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Do you ever get those times when you need a particular song to play? Maybe you’re getting all dressed up for your first date with a new girl or guy and want something to take away those nerves. Maybe you’re annoyed at that dumb-ass customer who just doesn’t understand and need something to chill you out. Maybe you’re down about something and you need cheering up. Or maybe you just love music and want to hear some kicking tunes.
I’ve used music for all these things and more, and the one thing I can be sure of is that it never disappoints. I’ve realised this again over the last few weeks - since getting the new Mac - as I’ve been slowly digitising my entire CD collection into iTunes. The process has helped me to re-experience some of the music that I haven’t listened to in ages, to remind me why I loved it and to re-kindle all sorts of emotions and memories (good and bad).
I’ve also been playing about with the iLike application on Facebook in the last few days and it made me think about the songs that I really love; those songs that either completely capture a moment or are just so good muscially that they never fade. So, I thought that I’d share a few of my favourites with you, Constant Reader. Some will be obvious - they are just that good - others I’ll tell you the reasons why I love them. Others I maybe won’t tell you the reason, but you might be able to figure it out for yourself. Let’s call it Wolfie’s (in no particular order) Top Ten.
Year of the Cat by Al Stewart
This is definitely top of the tree; since I first heard this, I’ve loved it. The breadth of the musicality, the bittersweet nature of the lyrics (I think I probably first heard it on Ambrose Harcourt’s late night sho on Southern Sound - AM radio man!). Brilliant opening:
On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress, running like a water colour in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations she’ll just tell you that she came in the year of the cat
Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon
This is most likely the only Warren Zevon song you’ve ever heard, unless you’re a fan. He doesn’t seem to get much coverage on mainstream radio. The only werewolf song that wasn’t used in An American Werewolf in London (supposedly because the man himself objected) but the one that is most fitting. Comic horror (“little old lady got mutilated late last night”, “saw a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic’s; his hair was perfect”) and a fantastic tune.
England by Ralph McTell
I first heard this as the theme tune for the TV series that Billy Connolly did as he travelled round the British Isles. Again it’s one of those bittersweet sort of songs, but with an uplifting melody and a resonating lyric that celebrates the country in which I live.
Now don’t make this out a battle hymn, or a song for victory.
It’s just a way to try to say what England means to me.
And our accents and our colours change
From the city to the farmland, from the moorland to the mountains
From the rivers to the sea.
Beautiful World by Colin Hay
If you don’t know him, Colin Hay was lead singer of Men At Work (Down Under was their big hit here in the UK). A while ago he appeared in an episode of Scrubs, singing a song called Overkill. As I tried to find that version of the song, I came across this gem. Just Colin and his guitar, the song pulls you in with beautiful imagery, but is all as beautiful as it seems?
All around is anger, automatic guns. There’s death in large numbers,
No respect for women or our little ones. I tried talking to Jesus,
He just put me on hold. Said he’d been swamped by calls this week
And he could not shake this cold.
Far Above The Clouds by Mike Oldfield
I’ve been a big fan of the Tubular Bells series since I first heard One years and years ago. This is the closing track from Three. A more dance-inspired album than the other two, Three leaves you on a high with this track; just as you think you’re not going to hear the bells, they crash in leaving you nowhere to go but into full bliss mode. This is the one track that is guaranteed to get me smiling, whatever mood I’m in before you play it to me and it will quite often go on loud on a Friday night, to pick me up from the travails of the week and set me up for the weekend. Nothing gives me chills like the chills that I get as the little girl speaks the final lines…
And the man in the rain picked up his bag of secrets
And journeyed up the mountainside, far above the clouds
And nothing was ever heard from him again
Except for the sound of Tubular Bells!
Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival
It’s tough to pick just one song by Creedence, they have so many excellent ones, but I think this one perfectly encapsulates why I think they are possibly the greatest band of the 20th Century. No frills, driving rock ‘n’ roll, with that unmistakable guitar sound and screaming voice.
I first got into Creedence through two films; Twilight Zone - The Movie featured their version of Midnight Special in the opening segment, with Dan Ackyroyd and Albert Brooks (”Do you wanna see something really scary”) and Bad Moon Rising was, of course, fearured in An American Werewolf in London. I’d never heard of Creedence before I saw Zone, but you can bet that as soon as possible afterwards I found out all about them. Check out their 11 minute version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine - absolutely brilliant - and tracks like It Came Out Of The Sky, Have You Ever Seen The Rain and Fortunate Son.
Raincoat And A Rose, Tell Me There’s A Heaven and She Closed Her Eyes by Chris Rea
My absolute all-time favourite music artist by miles. I was introduced to his music by two friends (both called Ian), one who played me Stainsby Girls from the Shamrock Diaries album and the other who played me Josie’s Tune from Dancing With Strangers. Since then I’ve been hooked, seeing him in concert more times than any other artist. His change to a more bluesy direction after his illness is, to me, the work of a supreme genius.
It was impossible for me to pick just one track from the man, and it’s been hard to limit myself to just three but the ones I’ve picked are special to me for one reason or another.
She Closed Her Eyes is the closing track of the Espresso Logic album and is really a poem, read over a lilting accompaniment. It’s one of those tracks where the lyrics either pass you over entirely or really make you stop and think. The closing lines are what do it for me:
Chasing it like it was everything; it was nothing.
Only the sound of his own breathing was all he really had at the end of the day
And reasons to wonder, reasons to cry, too late for this selfish sinner
Who never asked “Why?”
Tell Me There’s A Heaven is the closing track on Road To Hell, which was really the album that put Rea on the map. Everyone remembers the title track - a rocking lament on the state of the world, inspired and typified by the M25 around London - but only those who listen to the whole album will know this track. Again, almost a poem the tone here is much darker and gives no real cause for hope of redemption - but it is the stand-out track for me.
The little girl she said to me “What are these things that I can see?”
“Each night when I come home from school, when Momma calls me in for tea?”
For me, Raincoat And A Rose (from the early album Deltics) is a song that I identify with very much; it’s an intensely personal song, describing a person who has never been very lucky in love and who is embarking on a blind date in what may well be the last chance they’ll get at finding happiness.
Love is for fools and fools have no grace, damn them while you can
Out here on the fence it’s such a lonely place, I wish I was foolish now
Sailing by Rod Stewart
A little ago I wrote quite a long post about how music can resurrect memories that you didn’t necessarily want to relive (I won’t re-hash it here, check it out using this link if you like). Suffice to say that this song is very emotionally tied-up with my father, who I never knew because he was killed in a motorcycle accident when I was still a baby. It reminds me, too, of my mother who had to deal with her husbands death only months after her only child almost died. When I hear it, I realise that she never did get the son she deserved.
Once Is Enough by Aerosmith and Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody by David Lee Roth
I’m not a massive fan of either Aerosmith or David Lee Roth, but these two songs take me back to happy times; nights out at the Plough & Harrow at Jevington, watching a succession of artists like Ivan Phillips (“Do you do Mustang Sally?”) or Brian (“I remember Pawis in ‘49″) - heck even The Boogie Brothers - having a skinful to drink and then blasting back to Seaford, sun-roof surfing to the strains of Aerosmith and David Lee Roth.
The Aerosmith track is difficult to find and when you first hear it you won’t know it’s them; it sounds like some deranged C&W band that have had too much moonshine that night. Then the drums and guitars kick-in and it’s rocking all the way. “Once is enough; it’s one time too many!”
David Lee Roth has a way of taking an established song and making it all his own. He does the same here and it’s a trip. If this is not in your collection, add it now. “Everywhere I go, people know the part Dave’s playing”
Get Over It by Eagles
When Don Henley and the guys came back in ‘94 (”We never broke up; we just took a 14 year vacation”) for the Hell Freezes Over tour, they wanted to write some new material. This was one of the songs and it’s a scathing comment on the Ricki Lake, Oprah, Jerry Springer, Trisha generation. Having shared house space with at least two people like this over the years (they know who they are, and anyone that knows me probably knows who they are too), the line “I’d like to find your inner child and kick it’s little ass, get over it!” is one that sticks with me.
Well, that’s 10 (sort of) and I realise that I haven’t even got started yet. Anyone who knows me will be surprised to see no Dire Straits or Mark Knopfler in this list (bubbling under with Brothers In Arms and Silvertown Blues), and I haven’t had room for Feels Like Home by Bonnie Raitt, King Creole by Elvis Presley, Time by Pink Floyd, Left In The Dark by Meatloaf, That’s Life by Frank Sinatra or hundreds of others.You probably won’t agree with my choices (I wouldn’t expect you to) but hopefully you’ll at least check them out and maybe together we can spread the word about great music.
