Pitchfork Magazine's
The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s is of interest to me because it spans the music of my formative high school and college years. It was a decade that begin with the last gasps of Elvis/rockabilly/doo-wop through early Dylan folk, girl groups, Beach Boys/surfer music, the Beatles/British Invasion, Dylan 'going electric', Motown and finishing with a wild few years where just about every influence imaginable (music and otherwise) was used to create the popular music of the day. One could argue (and many aging boomers do ad nauseum) that it was the greatest decade of rock. But beyond that, Pitchfork provides a brief overview for each entry and puts the listing in perspective. Here are the
top ten:
10. Desmond Dekker & The Aces: "Israelites" - (Desmond Dekker) 1969
9. The Who: "I Can't Explain" - (Pete Townshend) 1965
8. Johnny Cash: "Folsom Prison Blues (Live at Folsom Prison)" - (Johnny Cash) 1968
7. The Beach Boys: "Wouldn't It Be Nice" - (Tony Asher/Brian Wilson) 1966
6. The Ronettes: "Be My Baby" - (Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich/Phil Spector) 1963
5.
The Beatles: "A Day in the Life" - (John Lennon/Paul McCartney) 1967 Chart info: U.S. (N/A), UK (N/A) Available on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles had attempted ambitious mosaics before ("She Said She Said", "Tomorrow Never Knows"), but Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's epic finale catalogues every explosive element of the Fab Four. George Martin's production revolutionized pop music with its avant-garde opulence. Lennon and McCartney's aural bricolage elevates and parodies itself, and their lyrics distance the group from naiveté and Summer-of-Love idealism. Lest we forget, the opening line notes how someone "blew his mind out in a car" and finds Lennon cackling at corpses, media saturation, and humanity's natural disposition toward violence. When paired with hailing folk and piano, Lennon's portion is as wry and poignant as rock is ever likely to get. In fact, "A Day in the Life" is pretty much the archetype for the Lennon/McCartney duality, firmly distinguishing John as a nightmarish narcophilosopher and Paul as a pragmatic businessman with a schedule to keep. But with its startling juxtaposition of pop melodies and flowery experimentalism, "A Day in the Life" consolidates all of the group's audiences. Here is a song for preteens and acidheads, surrealists and Sinatra fans, the Monkees and the Manson family. That final crescendo, with all its disembodied screams and orchestral terrorism, is surely the most famous-- and strident-- ending of any song in the last 50 years: a caterwauling assemblage of Zen humming, instrumental flairs, and three monolithic pianos stacked on top of one another. Somehow the world's greatest musical icons closed their most famous album with a solid 30 seconds of morbid textural sculpture. By the time the dust settled, Paul was dead, atonalism had gone pop, and four Liverpudlian rockers became high-art heroes. --Alex Linhardt
4.
Bob Dylan: "Like a Rolling Stone" - (Bob Dylan) 1965 Chart info: U.S. (#2), UK (#4) Available on Highway 61 Revisited
From its first double-drum crack (which Bruce Springsteen later described as the sound of someone "kicking open the door to your mind"), to its mythical opening couplet (a perfectly seething "Once upon a time..."), "Like a Rolling Stone" is one of Dylan's strangest and most enthralling moments, a big, shambling statement that hovers on the verge of total dissolution, threatening to shimmy your record player (and, potentially, your entire life) off the shelf and onto the floor. One minute in, when Dylan finally hits the chorus, glibly hollering "How does it feeeel?" to an unnamed subject (or possibly himself), his sneer is so convincing it's difficult not to feel deeply ashamed of everything you've ever done, but still desperate for five more minutes of lashings. It's hard to overstate the cultural heft of "Like a Rolling Stone", which puttered to #2 on the pop chart (the first song of its length to do so) and hovered there for nearly three months. In 2005's Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, Greil Marcus exhausts 200 pages dissecting the socio-political context and lyrical nuances of "Like a Rolling Stone", ultimately christening the track "a triumph of craft, inspiration, will, and intent," and, more importantly, "a rewrite of the world itself." Certainly, the song transforms every time it's played, expertly adapting to new generations and new vices, just wobbly and amorphous and dangerous enough to knock us over again and again. --Amanda Petrusich
3.
Sam Cooke: "A Change Is Gonna Come" - (Sam Cooke) 1964 Chart info: U.S. (#31), UK (N/A) Available on The Man and His Music
Filtered through a vessel of honest hurt, message and moment meet modern gospel. Suffering from the recent death of his 18-month old son Vincent and troubled by the omnipotent specter of racism, Cooke caught the unsteady temperament of a nation. Struck by Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind", the Mississippi native detected the folk movement's crucial sense of understanding; they "may not sound as good but they people believe them more," he once said. Sam Cooke sounds pretty great on "A Change Is Gonna Come". After Martin Luther King was assassinated, Rosa Parks listened to "A Change Is Gonna Come" for comfort. The spiritual synergy between King's preaching and the song's painful vignettes is powerful. Both are battered, bruised but vigorous. Rene Hall's classic arrangement, bolstered by French horns, timpani, and a flowering orchestra is pure Hollywood magic but Cooke subverts the Disneyland pomp with anguished realism: "It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die/ 'Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky." "A Change Is Gonna Come" was released as part of a single only after Cooke's murky murder. He never felt its rapturous reception. Yet, as long as change aches for resolution, the song will stand. --Ryan Dombal
2.
The Jackson 5: "I Want You Back" - (Berry Gordy, Jr./Alphonso Gizell/Freddie Perren/Deke Richards) 1969 Chart info: U.S. (#1), UK (#2) Available on Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5
Writers and producers Freddie Perren, Fonce Mizell, and Deke Richards originally envisioned this as the backing track for a Gladys Knight and the Pips song, but Berry Gordy had other ideas. With a little rewriting he heard it as the perfect vehicle to introduce five kids he'd just signed from Gary, Indiana. And as was so often the case throughout the 1960s, Gordy was right. What is it about this song that cuts through generations and trends and cynicism and makes everyone within its range prick up ears and loosen hips? I once thought my age had something to do with my deep love of this song (it hit the Hot 100 two months and a day after my birth) but here Pitchfork writers up to 15 years my junior heard something special just as clearly. Some of it is Michael Jackson's voice reaching beyond its years, some of it is the Five's supportive backing. But really I think it's the song's most basic structure, possibly the best chord progression in pop music history. The descending bit on the chorus is joy reduced to its molecular level: I / IV / vi / iii / IV / I / ii / V / I. --Mark Richardson
1.
The Beach Boys: "God Only Knows" (Tony Asher/Brian Wilson) 1966 Chart info: U.S. (#39), UK (#2) Available on Pet Sounds
I'm sure you've read these: "the world's greatest song," "Brian Wilson's masterpiece," "the most beautiful piece of music ever recorded." Yes, the initiation into the Museum of Western Popular Music is always rough, as credible historians rush to summarize our collective experiences in short phrases. But for better or worse, "God Only Knows" is the kind of song that's almost impossible for me to talk about divorced from the way it makes me feel: sad, in love, honestly grateful, but also a little hopeless. Even in mono, it's like being swept up by a wave of compassion but still getting bruised. The first words Carl Wilson sings, "I may not always love you," are already uncertain, so if you need a tie into the legacy of 1960s youth culture, glance no further than the naïve but strained optimism locked inside this song. Yet, Carl made this uncertainty sound gorgeous. The voices that sail behind his might just as well be a quartet of violas and cellos playing counterpoint that'd already been obsessed over a few times before they got it. "God Only Knows" is so ideally conceptualized and realized, critics can't help but support it. Somehow, even that can't turn it into an art exhibit; its humanity resists the attempt. To me, this song is a goodbye to being a kid, and hoping that love actually is the answer. And almost nobody knows if it is. --Dominique Leone
JFK and I were watching Vince Gill perform stuff from his new album These Days on Imus last week and I THOUGHT I recognized a familiar face (and shape) on the guitar player in the band, but Vince didn't introduce him during the time I was watching. But my suspicions were confirmed this morning in Eric Danton's article on Big Al Anderson, the former Wild Weeds/NRBQ singer/guitarist/songwriter who appears tonight for two shows at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton. I saw this booking months ago and thought, "What a GREAT way to usher in the New Year!" According to Danton's article, Anderson (not to be confused with diminutive, but equally talented, Southington resident Keith Anderson) co-wrote 14 songs on Gills new 43-track album and played with him on a whirlwind 27 show/35 day tour recently. Well, it seems that Big Al has a new album out too! It's a rock album called Pawn Shop Guitars, a change from the wonderful low-key, country After Hours, and he is touring behind it with his new band The Balls. Pawn Shop Guitars is available online at bigalanderson.com.
