myself, sensing a world beyond my family.
Peg by Steely Dan which - oh, man. This is hard to talk about - it was playing late on WLRS one night when my high school girlfriend stayed over and we.....she....uh.....That SONG!..... it is sooooooooooooo........ Wow wow wow wow.
Then there was Sara by Starship - even harder song to talk about, but unfortuantely one I have words for: My parents were seperated and I was staying over with my Dad. We slept in the same bed in his barely furnished apartment and I was up all night smelling the perfume on the pillow next to his. Sara played over and over on another Louisville station. ALL NIGHT LONG. My only consolation is that "Sara" was a shitty song before it racked up such a bad memory.
Alex Chilton by the Replacements - the first time I heard the band was on Louisville's WFPL on a saturday night. What a powerfuck for the spirit! That was back when Louisville's public radio station wasn't a soon-to-be clear channel station masquerading as a non-profit good agent of music. I know I shouldn't nip at the hand that feeds, but they have to admit that compared to when rock and roll was first played on that station, something has changed and it is dangerously familiar to the early years of commercial station programming. My prayers are with them.
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6 comments:
(The following is a copy of an e-mail from Bill Born...)
hey man, love yer blog. Just checked it out. It got me thinking of two other songs that really hit me when I heard them. The first is Proud Mary. I was in the back seat of my parents car and we were on North
Watterson Trail. I guess I was 13 or so. It came on and I knew immediately it was a black group and I had never liked a black band and I sat back there wondering if it was okay to like black music and
then feeling guilty for even wondering about it ( I've since worked through that one).
The other song was Sultans of Swing. I was working as a security guard for Rexnord at some random industrial plant. My job was to make rounds and punch a clock at each station to prove I was there. i was working out of my car and Sultans came on and it was so compelling. I remember sitting in my car drinking that song in like a thirsty man and looking at my watch trying to calculate if I could listen for another 30 seconds. It was one of the most excruciatingly pleasurable listening experiences of my life... Bill
(and I replied...)
I haven't had any new revelations since last week except for one, and it was a bonding moment for me with Darrick in a.m. Sunday. Darrick had his first walkman experience with the Styx song "Mr. Roboto". Now, forget that it is Styx, forget that the song is, in the world of songs, a mutant third generation of an aborted Pink Floyd idea - when it came into my ears In Stereo, (also one of my first moments with a Walkman), Mr. Roboto was a drug. I stayed up in bed just to hear the top 5 at ten each night to hear that song.
When Darrick heard it he said, "This is the future." Heavy shit.
c'mon... the mere existence of evan dando renders your criteria useless. I'm sure he could do a shitty version of any song, especially your original top 5... and, to be fair, leonard cohen has done some pretty shitty versions of "hallelujah". Surely you've outgrown the starry-eyed idealism necessary to believe in a bullet-proof song. Jesus, we've played some pretty crappy versions of "stella".
Coincidentally, "50 ways" (the whole "still crazy after all these years" album, actually) always puts me back in the family room on aintree way. Sadly, I didn't have the radio on the first time your girlfriend spent the night with me in high school.
The strongest song-related memory that comes to me at the moment is, in reality a dream. As a child, I had a recurring daydream when I heard "band on the run"... a crudely animated (like stop-motion photography of cardboard cutout drawings... no moving lips or limbs) portrayal of Captain Kangaroo and his crew making an escape, from what, I don't know now and probably didn't know then. I did know that such a flight had to include sliding down a firepole... something I probably learned from watching the monkees.
The "judge who held a grudge" looked kinda like popeye.
...and what the hell? The fate of a song's greatness resting on Bill's declining memory? ...and heaven forbid if it's a ballad or two minutes and thirty-two seconds long.
Hey, guys, how's about this criteria for a top 5 rock 'n' roll song? It's a great rock 'n' roll song!
...and it won a grammy.
I've been inattentive to this site in the past few weeks (starting a fulltime temp job, having Traci in town) so I apologize to be so late to reply here.
Catsoks - no! I have not outgrown the starry-eyed idealism, nor have I ever felt the need to understand or use such a term as "bullet-proof song". I am wondering if I can take a stab at where we may differ in perspective...I suspect you haven't played as many songs as often as I have. This is not a dig or a point of pride on my part - I think you come from a writer's standpoint with very specific criteria. Mine comes from an appreciation for writing, but also from a sense of what "gets over" in a room, and what connects, regardless of who may be doing it. (This brings to mind an experience that puts Seeger's "Night Moves" somewhere in the high tier.)
While I agree Evan Dando and a shaky sense of groove and harmonic/melodic intention can give even the greatest of songs a bad trip, I am resolute that there is a difference, or that at the very least I have been touched deeply by such a difference. In my book, a bad version of Stella can resonate far more than a shitty version of "Scrapple from The Apple".
Whahappen? Did you scare BillBorn from a reply? If not for you two, who's gonna read this stuff???
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