My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #290-281

Eight of the ten songs on today's list go back to the period from 1964 through 1975, another from 1983...and the most recent, from 2010, actually has significant roots going back to the sixties.  So this is necessarily an old list...I wonder what today's generation of young adults think about the music from decades ago.  I know when I was young, the comparable time was the swing/big band era of the 1930s and 40s and the music from that time was pretty much forgettable, as far as I was concerned.  Ironically, that's pretty much what I think about a lot of the "top 40" hits being pushed on the radio nowadays, music which the younger crowd are bonding to and think is so great...

290 LONELY DAYS...the Bee Gees
Lonely Days is one of those songs that just didn't quite fit my musical tastes when it came out in early 1971, but the march of time has only increased my liking of it...to the point now where I think it was one of the greatest products of that year in music.  It alternates between sections of mystical eeriness and simple, pounding rock n' roll, places that the brothers Gibb would have been well-advised to remain...although you might be among the many who believe that their heyday was six-seven years later during the disco era (but not me)...

289 SHAMBALA...Three Dog Night
Three Dog Night was one of if not the greatest American singles band from 1969 to 1973...this was the last of their releases that I liked a lot.  From the spring of '73...a very good year in my life...it is a happy tune with a spiritual bent.  Three Dog Night had a gospel-like vocal presentation in their music, especially when they went through a song's chorus...not that the lyrics in themselves were necessarily religious.  Their music helped me through my often turbulent teen years, a sweet-spirited group that has long deserved induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, which has snubbed them for decades mainly, I think, because they tended to record others' compositions instead of creating their own...

288 LAWYERS IN LOVE...Jackson Browne
One of the most sarcastic and funniest songs that I have ever heard, this 1983 hit by Jackson Browne dovetailed nicely with the newly-exploding popularity of music videos...its video perfectly reflected the lyrics, the closing stanza being "Last night I watched the news from Washington the Capital, the Russians escaped while we weren't watching them like Russians do, now we've got all this room, we've even got the moon, and I hear the USSR will be open soon as vacation land for lawyers in love"...

287 BRON-YR-AUR...Led Zeppelin
I originally bought the 1975 Led Zeppelin double album Physical Graffiti for their lengthy epic track Kashmir, but following it is this short, purely instrumental showcase of Jimmy Page's acoustic guitar playing abilities.  The title refers to a place in Wales that the band retreated to for songwriting and rest.  I think I'd like to visit it sometime if I ever travel there, along with Portmeirion, aka "The Village" from the sixties TV series The Prisoner.  Bron-Yr-Aur is the song you want if you're tired of Robert Plant's sometimes overbearing vocals but still appreciate this legendary band's music...

286 INNER CITY BLUES...Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye's landmark 1971 album What's Going On was a sharp turn for the late, great rhythm and blues artist toward politics and social commentary, and there was a lot to discuss with racial discord and injustice, the ecology, economic urban decay and a distant, never-ending war "going on".  Inner City Blues gives Gaye's repeated, frustrated response to all of it: "Yea, it makes me wanna holler and throw up both my hands".  As I recall, Inner City Blues was the album's third release after What's Going On and Mercy Mercy Me, a minor singles hit in the fall of '71. An enduring message, although the lyrics pinpointed its era...

285 SHE'S A WOMAN...the Beatles
The story I heard here is that late in 1964 the Beatles worked long and hard crafting their next singles release I Feel Fine, but still had to come up with the flip B-side song.  Paul McCartney quickly whipped up She's a Woman out of thin air and the band rushed through its recording...which later caused some consternation with John Lennon when they discovered that many fans preferred She's a Woman to their featured song for which they had devoted so much effort.  I happen to be one of those fans...some of the best rock n' roll is also the simplest.  I also totally dig George Harrison's guitar work here, especially during the mid-song break...

284 HOT FUN IN THE SUMMERTIME...Sly and the Family Stone
This song came out in 1969, during a time in which, for some reason, I had dropped out of regular pop music listening and had lost touch with it.  I do remember disliking Hot Fun in the Summertime back then...by 1971, though, I had reversed course and grown to appreciate it a lot as well as this group's other works.  It's one of the great anthems of summer, and I ended up buying the single.  Unlike Three Dog Night, Sly and the Family Stone deservedly did make it to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, in 1993...it pays to write your own music, no doubt about it...

283 STYLO...Gorillaz
Gorillaz has been described as a "virtual' band, represented on their videos by animated characters and inviting a multitude of guest vocalists on their album tracks.  It is a collaboration of Damon Albarn (from the British band Blur) and animator Jamie Hewlett.  Albarn does vocals on most of Gorillaz's songs, including Stylo from their 2010 Plastic Beach album.  But the featured vocalist on this track hearkens back many decades: Bobby Womack delivers an unforgettable, impromptu performance on this "electric" song.  Womack, by the way, originally wrote and recorded It's All Over Now, which the Rolling Stones made into a big early hit in 1964...sadly he passed away five years ago...

282 TOP OF THE WORLD...Lynn Anderson
If my memory serves me correctly, I think it was the Miami FM station "A1A" that played this Lynn Anderson hit during the summer of 1973...I loved her sweet, emotion-laden singing on it and it quickly became my favorite song during that time.  Later that summer the Carpenters released their own singles version of Top of the World and I was angry that they were more successful with it than Lynn and were just capitalizing on her success...until I discovered that she had covered their original composition.  Still, I think Lynn Anderson's version is much, much better...

281 HELLO, GOODBYE...the Beatles
I've always liked this 1967 Beatles song...you have to watch the original video of the band, dressed out in ridiculous costumes with a campy psychedelic stage design, performing the song: I believe that they showed it back then on the Ed Sullivan show.  My parents had given up on the band a few months earlier after they all grew moustaches and made that insane Strawberry Fields Forever video...by this time, though, Paul and John had shaved off theirs but clearly weren't about to perform any more concerts.  I tend to associate this song, about two parties undergoing difficulty communicating with one another, with the band's earlier hit We Can Work It Out...

Next week: songs #280-271...