Your absolute, favorite song

[Songbird]

They apparently suck on stage but some of their studio songs are top 500 ...

 

[MisterCreosote]

I spent the summers after my junior and senior years of high school working as a climbing instructor at a summer camp two hours from home. My dad let me take his Jeep with me, so I spent all of my free time driving around blasting music with the top down. The Gin Blossoms’ “Hey Jealousy” was the big hit one summer, and Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Fall Down” was the big hit the next year.

Every time I hear either of those songs, I’m taken right back to those summers, which also just happened to be the best of my life, and all of the stupid, care-free **** we did.

 

[ChrisLong]

Man, this one is a challenge. There are a LOT of songs on my No-Skips playlist, and the ones that are most meaningful to me are really hard to explain or have a “You kinda had to be there” element to their stories. They’re probably not songs that’ll make any Rolling Stone list of top anything, but they are embedded in my heart in a way that wouldn’t really make sense to anybody else.

I’ll go ahead and try to tell the stories of my top 3:

“Don’t Look Back” by Boston:

On the day I graduated from high school, I was alone in the house about a half-hour before the ceremony. My parents and grandparents had already gone to the school. I was just so indescribably happy that this part of my life was over and that I was moving on to whatever was coming next. I put that album on the stereo and cranked it up as loud as those speakers would handle.

Twenty-six years later, I was driving my oldest kid to Tallahassee to start at FSU. That song came on the iPod on shuffle while we were waiting at a light, and the kid noticed the tear forming. I told the story, and the light turned green. As we circled the exit ramp, the bridge to the song started. I just cranked it up and floored it. I shifted into fourth JUST as the guitar kicked in on the solo. We were going about 105 by that point. Kid looked at me. “That … was COOL.”

“Downstream” by a band from Missouri called The Rainmakers:

I grew up in a very average part of a very average place. There aren’t many songs about Missouri, and for good reason. This one just is the essence of Missouri and makes me homesick whenever I hear it. It’s best heard live, where the drum and rhythm guitar are nice and up front.

“Children of Children” by Jason Isbell:

Not like I can pick one Isbell song, but this one …

My parents were 17 and 16 when I was born. I have a clear memory of my mother’s 21st birthday. I remember when she got her driver’s license, not long after. When I heard “all the years I took from her/just by being born” for the first time, I literally had to be physically lifted from my desk by my partner. That was it — exactly the thing that I felt and never could articulate. Isbell found words for the thing that had wordlessly haunted me my entire life. Because she and my father gave up their early adulthood, I was able to have one.

Again, maybe you had to be there.

I hesitate posting on here that I like Boston's music because of the ensuing ridicule from so-called music experts. Music is like wine, you either like it or you don't ... and you don't need a reason.

 

[swingline]

Man, I hadn’t thought of The Rainmakers in decades.

There was also a band around that time that just went by their first names, but I can never remember what it was. They had some good tunes, too.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

Had this one on vinyl forever:

Off the top of my head, the only song I remember from it is "Let My People Go-Go."

 

[maumann]

With all these meaningful and well-known songs, mine pales in comparison.

I was a freshman at Fresno State when this came out. Gene Cotton had a fairly pedestrian run as an artist, with the better known "Before My Heart Finds Out" and a duet with Kim Carnes. This song barely broke the Top 40 and it's rare to hear it played on SiriusXM, let alone terrestrial radio. A forgettable little folk rock ditty with some strings and sappy lyrics. But it is my earworm and the meaning of the lyrics have changed for me as I've grown older and wiser.

I bought the 45, found the album in the bin of a radio station a few years later and eventually found his website where I bought a CD.



If there's a No. 2, it's W*O*L*D by Harry Chapin, which perfectly sums up what it's like to try and make a living in radio.

 

[swingline]

That Rainmakers cover is like a bastardized version of a Bingham painting.

The other band was something like Bob, Dave and Rich — something like that.

 

[tapintoamerica]

Underrated. But brilliant.

 

[I Should Coco]

Had this one on vinyl forever:

Off the top of my head, the only song I remember from it is "Let My People Go-Go."

I also recall their song “Government Cheese,” a Reagan-style take on welfare. I disagreed with their take on things, but at least the lyrics were a bit deeper than “Talk Dirty to Me.”

 

[FileNotFound]

The Rainmakers were previously Steve, Bob and Rich. They added drummer Pat and became The Rainmakers. They were the soundtrack to my early adulthood.

 

[swingline]

I didn't realize they became The Rainmakers, but I do remember liking some of their songs, the titles of which escape me. Hell, it's been 40 years.

 

[FileNotFound]

I also recall their song “Government Cheese,” a Reagan-style take on welfare. I disagreed with their take on things, but at least the lyrics were a bit deeper than “Talk Dirty to Me.”

Interestingly enough, they’ll still do that song at shows (they get back together for a few gigs in Kansas City and Springfield every year), and Bob Walkenhorst actually kind of apologizes for it. “I wrote that song when I was an angry young man, and looking back, I don’t even really know what I was angry about.” That song is almost always followed in the set list by Spend It On Love.

 

[FileNotFound]

That Rainmakers cover is like a bastardized version of a Bingham painting.

The other band was something like Bob, Dave and Rich — something like that.

It’s a Thomas Hart Benton painting, but I forget which one.

 

[swingline]

Well, I had two choices there.

Artist David Spear takes after Benton and is really, really good.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I know I’m more than a month behind on the Jackson Browne discussion, but one of my faves is Lawyers in Love. I’ll even play it when I try to speed walk on the treadmill.

 

[I Should Coco]

I know I’m more than a month behind on the Jackson Browne discussion, but one of my faves is Lawyers in Love. I’ll even play it when I try to speed walk on the treadmill.

That was right around the time he switched from personal singer/songwriter style to political topics in an 1980s-rock style. Strong album, too.

 

[dixiehack]

Feels cruel how August has been written off as forfeit when we consider summer happiness. Blame the American education system for the calendar creep I guess, but you seldom hear of vacations past the first weekend of August.

Anyway, the pangs of regret for another season that was enjoyable but not the Best Summer Ever one dreams about after Easter leads inevitably to my favorite song ever for today.

 

[Slacker]

Not my absolute favorite song, and not even my favorite ZZ Top song, but whenever I wanna watch them crank it up and go hard in a live performance, it's always this one first. Loved watching Billy and Dusty work the stage together like this, on top of all the great guitar work.

I saw them in concert only once, dammit, but they pretty much jammed for 5 minutes in the middle of every song.

What a night. What a band. Rock gods of the finest kind to me. And this video kicks ass.