Music - Third Top Ten List

Welcome to my third Top Ten music list. The first two were such a hit that I was under tremendous pressure to come up with a third!! Of course I jest, but yes, a few people did like the first two and said so, so here is the third. And yes, there will be some love songs in this list as well (for people who think that I don’t like love songs) – unconventional love songs perhaps, but love songs nonetheless. Not weepy sentimental stuff, but songs that have real intelligence, power, emotion and meaning.

This list will have songs by some artists you have heard of – such as David Bowie with his “weary android” voice (my patent – this description of old David’s voice), the Beatles and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You may not have heard of some of the other artists or songs. Some songs are just a year old, others are fifty years old. Let nobody say that my musical tastes are anything less than eclectic. I also have enough stuff for a fourth Top Ten list which will be released soon.

So where do I start? Ah, yes –the Clash.

Maestro, drum roll please:

• The Guns of Brixton – The Clash (1980): The Clash who formed in 1977, were the biggest punk rock band after the Sex Pistols and they lasted a lot longer. They were a product of their environment – the turbulent and depressed England of the mid to late 1970s. The late 1970s were a particularly bad time for the UK – high unemployment, an economy in shambles (the UK was labeled “the sick man of Europe”) and race riots on the streets between extreme right-wing white youth on one side and the West Indian and South Asian communities on the other. Disillusionment and anger reigned. Race riots in depressed areas such as Toxteth and Brixton were routine. The punks, led by the Sex Pistols reviled the music of older bands such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, dismissing them as irrelevant, “corporatized money grabbers” and “boring old farts”.

The Clash were a little different. Their musical influences were some of the British bands of the previous generation (especially the Who) and reggae. By the 1970s, the West Indian community in the UK was making their musical and cultural influence felt far beyond the confines of their community.

The Clash wrote mostly political songs – they were left-leaning and supported the left-wing governments in the world at the time, including the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. They also tried to build bridges across races and communities in the UK, and wrote about South American dictatorships and rebels in the hills. The Clash were the only punk band to make it really big in the United States – punk was largely a British phenomenon.

This particular song is about one of the more deadly race riots in Brixton. The song condemns the riots and has a hypnotic, snaky reggae backbeat. The lyrics are pretty chilling too.

“When they kick at your front door,
How you gonna come
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun,
When the law break in,
How you gonna go,
Shot down on the pavement,
Or waitin’ in Death Row”

• London Calling/Brand New Cadillac – The Clash (1980): Staying with the Clash for a moment, these two songs are also great. “London Calling” is a pounding rocker that paints a picture of an apocalyptic future, where the Third World War has broken out and a nuclear bomb has been dropped on London. “Brand New Cadillac” is an amalgam of American Tex-Mex, rockabilly and Jamaican reggae musical styles and is irresistibly foot-tapping, with a sudden explosive guitar solo right at the bridge of the song.

• Because the Night – Patti Smith – (1976): When punk crossed the Atlantic, it influenced singers like Patti Smith. Unlike other female rockers at the time, Patti was not seductive or pretty. She did not sing weepy love songs about sad romantic relationships. But she had a great bellow of a voice and was a great songwriter. She was one tough broad. This song was originally written by Bruce Springsteen but Patti made it her own. Her version is about a woman obsessed with a man – her obsession is complete and frightening. The song is a great rocker and enjoyable (though a little scary) to listen to. The woman in the song has got a real bad case of the hots for the guy she is singing about. You may heard the version by the 10,000 Maniacs a few years ago.

• Turn, Turn, Turn – The Byrds – (1966): This song was originally written by folk singer Pete Seeger in 1962. The version by the Byrds came out in 1966, and quickly became a huge hit and a cry for peace and reconciliation during the divisive Vietnam War. The Byrds were the first super-group in the 1960s. They sounded very different from everybody else, thanks to Roger McGuinn’s ringing rhythm guitar that sounded like chiming church-bells. Actually, their songs sounded like poems put to song, sung by choirboys. Like one reviewer said, the Byrds brought Ecclesiastes to the charts. They pretty much invented folk-rock along with Bob Dylan. The tunes and arrangements to their songs were gorgeous, lovely to listen to. The incarnations of the band kept changing. Many esteemed talents played in this band, right from Roger McGuinn to David Crosby to the late, great Gram Parsons. This is such a beautiful song.

• Love, Reign O’er Me – The Who – (1973): This song makes one want to believe in romantic love again. It is one of the few love songs by the Who. Part of the band’s 1973 magnum opus “Quadrophenia”, it is about a confused young man growing up in mid 1960s Britain. His name is Jimmy. By the end of the album, Jimmy does not know where life is taking him. He is depressed and at the crossroads. The song is a desperate cry for someone to love, someone to care. The album was made into a movie in 1979 starring Sting as Jimmy, and launched Sting’s acting career. The movie and the album were a huge British hit, since both chronicled growing up working class in mid 1960s Britain – a country and world poised on the brink of a social revolution.

Roger Daltrey’s impassioned vocals, combined with superb lyrics and unusually lush musical arrangements by Pete Townshend make this song a classic. The song was also covered by Pearl Jam this year and has featured as part of the soundtrack for several movies. Eddie Vedder of course is a huge Pete Townshend fan, like me. The song is delicate, thundering, emotional and ballsy – all at the same time. A very rare combination indeed.

“Only love can make it rain
The way the beach is kissed by the sea
Only love can make it rain
Like the sweat of lovers
Laying in the fields.

Love, Reign o'er me
Love, Reign o'er me, rain on me

Only love can bring the rain
That makes you yearn to the sky
Only love can bring the rain
That falls like tears from on high

Love Reign O'er me”

This song can still move me to tears so many years after I first heard it.

• Blackbird – The Beatles – (1968): Anybody who thinks that Paul McCartney did not write intelligent, meaningful songs should listen to this song as well the whole of Side B of the “Abbey Road” album. Paul always gets a bad rap as the one who sold out, while John gets the credit as someone who maintained his artistic integrity. Rubbish. Paul could write songs with beautiful lyrics and lovely tunes, as this song demonstrates. Actually, this whole album ("White Album") is great – a glimpse of the Beatles fragmenting – artistically. They are preparing for the solo careers. The estrangement between John and Paul is becoming increasingly evident. John’s songs sound completely different from Paul’s. By this point, they are no longer collaborating but writing separately. George is coming into his own as a songwriter and guitarist and developing his own identity. By 1968, the Beatles were well along the way to breaking up. This is more than a song – it is poetry set to music.

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night”

• Heroes – David Bowie – (1977): Tired of being labeled the father of “glam rock”, the relentless glare of celebrity, depressed and battling a crippling cocaine addiction, Bowie checked out of Southern California in 1975 and headed to Berlin, to get his mind, body and life back together. There he released three relatively low-profile albums which turned out to be the best in his career. The three were “Low”, “Heroes” and “Lodger”. These albums came to be known as his “Berlin trilogy”. The song “Heroes” (from the album of the same name) is about lovers separated by the Berlin Wall yearning to be together and willing to confront death to do so. The song also features Bowie’s trademark “weary android” voice and superb spacey, spidery synthesizer playing by the great Brian Eno.

“I can remember
Standing, by the wall
And the guns, shot above our heads
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall
And the shame, was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be Heroes, just for one day

Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be Heroes, for ever and ever”

• Desecration Smile – Red Hot Chili Peppers – (2006): These guys have passed the longevity test. They have been around for twenty five years. Through singer Anthony Kiedis’s long, nearly fatal heroin addiction and guitarist John Frusciante’s mental breakdown and institutionalization, these guys have kept battling away. John Frusciante, in my opinion, is the finest guitarist of his generation. He has the “yaargh”, the creativity and imagination to come up with astonishing guitar riffs and licks. Check out the opening guitar riff to this song – delicate, haunting, simple and unforgettable. Kiedis has matured a great deal as a songwriter over the past decade. He is fit, happy and healthy and his voice sounds very good on the last few albums.

And what can I say about bass player Flea? He is one of my all-time heroes. He is just the best bass guitar player in the world apart from being a disarmingly honest, simple, unaffected human being who lives to make music. This man doesn’t do things in half-measure. He is the heart and soul of this band. Like Pete Townshend, he gives it everything when he plays – and nobody could ask for more than that. The 1990s were a bad time for this band. However, they look and sound like they are having fun again, which is very good news for the rest of us.

“Never in the wrong time or wrong place
Desecration is the smile on my face
The love I made is the shape of my space
My face my face”

• Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers - (1991): I clearly remember when this song came out. I was living outside of Denver, Colorado. I guess that dates me. The Peppers were a fixture on American college campuses and a cult favorite before this song out. This song along with “Give It Away” which was also released in 1991, made them superstars. The song is about being alone, homeless and a heroin addict in Los Angeles. It is about feeling abandoned and completely bereft. It reflected Anthony Kiedis’s physical and mental state at the time. Pretty powerful stuff. Haven’t we all felt like this sometimes?

“Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner
Sometimes I feel like my only friend
Is the city I live in, The city of Angels
Lonely as I am, Together we cry”

• Running Scared – Roy Orbison – 1962: Here is a real old gem. What a voice Roy Orbison had!! That soaring falsetto could and still does shivers down my spine. A simple, plain-spoken man with a great gift for conveying emotion through that voice. This song is a classic – you must get hold of this song – beg, borrow or steal it. It is about a woman who is torn between two men. The protagonist is one of these two men and he is sure that she will leave him for the other. Listen as Orbison builds the tension in the song – you do not know what is going to happen. And as that falsetto soars through the roof at the end of the song:

“Just runnin' scared, feelin' low
Runnin' scared, you love him so
Just runnin' scared, afraid to lose
If he came back which one would you choose

Then all at once he was standing there
So sure of himself, his head in the air
My heart was breaking, which one would it be
You turned around and walked away with me”

Don’t you love happy endings? I do.