There are times when I just can’t stand the thought of another post about politics, especially in these filthy, depressing times.
So here’s a list that showed up in one of John Sandford’s Prey Series Lucas Davenport novels. Sandford isn’t his real name, it is John Camp, and I first met him on misc.writing, the old Usenet writing newsgroup. We email back and forth, and he even once upon a time mentioned one of my real-world books in one of his novels - he had a character reading it, shortly before he was stabbed to death.
Anyway, John and I are roughly of the same era, and although I would quibble with this list’s omissions (see if you can catch the most glaringly obvious one) it’s still a hell of a list, and I could live with it if I could only have one hundred songs on a desert island.
What do you think?
OT: Lucas Davenport’s Top 100 songs of the Rock Era
For those of you who enjoy reading the John Sanford “Prey” novels, here’s a list of the main character’s top 100. If I had an ipod that only held 100, I could settle for these.
- ZZ Top Sharp Dressed Man
- ZZ Top Legs
- Wilson Pickett Mustang Sally
- Crash Test Dummies Superman’s Song
- David Essex Rock On
- Golden Earing Radar Love
- Blondie Heart of Glass
- Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit
- Jefferson Airplane Somebody to Love
- Derek and the Dominoes Layla
- The Doors Roadhouse Blues
- The Animals House of the Rising Sun
- Aerosmith Sweet Emotion
- Aerosmith Dude (Looks Like a Lady)
- Bruce Springsteen Dancing in the Dark
- Bruce Springsteen Born to Run
- Bruce Springsteen Thunder Road
- The Police Every Breath You Take
- Tom Waits Heart of Saturday Night
- The Who Won’t Get Fooled Again
- Gypsy Kings Hotel California
- Tracy Chapman Give Me One Reason
- Credence Clearwater Revival Down on the Corner
- Eagles Lyin’ Eyes
- Eagles Life in the Fast Lane
- Dire Straits Skateaway (Roller Girl)
- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Mary Jane’s Last Dance
- Janis Joplin Me and Bobby McGee
- The Doobie Brothers Black Water
- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll
- John Mellencamp Jack and Diane
- Pink Floyd Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)
- Pink Floyd Money
- Billy Joel Piano Man
- Eric Clapton After Midnight
- Eric Claption Lay Down Sally
- AC/DC You Shook Me All Night Long
- AC/DC Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
- The Hollies Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress)
- Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone
- Bob Dylan Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
- Bob Dylan Subterranean Homesick Blues
- The Rolling Stones (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
- The Rolling Stones Brown Sugar
- The Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil
- Sex Pistols Anarchy in the UK
- Grateful Dead Sugar Magnolia
- The Pointer Sisters Slow Hand
- Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
- Elive Presley Jailhouse Rock
- David Bowie Ziggy Stardust
- Bob Seger Night Moves
- The Everly Brothers Bye Bye Love
- Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze
- The Kinks Lola
- Jackson Browne Tender in the Night
- The Kingsmen Louie, Louie
- George Thorogood and the Destroyers Bad to the Bone
- Metallica Turn the Page
- Lynyrd Skynyrd Sweet Home Alabama
- Queen We Will Rock You
- The Allman Brothers Band Ramblin’ Man
- Led Zeppelin Rock and Roll
- Tina Turner What’s Love Got to Do with It
- Steppenwolf Born to be Wild
- U2 With or Without You
- Black Sabbath Paranoid
- Foreigner Blue Morning, Blue Day
- Billy Idol White Wedding
- Guns N’ Roses Sweet Child o’ Mine
- Guns N’ Roses Paradise City
- Guns N’ Roses Knockin- on Heaven’s Door
- Lou Reed Walk on the Wild Side
- Bad Company Feel Like Makin’ Love
- Def Leppard Rock of Ages
- Van Morrison Brown Eyed Girl
- Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels Devil with a Blue Dress On
- Aretha Franklin Respect
- John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt I’m in the Mood
- James Brown I Got You (I Feel Good)
- The Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody
- Prince Little Red Corvette
- Chuck Berry Roll Over Beethoven
- The Byrds Mr. Tambourine Man
- Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Ohio
- Buddy Holly Peggy Sue
- Jerry Lee Lewis Great Balls of Fire
- Roy Orbison Oh, Pretty Woman
- Del Shannon Runaway
- Run D.M.C. Walk This Way
- Otis Redding (Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay
- Nirvana Smells Like Teen Spirit
- Paul Simon Still Crazy After All These Years
- Bo Diddley Who Do You Love?
- Brewer and Shipley One Toke Over the Line
- Ramones I Wanna Be Seduced
- The Clash Should I Stay or Should I Go
- Talking Heads Burning Down the House
- Dimitri Shostakovich Jazz Suite No. 2; Waltz 2
(you’d have to read
the book)
There are only 99 songs listed, because one song is listed twice. These are not in any particular order, by the way. ZZ Top heads the list only because if you are starting out on a road trip, you have to have ZZ on the music machine - loud.
Submit to Stumbled Upon!
I knew it. He is alive.
Good list. Minor quibbles would be with particular songs, not artists. Say, Gimme Shelter instead of Brown Sugar. That sort of thing.
It’s a great road list. And I agree with ZZ Top on a road list, especially at the beginning. Tres Hombres wailing on a cassette deck in a ‘72 Buick GS convertible roaring through Texas somewhere between Pecos and El Paso, quaffing Lone Star long necks out of a cooler. Right of passage stuff.
Umm, only if you like drinking swill. Or Pearl.
Where’s Sheb Wooley’s “Flying Purple People Eater”? Or David Seville’s “Witch Doctor” (oo-ee-oo-aah-aah)? Those were both big hits in that magical year, 1958. I can’t imagine going on a road trip without those two to keep you awake while driving late at night.
I have both “Purple People Eater” and “Witch Doctor” - the latter in stereo, no less - on my iTunes install at the shop, along with roughly 70 of the songs in that list.
Playmates “Beep Beep”. For some reason I always found myself going faster by the end of the song.
Chuck Berry’s Johnny Be Good should be in there.
George Thorogood’s entry should be “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer”. Still his best.
“Rock and Roll Woman” by Buffalo Springfield or else “For What It’s Worth”
I can do without the Pointers Sisters and Jackson Browne and substitute “Johnny Be Good” and “Rock and Roll Woman” instead.
Queen’s “We Will Rock You” needs to be paired with ‘We Are the Champions”. It just doesn’t sound right if it ends after WWRY.
Ramones - “I Wanna Be errr Seduced” Don’t he mean “Sedated”
#14 could be changed to Jamie’s Got a Gun or Love in an Elevator.
My favorite “highway song” is Frankenstein, by the Edgar Winter Group.
Has anybody noticed the glaring omission yet? Although, come to think of it, if it isn’t that noticeable, maybe it isn’t that glaring, either.
Beach Boys “California Girls”?
Think: Holy Trinity of Rock.
Close, Kennycan. If there’s going to be a Beach Boys hit, it has to be “Good Vibrations”.
My questions and opinions.
No Beatles?
No “Stairway to Heaven”?
No “Mystery Train”?
Not enough James Brown songs.
The Clash’s best song was “Complete Control”.
Joan Jett’s best song was “Bad Reputation”.
No Carl Perkins? No Johnny Cash or Jerry Lee?
JACKSON BROWNE?
No “Planet Rock” or the “The Message”? Well, OK they’re not “Rock”, but they’ve got James Brown and Prince in there.
Speaking of which, only one Prince song?
Guns’N'Roses best song is the viciously politically incorrect “One in a Million”. And what about “Welcome To The Jungle”?
No Pearl Jam?
I could go on for a while.
JP Richardson, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens? Or the song American Pie?
Bingo.
The Trinity - for people my age, at least:
Beatles
Dylan
Stones
Holy Trinity of Rock? Chuck Berry!
I hate to say it, but you have to be a certain age to see it as a glaring omission. In fact, “Holy Trinity of Rock” is probably unfamiliar to many. I can’t remember the last time I heard anything by Chuck Berry on the radio.
For Boomers, Lorenzo, that’s pretty much it. And I am on the bleeding edge of the Boom. If you’re older than I am, you probably won’t get it.
But it’s still:
Beatles
Stones
Dylan
And “Rock” is our music. “Rock-n-roll,” as practiced in the fifties, is the music of our older brothers and sisters, who might as well be a different generation.
Yeah, well…”Rock ‘n roll is here to stay…”
Heh - good fun…
One of the amusing aspects of this is - as Bill and anyone else who’s read the Prey-series novel referred to can testify - the discussions and ruminations that Davenport and many of his acquaintances and friends, cop-community and otherwise, go through in constructing and revising this Top 100 list. The back-and-forth over criteria, the “can’t leave that out!”, which version of a selection to go with…this thread runs - literally - throughout the book, as a low-key subtext; altogether, an enjoyable and “humanizing” literary use of a favorite music-maven activity - compiling “the best of…” lists.
As to “Rock” vs. “Rock-n-roll” - my take is, it’s good either way; YMMV. I’m just a wee shade older than the true Boomers - born in early-’43 - so, if it’s good, it’s good, no matter the era and what you prefer to call it.
Nice to see Roy Orbison, Otis Redding, Bo Diddley and crazy ol’ Jerry Lee Lewis make the list, though…
Wow - that must be a case study of how you assume something’s there so you see it there, even when it’s not.
I am huge Beatles fan, reignited now that my seven year old wants to hear every album from Please, Please Me to Revolver over and over (it’s great to be a child and hearing these things for the very first time, like they were brand new!). I’m sure almost everyone has one Beatles song favorite that would go in a Top 100 for the Rock Era (starting circa 1955, which list would have to be). Even my Dad would probably put in Yesterday. Even my grandfather, born 1908, would have probably have grudgingly admitted the Beatles did some redeemable songs (him and his friends hated John Lennon though).
The question then would have to be, which song? There are so many great ones.
I Want to Hold Your Hand
She Loves You
A Hard Day’s Night
Help!
Yesterday (almost have to be - it’s iconic now)
And Your Bird Can Sing (personal favorite)
Taxman
A Day in the Life
Revolution
Hey Jude
The Abbey Road Suite
Something
Here Comes the Sun
Let It Be
PS I grew up with the American albums so Meet the Beatles was the first, but when I upgraded to CDs they only had the British versions, so that’s what my son hears. I kinda like the British packaging better actually.
My father loathed the whole bunch. I remember riding in the car one day, with the radio tuned to something classical, and realizing it was a beatles song. Without the beatles of course, played by an orchestra. I can no longer remember the song or the orchestra, only pointing out to my dad that it was written by the beatles. I never heard another bad word.
I suppose this is as good a place as any to post a link to this.
Presenting…