Favorite 100 Songs Trivia

Total time of all songs – 6 hours, 25 minutes

Average song length – 3:51

 

Shortest songs:

    2:07  #65  Do You Believe In Magic -- The Lovin' Spoonful (1965)

    2:08  #72  Mama Said -- The Shirelles (1961)

    2:10  #46  One Fine Day -- The Chiffons (1963)

 

Longest songs (all in my top 20, for whatever it’s worth):

    7:43  #19  Bustin' Loose -- Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers (1979)

    6:59  #5  Slippin' Into Darkness – War (1972)

    6:22  #7  Canadian Railroad Trilogy -- Gordon Lightfoot (1967)

    6:14  #1  Stay In My Corner -- The Dells (1968)

 

Shortest song title:

    #67  Mystery -- The Manhattan Transfer (1984)

Longest song title (tie):

    #100  Somewhere In America There's A Street Named After My Dad -- Was (Not Was)  (1988)

    #35  Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye) -- Gladys Knight & The Pips (1973)

 

Songs by decade:

1950s – 2

    #93  Fools Fall In Love -- The Drifters (1957)

    #83  This I Swear -- The Skyliners (1959)

1960s – 37

1970s – 23

1980s – 21

1990s – 11

2000s – 4

2010s – 2

    #86  Wide River To Cross -- Diana Krall (2012)

    #91  The Walk -- Mayer Hawthorne (2011)

 

Year with the most songs – 1965:

    #8  You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' -- The Righteous Brothers

    #9  A Change Is Gonna Come -- Sam Cooke

    #21  Ride Away -- Roy Orbison

    #33  I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better -- The Byrds

    #57  New York's A Lonely Town -- The Tradewinds

    #61  The Carnival Is Over -- The Seekers

    #65  Do You Believe In Magic -- The Lovin' Spoonful

#1 Stay In My Corner -- The Dells (1968)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPJKRRbjw0U

 

The Dells first recorded and released “Stay In My Corner” in 1965. It’s relatively unremarkable, checking in at a tidy 2:58. It reached a modest #23 on the Billboard R&B chart, and did not crack the Hot 100.

 

A couple years later, the group was looking for some additional songs to fill out their debut LP after moving to the Cadet record label, so they rearranged and re-recorded the song. Unexpectedly, the album cut started getting so much radio airplay despite its length (over six minutes) that they put it out as a single. It wound up being their biggest hit ever, reaching #1 on the R&B chart and nudging into the top 10 of the Hot 100. I first remember hearing it when we were down at the Jersey shore in the summer of ’68. (To my shock, Dave Marsh’s listing of “Stay In My Corner” in his book of great singles references the original 1965 version.)

 

Of course, this ranks as my all-time favorite not because it’s a great story, but because it’s a great song. Although the Dells were a traditional R&B vocal group, the song is anything but traditional, with a coda that has to be heard to be believed. I’m convinced that somewhere in the world there exists a musical dictionary where there’s a link to this song next to the definition of “soul”.

#2 Stones In The Road -- Mary Chapin Carpenter (1994)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CPMWyiAESo

Back in the day (mid to late 80s, I think), a group of us started going to see Emmylou Harris at Wolf Trap every year. One particular year, her opening act was someone we had never heard of, named Mary Chapin Carpenter. We were so impressed that we started going to Carpenter’s annual performances instead, although a few of us kept going to Emmylou’s shows as well. By now, I’ve seen more performances by her than by any other artist – in addition to the shows that she does almost every summer at Wolf Trap, I’ve caught shows by her at other local venues (Birchmere, 9:30 Club, Lyric Opera House in Baltimore), and one each in Philadelphia (WXPN annual summer music festival) and Elmer, NJ (Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival). I actually started going to the WXPN festivals in the summer of 2000 to see Carpenter, because for some reason she wasn’t going to be at Wolf Trap that year.

Carpenter wrote “Stones In The Road” during the heyday of her period as an unlikely country music superstar. The song is certainly more folk than country – it was actually first recorded by Joan Baez – which helps explain why her record company never released it as a single. Unlike “Slippin’ Into Darkness” and “Thunder Road” it follows the traditional verse-chorus-bridge structure, but like the latter the lyrics are outstanding, a parable of growing up in a comfortable white middle-class environment, for the most part touched only indirectly by the chaos of the late 1960s, and seeing youthful idealism replaced by the cynicism of the grownup rat race. It’s interesting that while the references in the first verse of the song (Pledge of Allegiance, starving children overseas) are common to many of us, the second verse is intensely personal, as Carpenter was growing up in Princeton NJ when Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral train traveled from New York down to Washington after his assassination in 1968. And as with “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”, the final lines pack a real punch. (Carpenter was always best when her political points were subtle):

"And the stones in the road leave a mark from whence they came / A thousand points of light or shame, baby, I don't know."

 

#3 Thunder Road -- Bruce Springsteen (1975)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGBXnw86Mgc

Picking a single “favorite song” isn’t the easiest thing in the world; probably any of the top 9 on this list could make a strong case for the honor. In particular, the top 3 are really more like 1A, 1B, and 1C.

In general, I get annoyed when people pull out the lyrics from rock (or other) songs and point to them as poetry. Song lyrics aren’t meant to stand alone. Rather, they’re designed to work along with the musical elements of the song. So, there are many great songs with wonderful lyrics that work well in the context of the song, but aren’t necessarily impressive if pulled out and viewed on their own.

There are, however, certainly some songs whose lyrics alone could stand on their own merits, and Springsteen has written more than his share of these (as has Joni Mitchell). “Thunder Road” for me tops the list, not least for its relative brevity (as early Bruce goes); as he himself said later in “No Surrender”, “We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school.” (OK, “Thunder Road” actually runs 4:51, but you get the point.)

My college roommate and I were introduced to Bruce’s music by our next-door neighbor in the dorm, who hailed from the Philadelphia suburbs. The three of us wound up developing a Sunday night ritual of listening to one side of a Bruce album – there were only two at the time – every Sunday night, and on October 20, 1974 we made the drive from Lebanon Valley to Dickinson College in Carlisle to see him perform, in what appeared to be the college dining hall / multi-purpose room. For some reason, I have never forgotten that the opening act was (as introduced by Bruce) Hange Range, from Schooley’s Mountain, New Jersey. Don’t think he did “Thunder Road”, but we do remember him doing “Jungleland”.

#4 Fire On The Bayou -- Neville Brothers (1981)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJpzNfao8X4

I’ve seen the Nevilles a few times, including at least twice at Wolf Trap, but my favorite show by them was at Rockville’s Hometown Holidays (annual Memorial Day weekend celebration) in 2000. I think the guys realized that many in the crowd for the free show on a drizzly Saturday evening didn’t necessarily know any of their stuff, so they stuck to their best material, rather than going off on any tangents (political or otherwise).

This one is the best of their best. If you can listen to it for more than a few seconds without getting an irresistable urge to get up and shake your booty, consider yourself clinically dead.

#5 Slippin' Into Darkness – War (1972)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L-2IQMDwcA

For my money, War is the best funk band this side of James Brown. Calling them a “funk band” really doesn’t do them justice, however, with the way their sound frequently features Latin rhythms and the harmonica work of Lee Oskar (probably the only Dane ever to play in a successful American funk or soul act).

While the group is best-known for top 10 hits such as “Cisco Kid”, “Why Can’t We Be Friends”, and “Low Rider”, “Slippin’ Into Darkness” is their masterpiece. Dave Marsh writes that the lyrics “evoke the dissolution of the civil rights movement into the drug-laced daze of the frustrated early seventies.” I’m not sure how much of that was intentional – the lyrics are certainly opaque in places – but “You’ve been slippin’ into darkness / Pretty soon you’re gonna pay” definitely does hit home.

#6 Over The Rainbow -- Eva Cassidy (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGaVQN-en2A

With the possible exception of Sinatra, I’ve never heard anyone approach Eva Cassidy as a singer, in terms of voice quality, phrasing, and the overall ability to interpret a song, whether it be a standard like this one, a blues classic like “Stormy Monday”, a soul number like “People Get Ready”, or a folk tune such as “Who Knows Where The Time Goes.” I first saw her on a side stage at the Wolf Trap Jazz and Blues Festival one year, when she was performing with go-go legend Chuck Brown, and was instantly hooked. I was fortunate enough to see her a few more times before her untimely death from melanoma, once more with Chuck and a couple of times by herself at free summer/fall concerts outside the old Silver Spring Armory and at A Taste of DC downtown.

A few years after her death, BBC Radio 2 and the Top of the Pops British TV show picked up Cassidy’s recording of “Over The Rainbow”, eventually sending her Songbird album to the top of the British charts and bringing Cassidy much more fame and appreciation than she ever had during her lifetime. The posthumous success is richly deserved, not just for her stunning version of this song but for her entire body of work.

#7 Canadian Railroad Trilogy -- Gordon Lightfoot (1967)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzo6Otpgj-E

This song is the masterpiece of Lightfoot’s illustrious career, which is certainly not damning with faint praise. The song was actually commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for a special New Year’s Day broadcast kicking off Canada’s centennial year. It’s an extremely ambitious work, with three distinct parts (hence the “Trilogy” in the title), with the initial two reprised at the end. Starting with the opening line – “There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run” – Lightfoot describes the majestic beauty of his native land, the excitement of its growth and development, and the promise that the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad would bring. Many might have stopped there, leaving things in a feel-good, heart-warming bowl of mush. Gordon, however, spends much of the song recognizing and celebrating those who were on the front lines of the operation, and shying away from neither the physical (“Swingin' our hammers in the bright blazin' sun … bendin' our backs till the long days are done”) nor emotional (“Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping beyond the dark oceans in a place far away”) costs. And I don’t think anyone else would have ended a commissioned song for a government agency with the line “Many are the dead men, too silent to be real.”

With apologies to Little Feat, Warren Zevon, Steve Goodman, and many others, this one gets my vote for the best train song of all time.

#8 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' -- The Righteous Brothers (1965)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbg1gkWb0Wo

Phil Spector may not be the world’s most saintly human being, but he certainly could produce great records, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil could write great songs. Put them together and add the Righteous Brothers to the mix, and you have one of the all-time classics of the rock era. The Righteous Brothers had a few other great tracks during the year or so they spent with Spector, and did some nice work afterwards, but they never surpassed this one; they own the song to such an extent that it makes the 1980 Hall & Oates remake, along with every other version ever recorded, completely and utterly gratuitous.

#9 A Change Is Gonna Come -- Sam Cooke (1965)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbO2_077ixs

This classic civil rights anthem, which wasn’t released as a single until a few weeks after Cooke’s untimely death in December of 1964, is in the National Recording Registry maintained by the Library of Congress. It’s also been recognized as one of the greatest songs of all time by NPR and Rolling Stone magazine, and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Hard to believe, then, that RCA Victor threw it out there as the B-side of the record (“Shake” was the A-side), and it only reached a modest #31 on the Hot 100.

#10 Brian Wilson -- Barenaked Ladies (1997)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51zsxbB8WS8

Semi-biographical ode to the troubled musical genius of the Beach Boys – great enough that Brian Wilson himself started doing a cover version of the song in concert. I don’t often listen to the Washington rock station (DC 101), but for some reason I had it on one night in the late 1990s and they played the live version of this from BNL’s Rock Spectacle album. This is definitely one of those songs where the live version far exceeds the original studio recording, so much so that it’s the version that the band included on their best-of compilation.

#11 The Summer Wind -- Frank Sinatra (1966)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug8cBIbxDaY

Sinatra has to be my favorite male singer of all time. (My favorite female singer would be Eva Cassidy.) This is such a great summer song, I really regretted leaving it out of the top 10, and almost wound up doing a last-minute switch. Having said that, it was a close call selecting this as my favorite Sinatra song over some other worthy contenders.

I was surprised and delighted that this song came in at #133 on WXPN’s recent countdown of the “885 All Time Greatest Songs” – the highest entry of 3 Sinatra songs to make the list.

#12 Red Streamliner -- Little Feat (1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMDYo4N5aNY

 

Little Feat almost certainly has to be the best rock-era act that not only never hit the top 40, but never even had a song in the Hot 100. To be fair, back in the day you actually had to release a song on a 45 RPM record (or, later, as a 12-inch, cassette, or CD single) to get onto the Billboard chart, and as far as I can tell Little Feat never did anything of the sort, certainly not during their 1970s heyday. Nevertheless, they got quite a bit of airplay on FM rock and alternative stations with such classics as “Fat Man In The Bathtub” and “Dixie Chicken”.

 

“Red Streamliner” is not as well-known or catchy as those two, with much more complexity in both the melody and chord progressions, but it has a haunting beauty, and is one of the two best songs of all time about trains. (The other one will appear at #7 on this list.) Michael McDonald’s backing vocals also help tremendously.

#13 Try A Little Tenderness -- Otis Redding (1966)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnPMoAb4y8U

There aren’t any “really old” recordings (defined here as “a lot older than I am”) in this list, but there are a few really old songs. Most of them, such as "Georgia On My Mind" and "Beyond The Sea", are generally recognized as classics. That’s not so much the case for “Try A Little Tenderness”, although it has been recorded by Bing Crosby and numerous other folks starting in 1932. No one, however, did such a radical reworking as Otis – not particularly tender, but definitely soulful.

#14 Am I The Same Girl -- Swing Out Sister (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3dkLr1yFps

This one has an interesting history. It was first recorded in 1968 by R&B singer Barbara Acklin, but became a big hit as the instrumental “Soulful Strut” (credited to Young-Holt Unlimited) when a revised version was released later that year with Acklin’s vocals removed. Both Acklin and Dusty Springfield released the vocal version of the song in 1969, neither with much chart success.

Swing Out Sister finally rescued the song in its full glory from obscurity in 1992. The Acklin and Springfield versions aren’t bad, but Corinne Drewery and crew really make it their own.

Incidentally, one of the best CD bargains I ever picked up was in the mid-1990s in Clearwater FL (down mainly for spring training, naturally), where I found a Swing Out Sister “In-Store Play Sampler” for a mere $1.99. I don’t think I gained a lot of cred from the clerk with my purchase, but the 7 tracks proved that SOS did some great stuff beyond their few hit singles.

#15 Going In Circles -- The Friends Of Distinction (1969)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBkYN7wYQFk

My most vivid memory associated with this song happened about ten years after its release. I was living in an apartment in Rockville, lying awake in bed with the window open, while somebody either outside or in a nearby unit had tuned in legendary area DJ Melvin Lindsey on WHUR. Lindsey was just finishing off a countdown of listener favorites, and “Going In Circles” was #2 on the list. (Oddly enough, the #1 song is also my all-time favorite.)

#16 Hello Stranger -- Barbara Lewis (1963)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-VDbbjIto4

I actually never heard this song until I got to Lebanon Valley College in 1971. The freshman class decided to have a dance marathon, and since I had been elected President of the class (a long story ...) I certainly wasn’t going to miss it. Most of the live entertainment was provided by a freshman-based “grease band”, which played 50s and early 60s rock songs (“Teen Angel”, etc.) along the lines of Sha Na Na. At one point, however, Jane Garlock (a junior) went to the piano and did a version of “Hello Stranger” – I fell in love with the song immediately. Yvonne Elliman and Queen Latifah have both done nice cover versions, but Lewis’s original (she also wrote the song) remains definitive.

#17 Ridin' In My Car – NRBQ (1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRK2o3EkOUw

NRBQ never had much commercial success in terms of selling either singles or albums, but in their heyday they had a well-earned reputation as a great live band. I saw them once, at Wolf Trap on a double bill with Los Lobos. I was surprised when Los Lobos came out first, since they were certainly the more famous of the two, but after NRBQ’s set I understood the reasoning; you really wouldn’t want to have to follow these guys on stage. “Ridin’ In My Car” may be the greatest road song of all time – if you have a convertible, be sure to listen on a gorgeous summer day with the top down.

#18 Someday Soon -- Judy Collins (1969)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jn90y9H9S4

In late 1968, folk singer Judy Collins (to whom Stephen Stills paid tribute in “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”) had her only top 10 hit with Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.” In August of 1969, she released “Chelsea Morning” (another Mitchell song) as a single; it didn’t do much on the charts, but is well-known for inspiring the name of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter.

In between these two, Collins put out “Someday Soon” as a single. This one didn’t have much commercial success either, peaking at #55, but this poignant ballad written by Ian Tyson (of Ian and Sylvia fame) is my favorite Judy Collins recording (although her version of “Amazing Grace” comes close).

#19 Bustin' Loose -- Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers (1979)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwHi10qX8u8

While “Bustin’ Loose” is certainly one of the best-known examples of Washington’s go-go music, for me it’s a great piece of music regardless of genre. I was only vaguely aware of it when it first came out – it only reached #34 on the Hot 100, although it topped the R&B chart for four weeks – but it grew on me the more time I spent in the DC area, especially after seeing Chuck live a few times.

Prior to moving into their new stadium for the 2008 season, the Washington Nationals had fans vote on ballpark music – home run song, seventh-inning stretch song, and victory song. When I saw that “Bustin’ Loose” was one of the nominees for the song to be played every time a Nats player hits a home run, I did a little gentle lobbying with all the baseball fans I knew to urge them to vote for the song. I’m not sure how many of them went along, but in the end justice triumphed, and to this day it’s played whenever a National hits one out of the park.