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Friday, July 11, 2014
The Greatest Songs Ever...
...are up for discussion. My #1 is Danny Boy. Somewhere in my top ten is The Stars and Stripes Forever. I have another one that's right behind Danny Boy but I can't remember what it is right now. Excluded are classical masterpieces such as Beethoven's 5th. It has to be a "song", with or without lyrics. Hm, maybe "Misty" and "Moon River" and "Autumn Leaves" are in the top ten.
Ah, yes, I remembered. "Over the Rainbow" is in the top three or four.
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It would be easier for me to make a short list of classical pieces, such as the second movement of Beethoven's 7th or the Moonlight Sonata or the Rach Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor that is playing on my Pandora at this moment. But that's against the rules.
So, the way I think about the best songs is that they seem to have always existed and to have been found, or plucked out of the air, rather than written by some mere human. But I don't think I could possibly limit my list to 10. I'd certainly include "Over the Rainbow" and "Danny Boy" and possibly "Autumn Leaves" and "Moon River." For older nominations, I'd add "Greensleeves" and "Amazing Grace." More recently, you'd have to consider "Yesterday" or "What a Wonderful World."
But that barely scratches the surface. We've been listening to "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca quite a lot lately as we revisit the old TV series by the same name. I'd consider that one. There are too many other candidates from movies and musicals to list: almost anything from Oklahoma or West Side Story or My Fair Lady. "Summertime" from Porgy & Bess. "When You Wish Upon a Star," from Pinocchio. And Christmas carols! "White Christmas." "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." "Silent Night." All of 'em!
I'd better stop. Somebody else please list a few now.
What criteria for greatest are we working with here?
Oh, Jesse, yours.
Oh yay... me! Well my favorite songs are No One Sleeps When I'm Awake by The Sounds, A Streetkid Named Desire by Bad Religion, and Blindness by Metric.
I'm not sure I can differentiate that list from 'greatest' because 'greatest' seems to imply 'do lots of other people consider it their favorite', and if I wanted to know that I would do a poll. Like, my favorite Beatles song is Hey Bulldog. A big part of it, too, is how much I've listened to the song. I've heard Don't Stop Believing so many times that it's just not that special to me anymore. :-( The nice thing about classical music and foreign songs for me is that because there are no lyrics (or I can't understand them), it takes longer for me to get tired of the song.
A few others that aren't my favorite but are really well done are Radioactive by Imagine Dragons, We Used to Vacation by Cold War Kids, and American Pie. I'm sure there are more that I'm forgetting.
Whoops, Blindness didn't link correctly. Here
I meant to include Under the Weather by KT Tunstall too.
Hi Jesse!
It's hard for me to differentiate between my favorite songs, and songs that I think would qualify for Greatest Songs Ever. I don't think they are necessarily the same thing. I'm struggling because when I think of Great Music it's almost all classical, for me. I definitely agree with a lot of the nominations though.
I don't think they're necessarily the same thing, either. I just pretended.
I think 'greatest' is really about some kind of 'musicality' or 'technique' the song has (maybe there's a better word for that). But no one can agree on specifically what that is, so we just guess based on what's popular. To a point, of course.
Wait, is Jesse saying that Gangnam Style is NOT the greatest song of all time?! Blasphemy!
I don't know if it's the song, Sinatra, Basie's awesome arrangement and tight orchestra, the raucous trombone solo, or all of the above, but I have not been able to stop listening to this on repeat lately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8_yPG5I63M
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