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MY10: Songs that make me sing

I love lists. I like reading them; I like comparing them; I like compiling them. I recognise they’re entirely silly and offer no real use to anyone, but I love them all the same.

So let’s list some things, in a semi-regular fashion (as regular as the usual posting schedule for this blog, let’s say). Not definitively, and not necessarily on merit, simply my personal favourites. And music is, as Julie Andrews would sing, a very good place to start. I’ve uncovered a lot of very important ideas in song. Here, in particular order, are the ten songs that make me sing:

1. God Only Knows – The Beach Boys (Pet Sounds)

For me, this song encapsulates the magic of music – that the same dozen notes can be arranged in such a way as to have some visceral effect on the senses. In truth, I’ve never been able to embrace The Beach Boys; the gleeful harmonies haven’t aged well, and there’s not great poetry in the lyrics. But there’s a reason this is one of the most covered songs in pop: it is simply the best melody in music history.

I may not always love you / But long as there are stars above you / You’ll never need to doubt it / I’ll make you so sure about it / God only knows what I’d be without you

2. Hey Jude – The Beatles (Single)

The best Beatles song was not even recorded for any of the 12 celebrated studio albums from the Fab Four, but released as a single in 1968. Maybe that’s why, even for this Beatles fanatic, this song stands apart from any other. It was not written to fill out an album or make a buck, but composed by Paul McCartney to comfort Julian Lennon after John’s divorce from his wife. A simple piano accompaniment, then a guitar and tambourine, some backing vocals, building to that epic sing-along coda that remains infectiously joyous with every single listen.

Anytime you feel the pain / Hey Jude refrain / Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders / For well you know it’s a fool / Who plays it cool / By making his world a little colder

3. Lover, You Should Have Come Over – Jeff Buckley (Grace)

The real tragedy of this song is the lyrical past tense. She would have come over had she heard it, surely. Who wouldn’t? There seems to be more myth than music around Jeff Buckley and his sole studio album, Grace. But this song is the main reason why. A torch tune for the heartbroken.

Yes, and I feel too young to hold on / I’m much too old to break free and run / Too deaf, dumb, and blind / To see the damage I’ve done / Sweet lover, you should’ve come over

4. One Of These Things First – Nick Drake (Bryter Layter)

Thank you, Zach Braff, not only for your fine work on Scrubs but for introducing me to the miserably melodic Nick Drake. This song was a feature of Braff’s hand-picked soundtrack for his directorial debut Garden State, and exposed Drake to a whole new generation of fans decades after his untimely suicide in 1974. A jaunty piano accompaniment dances with a gorgeous melody, sung in that bittersweet voice that’s almost painful to listen to in hindsight. This is melancholy at its most divine.

Could have been your statue, could have been your friend / A whole long lifetime could have been the end / I could be yours so true / I would be, I should be through and through / I could have been one of these things first

5. Blackbird – The Beatles (self-titled – ‘The White Album’)

This is such a minor song in many ways, buried on a fundamentally flawed double album of very serious and very silly songs. But that guitar riff… That achingly beautiful guitar riff… Blackbird still soars over dozens of classic Beatles tunes.

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

6. Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead (The Bends)

It was either this or High and Dry. And as consecutive tracks on the seminal Bends album, I reckon it’s the best one-two punch in contemporary music. This is a rollercoaster ride: the sweet falsetto to a gently strummed acoustic guitar, building to an involuntarily head-nodding rock anthem. It’s one of the more lucid Radiohead songs; you can even understand what Thom Yorke is saying! A veritable bittersweet symphony.

She looks like the real thing / She tastes like the real thing / My fake plastic love / But I can’t help the feeling / I could blow through the ceiling / If I just turn and run / And it wears me out, it wears me out

7. Isn’t She Lovely – Stevie Wonder (Songs In The Key Of Life)

With a tune this good, why not just sing it over and over again? Stevie Wonder only needs one verse to create one of the most iconic pop songs in history.

Isn’t she lovely / Isn’t she wonderful / Isn’t she precious / Less than one minute old / I never thought through love we’d be / Making one as lovely as she / But isn’t she lovely made from love

8. Cigarettes Will Kill You – Ben Lee (Breathing Tornadoes)

A very young Ben Lee declared his breakout album Breathing Tornadoes one of the best in the history of music (or something), and nobody has really liked him ever since. But was he really that far wrong, at least when it comes to the debut single? Say what you like about Ben, but this is an astonishingly good pop song. I heard Lee do this live with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra last year – it was hair-stands-up stuff, elevating a brilliant melody to lift the roof.

I want a TV embrace / And I, I’m getting off your boiling plate / They swore you’d steal my steam to feed your dream / And then be gone / I wish I could say that everyone was wrong

9. Message To My Girl – Split Enz (Conflicting Emotions)

Speaking of orchestral arrangements, this song reaches epic proportions on the gorgeous ENZSO album (the one-off collaboration between Split Enz and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra). But even the 1983 original – with all those 80s synthesizers; all that bad hair in the film clip – still stands up. Of all the brilliant pop songs written by Neil Finn, including the entire catalogue of Crowded House hits, this may be his finest.

No more empty self-possession / Vision swept under the mat / It’s no new year’s resolution / It’s more than that

10. How To Make Gravy – Paul Kelly (Single)

Picking your favourite Paul Kelly song is like choosing which of your children to keep and which to adopt out (or some such). Before Too Long, Careless, To Her Door, When I First Met Your Ma, Everything’s Turning To White, Deeper Water… But this wins on three counts: it’s the perfect antidote to all the other sappy festive songs at Christmas; it’s the only song (and I’m happy to be proven wrong) that includes a recipe; and because the lyrics are a searing portrait of resentment and regret.

You know I love her badly / She’s the one to save me / I’m gonna make some gravy / I’m gonna taste the fat / Tell her that I’m sorry / Yeah I love her badly / Tell ‘em all I’m sorry / And kiss the sleepy children for me

The honourable mentions…

Aside from the artists already mentioned? I really should have found a place somewhere for Midnight Oil, and there’s plenty to choose from (I do a rousing version of US Forces on Singstar); perhaps some other Aussie rock anthems by Cold Chisel and certainly Hunters and Collector’s Throw Your Arms Around Me; Hallelujah from Leonard Cohen (and others); Night And Day from Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter; Nina Simone’s sultry version of My Baby Just Cares For Me; perhaps some Queen, Somebody To Love is probably my favourite; U2, probably with Where The Streets Have No Name; Rufus Wainwright’s The Art Teacher; Augie March’s gorgeous One Crowded Hour; Lior’s unashamedly soppy This Old Love; Ben Kweller’s Falling; The Divinyls‘ I Touch Myself (as embarrassing as the admission may be, you KNOW it’s a brilliant piece of pop); David Gray’s Babylon; Daughters by John Mayer…

And yourself…? This only works if it ignites debate. Tell me why I’m right, and most importantly tell me why, in my naïve youth, I have no clue – I might just find a song I can add to the list.

© 2009 importance of ideas….