Today's Top 10! (Top 10 Singles)

Member Name: rosebud2001

Product:	Top 10 Singles
Date:	01/04/09 (426 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: My very favourite songs - for today!

Disadvantages: None - for me anyway

This has been a killer for me to compile - I am a music nut and have over 6000 songs in my iTunes library. Tomorrow I may well read this and wish I had ten completely different songs here for varying reasons. I toyed with the idea of my top 10 from childhood, my top 10 that remind me of my husband, a top 10 that remind me of places - but eventually I decided to go for ten songs I never tire of hearing for various different reasons. I hope you enjoy the read!

1 If I Were a Carpenter - Bobby Darin

I love Bobby Darin and have done for years, ever since I heard "Mack the Knife" played on the radio when I was a kid. I love his big band stuff but there is something that touches me every time I hear this song, and there's a clip of Darin performing this on YouTube which is quite possibly one of the most amazing live performances I have ever seen - the emotion the man puts into the song is incredible.

Written by folk singer Tim Hardin, this was Darin's last big hit single in 1966 and I think I love it because it reinforces just how versatile a singer Bobby Darin was - here was the man who vocalised effortlessly on jazz tracks singing a simple folk song just as effortlessly, but equally convincingly.

2 I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself - Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield is another of my favourite singers and this, for me, was her piece de resistance. Her voice on this is outstanding as she mulls over a lost love and it's a song that has tugged on my heartstrings since childhood. It's a Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard now but I have yet to hear a version as good as Dusty's.

This song has everything - great vocals, amazing orchestration and is full of drama that keeps the listener interested and it puts me in mind of unrequited love from my youth.

3 I Hope You Dance - LeeAnn Womack

This is a song that inspires me every single time I hear it. It has lyrics which are optimistic and paint a picture, but also give strong advice for any parent to pass on to their child. Womack sings this beautifully and with passion - far more passion in my opinion than Ronan Keating in his cover version, which I found schmaltzy and unconvincing.

This was a huge hit in the US but fizzled out after a brief visit to the lower echelons of the charts over here unfortunately. A song I can listen to day in, day out and never tire of.

4 The Sweetest Girl - Scritti Politti

Whenever I hear this I am taken straight back to 1982 - and the transitional point in my life of leaving school and starting at college.

There is something so utterly appealing about the song - the vocals from Green Gartside are smooth and convincing and Robert Wyatt's keyboard playing is evocative - every time I hear this I feel as if the sun is shining and it has that great knack of lifting my mood.

This song was never a huge hit but garnered huge radio airplay back in 1982 when it was originally released on Rough Trade records.

5 Tinseltown in the Rain - the Blue Nile

Back in the 1980s I don't think there was a Scottish band I didn't make a point of listening to and much of what I heard I liked and bought. When The Blue Nile released their album "A Walk Across the Rooftops" in 1983, the critics went wild. The band fitted the bill - being Glasgow based - so I remember buying the album on cassette so I could play it on my trusty old Walkman.

This is the standout track on that album and even today it has a freshness that makes me smile and lifts my spirits. Paul Buchanan's vocals are soaring and happy and the song puts me in mind of several places I have been to over the years, but none more so than Glasgow.

I still have much of the 80s "Jock Rock" on my iPod but there is nothing else which comes close to this for me.

6 You Got the Love (New Voyager Mix) - The Source & Candi Staton

Has to be this mix of what is now a classic dance track for me - Staton's voice is brought out in the mix and its been stripped down with piano and strings featuring rather than computer generated synth beats.

Candi Staton's voice has a unique quality - it sounds almost permanently heartbroken - and she turns this song into something that is both uplifting and inspiring.

I have loved this song ever since the first version emerged back in 1990 but the remix made it special - whenever I hear this version I think of the people who have loved me in life and helped me through the hard parts.

7 Nothing but a Heartache - The Flirtations

I love the Flirtations - a US female vocal group who based themselves in the UK to produce some of the best Northern Soul music made in the 60s.

"Nothing but a Heartache" is their best work and while it was only a very minor chart hit in 1969, it still sounds amazing today. I love everything about it - the orchestra playing the backing track is outstanding and the female vocals are strong.

The orchestra sounds so fresh in a way that is missing from so many modern songs - the computer and synthesiser may be a cheaper and easier way of doing things, but they can never replicate the sound of real musicians doing the job and everything about this song is genuine.

8 Crying - Roy Orbison & kd lang

Much of Roy Orbison's music passed me by until the mid 1980s - in fact I got to know this song through Don McLean's cover version which topped the UK charts back in 1980. I found McLean's version to be a bit of a dirge and was in no rush to listen to Orbison's original.

That changed when Orbison re-recorded this as a duet with kd lang a year prior to his death in 1988 - something about the blending of these two singers lifted the track for me and made it tender, touching and heartbreaking.

Orbison's life was littered with tragedies and one can hear heartbreak when he sings - and no more so than on this song.

9 They Don't Know - Kirsty MacColl

This was Kirsty MacColl's first single, released on the fabled Stiff label. I still remember the 7" single, even 30 years on.

Clearly inspired by teen angst pop songs from the early 60s, this is fresh, simple and to the point, and sung with a great deal of feeling and honesty by a young MacColl. Everytime I hear this I am transported back to being a 15 year old girl again, and remember the insecurities, the crushes and the huge worries of how my hair looked or if I had a spot on my face.

Tracey Ullman covered it and had a hit with it in 1983, but for me Kirsty's version is the real deal because she wrote it, and I suspect, she lived it.

10 Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me) - Train

A song I love because it brings back memories of my first time driving in the US. I passed my driving test somewhat late in life - I was 36 - and on a trip to Las Vegas and San Diego 11 months after I had passed, I found myself driving on the Strip in Vegas in a Chrysler car with very light steering.

This song seemed to be on the permanent playlist with every radio station in Clark County and everytime I hear it I am taken back to driving that car and singing it with my husband in the car while we explored the freeways and highways in Vegas and southern California.

It's a great anthem which is well sung, well played and is utterly memorable - instead of "sailing across the sun" it reminds me of a rubbish car, a Days Inn hotel which is long gone and an utterly brilliant time in my life.

So there you go - ten singles that have touched me, inspired me and uplifted me in my lifetime!

Summary: Ten singles that have touched me over the years