All Time Top 10

This is the Top Ten of my favourite songs – I am not saying it is my all time top ten but right now this is how it looks.  All of the songs listed create an emotional response, some of them I think are just perfect examples of everything fitting together just right and have the balance of subtlety and power that I admire and some of them I could listen to on repeat.  I have to admit that this list surprised me.  The absence of a Metallica song and nothing by Pantera or Radiohead is unusual but they would be in my top 20 for sure.

So, here they are in no particular order. 

1. Everlong – Foo Fighters.  To be honest I could have chosen a couple of Foo Fighters tracks to include but at the moment this one in my favourite, I love the way it starts off really quietly and builds, the low vocal and the drumming once it gets going.  Playing on full volume is a must.

2. Spirit of Radio – Rush.  I consider this to be one of the most complete songs ever written, the guitar at the beginning with the percussion behind it is stunning and when the bass line fully kicks in I am lost.

3. Local boy in the photograph – Stereophonics.  Taken from the “Word Gets Around” album this track has been my favourite Stereophonics track since I first heard it.  I am not sure what it is about it but I can listen to this 2 or 3 times in a row.

4. Comfortably numb – Pink Floyd. It has always been a toss up between Pink Floyd and the Beatles for the title of my favourite band, I could have chosen 3 or 4 Floyd tracks to go in this list but Comfortably Numb sums up what the band are all about.  David Gilmours guitar playing on this is amazing and it doesn’t need to be played in the context of the Album to work.  The fact that Pink Floyd use this song to close their live set says it all.

5 & 6 .A day in the Life / She’s leaving home – The Beatles. I found it impossible to choose between the 2 of these songs so I have had to have both of them.  The use of orchestration on these songs gives them the strength to stand out from the other tracks on Sgt Pepper. I love the way A day in the life is broken down into parts and the fact that it sounds like 2 different songs spliced together is because that is exactly what it is, a collaboration between Lennon and McCartney bringing together 2 songs that they had been working on separately but found worked perfectly. There is no doubting which Beatle created which part though.  This song also has some of Ringo’s finest drum work in my opinion.

While A day in the life is a collaboration, She’s leaving home is purely Paul McCartney.  The melodies and harmonies always mesmerise me, the strings in the back ground fit the song perfectly and the lyrics tell the story from 2 view points, the parents and the child.  Add to this the backing vocals and the lead vocal in the chorus seemingly talking to each other and you have a masterpiece.

7. River – Joni Mitchell. Joni Mitchell will always be in my Top 10, I did struggle with the choice of song again but this was at the top of my short list just because of the haunting vocal.  Someone once described Joni Mitchell as someone who has never heard songs writing songs.  Her playing on guitar or piano is not like anyone else that I can think of and her vocals don’t always sit perfectly with the song but when you combine this, it just works.

8. Levi Stubbs tears – Billy Bragg.  This is quite a basic song, no fancy orchestration, complex guitar parts or anything like that.  One Guitar and vocals but for me it is all about the lyrics.  I never thought I could be won over by a song about domestic abuse but it is handled really well with the subtlety of the lyrics really making you feel for the person in the song.  The line, “It hurt her more to see him walking out the door, they stitched her back together and left her heart in pieces on the floor” gives me goose pimples everytime.

9. Carry on my wayward son – Kansas.  This song has become iconic for a group of my friends, the northerners.  It all started when we were at Danny’s house to play Rock Band on the Xbox, Dave’s girlfriend said she wanted to sing it so we took our places and this huge voice came out of this tiny little lady and everyone turned and looked at her.  I think we all missed the first few notes on our instruments while we raised our jaws from the floor.  From there it has been played at as many of our gatherings as possible, Danny’s stag night, my wedding, Danny’s wedding…As I say…anytime we get together we try to get it played.

10. Sleep instead of tears – Del Amitri.  I have always loved Del Amitri, they seem to empathise with the emotionally vulnerable and offer a hug of consolation to remind you that you are not the only person that has been in this situation.  There have been a few tracks that have tried to speak to the happy side of the emotional scale but I don’t tend to bother with these as the darker side is much more interesting. This song is actually a B side to one of the bands singles but I fell in love with it as soon as I heard it.  It is obviously “Break up” music with the singer telling the subject that everything is going to be ok in the end but first they have to go through a pretty tough time. “ Like everyone else will do, I’m gonna lie to you, tell you that life is cruel but one day your gonna wake up, with Sleep instead of Teardrops in your eyes”.