Almanac Music: ‘100 x 100, 1954 – 1977’; The Top Ten

The Top Ten Songs

 

Next Nine in here to there, chronology, then Number One.

 

‘I Got A Right’, The Stooges, July 1972 (rec)

Hotshit fast Motown rhythm, succinct words “anything I want, I got a right to say”, recorded as a demo and eventually released on a bootleg single in 1977.  There’s at least three versions, maybe all recorded the same day, the other two are better than the one released.  An appropriate irony for one of the most self-destructive bands of all time.

Stooges was barely a band, it was a gang of lazy teenage thugs, Jim Osterberg was an honours student, smart kid in a neat sweater, then he met the Asheton brothers who corrupted him. From drummer to singer, perhaps the smartest, craziest, most intense performer of rock and roll, Stooges played music like the industrial presses in Detroit foundries, channelled the primordial jungle through raw rock and roll.

 

 

‘Think’, Aretha Franklin, May 1968

“Oh, freedom, freedom, gimme some freedom!”

The personal is the political.  Released in what became known as the summer of ‘Retha, Rap and Revolt, ‘Think’ – about as perfect a title as possible – demands that the listener do just that and it’s a rare song that so directly asks something of us.  Simple concise lyrics spell it out, Aretha’s piano drives the song, a crack band nails the rhythm, it’s a song for the brains and the body that relates to every social politic of the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries

‘Let your mind go, let yourself be free’

 

 

‘Waterloo Sunset’, Kinks, May 1967

Dirty old river, must you keep flowing? Ray Davies makes a connection between the Thames and the Mississippi in the first line.

The Kinks first US tour got them banned from the country.  Ray went home to his suburban semi and, relieved of the need to spend months on a bus crisscrossing North America, wrote songs about his family and London and what he saw around him.

An elegiac, timeless song, lonely old man, looking over the river and the city, the youngsters Terry and Julie, rumoured to be Stamp and Christie, moving through the city, all in their own worlds and united by the sunset over the river.

It has the rare effect of making the listener nostalgic for a time and place they’ve never been, that may never have existed.

 

 

‘Bernadette’, Four Tops, February 1967

Motown climbed a pop music mountain and planted this flag on the peak.  In every way, the bass guitar, those wonderful sounding drums, every part up to Levi Stubb’s desperate, yearning vocals.

Berry Gordy applied the processes he’d learnt on the Ford production line to music, he employed the best writers, producers, musicians, he sent the singers to charm school to learn how to dress, walk, talk, behave, the sound of Young America was a stealth attack that eventually saw kids from the projects playing ritzy supperclubs.

Holland-Dozier-Holland – Brian, Lamont, Eddie – was a talented and hardworking team of writers and producers who scored twenty seven Billboard top ten hits from 1963 to 1967 and did their best work with the Four Tops, who’d been together since high school in Detroit, 1953 and had honed their sound over thousands of shows and hundreds of recording dates before cracking it in ‘64.  This song of obsession pitches Stubbs’ voice at the top of his range, straining with the sacred and the profane against the smooth swirl of harmonies around him.

 

 

‘God Only Knows’, Beach Boys, July 1966

Brian Wilson invented modern California and it cost him his mind.  There’s a beautiful ambiguity in this song, that starts with a bittersweet admission, that maybe reflects on his relationship with his muse, his art – or his dad, a stage parent of frightening renown who angrily insisted on them practicing harmonies every night.

Beach Boys got stuck between American pop and English pop, saddled with an awkward image, only one of them was any good-looking but Brian was a true musical genius.  This is his best moment, sung by Carl, the best pure singer in the group, in a wonderfully clear sweet voice.  The middle eight, beautiful harmonies climbing around each other, is one of the best recordings of the era.

 

 

‘Like A Rolling Stone’, Bob Dylan, July 1965

When simple hip swinging rock and roll became serious rock.

Robert Zimmerman of Minnesota played rock and roll in high school Bob Dylan got into folk music during a brief stint in college.  Tho he became the darling of the folk scene after moving to New York he chafed against the conformities and artistic conservatism.  He wrote abstract, imagistic lyrics, he combined styles, came up with a whole new one and changed the course of popular music.

Crucially, he looked fantastic, ditching the folksy work clothes for sharp mod fashions wrapped around an amphetamine-thin frame and topped by a corona of unkempt hair.

From the first snare hit, this song sounds like nothing that came before it, a six minute opus with a thick electric sound, words that suggested depth and open to wild interpretations, a lyrical hook in “How does it feel?” that caught a new mood that was sweeping across colleges and high schools.

 

 

‘Promised Land’, Chuck Berry, December 1964

Charles Berry pulled all his influences together and invented rock and roll guitar.  He had a gift for lyrics, every line of every song was a standout piece of wordplay.  Years after his commercial peak, after jailtime and the collapse of his career, after the British Invasion, he recorded this knowing travelogue of a black man in America.

“The hound broke down and left us all stranded in downtown Birmingham.”  By the gods, there’s an history lesson in that line if you care to look for it.  Many folks have write 100K word theses on this topic but none of them managed to summarise it with such perfection.  Written in prison, it could be read as an impressionistic history of the USA – the gospel references give it a spiritual or metaphysical air.  It has depth and meaning, and a super line in “Cool your wings.”

 

 

‘Be My Baby’, Ronettes. August 1963

The First Tycoon Of Teen, this is the best example of his masterful technique, cramming dozens of the best musicians in the country into one small room, pumping the pre-amps, overloading the tape and putting this Wall Of Sound with Ronnie Bennett’s pleading vocals for 160 seconds of bliss.  You could listen to this song forever and still find something new.  Phil Spector had fallen for Ronnie by now, lending his lyrics an eerie overtone.

Perfect Pop, then, now and forever.

 

 

‘That’s Alright Mama’, Elvis Presley, July 1954

Two explosive minutes that changed our world.

Sam Phillips ran a studio, he’d learnt his craft running live broadcasts of swing bands, put his time and care into recording local singers, available for anyone who could pay for it.  Marion, the secretary, told him about a boy who’d come in to record a song for his mother.  He was a 19 year old truck driver, he loved gospel music, hung around Beale St venues, a polite and respectful boy.

He came in with his guitar, Scotty and Bill were there, they played a few songs to no great effect, the beautiful boy in his hip gear started playing this song with a rhythm and urgency, tape rolled, Sam sent the boy’s vox thru his tape echo and – Elvis Presley was born.

Beautiful, sexy, supremely talented and blessed with a wonderful name, this was the first time he played with a band.  1954, the birth of rock and roll.

 

 

‘Jumping Jack Flash’, Rolling Stones, 24 May, 1968

The hub of the wheel.  From all the soul and rhythm and blues and rock and roll that came before, to all the rock and roll and punk and funk that followed, it runs through this song.

The Rolling Stones were fans and students and interpreters of blues and R&B, they were the young, sexy elite of Swinging London, the perfect unit to alchemise the old with the new.  Accoustic guitars running hot, two slick film clips, a band that reinvented themselves so perfectly with this song that they were a template for almost every rock and roll band hereafter, the singer, the guitarist, the attitude.  Their ensuing chaos and decadence was a reflection of the times, they’ve had more social impact than any other artists on this list.

This is the perfect distillation of the band at the perfect time.  The hub of the wheel, 1954-1977.

 

Blessings upon every band that ever made a record, played a show, everyone that hit a gig, bought a record, gave something to rock and pop and soul, bless you all.

 

 

To read more by Earl O’Neill click HERE.

 

 

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