Written by Tom Scholz Produced by John Boylan and Tom Scholz Released on Boston (August 25, 1976) amazonspotifyyoutube
Boston's first album was everywhere when I was a teenager. Whenever I looked through any of my friends' CD collections, I would almost always find Boston's self-titled debut, which makes sense because it is an amazing album. Back in the days of CDs, albums needed to be good. I hated buying an album only to discover that it only had two good songs. Boston by Boston is one of those epic rarities, an album with no bad songs. You felt safe putting this into your CD player knowing you never had to press skip. Its only downside was that its run-time was just 37 minutes.
It's actually somewhat surprising to me that anyone makes albums anymore. With streaming services providing cultivated playlists on demand, is there any reason to release an entire album? Will people actually listen to it? I still find myself buying and listening to albums, but I'm pretty sure that makes me the exception. I grew up with album oriented rock being the template, so I don't know any better.
The enduring greatness of Boston's best songs can be attributed to two things: Tom Scholz and Brad Delp. Everything great about Boston starts with Scholz. His guitar sound and songwriting defined the band. He actually recorded everything in his own home studio, playing all the instruments except the drums. His guitar sound, soaring and heavily layered, is simply spectacular. And the way he uses his unique sound is perfect: pick drags, harmonized lead lines, and crunchy riffs. These are all things I love. But his sound and vision could have been for naught if he hadn't found the perfect singer to bring it all together.
Brad Delp's beautiful high voice brings Scholz's melodies to life. However, as much as I love his voice, it's nearly impossible to sing along with. Boston's hooks are so catchy, I simply have to try, but eventually Delp reaches for that next level. Every single time. Every song. I'm driving around and singing along and stretching my voice. I'm feeling good, and then he just goes that one step higher, and it's all over. But I keep trying anyway.
"Something About You" is easily my favorite Boston song. It pumps me up. It has a great melody, soaring guitars, and it rocks. Even when I fail to reach that high note, I can't help but feel good about everything.
Right now "Something About You" by Boston is (probably) my 93rd favorite song of all time.
Written by Cornell Haynes Jr., Lavell Webb, Jason Epperson Produced by Jason Epperson Released on Country Grammar (June 27, 2000) Released as single on March 10, 2001 Peaked at #3 on Billboard Hot 100 Warning: Explicit Lyrics amazonspotifymusic video
When I was in college I got pulled into an argument between two of my fraternity brothers. Though I didn't know the significance of this at the time, one was from St. Louis, and the other was from California. The argument was Nelly vs. Snoop Dogg. Even today, I don't listen to much hip hop, but at that time I listened to almost none. All I knew then, was that The Chronic was maybe the greatest rap album ever released, and Snoop was a huge part of the reason why. Nelly, on the other hand, was to that point a one hit wonder, and that one hit didn't seem very good. I sided with my California friend in a way that was probably pretty condescending to my St. Louis brother.
Why would anyone try to put Nelly on that kind of level?
Have you ever had one of those moments where, all of a sudden something that had confused you earlier suddenly makes sense? The 2000 MTV Video Music Awards were one of those moments for me. Nelly was from St. Louis! I had no idea. When Nelly came out to perform, even though he wasn't wearing a shirt, the rest of his crew were wearing Cardinals, Blues, and Rams jerseys. Now that argument from a few months earlier made sense. Of course my friend from St. Louis would think that a St. Louis rapper was an all-time great.
St. Louisans will defend their own. Nelly is from St. Louis and had a hit record. Of course he's the best. Right? While that may not be something I believe, I will defend St. Louis' tradition in popular music until I die. Scott Joplin wrote his greatest ragtime melodies here. Miles Davis rose out of East St. Louis to become jazz music's most innovative and influential trumpeter and composer. Clark Terry was the first black musician to play with NBC's orchestra and the Tonight Show Band. St. Louis can make a strong case for being the birthplace of rock and roll because of the work and enduring legacies of Chuck Berry and Ike and Tina Turner. The early 2000's saw a resurgence of St. Louis talent. Nelly led the way, but the Urge, Chingy, Uncle Tupelo, and others made many a St. Louisan proud.
While most of Nelly's catalog never resonated strongly with me, "Ride wit Me" is the exception. It is smooth. It grooves. It's simply a fun song. I was not expecting it to end up in my top 100, but as I was putting this list together, other songs that I love just couldn't quite bump Nelly from this spot. Maybe it's that he's from St. Louis. Maybe I wanted to have just one more hip hop song on my list. Maybe I wanted an excuse to attempt to compare Nelly with all those other transcendently talented St. Louis musicians. Or maybe this song is just that good.
Right now "Ride with Me" by Nelly is (probably) my 94th favorite song of all time.
Written by Paul Simon Produced by Paul Simon and Phil Ramone Released on Greatest Hits, Etc. (November 1977) Released as single October 1977 Peaked at #5 on Billboard Hot 100 amazonspotify
When I got sick as a child, my mom would sing hymns in order to comfort me. Music--good music--has always been comforting to me. The best way that I can describe "Slip Slidin' Away" is to say that it is musical comfort food. As soon as those opening notes are sung, I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief. I love songs that give me that feeling.
I have always loved Paul Simon, as a songwriter and performer. His video for "You Can Call Me Al" was one of my favorite music videos growing up. He seemed really cool. The song featured silly lyrics, fun horns, and cool African rhythms. The video was just Paul Simon and Chevy Chase being silly. What more could a 9 year old watching MTV want?
This song is on this list because it is beautiful, because it relaxes me, because I love when I hear it. That's all I need to say.
Right now "Slip Slidin' Away" by Paul Simon is (probably) my 95th favorite song of all time.
Written by Bradley Nowell Produced by Sublime Released on Robbin' the Hood (February 8, 1994) amazonspotify
Bradley Nowell, Sublime's frontman, wrote and recorded "Pool Shark (acoustic)" sometime between 1993 and 1994. On the recording, Nowell sings plaintively and metaphorically about his struggles with heroin addiction. Less than three years after writing and singing the lyrics "one day I'm gonna lose the war," he did. On May 25, 1996, two months before Sublime's third album was released and rocketed the band to stardom, Bradley Nowell died from a heroin overdose. Like so many other artists before and after him, Nowell died too young because of a battle with addiction that he ultimately could not win.
My college roommate is the one who really introduced me to Sublime around the year 2000. He was the person who first played me this song and explained to me what it was about. "Pool Shark" appears on Sublime's second album,Robbin' the Hood, which is less an album than a complete mess. It only has three complete songs on it that are surrounded by a few acoustic demos (like this one), some incomplete instrumental jams, and these weird soliloquies from a man who apparently was a diagnosed schizophrenic. It's actually amazing that their record company put up with this, and that their third album, which helped them ultimately break through to the mainstream, was even produced.
Sublime recorded two versions of this song, one a hardcore punk version with the whole band (that clocks in at less than one minute long) and the version featured here: just Bradley Nowell's voice and guitar.
Amid this mess of an album, this short, acoustic song about Nowell's ultimately unsuccessful battle with heroin addiction stuck with me. There have been many other songs written about heroin and the perils of heroin addiction. While I can't say that "Pool Shark" is a better song than many of these, it's the one that found me at the right time and in the right place. I loved how personal his performance felt: just Nowell's voice and guitar and a four-track recorder. The song also held extra weight for me because I didn't find it until after Nowell's death. Listening to him sing about the struggle that ultimately killed him was haunting and sad and eerily prophetic.
Heroin used to be something I only associated with musicians and artists and junkies. No one I knew would think about messing with the stuff; it always seemed too scary, too powerful, and too dangerous. Because I associated heroin with celebrity, it almost didn't feel real to me. Famous people always seemed to live a life apart from the real world, and as a result of that image, the heroin they used was disconnected from my sense of reality.
Earlier this year however, things changed for me. I learned that opioid and opiate addiction and abuse has killed more than one person I have known. Thinking about these individuals, whose lives were cut short, brought words like epidemic and addiction into sharp focus for me. Now it wasn't just about celebrities on the other side of a camera lens or staggering numbers and statistics. It was now, as it has always been, about real people, whether I chose to see it that way or not.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a book reading for Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic by Ben Westhoff. I went because I knew Ben, and I wanted to continue supporting him and his work. When my friend and I arrived, the room was already packed. It quickly became clear that most of the people in the room were not there because of the author, but because of the book's subject matter. During the Q&A there were not really any questions asked about the book. Almost everyone who put their hand up and got a hold of the mic shared a story about a family member of theirs who had died of a drug overdose. At one point, an individual asked the audience how many people in the room had known someone who had died from opioid or opiate use; almost everyone in the room raised their hand. These were people, much like me, who had never thought that something like heroin (or drugs similar to it) would affect their lives so directly.
I cannot pretend to understand what those people who shared such personal stories that night must have gone through. My own experiences seem very tangential in comparison. As I started writing this piece, I had thought I would write about the people I have known who have died from opioid or opiate overdoses, but each time I tried to write about who they were and how I knew them and what I knew, it became increasingly clear that their stories were not mine to tell.
These were not family members or close friends of mine. These were people I knew and had fun with. They were closer with my friends than with me. We got along and enjoyed spending time together, but our paths ultimately diverged. I certainly haven't felt the kind of grief or anger or pain or blame that people who have lost those closest to them have surely felt. I have had moments of contemplation, wondering whether I should have tried to stay in better touch with them, or whether I could have become closer with them. But then I would ask myself, is that even fair? Who am I to think that I could have magically proved to be the difference between life and death for these people? I cannot possibly have that kind of power, right?
But maybe that's not fair either. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself, trying to shirk any kind of personal responsibility for their deaths. Maybe I'm just trying to avoid feeling my fair share of blame or guilt. Certainly there has to be something more I could have done.
Unfortunately, I cannot change the past. In the end, all I really know is that it sucks that they died when they did, and it sucks that they could not find a way to effectively treat their disease.
My time reflecting on this has led me to realize that I can do more, and we can do more. My hope is that we, as a society, can work to find real solutions to this problem and somehow harness the seemingly overwhelming power of this epidemic. And I know I can't just wait around for society to take care of this. I need to be part of the solution too, not just a bystander waiting for someone else to solve these problems. I have to find a way to do my part for the world and for those closest to me. The least I can do, is find a way to put myself into a position where if one of my close friends or family members ever slides down this treacherous path, I can recognize it and find a way to help them. And I hope that you would do the same.
Like Bradley Nowell, too many people have died this way. We don't need any more people to lose the war.
Right now "Pool Shark (acoustic)" by Sublime is (probably) my 96th favorite song of all time.
Written by Bruce Springsteen Produced by Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos Released on The Wild, the Innocent & The E Street Shuffle (November 11, 1973) amazonspotify
Growing up in the 1980's it seemed impossible to ignore Bruce Springsteen. Born in the USA was a mammoth album. I don't know if every song on that album was a Top 10 hit, but it sure felt that way at the time. It helped that I lived in New Jersey for about 5 years when I was younger, so I was raised to feel an unmerited kinship towards Bruce, Bon Jovi, and Whitney Houston. As I grew older, I started listening to more Bruce, specifically his Born to Run era stuff that got played on classic rock radio stations. I really took a deep dive into all things Bruce Springsteen after college. College had been both easy and hard for me: Easy because I did not put nearly as much effort as I could have or should have into my school work or extra-curriculars; and hard because I was learning a ton about myself and the world but was really burnt out on school. So after college, rather than trying to make it work as a classroom teacher, I tried to live the dream of being a year round camp counselor. I eventually moved to Michigan where I worked at an outdoor center near the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. For a time it was pretty glorious. While we had programs going on at the outdoor center, the staff would stay in a bunkhouse that had a couple bunk rooms and a communal area in the middle. We'd work long hours during the week and crash during the weekends. Often we would make big plans for the weekend, only to find ourselves sleeping in, watching movies, trying to use our one computer with dial-up internet, and scrounging around in the kitchen for food. I had a Netflix account at that time, so often I'd use those lazy weekends as an opportunity to try to watch one or more of the DVDs that had been delivered to me. In 2005 Bruce Springsteen released a concert video: Hammersmith Odeon, London '75. I was already starting my deep dive into all things Bruce, so I moved it up my queue and forced some of the other staff members to watch some live Bruce with me. When the DVD got to "Kitty's Back" for the first time, I was enamored. It was such a cool song, and just different enough from what I knew of Bruce's music at the time to get me hooked. What really got me was the end of the song, when the titular Kitty actually comes back. The E Street Band starts whispering "here she comes, here she comes..." until finally the song explodes into jubilant glee. Then the joy fades and reality sets in as Bruce wonders aloud, "Ooh what can I do?" I just wanted to hear it again and again. So when the song finished, I skipped back and played it again. I didn't realize that it was 17 minutes long (they do an extended solo section in the middle). Three hours after I had begun watching the DVD, and my colleagues were a bit surprised to find me still watching Bruce. I was in love. Soon after I found the CD for the Hammersmith Odeon Live '75 show and bought it, followed pretty quickly by purchases of more of his albums. I still love Bruce, but not as much as I did in 2005. Bruce was a brilliant songwriter, who didn't seem to know how to take those songs and make them into great records in the studio.
The studio version for "Kitty's Back" is actually good, which is kind of the exception to the rule for his early work. His first album is full of fantastic songs that were very poorly produced. So many songs that I loved live, or that other musicians covered successfully, were wildly disappointing on the album. My second favorite song of his is his live version of "Lost in the Flood." The problem is that while the live version in London was visceral and powerful, in studio it falls flat. It's almost boring. The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle was a better album than his first, but still couldn't completely capture the electricity and verve of live Bruce. He managed to catch lightning in a bottle when he recorded the studio version of "Born to Run" in 1974, but it also apparently took six months to do. Bruce is great. Live Bruce is legendary. Right now "Kitty's Back" by Bruce Springsteen is (probably) my 97th favorite song of all time.
Written by Justin Furstenfeld Produced by Nick Launay Released on Consent to Treatment (May 15, 2000) Released as a single in 2000 Warning: Explicit Lyrics amazonspotify
"Breakfast After 10" is a breakup song. Despite the fact that I hadn't had very much experience with breakups when I first heard the song, I felt a strong connection to it. Justin Furstenfeld is so plaintive and angry and passionate in his delivery, it seemed hard to ignore. I don't always pay close attention to lyrics in songs, but if the vocalist sounds like they are putting every ounce of energy into each word, it almost doesn't matter to me what they're singing about. I feed off of their passion and vitriol and spit. "Breakfast After 10" certainly has its share of those things.
I first heard "Breakfast After 10" on 93X (KNSX 93.3), a radio station based out of Steeleville, MO (a town that's about 80 miles outside St. Louis). At that time I was attending Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO (which is about 20 miles outside St. Louis). They broadcasted 24/7 without live DJs, which was a new thing at the time. Everything was digital and run by a computer. I'm not even sure if they had a full-time employee. Every once in a while they played a prerecorded tag promoting the radio station or introducing the next song or back-selling the previous one. It was just music, with very few commercials. Because the tower was pretty far outside St. Louis, the signal wasn't always perfect, but the music was mostly good. They played alternative music without getting into the Nu-Metal stuff that was starting to take over the other alternative radio station in St. Louis (105.7 the Point).
They played "Breakfast After 10" pretty frequently for about a year. They never played their prerecorded tag for this song, so for most of that year, I had no idea what the song was or who played it. Eventually I emailed the station to find out who it was. Have you ever tried to describe a song to someone in writing, when you don't know the name of it? It's not easy. Luckily I was able to explain enough, and someone wrote me back with the name and artist.
93X no longer exists. Maybe they were ahead of their time, or maybe their demise was inevitable since no one listens to the radio anymore. I am grateful that I found them, and they played some cool music. They even hired a friend of mine from school who was getting into broadcasting to record some of their tags. It was fun to hear a voice I recognized on the radio every once in a while.
Right now "Breakfast After 10" by Blue October is (probably) my 98th favorite song.
Lyrics by David Byrne Music by David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth Produced by Brian Eno Released on Remain in the Light (October 8, 1980) Released as a single on February 2, 1981 amazonspotifymusic video
What is cool? Are Talking Heads cool? Is David Byrne cool? Is it cool to put a Talking Heads song on my list? Am I cool?
Don't answer that.
Putting the Talking Heads on my list might be perceived as me trying to seem cool. People who were into New Wave bands always seemed cool, or maybe they were just trying to seem cool. Were New Wave fans hipsters?
To be honest, as much as I like this song, I'm probably just putting this song here to seem cooler than I am. That's part of the history of pop music: People sharing the music they think is cool with others in an attempt to appear cool. Some people try to be cool by liking the most popular music that everyone else likes. Others try to be cool by liking the most obscure music they can find. Putting the second most recognizable song by the second most popular New Wave band at #99 on my list is me trying to live somewhere in between those two extremes, which is definitely not cool.
Bands like Talking Heads are not quite accessible enough to be universally liked, but also not quite so inaccessible to be super obscure. They are the perfect band for a try-hard like me.
Being cool has always been some mythical state that I've never quite been able to achieve. There might be some people who think I'm cool, but they are almost certainly incorrect. I have always floated somewhere between knowing I am uncool and trying hard to appear cool, or steering way to hard into my uncoolness that it actually makes me even more uncool. I'm one of those people that thinks too much and tries too hard to ever actually pull off any kind of consistent level of cool.
I never got too deep into New Wave music. I really like the Cars (despite no Cars song appearing on this list). I never really tried to get into Elvis Costello, and other than the Talking Heads, I'm not too sure who else fits into the New Wave category. My lack of knowledge of New Wave music is yet another strike against my coolness.
I think it's safe to say that "Once in a Lifetime" is a cool song that was written and performed by a cool band, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that it is a great song. I'm sure Talking Heads made other good songs too, but this is the only one that broke through to me.
The verses of "Once in a Lifetime" are kind of weird. I read that David Byrne was trying to imitate early rap, but it sounds more like he's trying to preach to us. The guitar/synth/keyboard riff underneath is hypnotic; the bass is pulsing; and then the chorus hits.
The chorus of "Once in a Lifetime" is unadulterated euphoria. A good sing-along chorus is a beautiful thing. My list is full of great songs with transcendent hooks. The simplest way to record a song that I will fall in love with, is to multi-track the vocals during the chorus so it sounds like a giant choir or even a whole stadium is singing along. I love that stuff.
"Once in a Lifetime" is the song on my list that was released closest to the day I was born. It is also the only song on the list that was released during my birth year. The 1980's did produce some great songs and great bands, but not many of my favorites. The 1990's is when I really fell in love with music, and the music of the 1970's seemed to resonate more with my tastes.
Talking Heads recorded at least one great song, so that make them cool in my book (which probably doesn't mean too much).
Right now "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads is (probably) my 99th favorite song of all time.
