As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

#176 Behind The Wall Of Sleep – The Smithereens (1986)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNZbP3ZVem4
 
For me, the Smithereens are the second-best rock act to ever come out of New Jersey (in between two others with close ties to Asbury Park). They don’t do anything fancy, just write and play great, hooky, basic rock & roll songs. The only reason they haven’t made this list before now is that I haven’t been able to pick one of their songs as my favorite. This one starts side 2 of their Especially For You album, but either of the two that immediately follow it (“In A Lonely Place” and “Blood And Roses”) could have been my pick. So could “A Girl Like You” (one of their few singles to edge into the top 40), or “House We Used To Live In”, with one of the great call-and-response endings of all time. I finally decided on this one largely because there aren’t many songs about guy groupies, and the sly reference to Bill Wyman closed the deal.
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