ten perfect songs

[Sion]

in no particular order



London Calling - The Clash
Into the Mystic - Van Morrison
Whippin' Post (live) - The Allman Brothers
Hurricane - Bob Dylan
Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Young American - David Bowie
New York Minute - Don Henley
Victim of Love - The Eagles
Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding - Elton John
Trampled Underfoot - Led Zeppelin

[Jetée]

I think this is a rightly nice thread you have started here Sion!

Hmm...needless to say I will have to ponder over my top ten favorite songs of all-time, but be assured that I will compilate them all for you soon.

Once again, a very great idea to find out our fellow TFPers.

[QuasiMondo]

The special hip-hop edition

The Roots - Game Theory
Nas - NY State of Mind
Eric B. & Rakim - Check Out My Melody
Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)
Big Daddy Kane - Raw
Dr. Dre - Let Me Ride
Slick Rick - Children's Story
Grandmaster Flash - The Message
Wu-Tang Clan - Uzi (Pinky Ring)
A Tribe Called Wuest & Leaders of the New School - Scenario

Old Soul edition coming soon

[Willravel]

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Rachmaninov - Second Piano Concerto
Dvořák - Symphony No. 9
Mendelssohn - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Mozart - Requium
Ravel -Daphnis et Chloe
Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture
Chopin - Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1
John Williams - Raiders March, from Raiders of the Lost Arc
Beatles - Hey Jude

[Sion]

Originally Posted by Jetstream

I think this is a rightly nice thread you have started here Sion!

Hmm...needless to say I will have to ponder over my top ten favorite songs of all-time, but be assured that I will compilate them all for you soon.

Once again, a very great idea to find out our fellow TFPers.

thanks for the kind words. however, I didnt say that these were my favorite 10 songs....just that I consider them perfect.

there are many more such songs.

[vanblah]

Originally Posted by Sion

thanks for the kind words. however, I didnt say that these were my favorite 10 songs....just that I consider them perfect.

there are many more such songs.

Can you tell us what you use to judge a song as perfect? What makes the songs perfect that you listed in your initial post ?

I realize that each person has their own personal tastes; but I'm interested in hearing WHY rather than WHAT other people find to be good (or perfect) music.

Doug

1) Red Rain - Peter Gabriel
The lyrics and music just go so well together first off; they convey the mood perfectly. Despite Peter Gabriel's fairly limited range he sings the song with incredible passion. The musicianship is just beyond outstanding. The production may be a little over the top -- but it could be justified in this case. There is a simple chord structure that is hidden in complex rhythms and bass lines.

I'll come up with more later.

[Derwood]

funny how all of Sion's songs are from a, what, 4 year span of music history?

[Willravel]

Mine span hundreds of years. *struts*

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by willravel

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Rachmaninov - Second Piano Concerto
Dvořák - Symphony No. 9
Mendelssohn - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Mozart - Requium
Ravel -Daphnis et Chloe
Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture
Chopin - Nocturne in E Minor, Op. 72, No. 1
John Williams - Raiders March, from Raiders of the Lost Arc
Beatles - Hey Jude

Will, I was just about to give you a ton of credit, but then it sunk in... most items on this list aren't technically "songs."

[World's King]

Deftones - My Own Summer (Shove It)
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
The Who - My Generation
Rage Against the Machine - Freedom
Jay-Z - 99 Problems
Public Enemy - Fight the Power
U2 - Where the Streets Have No Names
Social Distortion - Story of My Life
Frank Sinatra - My Way
Run DMC - Peter Piper


I have more but that's the start...

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Will, I was just about to give you a ton of credit, but then it sunk in... most items on this list aren't technically "songs."

Well most people refer to pieces as 'songs', despite they're not being sung. My mistake. Revised:
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Ravel - Daphnis et Chloe
Beatles - Hey Jude
and the new ones:
Kenji Kawai- Voyage to Avalon
The Who - Teenage Wasteland
Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Gilbert and Sullivan - A British Tar is a Soaring Soul (if you've never heard Gilbert and Sullivan, you're REALLY missing out)
Purcell - Dido's Lament
Billie Holiday - On the Waterfront

...yeesh...

[Sion]

Originally Posted by vanblah

Can you tell us what you use to judge a song as perfect? What makes the songs perfect that you listed in your initial post ?

I consider a song perfect when I can imagine no way in which it could be improved. I feel this is the case for all the songs I listed.

Originally Posted by Derwood

funny how all of Sion's songs are from a, what, 4 year span of music history?

I haven't checked, but I think it might be more like 8.

I have others that I consider perfect that cover other decades besides the 70s. I just ran out of slots before I ran out of songs.

maybe I'll post another list later.

[ASU2003]

Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
Rage Against The Machine - Wake Up
John Lennon - Imagine
Beatles - Yesterday
Men At Work - Land Down Under
Metallica - One
Pink Floyd - Another Brick In the Wall
Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird
Don Maclean - American Pie (or Strawberry Alarm Clock - Incense & Peppermints)

[Jetée]

Alright, I pondered about my ten perfect songs, yet somehow ended up with two entire lists of the impeccable music that I have come across; regardless, here is my list(s):

The Beatles - Let It Be
Blur - End of a Century
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Helpless
Franz Schubert - Ave Maria
Chaka Khan - Through the Fire
The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary
Dave Matthews Band - So Much to Say
Yoko Kanno - Greenbird
John Denver - Leaving on a Jet Plane
Loch Lomond - (Scottish Folk Song)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Philip Glass - Violin Concerto, Mvt. 1
Outkast - Da Art of Storytellin'(Pt. 1)
Radiohead - Karma Police
Nine Inch Nails - Hurt
Ben Kweller - Falling
Dido - Thank You
Don McLean - American Pie
The Fray - Over My Head(Cable Car)
Ray Charles - I Can't Stop Loving You
Giacchino Rossini - The Barber of Seville




*The songs are assembled based only on the moment they entered my head, and then further reviewed upon before eventual approval. C'mon, the songs are perfect,, none moreso greater than the last.*

[clavus]

Originally Posted by willravel

Well most people refer to pieces as 'songs', despite they're not being sung. My mistake. Revised:
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Ravel - Daphnis et Chloe
Beatles - Hey Jude
and the new ones:
Kenji Kawai- Voyage to Avalon
The Who - Teenage Wasteland
Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Gilbert and Sullivan - A British Tar is a Soaring Soul (if you've never heard Gilbert and Sullivan, you're REALLY missing out)
Purcell - Dido's Lament
Billie Holiday - On the Waterfront

...yeesh...

How is it you excluded karl Orff - O Fortuna??

Seriously, man. I expect better than this out of you.

[Willravel]

Hmm....it's good, but it's too 'Verdi' for my tastes.

[FoolThemAll]

Ani Difranco - Half-Assed
Animal Collective - Grass
Belle & Sebastian - Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying
Bob Dylan - Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts
The Dismemberment Plan - Academy Award
Lake Trout - Bliss
Phil Ochs - Outside of a Small Circle of Friends
Radiohead - Knives Out
Stew - The Statue Song
Wilco - I am Trying to Break Your Heart

...yeah, I like this list for now.

[Bill O'Rights]

Steve Miller Band - Fly Like An Eagle
Meatloaf - Paradise By The Dashboard Lights
Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
Eagles - Peaceful, Easy Feeling
Andrews Sisters - Rum And Coca-Cola
Frank Sinatra - The Best Is Yet To Come
Louis Armstong - What A Wonderful World
Peter Paul and Mary - Puff, The Magic Dragon
Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
Gordon Lightfoot - The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

[Derwood]

and another list by someone who stopped listening to new music in 1977

[roachboy]

ok so this has been building for a while, and this thread seems as good a place as any to say it.

i do not understand what is being talked about here.

i do not understand how it is that music and its commodity form (recordings) are collapsed into each other to such an extent that recordings are the norm and the making of it ancillary.

another way: i do not understand why folk want to hear the same thing in the same way over and over and over.
i do not understand how folk use recordings, how they use music, what they think it is to do, what their relation to it is.
i do not understand why music is entertainment, distraction, diversion.

another way:
i do not understand how it came about that folk would come to see repetition of static durations within which particular sequences of sonic fetures unfold in the same fucking way every fucking time to be a respite, a space to inhabit and to dream through--when it seems to me obvious that this relation strips these sounds (and by extension sound more generally) of any danger, any development, any change and in so doing relegates change to spaces outside of music, exploration to spaces outside of it.

i do not understand what a perfect commodity could possibly be.
i do not understand what a perfect song is.
i understood the sentences that were offered as a definition in no. 12--the words are easy peasy, the sentence itself poses no problems of comprehension--but the relation expressed through it baffles me entirely.

i do not understand how this notion of a perfect song gets translated into an affirmation of absolute passivity (something "you cannot imagine changing or adding anything to").
i do not understand how music is collapsed into an object, how it gets to be a thing, a thing that you contemplate in the same way, or within a fairly limited range of ways that amount to the same way, over and over.

i do not understand why a song that you love could not just as easily be seen as material for making other sequences, other pieces, why an expression of love for a piece has to be its passive acceptance.

it seems that gertrude stein was right, as she was about many things:

cultural productions, once accepted, become nothing but beautiful.
they loose any possibility of challenging you, any possibility of pushing you to think otherwise.

this is not about questioning what people like--we are obviously free to like what we like, and frankly i dont really care about it so much. i mean, seeing these lists is a mechanism for producing a sense of community, a list of predicates that function to situate the person generating the list socially and culturally, and the sequence of them is an exchange of social and cultural information.
and there are recordings that i think are quite swell and which i enjoy for a while, then put away, then listen to again, hopefully in a different manner, hopefully in a way that enables me to learn something, even if that something is vague, about sound, about the world, about making stuff.

and this is an implicit claim that my relation to sonic objects is better than anyone else's--it is my relation, which i have fashioned across many years of very different types of activity and which i have no interest in imposing on anyone and that because this relation is a function of my particular experience and that experience, like any other, is not transposable.

but one's experience involves certain underlying logics that you bring to it, whether you are aware of it or not, and it is the logic that i see running through this whole thread that baffles me. but it is like this all the time on this particular forum. most of the time, i dont understand what happens here.

what i dont understand, and what this post is about, is the relation to music that gets expressed or enacted by way of the sequences of recordings tacked together as lists of perfect objects above.
i just dont understand it.

[squeeeb]

only 10 is not fair, as soon as i put them down i will think of about 40 more, but...

crazy train - ozzy osbourn
will they die for you? - dvda, off the south park chef aid album
guitars cadillacs and hillbilly music - dwight yoakum
9th smphony - beethoven
ripple - janes addiciton version of the grateful dead song
psycho killer - talking heads
every second of every day - avoid one thing
perfect people - william shatner version (yes, i am serious about this)
sympathy for the devil - roling stones
ring of fire - any version, especially social distortion's and dwight yoakam's

[Willravel]

RB, it's really, REALLY objective. When I listen to Ode to Joy, every time I hear something new, but it's about evoking a strong and favorable emotional response out of beauty of the piece. One might as well ask why one smells a rose or hangs a piece of art. Yes, I get sick of songs or write new songs all the time, but I don't see myself ever stopping listening to Ode to Joy. One of the benefits of some pieces, usually classical or jazz, is their complexity. When I listen to Daphnis et Chloe, by Ravel (the very reason I chose my screenname), I can be swept up in the incredible melodies and movement.

[roachboy]

i understand what you attribute to the experience, but the experience itself is anything but objective.
beethoven's ninth (and the third, which i actually like more, despite what i am about to say) is (are?) the earliest musical experiences i can remember having--my father was obsessed with them--when my parents divorced, recordings of these symphonies were among the debris left behind, so i listened to them on my various shitty playback devices over and over again. even as a little kid. well before i knew anything about music, then, these particular pieces were both overdetermined for me and also held no surprises. but eventually, something changed.
i dont remember when.
but i do know what changed was the relationship i could have to either of these pieces and that the motor of it was repetition. repetition erased the overdetermination these pieces once had for me. repetition collapsed the space of projection. repetition made them from lovely environments into maps of interesting spaces to maps of spaces i knew so well i no longer looked very much to maps of spaces i just didnt want to go to any more because they were always the same always the same no matter what they were always the same.
so the recorded objects have a certain objectivity to them in that the features will follow each other in the same way every time. different versions will vary the speed of repetition, the size of the orchestra, attacks, phrasing, dynamics--but it is always jiggling features of the same map.
so even from this, it is obvious that the relation to these sonic objects (recordings) is anything but objective.
and it is the logic that underpins them that i am asking about, that i do not understand--not that i dont know about it---i do, trust me---but i dont understand how that place is inhabited by other folk.

[Derwood]

roachboy,

i understand where you're coming from, but hopefully you don't look down on those of us who DO take joy or whatever from the repetition.

1. Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
2. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Metallica
3. First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes
4. The Calico Kid - Ralph Covert
5. In My Life - The Beatles
6. 4 + 20 - Crosby, Still & Nash
7. Three Days - Jane's Addiction
8. Us & Them - Pink Floyd
9. Paranoid Android - Radiohead
10. Big Sky/Baddest of the Bad - Reverend Horton Heat

That's in no particular order, and merely a rough draft

[roachboy]

derwood:

i tried to say that i didnt, and didnt mean to imply that i did---i am baffled--but i also listen to ALOT of music--so there is a fan side of me---but over time, my relation to that side of me has changed (as has its contents), and so what i do not understand, and what i am trying to ask about, is probably a function of that change too.

[Willravel]

I find it's helpful to have multiple recordings by different conductors or symphonies. At one time, I had like 12 different recordings of the ninth, and each had it's own sound. My favorite will always be from the soundtrack to Immortal Beloved, but I've found that a few old recordings on tape I got from my grandfather are stunningly beautiful, too. I have recordings of Star Wars music from the Skywalker Symphony here in the Bay Area and from the London Symphony Orchestra. I have Sinatra's version of Embraceable You and Billie Holiday's. The art comes from the artist(s), as much from the art.

[Derwood]

Originally Posted by roachboy

derwood:

i tried to say that i didnt, and didnt mean to imply that i did---i am baffled--but i also listen to ALOT of music--so there is a fan side of me---but over time, my relation to that side of me has changed (as has its contents), and so what i do not understand, and what i am trying to ask about, is probably a function of that change too.

the truth is that in an ideal world, one would have full access to constant live feeds of brand new music, but that's just not possible

[World's King]

And again...


The Clash - Guns of Brixton
Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire
Bobby Darin - Mack the Knife
Elvis - Heartbreak Hotel
Bill Haley and the Comets - Shake, Rattle and Roll
The Beatles - Helter Skelter
Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Simon and Garfunkel - Mrs. Robinson
Johnny Cash - I Walk the Line

[noodle]

I'm going to ignore my internal cringe at the word "perfect" and interpret this as a thread about songs which persons don't tire of, feel inspired by and/or create a spark of emotion or memory. My list for today, in no particular order...


The Cure -- Close to You
311 -- Amber
Dispatch -- The General
System of a Down -- Toxicity
Van Morrison -- I Love You
Eric Johnson -- Cliffs of Dover
Jimi Hendrix -- Pali Gap
Simon and Garfunkel -- I am a Rock
Crowded House -- The World Where You Live
Bjork -- Violently Happy

I'm also going to second the "Red Rain" vote up there. I love that song.

[archetypal fool]

So, so many songs to choose from, and each one gives my life more meaning. I won't even try to pick the top ten, it wouldn't be fair. I'll just post the songs with the highest play counts in my collection.

In Our Gun - Gomez
Turandot: Nessun dorma - Puccini
Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
Californication - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Radio/Video - System of a Down
Madama Butterfly: Un bel di - Puccini
Tosca: Dammi i colori - Puccini
Tosca: E lucevan le stelle - Puccini
Summertime, from Porgy and Bess - Gershwin
Yesterday - The Beatles

[World's King]

I can't stop...

Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
KISS - Rock & Roll All Night
Kim Wilde - Kids in America
Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
John Lennon - Imagine
Al Green - Let's Stay Together
David Bowie - Space Oddity
Queen - We Will Rock You
Madonna - Like a Virgin

[ngdawg]

Since I don't listen to classical, my 10 perfect are:
Heatwave-Martha Reeves and the Vandellas(best girl-group song ever. Period.)
Legs-ZZTop
Long Train Running-Doobie Brothers(quite possibly THE best opening riff and percussions ever)
I'll Be Around-Spinners(Philly sound personified)
Love Song-The Cure
Smooth-Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas(genius guitar)
Bohemian Rhapsody-Queen
Yesterday-The Beatles
Knights in White Satin-Moody Blues
I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home-Grand Funk Railroad ( rock simplicity at its finest)

Of course, 'perfect' is subjective and some of these aren't favorites of mine, maybe just the first three; but, at their times of release, they made an impact, maybe raised the bar a bit and were out of the norm at the time.
Honorable mention has to go to "Overture" from the Tommy album.

[Nestoamin]

wow this is a tough one for me...I lean towards recent songs so this could be sketchy

Champagne Supernova - OASIS
Raining in Baltimore - Counting Crows
The Freshman - The Verve
One Headlight - Wallflowers
This Years Love - David Gray
Set The Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Shelter From the Storm - Bob Dylan
Layla - Eric Clapton
These are the Days - Van Morrison

yeah...hmm...not my personal top 10....then again....maybe there are a lot of perfect songs....I mean thats why people like them...

[Baraka_Guru]

In no particular order...

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles (George Harrison, feat. Eric Clapton's guitar soloing)
A Day in the Life - The Beatles
Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins
Karma Police - Radiohead
Long Distance Call - Muddy Waters
Spoonful - Howlin' Wolf
Let It Ride - Big Sugar (a blazing BTO cover)
Blow at High Dough - The Tragically Hip
Purple Haze - Jimi Hendrix
Uniform Grey - Sarah Harmer

And my definition of a perfect song includes that it is essentially changeable. Whether through improvised soloing, varying recording techniques, or altered instrumentation, the perfect song is not static; it can be picked up and reinterpreted. It is a living entity. (As an example, listen to what Big Sugar did to "Let It Ride.")

[Halx]

To me, this is really really SUBjective. It's not like there is a world standard of perfection. I think we're just talking about songs that are 100% satisfying and there is not one part of it that we would change.

In any case, I don't have 10.

1) mind.in.a.box - Change

[Charlatan]

I don't see that it is all too difficult to understand how music can function as a perfect unchangeable commodity. Just look at how music works on us. It appeals to us on a number of levels. It is not just sonorous noise. It carries meaning through our interpretation (what do you think of when you hear the 9th?), through association (a song once danced to when I was young heard today brings back that memory), through cultural significance (youth listening to the music of their generation do so frequently because it sonically assaults their parent's ears)... the list goes on.

A loved piece of music settles on our minds and triggers all kind of good feelings and memories.

That said, it isn't always about hearing the same thing over and over (though I agree this is likely the case the majority of the time). A sample in hiphop, a remix, a mashup, a cover song all to varying degrees take an original song and make it into something new. Enjoyment is found in the play between the original version and something new.

That said, I can understand why people latch onto one song vs. another. Is it a passive experience? Largely yes. But then, most cultural enjoyment is passive. There is little room to add meaning a recorded music production (unless you are using it in some of the things I listed above but at that point you are more or less an artist and less of a listener - though I suppose you can be both).

I don't know what a perfect piece of music is. I don't think anyone really does other than to say that there is a song they like to listen to over and over for whatever reason they might have (if they are even conscious of their reasons for liking the piece in the first place).

[warrrreagl]

Hey Jude - Beatles
You're the Reason God Made Oklahoma - Frizzell & West
Picture - Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow
Never Been to Spain - Three Dog Night
The Musician - Return to Forever
Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550 - Mozart
Back Door Man - Howlin' Wolf
Messiah - Handel
Colours the Soul - Coldcut
The Weakness in Me - Joan Armatrading

[pan6467]

Hmmmm

Well the KINKS had quite a few but I'll only have 2

1. Dedicated Follower of Fashion = The KINKS (Ray Davies' best at observing life, fads and it is timeless plus the music is kept to a soft undertone very steady and strong though.)

2. Ruby Tuesday = The Stones (The instruments used and the timing of the song.... it's by far the best song the Stones ever did musically... plus it was written by Brian Jones one of his only credited songs)

3. Southern Cross = CSNY simply put CSNY at their musical best and imaginitive

4. Imagine = LENNON extremely potent lyrics, musically well done as it is subtle but catchy enough to pay attention if the lyrics don't grab you at first.

5. For What It's Worth = Buffalo Springfield great guitar that catches your ear, a bass line that stays steady and sure so that the ping in the guitar stands out that much stronger, and lyrics that grab you, shake you and make you pay attention...... 40 years later and it is every bit as relevant as the day it was written... perhaps even moreso

6. LOLA = The KINKS what can one say..... Ray Davies at his geniusly best this is just the creme de la creme of his work that proves the KINKS are the greatest ever.

7. My Way = Frank Sinatra if you don't choke up even in the slightest during this song you ain't human, the music just pulls you into the mood of the song... from the sad beginning to middle coming in with the violins and slight piano.... then BAM the crescendo where Frankie's voice grits it out and almost yells that he has nothing to be ashamed of in his life then back to just grabbing you with smoothness "oh no not me... I did it my way" and then POW BAM with right uppercut-left hook-right hook-left straight to the jaw combos for the knockout........when he hits "What is a man... what has he got, if not his word than he has not....." and the way the music just leads AND follows just fuckin powerful timeless and FRANKIE 100%

8. Baby Elephant Walk = Henry fuckin' Mancini.... name a catchier and more fun piece of music, repetitive yes....but damn it just makes ya smile and feel good

9. Working Class Hero = John Lennon his steady guitar as his voice just comes at you and lets you feel his pain and shows he can empathize with yours..... the pain in his voice just so grabbing and the pain in his guitar it is crying .... Green Day's cover proves that adding anything other than just that simple guitar and Lennon's voice is a crime and bastardizing the song

10. Wipeout = the Ventures who can deny it is one if not the catchiest rock instrumentals ever and one of the strongest it just makes ya feel good and alive........

[fightnight]

I just want to add in Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah... it never ceases to amaze and move me every time I listen to it. I've never even really listene to the rest of his work, but that song just gets to me.

[UrbanAngel]

Prince - Purple Rain
Can - She Brings the Rain
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Pink Floyd - Great Gig in the Sky
Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary
Clint Mansell - Lux Aeterna
Leonard Cohen - Suzanne
Charles Mingus - Better Git Hit in Your Soul
Dusty Springfield - Son of a Preacher Man
Ray Charles - Georgia on my Mind
Dick Dale - Surf Rider

I'll second Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, that song gives me chills.

I know it's subjective, but my idea of a perfect song is one that is so well-crafted or captures a mood so perfectly that you would be hard pressed to improve on it in any way.