My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #260-251

Well, after a week's break in which Melissa and I went on a terrific cruise, here are the next ten songs and my comments from my 500 all-time favorites list.  And with these ten, we have arrived at the halfway point in this blog project: 250 songs down, 250 more to go...

260 GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN...Cyndi Lauper
Hearkening back to the sound of the early-to-mid 1960s...the song My Boy Lollipop by Millie Small comes to mind...this is, despite the title, ultimately a serious, pro-feminist song as Cyndi Lauper made her 1983 debut single a smashing success.  The video also contains possibly the high comedic moment of that era as Cyndi picks up a telephone and starts speaking through the receiver...I thought back then that if I Love Lucy were resurrected as a series, Lauper would be perfect for Lucille Ball's role in it.  Happily, Cyndi Lauper is still doing fine with her career and making pharmaceutical commercials...

259 LOOKING FOR SPACE...John Denver
John Denver was already firmly established with one foot in popular music and the other in the country and western scene when he got his own variety TV series...around this time he came out with Looking for Space. To me, this song's message speaks of sitting back and appreciating what's going on around me while setting aside time in solitude just to collect my own thoughts and achieve a greater perspective on things, both in the world around me and within my own personal life.  And the music is beautiful...

258 MOTHER'S LITTLE HELPER...the Rolling Stones
This 1966 song has a no-nonsense, blunt message on a number of fronts: prescription drug abuse, women trapped in a socially-imposed role as housewife, and aging as a rather unpleasant prospect: "What a drag it is getting old".  One of the more serious rock songs among many out there, its release only enhanced the band's "bad boys" image they were trying to foster in order to give them a special niche in popular culture opposite their chief rivals, the Beatles.  It's also one more song in which Brian Jones displayed his instrumental virtuosity and collaboration with Keith Richards on guitar...

257 DON'T LET IT GET YOU DOWN...Spoon
Among songs designed to comfort the listener in times of trouble and anguish, this one stands at the top of the list.  It's a track from the Austin, Texas-based alternative/indie rock band's 2002 debut album Kill the Moonlight.  I discovered it a few years later after hearing (and liking) their singles I Turn My Camera On and Don't You Evah, which prompted me to listen to their albums for other "goodies"..if they ever put Gainesville on their concert map I'm gonna have to set aside some time to watch them perform live...

256 FOUR STICKS...Led Zeppelin
In my opinion, Side Two of Led Zeppelin's Fourth ("untitled") album may be just about the best album side ever recorded, that is when albums used to have sides.  The other three tracks you will find ranked higher on this all-time favorites list of mine than Four Sticks, but this one stands well on its own as a hard-driving, fast-paced mystical-sounding piece showcasing all the bandmembers' abilities...

255 HANG ON TO YOUR LIFE...the Guess Who
Not one of the better known Guess Who songs, this one from 1970 is one of their best.  It's the song that belatedly turned my attention toward this talented Canadian band after they had already produced a string of hit singles.  Hang On To Your Life is a song of hope and not giving up in times of troubles...I hadn't heard it in a long time but it's just as good today as nearly half a century ago.  The Guess Who, alas, were yet another band that collaborated on some outstanding music but couldn't make it last...I wonder what they would have accomplished had composer/lead guitarist Randy Bachman remained with them...

254 PEAK HOUR...the Moody Blues
This British band's landmark 1967 album Days of Future Passed, better known for the tracks Tuesday Afternoon and Nights in White Satin, is structured around a single day, beginning with the sunrise and concluding with the dead of night.  In the middle is Peak Hour, a good old fashioned rock n' roll song with a lush orchestral introduction.  I've noticed in just about every one of their albums there are largely unnoticed little masterpieces, like this one...

253 BACK IN BLACK...AC/DC
There was a brief period in the early 1990s when I couldn't hear enough of this song, a celebration of the highly-regarded Australian hard rock band's resurrection following the tragic death of their front man Bon Scott early in 1980 when they chose Brian Johnson as his successor and made a stunning comeback, including Back in Black, later that year.  A song of defiance in the face of naysayers and adversity, I choose to embrace it as a kind of anthem for overcoming and survival...and the guitar work by Angus Young, as usual, is fantastic...

252 AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING...the Beatles
This two-minute song was on my family's Yesterday and Today album, which was a USA release from 1966.  In Britain and the rest of the world, it appears on that year's Revolver album...it's the British system that dictated the later CD releases.  John, who reportedly didn't care for the song, nevertheless sang lead on it and George's guitar work is extraordinary.  Of course, "bird" is British slang for "young woman"...

251 SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT...Billy Joel
Billy Pando, a Texas-based singer/pianist playing on the Royal Caribbean cruise I just finished yesterday, isn't very well known but he is certainly talented, with a great ability to strike up a rapport with his audience.  He also tended to choose songs to perform that I really liked, like this epic Billy Joel piece from his greatest album, The Stranger, from 1977.  The beginning and end, describing the title's setting, sandwich the middle, a sometimes raucous, fast-sung narrative about the turbulent lives of Brenda and Eddy, "the popular steadies and the king and queen of the prom" to a virtuoso piano background.   I read somewhere that this was Joel's personal favorite...it's one of mine, too: I first heard it during the summer of 1978 and tend to tie it to that also-turbulent time in my own life...

Next week: #250-241