My Top 10 ... well, 12

Kell and my sister are planning a party this month to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the date (July 22nd) when I was spawned unto this unsuspecting world (we're having dinner, live music, the whole shebang).

As part of the planning, my sister wanted me to burn her a CD of my top 10 favorite songs of all time.

Riiiiiiiiiight ... 10 songs?!? I have hundreds of bands, musicians, artists on our external hard drive ... thousands of songs ranging from classical to jazz to musicals to all manners of rock, hard rock, metal, speed metal and the like.

Needless to say, I had a daunting task. Seriously, how do I figure this out? Without thinking about the number of songs I was choosing, I went through the bands and selected my favorite CD by each band, then my favorite song from the disc.

I stopped at 96 tracks.

So I pared the list down to 12 ... I just couldn't get it any shorter than that. Here's the list (in alphabetical order by band) and a brief explanation about why I chose the song:

1. Aerosmith: "Train Kept a Rollin'" (live version) - This song is a classic among classics. I remember being in high school and just cranking the radio to 11 every time it came on. I love the fact that it's a live recording and it still sounds that good. The band is simply at its peak and the drum solo/guitar riffs/base line towards the end is amazing. Just a great pounding sound ... must have been amazing to have been at that particular show.
   
2. Allman Brothers Band: "Dreams" - The version I chose is from the An Evening with the Allman Band CD. I'm a huge ABB fan and loved this song the first time I heard it and this version in particular. At the time of this recording, Dickie Betts was still with the band and he and Warren Haynes absolutely kick the living crap out of this song. Seriously, the ABB is one those bands everyone should see at least once but if you don't, this disc is a great way to get a good feeling for what it's like to see them. As usual, Tom Dowd manned the boards for the recording and he captures the band at their height with this line up. This song is amazing in its tempo, guitar solos and the lyrics are Greg Allman at his cosmic best.
   
3. Boston: "Foreplay/Longtime" - Boston's first, eponymous CD is one of my all-time faves and every song could have made the list. Again, it's one of those discs that as a teen, whenever a song came on the radio, you just had to turn it up. I think the thing that amazes me the most is how good this song (and CD) sound from a production perspective ... and it's over 30 years old! The band's guitarist and techno-wiz, Tom Scholz (an MIT grad) built and/or developed much of the recording equipment used by the band and they sounded light years ahead of their time. I just think this song in particular shows why the band was so good ... they sound so tight and the lyrics are great. I can't not listen to this song when it's on the radio.
   
4. Cream: "Crossroads" - C'mon, this song is legendary even for the casual rock music fan. If you ever want to explain to someone what Eric Clapton is all about, then look no further than this song. Whenever I hear it, it's one of those songs that I'll rewind to the beginning of the solo and listen to it again ... and again. This may sound weird, but Clapton just doesn't waste a note anywhere in this song and Jack Bruce's base playing (especially during the guitar solo) is insane ... and keeping everything together is Ginger Baker who must have had to trade in for a new pair of arms when this song was done. One of the top five rock recordings of all time, IMO.
   
5. Dave Mathews Band: "Jimi Thing" - I wish I could explain in words exactly what this song does to me every time I hear it but whenever it comes up on a CD, I have to listen to it at least two or three times in a row. First off, the production is fantastic ... nice, fat acoustic guitar sound, the drums, and the fact that there's a fiddle solo in the middle of the song ... well, damn. And Dave's lyrics are truly bizarre, but in a good way. You have to really listen to the song to get it. I can never hear this song enough ... just an amazing 5:57 of music. It also reminds me of Martha's Vineyard because when Kell and I would go down there before we were married, we'd always listen to the DMB as we drove around and hearing any DMB song, but this CD in particular, reminds of those times.
   
6. Jane's Addiction: "Slow Divers" - OK, I'll be up front and say it right now ... this song reminds me of when I used to smoke um, a leafy green herb, in particular, smoking with my friend Ray at his house. It'd be summertime at night, we'd be outside with a drink and feeling very relaxed and mellow and we'd put Kettle Whistle on and man, when this song came on everything was allllright. Just an amazing song to relax to and the lyrics are great (quick synopsis: the singer is at an amusement park and watches people going down a water slide and imagines them trying to procreate while doing so). The song itself, though, sounds amazing ... another great live recording. The band is just peaking during this recording and you can almost hear the audience sitting in stunned silence watching this.
   
7. Jimi Hendrix: "Red House" - My favorite story around this song is that when Hendrix was recording in London before he made it big in America, the record people were telling him to not include this song on the album because Americans didn't want to hear a rock guitarist play blues music. Wow! For me, this song is the epitome of Hendrix's style ... he was greatly influenced by the blues and this was his hand at recording in that vein. Thankfully he did eventually record it and released it on his Smash Hits record. The song also has one of my all-time fave Hendrix lyrics in it: "'Cause if my baby don't love no more/I know her sister will!" Always makes me laugh when I hear it because you can hear the smile on Hendrix's face when he sings the line.
   
8. King's X: "Life Going By" - King's X is one of those bands that a lot of people have never heard of but for those of us who are lucky enough to have heard of them, they're one of the best ever. This song in particular is one that I can't explain why it affects me the way it does, but it's one that I have to listen to a few times when it comes up on the CD. Again, the production is amazing so it sounds unbelievable and the lyrics ... well, I can honestly say that if I'm in the right mood, I actually get a bit choked up when I hear this song. Ty Taybor's guitar work here is some of his best ... it's a shorter solo, but just perfect, tight and to the point.
   
9. Led Zepplin: "Nobody's Fault But Mine" - I knew when compiling this list that a Led Zepplin song was going to be on it and I had no idea how I was going to come up with one song. And this is the only song on the list that isn't on that band's favorite CD of mine (Led Zep II is my fave). But as I was going through the band's catalog and I saw the title of this song, I listened to it and was once again absolutely blown away by it and I've heard this song dozens and dozens of times. For me, this song is a perfect amalgamation of four of the greatest musicians in a single song. Robert Plant's voice hits every note perfectly with authority and clarity, Jimmy Page's guitar work is genius, John Paul Jones has the best and most amazing bass sound ever recorded and John Bonham is ... well, being John Bonham. When you listen to this song, you can hear every influence the band ever had ... the blues, rock, R&B, it's all there. This is a song that the louder you listen to it, the better it sounds.
   
10. Stevie Ray Vaughn: "Couldn't Stand the Weather" - The title track from the first SVR album I ever bought. I love, love love this song. Chris Layton's drum playing is just spot on and nails every fill he has in this song; bassist Tommy Shannon has this awesome, fat sound that perfectly fills in the low end of Stevie's playing and it makes you really appreciate what a good bass player like this does for a song ... and then there's Vaughn and his quintessential blues-rock guitar in this song. The stuff he does in the bridge, the rhythm guitar and that solo ... holy crap, the solo. As I'm typing this, I can hear it in my head and I want to stop and go listen to this song. Vaughn always said he never liked his singing voice but c'mon, I think it's perfect for his music ... gritty, kinda down and dirty, like his guitar playing at its best.
    
11. The Beatles - "I Am the Walrus" - I first heard this song on a two-disc vinyl album I got for Christmas when I was around 12-ish. It was a Best of the Beatles compilation that featured their later stuff and I couldn't get enough of it. I must have listened to that album over and over again. Like Led Zepplin, it was difficult finding one song, but in the end, I think this song really represents the different, um ... altered state-influenced direction the band headed into later in their career. And the lyrics are just unreal ... "Sitting in my English garden waiting for the sun/If the sun don't come, you'll get a tan from standing in the English rain" ... ooookay. A lot of people talk about Sgt. Pepper as being the best Beatles album, but I think Magical Mystery Tour is at least as good, if not better. Like Pepper, the production is just insane but unlike Pepper, I think the influences and styles of music on MMT are more diverse and show the band spreading out and taking chances. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that any Beatles song reminds me of my cousin, Liz, and that's never a bad thing.
    
12. Van Halen - "Mean Street" - Geez, where to begin?!? As many people know, things didn't end well between David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen when Roth left/quit in 1985. Whatever the case, legend has it that it got so bad that when the band would record, Eddie would lay down his guitar tracks late in the night and Dave would come in the next day and put down his vocals and rarely did the two see each other. It's been said that Eddie was at his angriest during the recording of Fair Warning, (my absolute favorite Van Halen album and Mean Street is my fave track, hands down) and you can hear that anger in these recordings. There's simply an edge to these songs that doesn't exist on any other VH record before or since. I will never forget being a teenager, sitting in my room and putting on this record (on vinyl!) and listening to it for the first time ... and my jaw just dropped. By the time this album was released (in 1981), Eddie's reputation as a guitar virtuoso was firmly in place; listen to this song and you'll know why. The two-hand tapping and hammering on and off intro as it fades in then gives way to this edgy, almost grating string sound that fades out then ... BOOM! Eddie launches another diatribe again and the drums and bass kick in. And then Dave sings some the greatest lyrics he ever wrote with the band that begin with: "At night I walk these stinkin' streets, pass the crazies on my block/And I see the same old faces and I hear that same old talk/And I'm searchin' the latest thing, a break in this routine/I'm talkin' some new kicks, ones like you ain't never seen!" Gives me goose bumps every ... single ... time and that says a lot about a song when it affects you like that.

Truly, this list could go on and on and on ... but it's only supposed to be 10 ... well, 12 'cause it's my list, so there!