You Make Me Feel Like.... (delete as appropriate) (Top 10 Singles)

Member Name: Ophelia

Product:	Top 10 Singles
Date:	21/06/02 (757 review reads)
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A song comes on the radio. My conscious mind is not listening but my subconscious is. Before I realise what is happening my fingers are tapping the steering wheel and a smile has grown across my face. By the end of the song I am singing along to the chorus. It's official; I've encountered a song I really like.

I think I am a rather unusual creature, amongst other reasons because I am not really what I would call a 'music person'. I am happy to sit doing whatever menial task I happen to be attacking without music playing in the background. I never sit and listen to music, preferring to tune into a talk station or read a book. However, when I do find a song I like, I REALLY like it.

This rather selective and unpredictable preference for music leads to a rather eclectic mixture. When people ask me what my favourite groups or artists are I find it quite hard as I often really like one or two songs but am indifferent to the rest.

Selecting my top ten singles was much easier than I would have thought; they were the songs that popped into my mind as soon as I set my mind to it and they are the ones I sing aloud most frequently while driving my car. Yes, I admit it, I am one of those nutcases you see sitting in a traffic jam singing to themselves. Even more unfortunately, in my case I have no car radio or music player and so I am singing along to silence. Oh dear! (I will also let slip a brief admission to being caught in my car singing and doing the actions to YMCA by the Village People.)

Now, without further ado, and in time honoured tradition in reverse order, here are my top ten favourite singles of all time:

10. Deadwood Stage by Doris Day

This was the first of my favourites to enter my life. I was 8 years old and my parents had divorced. I spent considerable time living with my father. My theory is that my mother probably had much better taste in music than him and wouldn't le
t him play his Doris Day collection. However, once he had the freedom of his own house he decided to play it as much as he damn well pleased, which was a lot!

8 year old girls are not renowned for having very sophisticated taste in music (prime examples: Spice Girls, Boyzone, Bros) and I really grew to love Doris and her songs. However, my favourite was The Deadwood Stage, which is set in the American Wild West and is a song about the stagecoach, which comes to town. The song has a very lively and upbeat rhythm, which you could imagine reflects the sound of the wheels of the coach rhythmically turning approaching the town.

I would like to sing along while, of course, doing actions: whipping the horses, shooting arrows, firing guns etc. I am aware that some of you may not be familiar with this song, so here is a brief excerpt (don't forget to imagine small, slender, blonde girl waving her whip in time to the beat):

'The Deadwood Stage is coming on over the hills,
With Indian arrows as thick as porcupine quills.
Danger is land, no time to delay,
So, whip crack away, whip crack away!'

My father is lucky that I liked his Doris because he also played Olivia Newton John rather too regularly. There was one song in particular that I hated because it was about the mother of the family leaving home and used to make me very upset, so I hid his cassette tape and to this day he has had to live without Olivia Newton Puke (as I used to call her - don't ask me why!).


9. Suicide is Painless by Mike Altman and Johnny Mandel

Many of you will be thinking, 'Eh?' However, if I were to say MASH to you (or should I say M*A*S*H so you don't get confused with marmelised potato) fleeting recognition may cross your faces. This song is the tune which was used for the MASH theme song.

I like this not for the music, which is rather dismal, slow and melancholy but for the words.
The song tells how life is hard and we can never beat death. The only way in which we can win is to cheat death by killing ourselves before it gets us. I wish I could give you all the words here but I fear you may either 1) get bored or 2) start looking for a very large bottle of paracetamol and some razor blades. I am going to force a quote on you though, as the words are so moving:

'The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger...watch it grin, but...

Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
And you can do the same thing if you please.'

There are no amusing incidents to recount in connection with this song or reasons why I like it. Purely and simply it is because I find it extremely moving and to hold a fundamental truth. Life is hard and sometimes it feels as though it would be so much easier just not to be alive and this song embodies those feelings.

8. Xanadu by Olivia Newton Puke (sorry, I mean John) and the ELO

Time to lighten things up a bit! This song comes from the musical romantic film by the same name. For those of you who have not had the joy of watching this it is about the muses of Greek legend, of which Olivia NJ is one, who come down to earth and Olivia falls in love with a mortal. For reasons which are hard to fathom Olivia spends the whole film on roller skates, although she takes them off briefly for a quick dance with Gene Kelly!

The whole soundtrack is great and can still be bought, despite the fact that to most people the movie has been relegated to their memories of the early eighties. I am a fan of the Electric Light Orchestra and their style is easily recognisable in this song. The music is cheery and the song begs to be sung along to, which I always oblige.

Near the end of the song Olivia starts to show off
her range of notes by singing the u of Xanadu in an acute crescendo. As I find myself compelled to sing along with this one the result is really not very pleasant. For some strange reason (masochism springs to mind) my hubby likes to play this and get me to sing so he can laugh when I get to the Xanadooooooo bit at the end. He may find it cute and amusing now but after another twenty years of marriage he will probably find himself petitioning for divorce, the reason being unreasonable behaviour by singing Olivia NJ songs very, very badly.

7. Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty

Gerry was inspired to write this song after months of illegal busking on Baker Street! He sings about the people he meets there and about being 'light in your head and dead on your feet' and yet you have to get on with life. Life's tough but Gerry keeps going (he obviously shares a very different philosophy to that of Altman and Mandel).

You will not be surprised to learn that I enjoy singing along to this song too. The song is rhythmical but not really upbeat and contains an absolutely stonking saxophone solo in the middle, which seems to grab your body and demand that you dance!

Another reason I like this is that it was being played in the clubs a lot at the time in my life when I was of the age to go clubbing (now I just drink cocoa, crochet tea cosies and smell faintly of lavender), although it was a version by 'Undercover' that was prevalent at the time.

The song is obviously of extreme merit as it has survived as a favourite despite the fact that I associate it with an ex-boyfriend who was far from pleasant, in a Paul Gascoigne/Ike Turner kind of way (which is more than can be said for Abba's 'Dancing Queen', which I still don't like to hear). For a song to overcome a mental association like that it has to be good!

6. Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash

There is no indecision bugg
ing me, as this song definitely makes it to my top ten! The first time I ever heard it was when it was being played by my then boyfriend's band, which was called the Garden Tools. Yes, I dare to admit to being a Garden Tools? groupie! It was one of the best songs they did and at gigs the audience would always cheer when they struck up the tune.

This song is also good for playing air guitar to and for jumping around singing rather hoarsely and flinging your shoulder length hair about in wild abandon. If you do not have long hair, I would not recommend this as a song for you. The beat is heavy and dominant, which underlines the frustration felt by the person in the song, who is demanding of his partner that she decide whether she wants him or not and advises 'If you don't want me set me free!'

(As a by-note The Garden Tools once dedicated a song to me called 'Antigua Snowdrop', but it hasn't made it to this top ten!)

5. Prettiest Eyes by The Beautiful South

This song is about a couple who have been together for years, recollecting their memories of their times together and realising that they have aged and physically changed and yet they still love each other. My favourite line is 'Take a good look at those crow's feet, sitting on the prettiest eyes'.

I like this primarily because of the sentiments involved. We all dream of true love, of living together forever and loving our partners more tomorrow than we do today and it is an ideal which is hard to live up to. The song is the embodiment of the ideal romance but without sweetening the medicine. Life is long and hard but love can win through.

The song has the ballad-like quality of many of the Beautiful South's works and although I enjoy singing along to it, it doesn't extend its control to my legs.

4. Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding

With many of my choices I enjoy the song because I lik
e the tune, it is catchy, I like to sing to it or similar. However, this song is purely because of the way Otis sings. A covered version, however similar in tune, just would not inspire the enjoyment in me that this does.

I need hardly tell you that the song is about sitting at the dock of the bay, 'watching the ships roll in and then watch them roll away again'. Hardly mind blowing stuff! However, Otis' voice is almost hypnotic and you can hear the richness dripping off his tongue as it slips over the melodious notes.

While at university I found this on a CD at a friend's flat. Due to a combination of factors: the novelty of playing with a CD player, of finding the song and of losing horrendously at a drinking game, I put the song on repeat on my friend's player and it was listened to over 15 times before someone put their foot down and decided that Otis had sung his last note for that evening.

3. Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum

'Going on up to the spirit in the sky,
That's where I'm gonna go when I die.
When I die and they lay me to rest,
I'm gonna go to the place that's the best.'

Someone only has to mention this song for me to begin humming it and I have to clamp my lips together in a desperate attempt to stop the words escaping. I am incapable of listening to it without singing along (I would be a terror to live with if I played music more often) and I think that any red-blooded human would feel similarly.

The tune is happy, rhythmical and with a good beat. At one point in the song there is a noise made by an unidentifiable (by me at any rate, I was always atrocious at music and could probably confuse a clarinet with a grand piano) instrument, which makes a 'weooow weooow' noise. I like that noise too. But what is the instrument? Answers on a postcard please.

2. I'm a Believer by The Monkees (lyrics by Neil Dia
mond)

This song is good for singing along too and contains an excellent air guitar section and is good for whooping to in an evangelical church manner when the singer gets to the chorus and announces that, indeed, 'he's a believer'. The song, I am sure, is familiar to you, and is about a man who saw a woman and fell in love with her. He then became a believer in love. Ahhh!

I always like the song, as it is vibrant and smile-inspiring, however, it began to have further meaning for me when a friend of some years confessed to having always really, really liked me and that he always thought of me when he heard the song. Soooo flattering, the song was bound to become a favourite after that!

Once while I was at a party the song came onto the stereo system and I had to seek out the source. It was no surprise to find that he had put it on and he may as well have just shouted 'Come and pay me some attention!'. Anyway, it worked and I did but I didn't fall for his charms. This obviously means that if it failed to win me over that it can't be the best song of all time. So, what is my favourite?

1. I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor

Corny, I know and if I ever went to a karaoke party I am sure I would find that about 12 other women would elect to sing it but it doesn't take away the fact that it is stirring and empowering and my favourite!

There can be few who are not familiar with this song, so I won't waste time quoting from it with lines like,

'At first I was afraid, I was petrified,
Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side,
But then I spent so many nights just thinking how you did me wrong,
And I grew strong and I learned how to get along?'

Nor will I bother to tell you that it is about a woman whose man has left her and then come crawling back only to discover that in the mean time she has realised that he was a complete jerk a
nyway and that she is better off without him.

Forget Girl Power - Gloria Gaynor is the ultimate Spice Girl. The song inspires feelings of strength, independence and controlled anger. Whenever I sing it I am filled with a feeling of increased self-esteem and also filled with an urge to dance and sing loudly. (Who can say how many times this has been sung by groups of drunken women in nightclubs venting their frustrations at the seeming unending callousness of the male of the species while wildly gesticulating in manners which are supposedly appropriate for the words of the song).

There are other contenders for the best song of this genre, such as 'Things Can Only Get Better', which was unfortunately tainted in my mind by seeing Tony Blair and various other labour politicians embarrassing themselves while trying to sing it clad in suits and ties, and 'The Sign' by Ace of Base. However, these pale in comparison to Gloria's effort and don't even make the top twenty, let alone the dizzy heights of my all time favourite.


So, there you have my top ten singles. I hope that I won't be penalised by some know-it-all-music-enthusiast, who points out that one of these was never released as a single! I don't know the ins and outs of bands, their work and when they released what. All I am interested in is if a song makes me feel something, whether it makes me feel sad, happy or angry, as long as it inspires strong emotions in me I will enjoy it.

Now, pick one of the above ten, get in your car, bother the looks of passers-by and sing it, loudly, while you drive. By the time you reach your destination, you will be smiling too.

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