Favorite 100 Songs

This is an admittedly imperfect, one-moment-in-time stab at my favorite songs of all time. It was inspired by Dave Marsh’s classic “The Heart Of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Every Made.” For much more information on Marsh’s list, see Lex Jansen’s great web site (another SAS guy).

Although I fully expect to live to a ripe old age, coming up with 1000 songs in order and with commentary felt overly ambitious to me. (Marsh is a professional music writer and critic, after all.) On the other hand, with all the great songs that have come out over the years, cutting down to 100 also presented a challenge. To make it easier, I instituted a one-song-per-performer rule. Once I finish posting the top 100, I’ll probably put up some mini-lists of favorite tunes by some of my favorite artists. I may also do some “honorable mentions” of other songs that didn’t quite make the main list.

 

I started out in November 2013 by putting together a spreadsheet with all of the 2800+ songs I’ve loaded into iTunes, and then did an initial cut, which produced 170 songs. On December 9, I cut the 170 down to 100 (certainly the hardest part), divided the survivors into 10 groups, and then came up with the final numerical order. Don’t take the latter too seriously; I don’t think I could actually argue that I like my #53 song better than the one that is at #67.