The BEST Songs

I’ve been completely in love with the song Closer by Cold Specks ever since she released her album Light For The Midnight last year. It is a brilliant album and quickly became one that I adore, a gorgeous soul record

And Closer, oh man, it just hits me right in the spiritual solar plexus. Closer and Feel by Julie Campbell & Jah Wobble are the two songs I consider to be the most Aug Stone songs ever written. They express everything that I, well, feel

Every month I make a playlist of songs that get stuck in my head that month. It’s a nice reminder of what I’ve been listening to but also what I’ve been going through. And certain songs definitely reappear with some consistency

I’ve always loved making lists in general. Especially ones that seem definitive - Top 10/20/30/etc. This despite knowing that nothing is definitive, that, annoying, Life is always changing (remember Arizona Vanilla Colas? Gosh, I would love one of those, haven’t seen them since the late 90s) But I have a lot of Earth in my chart and there is something very appealing about compiling what might, against all odds, turn out to be forever. Something to say This Is Me, this is what I feel, I guess something to cling to when everything’s constantly in flux. Actually, I don’t think about it like that these days, it’s just fun to make lists, to see how I’m feeling in the moment, but in my younger more terrified-of-change days, I seemed to be on some kind of quest to compile the ultimate Top 30 Songs List. I would talk about this on Livejournal circa 2005/2006 and Rick Webb once suggested that if you kept making lists on a regular basis, over time a definitive one would probably emerge. So I did this for a bit on LJ

I was out for a walk listening to a couple of songs on this month’s playlist that I consider to be all-time faves when I remembered this idea and thought it’d be fun to try again. So here’s my Top 30 Favourite Songs Of All-Time list for right now. In no particular order:

1. Elvis Presley - Burning Love

2. Julie Campbell & Jah Wobble - Feel

3. Cold Specks - Closer

4. O.V. Wright - That’s How Strong My Love Is

5. Jesus & Mary Chain - Head On

6. Pulp - Glory Days

7. Suede - The Wild Ones

8. Mina - Se Telefonando

9. Bettye Swann - Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye

10. The Drifters - Up On The Roof

11. Led Zeppelin - Rock N Roll

12. Van Halen - Unchained

13. Desperate Journalist - Satellite

14. New Order - Temptation

15. Joy Division - Disorder

16. The Afghan Whigs - Summer’s Kiss

17. Shane MacGowan & Sinéad O’Connor - Haunted

18. The Real Tuesday Weld - When You Showed Up

19. Goldfrapp - Number 1

20. Smashing Pumpkins - Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)

21. David Bowie - Station To Station

22. My Chemical Romance - The Kids From Yesterday

23. Mikey Georgeson - Russian Dolls

24. Dolly Mixture - Everything And More

25. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Straight To You

26. Girlfrendo - Delicatessen

27. The Jellybeans - Baby Be Mine

28. Rancid - Radio

29. Dusty Springfield - Stay Awhile

30. Flesh For Lulu - Postcards From Paradise

The above was made without consulting my old Livejournal and was initially only a Top 20 cuz that’s how I remembered it. BUT when I opened LJ again I saw I used to do Top 30 lists which was SUCH A HUGE RELIEF lol cuz I could include more that I was really wrestling with. Even so, the absence of The Kinks, Guided By Voices, The Replacements, Blur’s The Universal, and Soul Asylum’s Cartoon makes me uneasy. But it’s best to do these quickly, off the top of your head. And the main reason I made this is because I want to compare what’s on the list today to what used to make the cut. So here’s what the last list from back then was. March 14, 2006:

1 - Siouxsie and The Banshees - The Last Beat Of My Heart
2 - New Order - Temptation
3 - David Bowie - Heroes
4 - Pulp - Pink Glove
5 - Pulp - Glory Days
6 - T Rex - Metal Guru
7 - Suede - The Wild Ones
8 - The Real Tuesday Weld - The Ugly and The Beautiful
9 - Dusty Springfield - Stay Awhile
10 - Echo & the Bunnymen - The Cutter
11 - a-ha - (Seemingly) Non-Stop July
12 - Luxembourg - (I Need) A Little Bit More (Than You Can Give Me)
13 - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Straight To You
14 - Saint Etienne - Hobart Paving
15 - Saint Etienne - He’s On The Phone
16 - Depeche Mode - World In My Eyes
17 - Even As We Speak - Drown
18 - The Pogues - Rainy Night In Soho
19 - The Replacements - Left Of The Dial
20 - Guided By Voices - Echos Myron
21 - The Jellybeans - I Wanna Love Him So Bad
22 - Bettye Swann - Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
23 - Duran Duran - The Chaffeur
24 - The Magnetic Fields - 100,000 Fireflies
25 - Joy Division - Atmosphere
26 - Van Halen - Panama
27 - The Divine Comedy - Tonight We Fly
28 - Yaz - Too Pieces
29 - The Auteurs - New French Girlfriend
30 - Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel - Tumbling Down

Back then I guess I had no problem including more than one song by an artist. Also, gosh, Tumbling Down is sooooo beautiful. That Velvet Goldmine soundtrack, eh? Interesting there’s only a six song overlap. Hmmm

Also checking LJ, it seems the night I posted this I had also watched Almodovar’s All About My Mother - a rewatch actually, I had a huge crush on Candela Peña back then - and Danger: Diabolik whose theme song, written by Morricone, deserves a mention in these greatest songs of all-time discussions. The Italian version (below) so much more evocative than the English

It should be noted too that Morricone wrote Mina’s Se Telefonando and for a TV show no less! Such a gorgeous song

I thought about putting these all together into one playlist but I always resist such an idea. I think of it like - you ever have two best friends and it’s brilliant when you’re hanging out one on one, or with them and some other people when the other one isn’t there, but for some reason when all three of you are together it’s just really awkward? I picture a playlist comprised entirely of the best songs to be a lot like that, somehow detracting from each’s individual glory

But like I said, I love lists like this, so if you wanna drop your Top However Many Songs below, I’d love to see it