Great songs, according to me (Part 30)

300 songs that I think are great. I'm sure impressed with myself!

Let's link to the previous entries: Parts 1-15, archived, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, and Part 29. Now, let's move on to the next 10 songs.

291. Interior Lulu (by Marillion on the album marillion.com, 1999): Marillion just released a new album, which is decent but not great. I didn't mean to have yet another Marillion song on this list just as they release a new album, it just worked out that way. "Interior Lulu" is a monster song, sprawling and jazzy and just a bit funky. It tells a tale of isolation even as the Internet allows us to "connect" but severs our link to the actual world. It's a sad song, but it never descends into gloominess. The music powers the song along, starting with a sly beat and a groovy bass line before becoming a cacophony in the middle section of the song, reflecting the spiral of madness our world has become. The heart of the song comes when Hogarth sings, "If you can break it, it's already broken," a heartfelt cry that yearns for meaning in a meaningless world. Not the most fun song in the world, but a powerful statement nonetheless.

292. International Bright Young Thing (by Jesus Jones on the album Doubt, 1991): Doubt is a good album, helped by some stellar songs, of which this is an example. It has a great groove, and although the lyrics aren't anything fantastic, Edwards does give us a wry critique of pop culture even as he indulges in some funky dance music. It's a great song to play loud and bop your head to. There's nothing wrong with that!

293. Is it Too Late? (by World Party on the album Goodbye Jumbo, 1990): As usual with a great many World Party songs, this has a strong environmental bent to it, and unlike some of Wallinger's tunes, it doesn't get overwhelmed by it. The song has a nice exotic flavor to it, with almost dreamy music and oddly surreal lyrics. Wallinger sings about rescuing the world and ourselves, and does so without beating us over the head. At the end, when Wallinger whispers about the elephant's graveyard, it's slightly chilling, which is a nice way to end the song.

294. Is This Desire? (by PJ Harvey on the album Is This Desire?, 1998): The final song on Harvey's weakest album yet has nothing to apologize for. Despite the uneven quality of the other songs, this somewhat breathless paean to yearning for more in life is a nice coda. Harvey always seems to come up with at least one gut-wrenching song on every album she releases, and this one stands with her best. Her vocals, which are muted on almost every other song on the disc, come through with the power we expect from Polly Jean. It's a wonderful call for positive emotion in a world that doesn't have enough of it, and it almost redeems the entire album.

295. Istanbul (not Constantinople) (by They Might Be Giants on the album Flood, 1990): Great songs don't necessarily have to be all that meaningful, and so it is with TMBG's cover of this old Jimmy Kennedy/Nat Simon tune. It's a perfectly lightweight song about, well, the name change of the great city on the Bosporus (which isn't really a name change, since "Istanbul" is, as far as I know, simply the Turkish version). TMBG's version is very fun, though, and the violin and accordion bring a nice Turkish flavor to the song. It's a quick piece of musical wonderfulness, and that's all it needs to be. Why did Constantinople get the works? Well, that's nobody's business but the Turks.

296. It Can Happen (by Yes on the album 90125, 1983): Although in the 1980s Yes left the 20-minute opera behind to concentrate on money-grubbing, "It Can Happen" remains a magnificent song, with Jon Anderson in fine high-pitched form and the rest of the band (whoever they were at this point) soaring with him. It's a wonderful melding of vocals and music, and when Anderson wails, "There's a crazy world outside, we're not about to lose our pride," we feel both his despair and his hope. Yes fell too quickly into the just-another-rock-band category (you may not have liked their 1970s noodlings, but at least they were weirdly unique), but this is a nice blast at glory before they landed.

297. It'll Probably Make Me Cry (by Mary's Danish on the album There Goes The Wondertruck ..., 1989): Another song by the criminally underrated Mary's Danish (whose first two albums, including this one, are brilliant), this one is sort-of country, with a nice twang by Julie Ritter (again, I'm assuming it's Julie, even though they have two female singers) and weepy lyrics. Like all there other songs, however, they sell it well, and we feel the pain of loss and the power in the relatively simple lyrics. A wonderful heartfelt song on a great album.

298. It's a Mistake (by Men At Work on the album Cargo, 1982): I probably still have this album on LP, because I'm so old-school. What a fun band Men At Work were, and occasionally, they wrote really brilliant songs. This tune, which has a bit of a Dr. Strangelove vibe to it (at least from the lyrics), also has that hauntingly bizarre music that complements the paranoid lyrics very well. Colin Hay's odd Aussie vocals give the lyrics a wry component that makes the song both more chilling and more ironic. Great stuff.

299. It's Raining Men (by The Weather Girls, 1982): What can I say? It's one of the greatest disco songs ever. And the subject of a very funny sequence in The Simpsons: Moe gets angry at Homer and tells him he's taking Homer's favorite song off the jukebox. Homer, aghast, cries, "It's Raining Men!" and Moe answers, "Not no more it ain't" and hurls the 45 out the window, where it passes through an open car window and hits Smithers in the head. He can't believe his luck! I also played this for my students in the spring of 2002 and a fellow teacher and I sang along at the top of our voices. Needless to say, my students thought I was very odd. I don't care.

300. Jerusalem (by Steve Earle on the album Jerusalem, 2002): In a complete tonal shift, we get the title track of this very good album. Earle sings a simple song about the violence in the Middle East and his hope that things will get better. Earle, despite a seemingly bleak outlook in the short-term (he doesn't like Bush), is often upbeat when thinking about the future, and this song is a perfect example. At the end of the song, he sings, "And there'll be no barricades then, there'll be no wire or walls, and we can wash all this blood from our hands, and all this hatred from our souls." It's a song that looks to a point where we can live together in peace, and Earle gravelly voice does a much better job of selling it than if he were smoother.

Look at that - another ten songs in the books. Feel free to let the vitriol fly when you tell me I know nothing about music!

Great songs, according to me (Part 24)

Man, I went the entire month of August without doing one of these lists. How did you survive? As usual, here's the archive:

Parts 1-15 archived.
Part 16.
Part 17.
Part 18.
Part 19.
Part 20.
Part 21.
Part 22.
Part 23.

Okay, let's get to the next ten! I know you can't wait!

231. Hell's Ditch (by The Pogues on the album Hell's Ditch, 1990): Any song that includes the line "If it ain't a fist it isn't love" has to be great, right? "Hell's Ditch" is a great song beyond that, however, as Shane MacGowan growls his way through a nice misanthropic tune that builds and builds to that excellent line and the final, hate-filled sputter, "Naked howling freedom - Hell's Ditch." Ah, fine, fine stuff.

232. Helpless (by Faith No More on the album Album Of The Year, 1997): The last Faith No More album isn't the greatest thing in the world, but it's a solid bunch of songs, with a few that rise above. "Helpless" is a tragic, quiet song that builds to a painfully beautiful refrain - "You found a way to make me say, help me please someone." On the later Faith No More albums, Mike Patton really brought a disturbing drawl to the slower songs, and this helps make his lyric "I never felt better now" even more ironic. It's kind of a creepy song, but it gets under your skin and grows inside you, like all great songs.

233. Hey, Hey Helen (by ABBA on the album ABBA, 1975): I may have an inordinate love for ABBA, and that's fine, but I don't love every ABBA song, only most of them. And "Hey, Hey Helen," although a minor tune in the pantheon of greatness that is ABBA, is still fine enough to rank as a great one. Why? Well, it's about a woman who has left her husband and is striking out on her own, and is uncertain about her future. It's a quick song that sounds a lot breezier than it is, but even though it's charming, it's still serious. And that's what makes it great.

234. Hey Hey What Can I Do (by Led Zeppelin on the Led Zeppelin box set, 1990): Roger always picks on me when I include a Zep song, because he's always pointing out from whom they ripped it off. Well, here's another one, Roger! This song always pissed me off, because it's so freakin' good but it's not on any album - it's a B side. Stupid Zeppers! What a cool song this is. Nice guitar, fun Plant lyrics about an unfaithful woman (in the Zep Universe, is there really any other kind?), and a lazy kind of drawl that makes the whole thing work. Of course, because it's a Zep song, we get that nice caterwauling at the end, and voila! a great song. The 1990 box set is a billion times better simply because this song is on it.

235. Hey, Johnny Park! (by Foo Fighters on the album The Colour And The Shape, 1997): Tom thinks this is the greatest album of the past decade, and although I can't go that far, this is FF's best, and this song is one reason. It's short but powerful, and Dave's screaming, especially at the end, is sublime. But it's very neat how melodic the relatively quiet parts of the song are - the Foo are very good at harmonizing, rather surprisingly. And when the boys cut loose, as they do, it's great. This song is part of the first seven songs on the album, which are seven brilliant tunes. It's rare to get such greatness in such a nice row.

236. Hey Ladies (by the Beastie Boys on the album Paul's Boutique, 1989): It's difficult selecting one song from Paul's Boutique, which is one of the best hip hop albums ever (and will appear on my upcoming Top Ten Favorite Albums List, coming soon!), but "Hey Ladies" shows up because it can actually be separated from the rest of the album and it's got the freakin' cowbell! As usual with this brilliant album, the lyrics rule: our Jewish Buddhists reference the all-time home run leader, Chuck Woolery, Gabe Kaplan, Scott Baio, Van Gogh, and they fit that brilliant sample from "Ballroom Blitz" in at the end. Holy crap, what a fun tune. COWBELLS!!!!

237. Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway (by Shane McGowan and the Popes on the album The Snake, 1995): The wonderfully toothless drunk Shane MacGowan has a second song on this list of ten, after he left the Pogues and went off on his own. It's a simple song which is perfectly described by the title - and to tell you the truth, if my daughter was dating MacGowan, he'd sing this song about me. Shane gives it his full Irish conviction, and spits out the last line "Her father was a right cunt anyway" with such glorious vitriol that you just have to smile, even though I don't like that word. Fun stuff.

238. Hoof (by Mary's Danish on the album Circa, 1991): I love bands that are so old and obscure that they don't even have a web site. Mary's Danish is such a band, but I still love them. This song is wonderful, and the kind of song I absolutely love, in that it starts small and slowly builds. It's a nice enough song, but it has a killer short guitar solo that infuses it with just enough majesty to raise the song up from its grimy country roots (and that's not an insult, by the way). Julie and/or Gretchen (I never know who's singing) bring that great twang tinged with a hint of sadness, and it's superb. I miss Mary's Danish.

239. Hope Alone (by the Indigo Girls on the album Become You, 2002): Yes, it's another typically haunting Indigo Girls song, but I don't care - even if many of them sound the same, they always come up with a different way to make great music. This song has such a beautiful chorus ("You were looking for your distance, and sensing my resistance, you had to do your will/I had to learn the hard way, we were just an empty dream too big for hope alone to fill") and Emily sings it with such power even through the sadness that it just takes you along. She's very good at this kind of thing, and it makes you recall any sad moment in any relationship you've had, but in a good way.

240. The Hounds of Winter (by Sting on the album Mercury Falling, 1996): I'm not the biggest Sting fan, but Krys likes him, so I get to hear some of his music, and this song, the first off his 1996 album, is a beautiful piece of work. Sting's wonderful baritone is strong and contemplative, as it is on his best songs, and the lyrics speak of the remembrance of lost love among despair, always a good theme in a tune. When we reach the end and Sting sings, urgently, "It's easy to remember, remember my love that way" and then finishes with "the hounds of winter, they harry me down" and we slowly fade out, it's sad but still powerful, and the song lingers throughout the album and makes it, frankly, better than it actually is. Now that's the mark of a great song!

As we wrap up another ten songs and move ever so slowly toward our ultimate goal, I'd dare you to denigrate my musical taste, but for two things: you can't because it's so awesome, and nobody reads this anyway! I can expound on great songs according to me with impunity! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!