Similar to this list of albums, per a challenge to pick my 100 favorite albums, a friend posed a devious challenge for myself and a couple of other friends, for each of us to create a list of our 100 most favorite songs. Failing that, a list of 50 songs.
Years ago, I had posed a similar challenge to others to only do a list of 10 songs, something I found very to easy to do, but which apparently caused a series of sleepless nights for some others.
What I didn’t realize is how much more difficult it becomes once one creates such a list beyond only 10 tracks. The difficulty lies in the songs that didn’t make the cut. It is much easier to explain why something didn’t make a top 10 than it is to justify why something didn’t make the top 50, 100 or even 200. It’s like those songs look up at me with big, wet, non-existent eyes, trembling lower lip, and ask me pitifully why I no longer love them. It’s like every song that didn’t make the list is yet another kid Meryl Streep has to decide will live or be taken by the Nazis in Sophie’s Choice.
With that in mind, here is the list of my personal faves as of the exact moment I wrote this, ranked in order of how tightly they are integrated into my DNA. Each track has a hotlink to it on Youtube, and those links will doubtlessly start breaking as soon as this goes live. Some links are to only the song, others are to music videos, such as the one for R.E.M.’s “Get Up”, as that is my all-time favorite music video.
Similar to the 100 albums challenge, only one track per artist, lest my list be all Velvet Underground, Beatles, Stereolab, Replacements, Byrds, Sandy Denny, Monkees and Sloan. At one point, so many tracks had once been on the list, only to be displaced by another, that there ended up being more than 100 discards. Those might possibly be on this page and hidden.
- The Velvet Underground: “What Goes On”
- The Beatles: “She Said She Said”
- ? & The Mysterians: “96 Tears”
- Badfinger: “No Matter What”
- The Cure: “Harold & Joe”
- Sloan: “The Good in Everyone”
- Andy & Joey: “You’re Wondering Now”
- Vince Guaraldi: “Peppermint Patty”
- Mudhoney: “Good Enough”
- Billie Holiday: “Night and Day”
- Stereolab: “Le Yper Sound”
- My Bloody Valentine: “Wonder 2”
- Bongwater: “You Don’t Love Me Yet”
- R.E.M.: “Get Up”
- The Byrds: “Have You Seen Her Face?”
- Eddie Floyd: “Knock On Wood”
- The Replacements: “Kiss Me on the Bus”
- 808 State: “Lift”
- T. Rex: “Cadillac”
- The Shaw Singers: “Since He Touched Me”
- The Residents: “Moisture”
- Wire: “Outdoor Miner”
- Urge Overkill: “Now That’s the Barchlords”
- This Mortal Coil: “Song for the Siren”
- The Moon: “Not to Know”
- ABBA: “Take a Chance On Me”
- The Phoenix Trolley: “When Charlie’s Doin’ His Thing”
- INXS: “Not Enough Time”
- The Kinks: “Victoria”
- Broadcast: “Corporeal”
- Keith & Tex: “Stop That Train”
- Beck: “Lazy Flies”
- The Beach Boys: “The Warmth of the Sun”
- The Meditations: “It’s Wrong to Fight”
- The Jesus & Mary Chain: “Almost Gold”
- Beastie Boys: “So Watcha Want”
- Jeanne and the Darlings: “How Can You Mistreat the One You Love?”
- The Castaways: “Liar, Liar”
- Tones on Tail: “Go!”
- Jean Knight: “Mr. Big Stuff”
- Slade: “Cum on Feel The Noize”
- Kangaroo: “If You’ve Got Some Love in Mind”
- Kevin Ayers: “Shouting In a Bucket Blues”
- X: “Beyond and Back”
- The Box Tops: “The Letter”
- Eleventh Dream Day: “Making Like a Rug”
- The Beta Band: “Dry the Rain”
- Steely Dan: “Razor Boy”
- Shirley & Lee: “Let the Good Times Roll”
- Clefs of Lavender Hill: “One Good Reason”
- The Clash: “Hateful”
- Radiohead: “Morning Bell/Amnesiac”
- The Left Banke “Walk Away Renee”
- Big Star: “Mod Lang”
- Air: “Playground Love”
- Sandy Denny: “For Nobody to Hear”
- Otis Redding: “Your Feeling Is Mine”
- The The: “Dogs of Lust”
- Miriam Makeba: “Click Song Number One”
- Black Sabbath: “Sweet Leaf”
- Los Lobos: “Be Still”
- Portishead: “It’s a Fire”
- Vashti Bunyan: “Winter Is Blue”
- The Rolling Stones: “Monkey Man”
- Elliott Smith: “Coming Up Roses”
- David Bowie: “Starman”
- Ithaca: “Times (Seven Seasons/The Path/Given Time)“
- Judee Sill: “Jesus Was a Crossmaker”
- Love and Rockets: “Wake Up!”
- Belle & Sebastian: “Your Cover’s Blown”
- The Go’s-Go’s: “Head Over Heels”
- The Syndicats: “Crawdaddy Simone”
- The Weather Prophets: “Almost Prayed”
- Jurassic 5: “Concrete Schoolyard”
- 13th Floor Elevators: “Step Into This House”
- The Wedding Present: “Sucker”
- Lazy: “Shut Down”
- Os Mutantes: “Ave, Lucifer”
- The Monkees: “What Am I Doin’ Hangin’ Round?”
- Sandie Shaw: “Girl Don’t Come”
- Teenage Fanclub: “I’m In Love”
- The Beau Brummels: “Just A Little”
- Fairport Convention: “Don’t Worry Ma, It’s Only Witchcraft”
- Tom Waits: “9th & Hennepin”
- Ladytron: “Blue Jeans”
- Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans: “Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts?”
- Bjork: “Mouth’s Cradle”
- Guided By Voices: “Sad If I Lost It”
- The Wolfgang Press: “A Girl Like You”
- The Factory: “Path Through the Forest”
- Siouxsie & The Banshees: “Peek-A-Boo”
- The Grateful Dead: “Til the Morning Comes”
- Pink Floyd: “Learning to Fly”
- The Small Faces: “Tin Soldier”
- They Might Be Giants: “Kiss Me, Son of God”
- Dee Dee Warwick: “You’re No Good”
- The Bee Gees: “I Close My Eyes”
- Blur: “For Tomorrow”
- Lush: “De-Luxe”
- The db’s: “Spy in the House of Love” [early version]
Moody Blues: “The Best Way to Travel”
Nine Inch Nails: “The Perfect Drug”
Honeybus: “Fresher Than the Sweetness in Water”
The Apples In Stereo: “The Rainbow”
The Smashing Pumpkins: “Ava Adore”
The Judybats: “Ugly On the Outside”
The Go! Team: “Voice Yr. Choice”
New Order: “Everything’s Gone Green”
The Pretty Things: “The Good Mr. Square/She Was Tall”
Pop Will Eat Itself: “Dance of the Mad”
The Olivia Tremor Control: “Courtyard”
The Magnetic Fields: “Fear of Trains”
Marianne Faithfull: “Tomorrow’s Calling”
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: “There She Goes My Beautiful World”
The Human League: “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”
Golden Dawn: “Seeing Is Believing”
The Isley Brothers: “I Turned You On”
The Pogues: “Smell of Petroleum”
Status Quo: “Pictures of Matchstick Men”
Professor Longhair: “Big Chief”
Gerry Rafferty: “Baker Street”
Echo & the Bunnymen: “The Killing Moon”
Dusty Springfield: “So Much Love”
Shirley Ellis: “The Real Nitty Gritty”
Blackalicious: “The Fabulous Ones”
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: “2 Kindsa Love”
The Jam: “That’s Entertainment (demo)”
Nino & April Stevens: “Honeysuckle Rose”
U2: “Daddy’s Gonna Pay for Your Crashed Car”
TV On The Radio: “The Wrong Way”
Lucious Jackson: “Life of Leisure”
House of Freaks: “Rocking Chair”
Stevie Wonder: “I Was Made to Love Her”
Iggy & the Stooges: “Search and Destroy”
The Primitives “All the Way Down (Beat Version)”
Dionne Warwick: ” Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”
The Marmalade: “I See the Rain”
Elvis Costello & the Attractions: “5ive Gears In Reverse”
Fats Domino: “Downtown Strutter’s Ball”
Philip Glass and Linda Ronstadt: “Freezing”
Paul McCartney & Wings: “Let Me Roll It”
The Geraldine Fibbers: “Yoo Doo Right”
Aimee Mann: “Driving Sideways”
The Cavedogs: “Taking Up Space”
Squeeze: “If I Didn’t Love You”
The Free Design: “You’ll Be You and I’ll Be Me”
The Specials: “Stupid Marriage”
Howard Tate: “Glad I Knew Better”
The Cowboy Junkies: “Murder Tonight in the Trailer Park”
The Pretenders: “Message of Love”
The Vejtables: “I Still Love You”
Bob Dylan: “Highway 61 Revisited”
Gang of Four: “Natural’s Not In It”
John Holt & The Paragons: “Tonight”
Suzanne Vega: “Blood Makes Noise”
Beulah: “Popular Mechanics for Lovers”
10cc: “The Worst Band in the World”