Last March, I diverted from my usual themes of movies and television to do 'Literature Month'. It was fun to write about one of my other passions for a change, so now I'm doing a theme month again - this time for perhaps the biggest of my passions. Well, excluding coffee.
So, welcome to Music Month! I'll start off with a list of my favorite rock songs of all time - as some of my friends and family will know, I made one the biggest lists of my life a few years ago: the Top 100 Rock Songs of all time. I considered doing a blog post of the entire top 100, but I figured no one would read the whole thing with descriptions and all, so I'm just going with my all-time top ten. If you're interested in seeing the content of the entire list, click here for a Spotify playlist with the whole thing from #100 to #1.
Here are my honorable mentions: Green Day - Jesus of Suburbia, Iron Maiden - Brave New World, Less Than Jake - Look What Happened, Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird, Toto - Rosanna.
10. Foo Fighters - Walk
"The sacrifice, the knowing to survive
The first decline, another state of mind
I'm on my knees, I'm praying for a sign
Forever, whenever, I never wanna die"
Some of the songs among my all-time favorites are there for more 'objectively' respectable reasons, such as creativity in songwriting, brilliant showing of instrumental skill, a unique groove or any number of things. Others are there for subjective reasons, and perhaps none more so than Walk, a song very personally important to myself. Mind you, it is boosted further by having an all-around great modern rock sound and composition that fits the lyrics and ideas, but it would be nowhere near my all-time top 10 if it weren't for the song's deeper meanings to me.
Throughout elementary school and junior high, I was bullied and struggled with loneliness and a ton of social problems that come with the phenomenon. When I entered high school, everything (and I truly mean everything) changed, as I was suddenly in a safe and welcoming environment where people were kind and friendly to me. This changed the quality of my life for the better in a way that has stuck with me, and Walk by Foo Fighters is a song that I listened to a lot during this transition. Its lyrics about recovering from trauma and finding oneself have always resonated with me, and the song often moves me to a point of tears.
When I saw Foo Fighters live in 2017, I noticed something strange. Whenever one of my other Foo Fighters favorites, like Monkey Wrench or The Pretender, was performed, my reaction was to jump up and down with excitement, screaming the lyrics at the top of my lungs, as is tradition during exceptionally awesome rock concerts. But when Walk came on, I froze into a completely other state of mind. I felt as if I was in a trance, as seeing a song so important to me played live was so powerful, that I just stood still and took it all in.
9. Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
"Too late, my time has come
Sent shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time
Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth"
The magnum opus of one of rock music's greatest bands is worth all the hype. While the song is somewhat opinion-splitting among diehard fans of rock, as many see it as overrated and worn out, I strongly disagree - first of all, if you're sick of hearing it for the 5000th time, let's still appreciate that the song is so good that the world loves it to the point where you hear the song everywhere you go. And secondly, I personally still get a kick out of Bohemian Rhapsody every time. Even though I've heard it more times than almost any other song. That doesn't matter. Every time I hear Freddie belt that last "FOR MEEEEEEE", with the band launching into one of the most rocking riffs of all, I feel the urge to headbang like I'm in Wayne's World (1992).
And even though I get the point that songs like this lose some of their appeal when listened for the millionth time, I don't think that's a fair merit to judge a song on - it's not Queen's fault that they made a song so epic that everyone wants to listen to it all the time. When considering my favorite songs of all time, and important viewpoint is remembering what it was like to hear the song for the first time, and what sort of reaction it caused when first discovered. And when listened to for the first time, Bohemian Rhapsody is a journey in a category of its own. The mysterious intro transitioning into a beautiful ballad, then taken via a heartwrenching guitar solo into a magnificent opera section, after which the band lets loose and rocks out in an adrenalizing fashion, followed by the bittersweet epilogue-like outro - this song is just something else.
8. The Beatles - All You Need Is Love
"Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy"
A grandiose intro sampling La Marseillaise, a goofy horn section, serene vocal melodies and joyful rhythms create the atmosphere to this ultimate feel-good anthem. The message of the song is not only important, but to my specific worldview, quite possibly the most important of them all. You might feel that the message is obvious and something you know already, but it is something that humanity keeps forgetting again and again - hence all the wars, all the violence and all the Vladimir Putins. So it's good to keep this song and its message in mind, and close to your chest.
The song ends in a breathtakingly gorgeous mess, where everything simultaneously reaches a point of climax but also falls apart, all while we hear short melodies and snippets from earlier Beatles hits, signifying that the song itself was a sort of climax for the band's career and a nostalgic look at what they've accomplished. The song is made even more powerful when considering its historical context, with the growing civil rights movement reminding the world more than ever that love truly is all we need. Love yourself and each other!
7. Don McLean - American Pie
"And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died"
Shivers. Absolute shivers. This folk rock epic takes the viewer on a magnificent journey, at the heart of which is the tragic 1959 plane crash where early rock icons Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Popper were killed. In the grand tradition of American folk rock, the song isn't simply a story about the crash, but rather a broad look at everything around it - the cultural landscape where Holly and company broke through, the culture that they paved in, and the ways in which their deaths affected the world around them.
For a song about such a tragedy, a majority of American Pie is remarkably joyful, which plays into the philosophy of reacting to a loved one's passing by celebrating their life rather than wallowing in sorrow. It's a beautiful tribute to the legends of early rock, a staple of American culture, and by the time the immensely touching final verse arrives, a tear-jerking emotional journey.
6. The Who - Baba O' Riley
"OUT HERE IN THE FIELDS
I FIGHT FOR MY MEALS
I GET MY BACK INTO MY LIVING
I DON'T NEED TO FIGHT
TO PROVE I'M RIGHT
I DON'T NEED TO BE FORGIVEN"
If you're wondering why I wrote my choice of lyrics in all caps, listen to the song and it'll become clear that there's no other way to write down the way in which Roger Daltrey belts the lyrics out for the whole world to hear. Oh, and before you do that, be sure to crank the volume up. Preferably you'll be listening from some high-quality speakers or headphones. If any song deserves to be heard only with good quality and a loud volume, it's this one.
Baba O' Riley is largely responsible for the existence of this list. A friend of mine had encouraged me to do a "Top 100 rock songs of all time" list for a long time, but it always fell through because I felt that sorting out the very top ones would be impossible - there were between 30 and 50 songs that felt like they would need to be in the top 10, and it would be immensely difficult even for a list-making-maestro like myself to compare such masterpieces to each other. But, after having these thoughts for a long time, I came across Baba O' Riley (through headphones, with volume at the maximum) which I hadn't listened to in a while. And I realized immediately that this is one of those few songs that I know would be in the top ten. As close to each other as the best rock songs are in terms of quality, I could immediately say that to me, Baba O'Riley is better than any Pink Floyd song, any Guns N' Roses song, and pretty much any song ever made with just a few possible exceptions. And that made me realize that the list is doable.
While the rest of the song is hellishly good as well, it's the intro that scores the highest points. About half of my Spotify playlists begin with this song, because I find it to be the world's best song to open a playlist with, by a long shot. I remember my friend Olli and I finishing our last shift of our awesome but exhausting summer job, realizing that the ordeal was finally over and starting our drive back home, when Olli asked me to put some good music on as the road trip started. I asked him to crank the volume to the max, and I started blasting Baba O' Riley. And at that moment, it was nothing short of a spiritual experience.
5. Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name
"Some of those that work forces
Are the same that burn crosses"
That line, repeated a multitude of times throughout Rage Against the Machine's most iconic song, is one of my all-time favorite lyrics. It's such a perfect take on the still-relevant issue of police brutality: the use of the word 'some' makes sure that the point isn't to vilify all cops, but the allusion to the KKK is one hell of a powerful reminder on how terrifying racism in law enforcement is, even when it is just 'some of those' that commit the act. The powerful lyrics are accompanied by brilliant guitar wailing from Tom Morello, drumming that escalates from atmosphere-building cowbell shenanigans to maximum-power-drum-banging from Brad Wilik, and passionate rapping and screaming by frontman Zack De La Rocha. The fake ending, which leads to a build-up into the even crazier real ending, is a trope familiar from many Rage songs, but it's at its very best here. The insane, chaotic brutality of the ending is so fitting when considering what the song is about and the fury it causes.
In the summer of 2020, there was a day when I was alone in my parents' house, watching news coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. The killing itself, not to mention the sheer violence in the police response to peaceful protests in its wake, got to a point that I had to turn the news off and process my feelings by channeling it into music - I went to my drum kit, blasted Killing In the Name through my headphones on full volume, and played along on the drums, hitting them hard while thinking about the song's subject matter and how topical it still is. And let me tell you, it was therapeutic as hell.
4. Rush - YYZ
I didn't choose a lyrical line to represent my all-time favorite progressive rock song, because the instrumental piece doesn't have any in it. YYZ represents everything I love about Rush, and the prog genre they belong to - using their immense knowledge and understanding of music theory as well as their wild imaginations, the trio created this genius piece that utilizes complex rhythms, exotic melodic scales and neat harmonies to sound thoroughly unique and groundbreaking.
From the chills-down-your-spine intro where my all-time favorite drummer Neil Peart taps his bell cymbal in the 5/4 rhythm that spells "YYZ" in morse code, through the various jamming sections and solos to the climactic half-tempo part with its epic synth sounds and drum fills, no other song grooves in quite a similar way as YYZ.
Peart's magnificent drumming, Geddy Lee's creative bass playing and Alex Lifeson's out-of-the-box guitar licks play so well together, that the song manages to feel like a group of musicians just having a blast and jamming together, while also feeling like an artistic and carefully written masterpiece, as the trio manages to play such difficult things with such ease. Out of this world.
3. Rise Against - Hero of War
"And the shells jumped through the smoke
And into the sand that the blood now has soaked
She collapsed, with a flag in her hand
A flag white as snow"
An acoustic ballad by a modern punk rock band might not be what you expected to see on a list of the greatest-ever rock songs. But, to me personally, that is exactly where Rise Against's emotionally devastating masterpiece ought to be. It's a song that moves me to tears every time, a song that has affected my worldview more than any other, and a song that has the best damn lyrics of all time in my opinion. And it is once again painfully relevant.
What makes Hero of War into such a pitch-perfect anti-war song is the fact that it tells its story through the narrative of a very pro-war individual. Instead of being high and mighty and singing about how evil and wrong the concept of war is to you and me, Tim McIlrath tells a story from the point of view of a young man from an unnamed country. This individual wants to become a soldier, fight for his country and kill his enemies with blind loyalty, because that is all he has ever known. He comes from a place so torn by war, that there are no higher aspirations or ideals of peace and diplomacy to aspire to. And to woefully many around the world, such an existence is real, as Hero of War reminds listeners in a painful manner.
By the time you get to the third verse, where this mislead narrator is forced to fire his gun on an innocent civilian woman, the song's anti-war message will pierce your heart and make you question humanity's violent tendencies in a staggeringly powerful manner. This song played a part in my journey to choosing civil service over the army, it played a part in my embracement of pacifism and being an active citizen, and overall it played a part in making me the man I am today. Thank you, Rise Against.
2. The Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter
"Ooh, see the fire is sweeping
Our very streets today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way"
And then for the more conventional classics that you'd expect to see on a "Top 10 rock songs of all time" list. I love a song with a unique atmosphere, one that you can't quite describe with words no matter how analytical you try to get, and that is exactly what Gimme Shelter accomplishes. I arranged and performed this song in my high school music diploma concert, and I remember forcing my lineup to watch a video where this song plays to the backdrop of imagery from the Vietnam War, JFK's presidency, Civil Rights protests and other world events from the decade that preceded this song's composition, so that they could all get into the mindset of "Okay, it's the year 1969, we're the Rolling Stones, let's play some fucking rock n' roll".
While every part of this iconic piece of music, from the harmonica solo to the post-solo chorus with guest vocalist Merry Clayton's soul-piercing vocals, deserve to be praised, there is one part in particular that helps Gimme Shelter rise all the way to the second spot. And that is the intro, which I consider to be the greatest intro of all time.
When this particular riff with its intriguing harmonies, played with a thoroughly unique guitar sound, starts to play, as the other instruments start to slowly join in and build up, I get a chill beyond anything words can describe. From the drum fills to the low piano octaves to the wailing lead guitar's entrance, everything in this intro is pitch perfect, and the atmosphere it creates is compelling as hell - which is why Gimme Shelter has been used in a multitude of great movie and television scenes, always to a powerful effect.
Whether it's setting the mood to the opening scene of Best Picture winner The Departed, signalling that some shit is about to go down in Scorsese films Goodfellas and Casino, signalling that some shit is about to go down in Dexter, or signaling that some shit is about to go down in Person of Interest, I think it's safe to say that nothing boring is going to happen anytime after this intro starts to play in a movie or TV series. It feels like an approaching storm (fitting the lyrics well), but not in the traditionally suspenseful sense, but rather in an exciting "OH MAN, I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT" fashion.
1. AC/DC - It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock N' Roll)
"Gettin' robbed, gettin' stoned
Gettin' beat up, broken-boned
Gettin' had, gettin' took
I tell you folks, it's harder than it looks"
Along with Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode and The Beatles' Come Together, this is one of the three songs that define rock n' roll for me. And out of these three songs that represent rock music at its purest, It's a Long Way to the Top is the most dear to me, the most raw and real, the most memorable and simply the best. The song begins with exactly the sort of perfectly simple and rocking guitar riff that you'd expect from AC/DC, after which the rest of the band joins along in an exciting manner. The lyrics are at the very peak of the 'street poetry' that AC/DC's Bon Scott era is known for, and Scott belts them out with just the right attitude.
Also, we need to discuss the bagpipe. It will forever remain an inexplicable mystery how the world's least experimental band, known worldwide for doing the same simple no-risk garage rock thing for five decades, somehow came up with the idea of adding a bagpipe solo to the otherwise very conventional opening track of their debut album, and how this bagpipe solo on top of a raw and dirty rock tune ended up being the best-sounding thing ever recorded. The entrance of the bagpipe after the chorus is what I like to call the ultimate "AWWW YISSS" moment, and after all these years I still can't wrap my head around how it sounds so perfect and so much better than it has any right to.
For me, It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock N' Roll) is synonymous with rock music, and despite having listened to it hundreds and hundreds of times throughout my life, I still squeal with excitement every damn time I hear that opening riff.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next Thursday, as Music Month continues with a ranking of my top 10 favorite albums of all time.
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