Here are my reviews of three more songs off the list of my 500 all-time favorites...all established, recognizable acts this time, although I wonder whether you've ever heard the first two songs below: if you haven't heard the last one, I'd wonder instead what planet you've been living on these past 29 years...
19 FLAMING...Pink Floyd
From the British progressive rock band's 1967 debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn...a true classic...founding front man Syd Barrett delivers his most spaced out performance, in many ways similar to John Lennon's Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds from the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album: both albums were recorded at the same time in the same studio. Flaming is full of vivid imagery, with Barrett evoking a child's sense of wonder at everything going on around him as his makes his magical voyage: "Alone in the clouds all blue, lying on an eiderdown...Yippee, you can't see me but I can you". What's an eiderdown, you ask? A quilt made with eider duck feathers, it seems. It's tragic that months later Syd Barrett underwent a severe mental breakdown, from which he suffered for the remainder of his life...his body couldn't handle the drugs he had been putting into it. I liked Pink Floyd the most when he was their leader in the early times, but I would have gladly traded Barrett's creative output back then for him enjoying a full, healthy life...
18 BLACKSTAR...David Bowie
One day in January 2016 I was dismayed to find out that David Bowie had just died of cancer at the age of 69. I was then astonished to see the video to his new ten-minute-long singles release Blackstar, the title track to the album released two days before his death. Somber, mysterious and foreboding, the song's lyrics speak to a charismatic, malevolent figure Bowie may have intended to represent the horrific ISIS organization plaguing the Middle East at the time...at least that's what his saxophonist said. And the sax playing here...and elsewhere on the album...is fantastic. It's a slow-moving piece as the lyrics get stuck in your mind: "I can't answer why, but I can tell you how, we were born up-side down, born the wrong way 'round". David's passing was sad, but this final work of his inspired me to look into his other 26 studio albums with many of his best efforts done in his later years...funny how radio stations will get stuck on playing an artist's earlier hits without ever checking in to seeing how they're doing later on. I picked Blackstar as my "song of the year" for 2016 and is my all-time favorite from this extraordinarily creative musician...
17 GIVE IT AWAY...the Red Hot Chili Peppers
For a band whose music I have come to appreciate over the years, I really personally dislike the members...especially bass guitarist "Flea" who was a lowlife high school bully before front man Anthony Kiedis recruited him when he formed the band in early-eighties Los Angeles. Their 1991 breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magic made them international superstars and they've worked hard to maintain their status as a premier rock act to this day. One of its more renowned tracks, Give It Away is a good example of how they were able to seamlessly fuse different elements of popular music...here they combine reggae, funk, hard rock and rap into a unique song that delivers a tribute to reggae's great Bob Marley. Originally my favorite parts were the weird, psychedelic instrumental links between the chorus and the verses, but now I look forward to the protracted guitar jam at the end. Hopefully by now the bandmembers have grown up a bit...
Next week: #16-14...
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