Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 121

All My Favorite Songs #16: Powderfinger

Neil makes his first appearance on the list, and like some of my other favorite artists, while it's hard to whittle his vast body of work down to just a few tracks to avoid clogging up the Top 900, coming up with the top pick was relatively easy. "Powderfinger" is simply epic, a poignant tale of a Hatfields & McCoys-type clash, a young man making a tragic last stand to defend the family home from the marauding ship coming up the river.

The lyrics do a remarkable job telling a compelling story wit...

The Paranoid Style: For Executive Meeting (2022)

Yes, I've shifted from talking albums to talking songs--hey, we've made it through my Top 15 songs so far, only 885 left on the list!--but no reason I can't break in now and then with something new I've picked up or has otherwise captured my attention.

And the latest from The Paranoid Style--largely a studio project for gifted lyricist Elizabeth Nelson--is definitely worth a shout-out. In addition to having a regular ol' day job, and being a prolific writer/journalist (largely writing about music...

All My Favorite Songs #15: Bastards of Young

Years before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a twinkle in Kurt Cobain's eye, the Replacements delivered the ultimate anthem of Generation X disillusionment. "Trash their baby boom" indeed, as Paul Westerberg stepped up and confirmed his role as the chief lyricist of the era, as he did throughout 1985's superb Tim LP.

Things look bleak right out of the gate. "God, what a mess, on the ladder of success. You take one step and miss the whole first rung. Dreams unfulfilled, graduate unskilled,  it beats...

All My Favorite Songs #14: Once In A Lifetime

The centerpiece of Talking Heads' greatest album, 1980's Remain In Light , "Once In A Lifetime" is a studio tour-de-force, a headphone-friendly sonic epic. The composition itself represents one of the band's most infectious and unforgettable songs--David Byrne's "You may find yourself..." ponderings embedded in the national psyche, the "Letting the days go by" chorus insisting on listeners singing along, the wickedly insinuating 2-note bassline and intricately syncopated percussion carving out th...

All My Favorite Songs #13: St. Elmo's Fire (Eno)

Repeat visitors to these parts have heard about my spiritual devotion to Brian Eno's 1975 masterpiece Another Green World, a huge part of my life which got its own chapter in my book. But while much of my love for the LP centers around the quiet ambient pieces, which have been ushering me into sleep (or the cosmos) for decades--aural paintings like "Becalmed" and "The Big Ship")--it was the upbeat rocker "St. Elmo's Fire" which first snagged my attention when I bought the record. (And, no, it's ...

All My Favorite Songs #12: Hey Jude

After some anticipated front-loading, this is the last we'll be hearing from the Beatles for a couple weeks. And I realize it's a divisive choice. Despite its commercial success and appearance on a lot of all-time-best lists, 1968 single "Hey Jude" also seems to bug a lot of diehard Beatles fans. Ok, fine, it's an early example of McCartney sometimes going for the lazy line in lieu of actual profundity ("The movement you need is on your shoulder"? Really?); and, sure, maybe the nah-nah-nah-nah c...

All My Favorite Songs #11: Days

I realize it's somewhat obligatory to recognize "Waterloo Sunset" as the definitive Kinks song, Ray Davies at his songwriting peak... but I've always preferred the similarly sentimental "Days." Released as a single in 1968, the tune was also a bonus track on some reissues of Village Green Preservation Society , my favorite Kinks album, so that association may give it a bit of a subconscious boost for me (though it doesn't really fit in with the tone of the rest of the LP, presumably why its inclu...

All My Favorite Songs #10: The Kids Are Alright

As is the case with other bands who make a number of appearances on my Top 900, it's damn near impossible to pick a favorite Who song. There are others that I might argue are objectively "better" songs (and we'll get to them soon enough), but 1965 single "The Kids Are Alright" has always had special poignance for me.

When I was a kid just starting to obsess about music and gradually moving beyond the AM radio top 40, digging deeper into rock history, The Who quickly became my favorite band. It wa...

All My Favorite Songs #9: Golden Slumbers Medley

Yeah, I know, it's a bit of a cheat, counting three songs as one. But the medley of "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" that closes out the impeccable Side Two of 1969's Abbey Road (brief "Her Majesty" coda aside) really serves as a unified suite, a melange of incomplete song snippets pieced together by McCartney .

Obviously, the suite is full of magical musical moments--the beautiful opening balladry of "Golden Slumbers"; the portentous, anthemic chorus of "Carry That Weight" (and its th...

All My Favorite Songs #8: Tumbling Dice

The Stones make their first appearance on the Top 900, checking in at #8 with this doozy off my favorite Stones LP, 1972's Exile on Main Street. And while, as with the Beatles, I could easily front-load my list with Stones songs, way too many to choose from, "Tumbling Dice" was a pretty easy call for my top Stones pick.

Part of my love for "Dice" is strictly emotional. I remember hearing the early Stones singles on the radio when I was first getting into music, songs like "Satisfaction" and "Get ...