My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #220-211

This week's ten songs from my 500 all-time favorites is a little different from previous ones in that they contain four songs from this century...all from the alternative/indie genre and none of which were general popular hits.  I strongly suggest you check out these artists...who knows, you may grow to enjoy their music as I have.  Here are my reactions to the next ten on the list...

220 L.S.F. (LOST SOULS FOREVER)...Kasabian
In 2004 I first heard the British rock band Kasabian through their debut hit single Club Foot, which was played a lot on my local alternative rock radio station WHHZ/100.5/"The Buzz".  I didn't like it and thought "that was that" with this group until I saw the video to their next song from their self-titled album. L.S.F.'s U.S.-released video (the initial British version was reportedly banned) is a beautiful collage of the cosmos, weather, zodiac symbols, wolves, an eagle...and the band performing.  But although I think it's one of the best music videos ever made, the song stands well on its own, with a subtle Middle Eastern flavor to it (which I would learn is one of Kasabian's trademark sounds) and the inimitable singing voice of Tom Meighan.  Kasabian is one of my very favorite acts of the past fifteen years, more from them to come with higher-ranked songs...

219 THEME FROM SHAFT...Isaac Hayes
In the fall of 1971, around the time I turned 15, this was easily my favorite hit song on the radio. Associations with music can be funny and unexplainable: somehow I associate this song with going to the beach, which during this era was Sheridan Beach in northern Hollywood.  The music is funky and majestic with a lengthy instrumental lead...Hayes breaks in later to sing his description of the detective/protagonist (played by Richard Roundtree) in this then-popular movie, which I never did get around to seeing...

218 THE WHEEL...PJ Harvey
The lead and background guitar in this 2016 song sounds like the Rolling Stones...especially their classic song Street Fighting Man.  PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey is an alternative/indie solo artist from England, another great talent whose music is largely ignored on broadcast radio.  The somber and somewhat spooky lyrics speak of thousands of disappearing children...after looking it up it seems Harvey was referring to the terrible 1999 Kosovo (formerly of Yugoslavia) war that caused such suffering and displacement...

217 THE LIGHT...Regina Spektor
In my opinion the greatest popular music artist of this century so far...a brilliant pianist with a beautiful singing voice and so wonderfully creative with her compositions, Regina Spektor has produced a string of excellent songs including this slow, introspective piece from her 2016 Remember Us to Life album.  Okay, Regina, it's going on four years now...how about recording and releasing your next album, please?

216 THANK YOU (FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN)...Sly and the Family Stone
During the springtime of 1970 I kept hearing this song on the radio...my response would be to change the station.  But in a year or two I had totally reversed myself and grew to really like it...and then realized that this inspired band had other great earlier songs I hadn't appreciated enough.  The written title is deliberately misspelled and funny.  The lyrics are a sign of the counterculture times, knocking down hate and bigotry while lifting up the love and change that the new youth culture was supposed to bring the world, oh well...I still like the notion the song promotes that being oneself is a pretty good idea...

215 HOME BY THE SEA...Genesis
This was the track from the British band's 1984 self-titled album that got a lot of album rock radio play...that's how I first heard it in 1987 and got blown away...actually, there are two tracks running together, Home By the Sea and Second Home By the Sea.  But I think just listening to the first, which reportedly is about a group of ghosts haunting a seaside resort, is enough to hook you on liking it.  The intended meaning of the lyrics aside, they reminded me of every time in my life some overbearing person would try to rivet me in place and talk in my face: "Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down...as we relive our lives in what we tell you"...

214 SHANGHAI BREEZES...John Denver
This 1982 song came out after Denver had begun his long decline from the great popularity he had enjoyed in the 1970s.  I wasn't aware of it at the time...it was only during the last few years that I've heard it and grown to greatly appreciate a song that belongs with the best works from this modern day troubadour of the great outdoors and romance.  The tragedy of his fatal private plane crash in 1997 still resounds with me...

213 COME ON! FEEL THE ILLINOISE!...Sufjan Stevens
The title is a play of words on the 1983 Quiet Riot hit Cum On Feel the Noize, but the song couldn't be more different.  It's from Stevens' 2005 Illinois album, the tracks on which are part autobiographical, part historical/geographical, and part spiritual in nature.  The first section of this song is an upbeat portrayal of the bustling city of Chicago and then it slows down and evolves into a whimsical piece about the poet and Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg.  Illinois is my favorite Sufjan Stevens album...this extraordinary musical talent plays several instruments and writes, records and performs in several different genres, a real blessing to the musical scene and yet another artist who does not get the radio recognition he deserves...

212 GIVE A LITTLE BIT...Supertramp
The saxophone and acoustic guitar dominate this partially upbeat, partially pleading song...you can take the lyrics either narrowly as the singer's imploring to his love or...like me...more broadly as urging each of us to do a little extra, though acts of kindness and generosity, to make our world a better place.  Either way, this British group's 1977 hit record was a welcome respite from the barrage of disco songs on the radio then...somehow I don't remember hearing it, though, until a couple of years later...

211 PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE...the Temptations
A very emotionally intense song, Papa Was a Rolling Stone climbed up the charts in late 1972...its tone, albeit not its message, matched my feelings at the time (I was 16 and a mess).  The various singers in this legendary group take turns playing the role of lamenting the passing of their father, whose past they increasingly discover to their dismay is very, very disturbing.  The instrumental buildup at the song's beginning is impressive, too...I have always found listening to it cathartic...thankfully, my own dear, beloved father, who passed away six years ago, was nothing like the character in the song...

Next week: #210-201...