My 500 All-Time Favorite Songs: #70-66

Once again I dip way back into the distant past with the next five songs on my list of all-time favorites: four are from 1964 to 1970 and the "new" one is from 1983...37 years ago.  Don't worry, some considerably more recent songs also appear on my list down the line: you might have even heard some of them before...

70 TWIST AND SHOUT...the Beatles
Back in early 1964 after the Beatles made their triumphal entry to the United States with their Ed Sullivan appearance and tour, at one time enjoying the top five singles hits (never happened before or since), we went together as a family to W.T. Grant in Hollywood on US 441 to look for Beatles records, among other things.  One of the items purchased was the single Twist and Shout...one of those aforementioned top five hits...with the flip side being There Is a Place.  I was a little seven-year old kid at the time and loved Twist and Shout, especially John Lennon's hoarse screaming and the "aah-aah-aah" harmonizing.  I still think it's an amazing song, recorded back when the Beatles covered a lot of other artists' material, this one originally by the Isley Brothers.  Word has it that on the day they recorded all of the tracks on their debut album they saved Twist and Shout to the very last, knowing that John wouldn't have a voice left after it was over...

69 IN A BIG COUNTRY...Big Country
In the fall of 1983 this was a big MTV video hit, although I greatly preferred the music by itself.  Big Country was a Scottish rock band with the uncanny ability to emulate the bagpipe sound on electric guitar.  I would eventually crown In a Big Country as my song of that year...ironically, although it was the band's signature hit with their own name in the title, Big Country would steadfastly refuse to play it for the crowds during their concerts...which might partially explain why you haven't heard much else from them.  In a Big Country is a positive, energizing song that makes me want pump my fists in the air and believe anything's possible...

68 FEARLESS...Pink Floyd
Although Fearless is a track from Pink Floyd's 1970 Meddle album, I didn't first hear this song until more than twenty years later when I started exploring their backlog of works.  Fearless is a curious mishmash of positivity, political satire, and the Liverpool-based band's adoration of their local soccer team as expressed by traditional stadium chants.  Climbing the mountain is a strong theme in this song...both literally and figuratively, and the instrumental breaks with the background sports chants provide an eerie effect...definitely a one-of-a-kind song, better in my opinion than anything they produced on their following landmark Dark Side of the Moon album...

67 THE LITTLE BLACK EGG...the Night Crawlers
This song was a local hit in South Florida during 1967, it's a Floridian band and yes, the words are a little weird...but I loved it anyway.  We must have had a radio with us on our nightly family dog walks around the neighborhood, because The Little Black Egg transports me back to that time and place, when our little cockapoo Michelle pranced up and down the streets with us while all the stray dogs in the vicinity would escort us along in a most friendly manner...yes, back then dogs ran loose like cats do and were mostly pretty sociable.  Looking back on my life, 1967 was a rather strange year...maybe I'll get into that a bit should I write down my memories down the line on this blog...

66 NO SUGAR TONIGHT/NEW MOTHER NATURE...the Guess Who
This Canadian band sadly had a name too much like England's The Who...they should have come up with something a little more distinct, although their music was very creative and original.  In the years following the 1970 release of American Woman, on which this two-part track appears, I grew to greatly like it when it became an album rock radio staple.  I originally preferred the first part, No Sugar Tonight, which then morphed into New Mother Nature...that part, I think, required a more cultivated taste.  Ultimately these two seemingly clashing sections are brought together in the concluding verse when they're played and sung concurrently: brilliant...

Next week: #65-61...