Thank you for the music....... (My Top 20 Most Played Songs)

Member Name: GentleGenius

Product:	My Top 20 Most Played Songs
Date:	06/07/09 (133 review reads)
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I love typing out things like this which I've hunted down from the bowels of DooYoo while I'm waiting for my suggestions to be approved. That's because I enjoy a good bit of self-indulgence, and it makes me think about myself quite a bit.

I have previously done my top 20 all-time songs on DooYoo, but I came across this particular topic with interest the other day, and it got my brain working - realising that although the following aren't necessarily my all-time favourites, they are the 20 tracks that I play more than any others. For instance, as you've no doubt gathered, I'm an ardent Van The Man fan, yet I don't play his albums all that often, as I don't wish to become inured to their power, and he doesn't appear in this list....nor do The Stones, Beatles, Springsteen and some other artists who I enshrine.

I thought I'd share with any DooYoo readers who may be interested, my list of 20 most-played tracks - and, they are in no order of preference or playing frequency - other than to say that each of them will be played by me at least once a week.

Here goes!

1. ERMA FRANKLIN - PIECE OF MY HEART

There have been so very many covers of this song (some good and some bad). Though I feel Janis Joplin's version is superb and one of the best covers ever made of any song, I just a tad prefer Erma Franklin's original. I'm not quite sure what year it was released, but I think I remember first hearing it in the late 60s or maybe early 70s. I love the passion of the song and despite its underlying sense of misery as regards a woman who's prepared to put herself through all sorts of suffering just to keep her man, somehow I find it very uplifting. A true classic from the days when black soul music was good!

2. JAMES TAYLOR - FIRE & RAIN

According to James himself, this song was written about a time when he was living in England, and in the middle of a serious bout of depression. Due to his state of mind, his friends in the USA took the decision not to immediately inform him of the suicide of one of their circle, and didn't let him know of the tragedy until six months after it had happened - when they felt he was in a stronger frame of mind and more able to cope with the bad news. James thus penned this gently emotive song about the incident. Despite the sadness of this song and me aligning it to a few incidents where I have lost people close to me, I find it not uplifting exactly - but it can put me in a frame of mind whereby I'm able to view life's tragedies with a degree of positivity. Always a song to play when I'm in a reflective mood.

3. FOUR TOPS - THE SAME OLD SONG

This song for me is double-edged, in that partly it's sad and partly it's happy. The sad part comes from the "lost love" aspect, which I relate to my past rather than my more recent life, and the happy part is all about it simply being a good 1960s piece of wonderful Motown that has 100% "danceability" and is thus for me warm, reminiscent and reassuring. They don't make them like that any more!

4. GEORGIE FAME - GETAWAY

From the long and searingly hot summer of 1966 (why is it never mentioned in any "hottest summer" weather records?), Georgie Fame brought us this incredibly up in mood song where he invites his friend or lover to hop in his sports car on a lovely hot & sunny day, and they'll drive away to the seaside together. This is the most summery, feel-good song I've ever heard, and it's good quality too....jazz-flavoured 1960s pop at its very best.

5. PINK FLOYD - INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE

From Pink Floyd's 1967 album Piper At The Gates Of Dawn - in the glorious days when the enigmatic Syd Barrett was their front man and the brains behind the band, this surreal and psychedelic track can take me to places inside of my head that there is no name for. Reminiscent of the latter part of my teenage years (in the early 1970s), this was a much played piece of music that we'd listen to whilst under the influence of various illegal mind-altering substances. Played on headphones at full volume though, the illegal substances aren't needed to achieve the same effect. I never tire of hearing Interstellar Overdrive, and I feel honoured to take a journey inside the highly unusual mind of one of rock's most innovative and sadly departed heroes (Syd).

6. CHRIS FARLOW - OUT OF TIME

Another gem from the long hot summer of 1966. Aside from this being a great song, brilliantly performed by the husky yet gravel-voiced Chris Farlow and penned by Jagger/Richard, it harks back to my first year at secondary school when life was largely carefree. I used to in those days permanently during all my waking hours, have a tiny transistor radio pressed to my ear - yes, even in the classroom - and this song reminds me of when on those long, hot summer days, I had to walk down a certain road in Southend to get home. Once off the school premises, off would come my school tie, I'd unbutton my blouse as far as I could legally get away with, my long socks would be removed and stuffed in my satchel, and I'd hitch my skirt up by rolling the waistband over and over, feeling I looked really cool and the bees' knees prancing through streets with my radio pressed to my ear and showing more leg than I'd dream of doing now.

7. DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET - TAKE FIVE

I was about 7 when I first heard this song, and despite being a young child, I could sense the changes which were happening in the world. There for me has always been something indescribably vibrant and special about the mood present within what could be described as the more Bohemian areas of British society in the very early 1960s, and for me this song homes right in on that mood and sums it up perfectly. I love to be taken back to those times - not from my own personal life point of view as it wasn't a particularly good period for me - but to link into the collective consciousness of what was around then.

8. TIM HARDIN - REASON TO BELIEVE

Tim Hardin is one of my all-time greats. I first heard and loved this song by Rod Stewart when I was aged 17, and it wasn't until some years later that I heard Tim Hardin's original....which, once I'd hooked onto that, I dumped Rod's not bad, but (in my opinion) very 2nd rate rendition. I can also link into the meaning of the song in that we always look for a reason to believe in something (usually a relationship) that deep down we know we should be letting go of. Tim Hardin for me is a superb songwriter and delivers his masterpieces with a natural, unsurpassable flair. Sadly, like so many rock & pop greats, he lost his life through the needle, dying of a heroin overdose in 1980.

9. LEONARD COHEN - TOWER OF SONG

Leonard Cohen's Tower Of Song first appeared on his I'm Your Man album, and has since been included in various compilations of his greatest hits. I'm amazed that I'm Your Man didn't (according to everyhit.com) reach the UK top 40 album charts, but I believe - correct me someone if I'm wrong - it was released in 1988 or 1989. This partly tongue-in-cheek, yet telling song speaks pretty much of how I feel most of the time these days as regards life and music. I love Leonard's references to Hank Williams coughing, 100 floors above him in the tower of song.

10. FIRST CLASS - BEACH BABY

This isn't the sort of song that some of my friends who know my music tastes feel I should like, but I have news for them....I love it, and I'm by no means a musical snob, despite how it at times may seem. From the summer (which if I remember rightly was a complete washout weather-wise) of 1974, this song digs on something inside of me that I can't quite describe, other than to say it's a sort of positive poignancy. I rarely like rock and pop songs that steal bits from classical music pieces, but it works on this track somehow. I believe the song was written by Mike Batt, and if that's so, then it's pretty typical of most of his other work - and, far more valuable in my mind than anything he churned out via The Wombles. A timeless classic, which I never get tired of hearing.

11. STAPLES SINGERS - COME GO WITH ME

Sort of gospel, sort of soul, sort of snazzy, even a little early-funky, this early 1970s classic never fails to make me sit up straight in my seat and groove, even if it is inside of my head. This for me is a typical example of how a very simply written song, with uncomplicated (yet good) words, tune and arrangement, can evolve into an all-time classic masterpiece. Released at a time when collective human conscious was searching for higher ground, Come Go With Me creates an image of a place where we could all go, where harmony, love, peace and happiness reign.

12. CAT STEVENS - MOON SHADOW

Another from my long lost youth of the early 1970s. I enshrine (up with Van The Man, Bruce Springsteen, Ray Davies and a few others) Cat Stevens and his gentle, innocent, yet deep songwriting skills as a piece of magical history which should be preserved at all costs. Moon Shadow is from Cat's Teaser & The Firecat album and as a single, reached a disappointing no.22 in the UK singles charts in August 1971. For me, Cat's work from this period of time is as clear and pure as the wind - clean, soft, warm and reassuring. Whenever I listen to Moon Shadow, I'm reminded of the softer, gentler side of the hippie/hairy movement....the side of it where the girls wore Laura Ashley flowery print skirts & dresses, were more into hanging out in fields with their friends dancing in the sunshine, than sitting in some filthy pub getting drunk/stoned. These girls (and some of my friends were like this) also wore patchouli or Aqua Manda, espadrilles, velvet chokers, usually had long dark hair, and hung out with young guys clad in crushed velvet flares and tie-dyed grandad vests, with a 12-string acoustic guitar slung over their shoulder, fancying themselves as the next Bob Dylan. Oh, happy days!

13. DAVE & ANSIL COLLINS - DOUBLE BARREL

If this wasn't the first piece of reggae I heard, it certainly was - and still is - the best. From about May of 1971, this reminds me of dancing around with DH (using his initials only just in case he's here on DooYoo lol), who was an older guy at work who I really had the hots for. I think the feeling was mutual too, but he was married and I don't think he wanted to stray off the straight and narrow. He worked in a little purpose-built hut on the site of where my offices were, and I made a point of paying him a daily visit, just to have a good lech. He loved Double Barrel too and had a radio in his hut - for some bizarre reason (possibly beyond coincidence?) this track would more often than not be playing whenever I walked in. Lovely memories, even if he now (like me) is probably now old, fat and past it. Whereas I'm 55, I'd guess he's probably in his mid to late 60s now.

14. KINKS - COME DANCING

I enshrine Ray Davies as one of the best songwriters ever to have lived, and I play this track a lot. Master of reminisence, Ray takes us back in his memory to his older sister's teenage nights out at the local dance hall, being brought home by boyfriends - only to grow up and live possibly a humdrum life, and Ray tries to persuade her to relive her youth, have a ball, and "come dancing" just like she used to. Ray has a unique knack of homing in on ordinary working-class life, accurately portraying atmospheres, how things were compared to how they are now, in a down-to-earth and very charming way, plus I can strongly relate to his words "the day they knocked down the Palais, I could have stood and cried" - as that's how I feel when I see how the no doubt well-meaning town planners have ripped the place where I grew up, to architecturally soulless shreds.

15. DON McLEAN - AMERICAN PIE

It's got to be the long, uncut version of this for me. Yet another from my mis-spent youth, this spoke to the generation previous to mine, yet the words can also easily be adapted to apply to what went on later for my own generation. Everyone says this song is solely about Buddy Holly and yes, it is a bit about him - but it's about a generation too, rather than a single individual. This is a song with a great tune and brilliant words - words I'd so love to have written myself - and I'm so glad that it has gone down as an all-time anthem. Never get tired of hearing it! Please anybody considering doing a cover of this song.......leave it alone! We've already had Madonna completely massacre it!

16. DEL SHANNON - HATS OFF TO LARRY

It's my opinion that this very troubled man, plagued with depression and alcoholism, who took his own life by firing a .22 calibre rifle at his head at age 55 in 1990, is a grossly underrated songwriter. There is so much angst in this song, and though revenge at "Larry" isn't planned as a physical act, the wronged subject in his mind takes a little pleasure in knowing that his ex girl broke "Larry's" heart, just as his own had previously been broken by her when she went off with "Larry". This is a "serves Larry right for taking her away in the first place and I'm glad you're now unhappy" song. Yes all very sour grapes, but don't most people feel a twinge of that for a while if someone we were fond of dumps us for someone else?

17. THE SHADOWS - DANCE ON

I can listen to this forever. Not only can I when hearing it visualise The Shadows in their smart suits, on stage doing their little leg kicking dance with Hank playing lead guitar, smiling his very toothy grin for the TV cameras, it also reminds me very strongly of an important part of my childhood - not a happy part, just a bit where lots was going on. Once a week my mum would take me into British Home Stores and we'd go upstairs into the restaurant part to meet my Dad with his new girlfriend, who later became my stepmother. This weekly and somewhat stilted meeting was child maintenance payment day, and Dance On was often playing on the juke box in BHS. For some reason (and it could be the general sound of Dance On rather than the song itself), it also reminds me of sitting at home with my mum in our smoky (from cigarettes and a coal fire) little living room, watching old TV programmes such as Thank Your Lucky Stars and Juke Box Jury whilst eating a tea of fried egg on fried bread.

18. SOFT MACHINE - SURROUNDING SILENCE

This track from one of (not sure which) Soft Machine's albums is truly mesmerising, with its eerie , low-pitched violin sound, weaving in and out of itself as the song winds on and on for around 10 minutes, or maybe longer. As a band, back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Soft Machine worked a lot with Syd Barrett after he'd been dumped from Pink Floyd, and they created some very deep, unusual music together. I love most of their stuff that I've heard, but Surrounding Silence is my favourite. It's borderline psychedelic crossed with borderline classical, and is an instrumental. The clear cut perfection of this track can take me to a place in my head that's not only calm and peaceful, but sort of high up above the world on a plane that I can't describe. A really good brain leveller which I turn to when I'm feeling stressed.

19. STRING CHEESE INCIDENT - MOUNA BOWA

String Cheese Incident is an American band I discovered back in the 1990s, who do mostly live performances. They do a little original stuff which they've written themselves, but mostly they do cover versions - with rather mixed fortunes. My favourite performance of theirs is one of their many live renditions of Mouna Bowa, a song written by the French jazz composer and violinist, Jean-Luc Ponty. It's an instrumental, and String Cheese Incident perform it in calypso style. It's just a lovely, breezy piece of music perfect for a summer's day, containing some quite complex note combinations. I first discovered the track quite by accident on a file sharing site, and find that whenever I listen to it, even if it's mid-winter, I want to lie on a sun lounger in a tropical garden, with a huge vat of freshly squeezed orange juice teeming with ice cubes, stroking a leopard cub.

20. BADFINGER - NO MATTER WHAT

This is one from my youth and reminds me strongly of the old skating rink on Southend's Pier Hill which I used to frequent. I don't know what's so good about this song - I loved it then and I still love it just as much today, almost 40 years on. Sadly the band Badfinger (initially discovered by Paul McCartney who wrote a couple of songs for them and signed them to the Apple record label) didn't really make it as big as everybody expected, and later two of their members committed suicide. At the skating rink where I heard this song more than at any other place at the time, there was a guy who I fancied who loved it just as much as I did - I'll refer to him as "R". Similarly to how it was with many men who I cast my lecherous eyes over, he didn't take the hint, but I was hopefully reliably told that he was interested....just too shy to make a move - and that was in the days when the guy always made the first move. I did see him a few years later and he'd gained a lot of confidence by then....and LOL he asked me out - but I was well & truly married by then. Whenever I hear No Matter What nowadays, and that's quite often, I'm always reminded of R.

Well that's pretty much it for my list of songs that I probably play more than any others, with a little elaboration on each one. I hope it hasn't been too boring to wade through, and as today's bout of nostalgia draws to a close, I shall say thanks everyone for reading.

Summary: Where would I be without it?