Time Is On My Side /
The Rolling Stones

I know, I don't often write about the Stones.  I don't often think about the Stones, that's why, and if I do, it's not 1964-era Stones.

But as I was reviewing my 100 Favorite Singles project the other day, and re-listening to "Tired of Waiting," it suddenly occurred to me how much alike these two singles are.  And I got to thinking....

To a pre-teen Beatlemaniac, this first Stones single to really hit it big in the US was a scary thing. When the Beatles were introduced to American on the Ed Sullivan show, they won hearts; when the Stones followed suit in October 1964, they sent shivers up spines. I still remember watching them that night, closing out the show with this number. As I recall it, Mick shook his tambourine like a rattlesnake shakes his rattles, and lowered his head to glare menacingly at the camera. I actually scooted a few inches further from the TV. I did not like them -- but I sure as hell watched every minute of that charged performance.

It's useful to note that Mick and Keef didn't write this tune themselves -- it was written by Jerry Ragavoy (under the name of Norman Meade, for some reason) and had already been recorded twice in the previous few months, once by jazz trobonist Kai Winding and once by Irma Thomas. When the Stones showed up at Chicago's Chess Records studio in June 1964 to record at the home of the blues that had inspired them, it was a logical recent track for them to cover.

But just listen to Irma's version. Even though it has the same tempo, it's not nearly as draggy and weary-sounding.  In fact, Irma sounds positively buoyant. Time is on her side because she plans to hang in there and wait for her man; she's full of hope and faith.

In contrast, the Stones sound dogged, spiteful, and fixated. Mick's petulant, taunting vocal lags behind the beat (well, that's why it was called backbeat, folks) and Charlie Watts' abusive drum slaps are way forward in the mix.  "Ti-i-i-ime, is on my side," Mick snarls, "Yes it is," and  I get a shiver of sexual fear. He's not the patient lover waiting for her to be ready, he's the stalker, the predator, lying in wait.

"Go ahead and light up the town," he mocks sarcastically in the bridge, adding like a threat, "I'll always be around" as Keith's and Brian's guitars bicker and quarrel behind him. In lieu of Irma's gospel style backing singers, the other Stones utter discordant moans in the background -- "time, time, time" -- like a clock loudly ticking off her last moments of freedom.  This is simply saturated with sexual knowingness; it is hot stuff.

This Chess version made it onto 12 X 5, the Stone's second album, which was released in October 1964. (The single that came out in January 1965 has a different arrangement, with a guitar intro instead of this track's brooding minor-key organ.) That's good to know, because the Kinks recorded "Tired of Waiting" in August 1964 -- they couldn't possibly have been copying the Stones track. It must just have been something in the London air in the summer of 1964 that made everybody feel hostile and exhausted. 

The differences are subtle, but dangerous. If the Kinks are at the end of their rope, tired of waiting for the girl who won't settle down, the Stones can wait forever -- and oh, when she finally comes crawling back, revenge is going to be so sweet. . . .

The 100 Best Singles in My Head

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Here it is in full, my totally subjective fangirl list of my 100 favorite singles -- to quote the Beatles, "in my life, I've loved you more." (And no, that song isn't on here -- picking just 100 is HARD!). In case you're tuning in late, here are the criteria I've imposed:

*** "Singles," not "songs" -- they must been released on 7-inch 45 rpm vinyl.

*** A track I myself owned, if not as a 45 then at least on an album.

*** A song I remember hearing on the radio or on the dance floor.

*** Soundtrack to special eras of my life

*** "Earworm" power -- unforgettable melodies, hooks, riffs, refrains, or vocal embellishments

*** Guilty pleasures, come on down!

Each song title is embedded with a link to the post where I wrote about it originally. Click on the title to jump to that blog entry -- but don't forget to hit the back button afterward to come back and sample more from the list.

Who knows, you may even want to make your own playlist from this. (I've already created a mix CD for my next road trip.) Of course, everybody's subjective choices will be different. Once you've finished reading, I'd love to hear what you'd have picked instead. Operators are standing by . . .

1. "The Letter" / The Box Tops (1967)

2. "Happy Together" / The Turtles (1967)

3. "She's Not There" / The Zombies (1964)

4. "If I Fell" / "And I Love Her" / The Beatles (1964)

5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" / "God Only Knows" / The Beach Boys (1966)

6. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals (1964)

7. "Tired of Waiting For You" / The Kinks (1965)

8. "Summer in the City" (1967)

9. "Walk Away Renee" / The Left Banke (1966)

10. "Along Comes Mary" / The Association (1968)

11. "California Dreamin'" / The Mamas and the Papas (1965)

12. "Bus Stop" / The Hollies (1966)

13. "Jet" / "Let Me Roll it" / Paul McCartney and Wings (1973)

14. "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" / The Kinks (1966)

15. "I Put a Spell On You" / The Alan Price Set (1966)

16. "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" / The Beatles (1967)

17. "Good Vibrations" / The Beach Boys (1966)

18. "I'm a Believer" / The Monkees (1966)

19. "Dancing Queen" / ABBA (1976)

20. "96 Tears" / ? and the Mysterians (1966)

21. "Pump It Up" / Elvis Costello (1978)

22. "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" / "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" / Ian Dury and the Blockheads (1978)

23. " A Message to You Rudy" / The Specials (1979)

24. "Rock the Casbah" / The Clash (1982)

25. "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" / Dusty Springfield (1964)

26. "Space Oddity" / David Bowie (1969)

27. "Walk on the Wild Side" / Lou Reed (1972)

28. "Sweet Dreams / The Eurythmics (1983)

29. "Layla" / Derek and the Dominos (1970)

30. "Mr. Dieingly Sad" / The Critters (1966)

31. "The Sounds of Silence" / Simon & Garfunkel (1965)

32. "Wild World" / Cat Stevens (1971)

33. "Fire and Rain" / James Taylor (1970)

34."It's Too Late" / Carole King (1971)

35. "American Pie" / Don McLean (1972)

36. "Steppin' Out" / Joe Jackson (1982)

37. "Psycho Killer" / The Talking Heads (1977)

38. "Love Shack" / The B-52s (1989)

39. "Whip It" / Devo (1980)

40. "Roadrunner (Once)" / Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (1976)

41. "Get Back" / The Beatles (1969)

42. "Message In a Bottle" / The Police (1979)

43. "If This Is It" / Huey Lewis & the News (1984)

44. "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" / Herman's Hermits (1965)

45. "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" / Stevie Wonder (1974)

46. "Moondance" / Van Morrison (1977)

47. "Jack and Diane" / John Mellencamp (1982)

48. "Someday, Someway" / Marshall Crenshaw (1982)

49. "Sultans of Swing" / Dire Straits (1978)

50. "Come Dancing" / The Kinks (1983)

51. "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet" / The Blues Magoos (1967)

52. "She's About A Mover" / Sir Douglas Quintet (1965)

53. "98.6" / Keith (1967)

54. "One on One" / Daryl Hall and John Oates (1983)

55. "Leader of the Pack" / The Shangri-Las (1964)

56. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Animals (1965)

57. "Sunshine Superman" / Donovan (1966)

58. "Time of the Season" / The Zombies (1969)

59. "Concrete and Clay" / Unit 4 + 2 (1966)

60. "A World Without Love" / Peter & Gordon (1964)

61. "To Sir With Love" / Lulu (1967)

62. "Georgy Girl" / The Seekers (1966)

63. "A Summer Song" / Chad & Jeremy (1964)

64. "Michelle" / David and Jonathan (1967)

65. "Yeh Yeh" / Georgie Fame (1965)

66. "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" / Manfred Mann (1964)

67. "I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James & the Shondells (1967)

68. "Come and Get It" / Badfinger (1969)

69. "Love Potion No. 9" / The Searchers (1964)

70. "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" / The Righteous Brothers (1964)

71. "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" / Bill Withers (1971)

72. "Standing in the Shadows of Love" / The Four Tops (1966)

73. "Tears Of A Clown" / Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (1970)

74. "Come On Eileen" / Dexy's Midnight Runners (1982)

75. "Wrap It Up" / The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1986)

76. "Killer Queen" / Queen (1974)

77. "Build Me Up Buttercup" / The Foundations (1968)

78. "Girl Don't Come" / Sandie Shaw (1964)

79. "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)" / The Rolling Stones (1974)

80. "Kind of a Drag" / The Buckinghams (1967)

81. "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" / Gerry & the Pacemakers (1964)

82. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" / Steely Dan (1974)

83. "Smooth Operator" / Sade (1985)

84. "I Don't Want to Go Home" / Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (1976)

85. "Maggie May" / "Reason to Believe" / Rod Stewart (1971)

86. "Have I The Right?" / The Honeycombs (1964)

87. "You Were On My Mind" / We Five (1965)

88. "Killing Me Softly With His Song" / Roberta Flack (1971)

89. "Tempted" / Squeeze (1981)

90. "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" / John Lennon (1974)

91. "Cruel to Be Kind" / Nick Lowe (1979)

92. "Hungry" / Paul Revere and the Raiders (1966)

93. "For Your Love" / The Yardbirds (1965)

94. "I Can See For Miles" / The Who (1967)

95. "Heart of Glass" / Blondie (1979)

96. "Spinning Wheel" / Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969)

97. "When A Man Loves A Woman" / Percy Sledge (1966)

98. "Losing My Religion" / R.E.M. (1991)

99. "Show Me The Way" / Peter Frampton (1976)

100. "Different Drum" / Stone Poneys (1967)

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 1-5

AND THE WINNER IS . . .

[ . . . drum roll, please!]

Well, I told you it would be subjective. These are not the top five singles of all time on Rolling Stones' list, or Mojo's list, or any other list put together by rock snobs or music pundits. I haven't jiggered it to showcase my favorite bands (look, no Kinks! no Nick Lowe!) or to make a political statement or to show off my superior taste. You'll notice I've already written about all of these songs -- BUT OF COURSE!! These are simply the five singles that knocked me hardest off my feet in the course of my life.

And yeah, they're all from the 1960s, because that was the decade that made me the music fan I am. Or more importantly, that made me the person I am. Which is really what the music's all about, isn't it?

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

1. "The Letter" / The Box Tops (1967)
I hear those knocking lead-in drum beats, and I am GONE. When all is said and done, the essence of rock and roll is nothing more or less than hormonal teenage cravings, and nobody has ever expressed that randy yearning better than an absurdly young Alex Chilton, fronting this seminal Memphis pop group.



2. "Happy Together" / The Turtles (1967)
They were hardly one-hit wonders, but even the Turtles never again hit such a sweet spot, a magical convergence of lilting melody, playful rhythms, and intimate vocals that will forever be the soundtrack of my eighth-grade nirvana.



3. "She's Not There" / The Zombies (1964)
The first 45 I ever owned -- if only my taste had always been this impeccable!



4. "If I Fell" / "And I Love Her" / The Beatles (1964)
Desperately in love with the Beatles -- okay, okay, in love with Paul McCartney, who was in 1964 the most beautiful man on the planet -- of course I had both of these tracks on the Hard Day's Night album, the first LP I ever owned. But I simply had to buy the single too, so smitten was I with this matched set of John/Paul declarations of love.

5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice" / "God Only Knows" / The Beach Boys (1966)
Honestly, I wasn't a Beach Boys fan, not really. And by 1966, I already had the Beatles to keep me warm -- what did I need with these clean-cut California boys in their squaresville striped shirts? But then they unleashed this pair of gloriously inventive tracks, back and front of one 7-inch vinyl masterpiece, and set a new gold standard for rock-pop brilliance.

And now, YOU tell ME -- what would your #1 be?

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 6-10

Still stuck in the 60s -- not that I'm complaining. Looking over today's list, I realize that these songs all tend towards the dark-and-brooding end of the spectrum. When I first heard them, I had no idea why they moved me so. But over the years, as I learned more of life, these are songs that have continually deepened for me. They have more than stood the test of time.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

6. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals (1964)
I'll admit it, in 1964 I wasn't ready to appreciate this haunting, dangerous bit of music. Hey, I was only a grade-school kid, what would you expect? But even then I made a mental note to store it away for later. I must have known someday it would all make deep, dark, sinful sense.

7. "Tired of Waiting For You" / The Kinks (1965)
Why, what a surprise! Again I have room to expound at large on a Kinks song -- this primitive early track, my personal favorite of all those 1964-65 breakthrough Kinks singles. Of course "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were astonishing and new -- I remember hearing them on the radio and being deeply disturbed. But personally? This February 1965 hit was the one that stole my heart. (It wasn't just me -- this song is tied with "Come Dancing" as the Kinks' highest-charting US single ever.) No other song, except maybe the Beatles' "I'm So Tired," has so perfectly captured the feeling of being bone-weary and fed up to here. When "I'm So Tired" came out, however, we were all hip to the knowledge that it referred to drugs. "Tired of Waiting" belongs to an earlier, more innocent era -- it's all about emotional exhaustion, with just a hint of post-masturbatory letdown. Not that I would have known that in 1965, but -- well, I have to assume something in its oozing chord changes subliminally warned me there was (shhhhh) S-E-X involved. Listen to the groaning edge of Ray Davies' vocal as he complains, "I'm so tired / Tired of waiting / Tired of waiting for you!" I love the lapidary effect of that, how each line builds on the previous one, dazedly adding the next word or phrase to that long sinuous melodic line, while the rhythm moves fitfully in starts and stops. We back up for a little character establishment: "I was a lonely soul / I had nobody till I met you" (the woefulness of Ray's vocal here cracks me up.) The rhythm seems aimless, relaxed, like freeform jazz -- until he ups the ante with a key change: "But you / Keep-a me waiting / All of the time / What can I do?" You can just hear the frustration underlying those surging short phrases, like a ticking time bomb. Now comes the genius part: a swift-kick major key change for the bridge, and the mellow assertion, "It's your life / And you can do what you want." (Note how the key darkens into minor on "life." Do we really believe that he's just going to step aside?) A quick scuffle of drums and guitar, and then Ray -- such a feminist, so enlightened! -- loftily repeats, "Do what you want," before diving fiercely back into his own agony: "But please don't keep-a me waiting!" The guitar churns, drums whack, volume builds, chords shift, and he urgently repeats, "Please don't keep me waiting, 'cos I'm / So tired," and we relapse into his listless cycle of fatigue. All of those early Kinks signature songs were about being run ragged by obsession: the inescapable clutches of "You Really Got Me," the 24/7 lust of "All Day and All of the Night," the begging for release of "Set Me Free." By the time he'd got to "Tired of Waiting," however, I sense that Ray Davies himself was feeling strung out and worn out. He's not even beginning for release anymore, just staggering through a limbo of unslaked desire. Because there's no question about it: We all knew what the singer was waiting for. I was only twelve years old and I knew. It terrified me. And yet -- god help me -- I wanted more.

8. "Summer in the City" (1967)
The antithesis to everything I loved about the Spoonful's rollicking jug band sound, "Summer in the City" was like a gritty slap upside the head. Admit it: whenever this track comes on, don't you brace yourself for the blackout?

9. "Walk Away Renee" / The Left Banke (1966)
This is what pop does best -- distill love into two-and-a-half minutes of longing and heartache.

10. "Along Comes Mary" / The Association (1968)
Edgy, wordy, and faintly mysterious, this quintessentially West Coast track teased me with its coded references to a much cooler lifestyle than anything this junior-high kid had ever known.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 11-15

This high on the list, we're in Undisputed Classics territory, which accounts for why I've already written about so many of today's tracks. Is it a coincidence that most of these date from the mid-60s, when I was at my most impressionable? Probably not. They're permanently lodged in the back of my brain, and I'll never be free of them -- nor do I want to be!

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

11. "California Dreamin'" / The Mamas and the Papas (1965)
In 1965, I wasn't dreaming of California -- if anything my heart yearned the other direction, towards Swinging London. But this exquisitely melancholy track isn't about geography, it's about loneliness and longing. Perfect for a dismal end-of-winter day like yesterday.

12. "Bus Stop" / The Hollies (1966)
I always forget that this moody single -- the Hollies' first breakthrough hit in the US -- in fact is one of those rare pop things, a Happy In Love Song. Despite the minor key, it's an endearing little novel-in-song, with a Greek chorus of lush vocal harmonies.

13. "Jet" / "Let Me Roll it" / Paul McCartney and Wings (1973)
It's only fitting that the highest-ranking post-Sixties single on my list should also be the only post-Beatles entry from my once and future love Paul McCartney.

14. "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" / The Kinks (1966)
How convenient that I've got so much room now to rave about "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" (or as Kinksters refer to it, DFOF). Now, I promised myself I wouldn't stuff this list too egregiously with Kinks songs. But unfortunately, that means I had to choose between this and "Well-Respected Man," two songs that always seem to me to go hand in hand. Released about the same time -- WRM in October 1965, DFOF in April 1966-- they both were startling breaks from the hallmark Kinks sound of "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," themselves released barely a year earlier. I really had to sit up and take notice. Who WERE these guys? In the dizzying creative scrum of British Invasion music, these songs signaled a new thing entirely, with a music-hall bounce and sharply detailed satire that left even the Beatles scrambling to catch up. (Which they did with Revolver, but still . . . ). "Well-Respected Man" charted higher in the States, and still crops up on the set list of Ray Davies' solo shows -- but in the final analysis, I have to say, I loved "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" more. After all, I wasn't well versed in all the intricacies of the British class system (the subject of WRM), but there I was, a preteen in a flowered miniskirt and poor boy sweater, totally smitten with the Carnaby Street setting of DFOF's Mod fashion victim. Underneath a veneer of electric jangle (dig those grating strums of the intro), "Dedicated Follower"'s melody is vintage vaudeville tap dance, and you couldn't ignore the theatricality of Ray's deliberately foppish vocals. ("They seek him heah! / They seek him theah!"). Despite the mincing enunciation, the portrait is mercilessly tough -- "And when he does his little rounds, / 'Round the boutiques of London Town", "One week he's in polka-dots, the next week he's in stripes," "He flits from shop to shop just like a butterfly," and of course the most skewering lines of all: "He thinks he is a flower to be looked at, / And when he pulls his frilly nylon panties right up tight, / He feels a dedicated follower of fashion." Interspersed is the matey singlong of the chorus, with Ray's jolly fellow Kinks repeating after him: "Oh yes he is (oh yes he is!) / Oh yes he is (oh yes he is!)." I can testify that that part really is best sung with a pint of bitter in hand. According to a TV documentary I saw once (sorry, but I can't tell you which one -- I've seen so many on the Kinks!), Ray wrote this song in one blaze of inspiration, a fit of pique after some effete hipster had criticized the Kinks' manner of dress. Perhaps that lingering snit explains why Ray doesn't sing it much anymore. (Though I have seen Mick Avory do his own boozy rendition at a Kast Off Kinks gig.) Nevertheless, it is a song near and dear to my heart. It was my first sign that these guys, these Kinks, would go on surprising me for the rest of my life.

15. "I Put a Spell On You" / The Alan Price Set (1966)
Such a great song, no matter who sings it -- Nina Simone, Manfred Mann, Ctreedence Clearwater. But this is the version that most melts my heart, sung with throat-wrenching power by ex-Animal Alan Price.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 16-20

This high on the list, we should have nothing but Major Artists, right? Wrong. Beatles, yes, Beach Boys yes, but those other three? Well, this is MY list, and I'm happy to tell you why those three belong so near the top. For one thing, notice their distinctive intros -- you could easily name that tune in four beats or less. That may not be the only mark of a great single, but it's a pretty persuasive start.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

16. "Strawberry Fields Forever" / "Penny Lane" / The Beatles (1967)
Hard to imagine that the Beatles captured this much genius on one seven-inch disc of plastic. Shrewdly, they marketed this as a double-A single -- there was the John side and there was the Paul side, and they were as different as could be.

17. "Good Vibrations" / The Beach Boys (1966)
This record was released the week I turned thirteen. You remember what it feels like to be thirteen: Everything inside you and around you is changing; you don't know who or why or where you are. And suddenly here was this song that totally captured that shape-shifting state of mind -- not only that, it made it seem mysterious, exciting, and cool. "Good Vibrations" is a truly astonishing track, a perfect little "pocket symphony." It starts out with Carl's sweet anxious tenor, soon joined by Brian's falsetto, on the ballad-like verse. (Any time a song starts out with Carl Wilson singing, you know I'll love it.) Then we switch into a more traditional Beach Boys sound for the chorus, Mike Love booming in his low voice, "I'm picking up good vibrations / She's givin' me excitation," while the others chant "um bop bop good vibrations" in their trademark close harmonies. But what is that whiny space-age sound floating over their voices? I had never heard a theremin before, but it was a genius move to throw it into the mix, adding an other-worldly dimension to this song about finding your soul mate. And just when you think you've got the pattern -- verse, chorus, verse, chorus -- after the second chorus the song suddenly transmogrifies, each "good good GOOD" rising in pitch and volume, chords shifting upward until it achieves lift-off. There's a jangly little interlude, a meteor shower of overlapping vocals, and at last we hit cruise altitude in the bridge, with a mellow organ and creamy call-and-response vocals -- "got to keep those good vibrations a-happening with her" -- all soft rock, L.A. style. But wait! Just when you least expect it, we break on through to the other side, with that magnificent wall of sound: "AAHHHHHHH!" Then we go into warp drive, tempo faster, chords shifting, voices crossing, drums jingling -- and finally burst into a new galaxy entirely, with a shimmering cascade of vocals in counterpoint, a rock madrigal, with nothing but a tambourine for accompaniment. By the time the theremin whizzes in again, like a rocketship to bear us away for the fadeout -- WHEW! I suppose you're gonna tell me now that the song was meant to replicate a drug trip, or the act of intercourse (that orgasmic AAHHHHHH!!). But what did I know at the time? I was only thirteen. And YET it spoke to me, in an ecstatic musical language all its own. It certainly wasn't the words ("She goes with me to a blossom world"?) Mike Love lyrics never did the trick for me. But who cares?

18. "I'm a Believer" / The Monkees (1966)
One day one of my older brother's friends -- maybe it was Skip Keene -- told me that the Monkees were fakes. "They don't even play their own instruments!" he sneered. I knew he was only saying it because he knew how much I loved Davy Jones. But still, it made me cry because I loved the Monkees, and I'm not afraid to admit it. (Click here for my "Last Train to Clarksville" squeal of fangirl devotion.) Glued to that television set every week, I knew all their songs, but like everyone else I was swept up in the triumphant success of "I'm a Believer" -- their great #1 hit, and the US's top-selling record for 1967 (click on the 1967 label to the right to see what other amazing songs it beat out). Take THAT you scoffers! Though the Monkees had only released their first album in September 1966 -- timed to coincide with the debut of their TV series -- they were such an instant hit that a second album was rushed out in December 1966. Compared to their carefully assembled first album The Monkees (a surprisingly fine LP), More of the Monkees was, er, kinda spotty. The Monkees themselves were so busy filming, music director Don Kirshner only had them drop by the studio to record vocals; the compelling guitar hook here was played by the song's composer, none other than Neil Diamond, and other session musicians did the rest. (I'd love to know who contributed that distinctive calliope organ riff.) Still, there were some excellent tracks on the LP -- not only this but also its B-side, "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone" -- and it wasn't just Monkeemania that made this single a hit. It fairly bursts with youthful high spirits, and that toe-tapping beat is irresistible. One of the Monkees' first acts of rebellion was to override Kirshner's choice of Davy Jones as the band's main lead vocalist; listening to this, even I have to admit that Mickey Dolenz was the right man for the job. There's something boyish and tentative about his voice at first, as he recounts, "I thought love was only true in fairy tales / Meant for someone else but not for me." But he gathers intensity in the chorus, declaring, "Then I saw her face / Now I'm a believer! / Not a trace / Of doubt in my mind." He's a convert, testifying and bearing witness for all he's worth, building to a groan of slaked lust: "I'm in love, Ummmmm! / I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her / If I tried." As the song spun off in its own orbit with the fadeout, Mickey scatting away, we legions of Monkee fans were like the children of Hamelin town -- ready to follow that pied piper anywhere.

19. "Dancing Queen" / ABBA (1976)
I defy ye, rock snobs! (Yes even you, Ray Davies, making fun of ABBA at your concert last Saturday night. . . what have you got against Sweden these days?) I refuse to apologize for loving ABBA. At the height of ABBA's fame, I was living in the UK, and although I had missed the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, when "Waterloo" swept the top prize, most of my English friends were confirmed ABBA addicts, and I quickly caught the bug. In 1976 this hit single was an absolutely essential part of every night out at the disco. When I say disco, I don't mean Studio 54 -- I mean some drafty little community centre in a small town on the Kent coast, with watery drinks and a dodgy PA system and warps in the lino floor. But when "Dancing Queen" came on, a cry would go up, and the dance floor filled in an instant. You immediately know it's "Dancing Queen" from that long downward keyboard glissando, followed by a sheer wall of ahhh'ed vocals and synthesizers -- production values to the max -- punctuated with Liberace-style hammered piano chords. Then in swoop the girls, wasting no time; they START with that frantically emotive chorus: "Yooo-OU can dance, yooo-OU can ji-ive / Having the time of your life / See that girl, watch that scene / Digging the dancing queen." The mix of Agnetha and Frida's voices always sends a shiver up my spine, and recently I learned why: Their voices were recorded at slightly different speeds, then one was sped up, to create a whisper of dissonance when they were played together. That gives their doubled vocals a hard edge, and a melancholy that always seems to me to be peculiarly Scandinavian. Gently rocking verses set the nightclub scene (memorable phrases: "Friday night and the lights are low . . . Anybody could be that guy / Night is young and the music's [beat] hi-igh. . .") -- just a beguiling hint of scuzziness. Then it's back to the chorus to celebrate our heroine: "Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen (ahh ooooh) / Dancing queen, feel the beat of the tambourine (yea-ahh)." (Do I hear an echo of the Beatles in that "only seventeen" line?) The whole thing dances on the cusp of moral ambiguity, innocence and depravity held in the balance. Is the "queen" a woman, a drag queen, or the female monarch of Sweden? IRRELEVANT, I tell you! It's all about that crisp, taut dance beat, and how it can take over your cerebral cortex for three minutes and 52 seconds. (Check out this link to the invaluable Songfacts site to sample critical opinion.) If you can sit in your chair while this thing's playing, I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU.

20. "96 Tears" / ? and the Mysterians (1966)
Now THIS is what I think of when I think of a radio hit classic -- 2:57 of swampy fun, with an organ riff you cannot get out of your head.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 21-25

My second British Invasion -- those enchanted years at the end of the 70s and dawn of the 80s, when punk and New Wave were busy duking it out for musical supremacy. This was music that just crackled with fresh energy; every Tuesday held the promise of some new amazing LP that would blow my mind.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

21. "Pump It Up" / Elvis Costello (1978)
By the time Elvis Costello burst onto the scene, I had become an album buyer, not a singles buyer, and hardly ever listened to the radio; MTV hadn't yet materialized to propel singles with catchy videos to the top of the charts. But I need at least one token Elvis Costello single -- he's such a musical hero of mine -- so I'll choose "Pump It Up" in honor of his second album, This Year's Model, the LP that first introduced me to his spiky charms. In general I'm a deep-tracks album fan when it comes to Elvis,* but "Pump It Up" was widely played in the fall of 1978, at least in the bars I frequented; some clubs even played this primitive video. As a newly-minted Elvis* fanatic I was proud to watch him storm the shores of America. What a tight little rocker this is! It starts out emphatically, with brisk drums and bass, then layers on Telstar twangs of guitar, a barrage of funhouse organ, and finally Elvis's* vocals, a nonstop assault of aggression and malice. We couldn't decipher everything he spat out, I'll admit -- many evenings were spent with ears patiently bent to the stereo speakers, trying to work it all out. (New Wavers would never do anything so retro as print lyrics on album covers.) But certain phrases came through loud and clear: "She said that's that / I don't want to chitter-chat"; "There's nothing underhand / She wouldn't understand" ; or "She's been a bad girl / She's like a chemical / Though you try to stop it, / She's like a narcotic." (Watch out ladies, the skinny nerd in the glasses sees right through you.) Melody was replaced with a terse morse code of repeated notes and thrusting jabs of drums, bass, and guitar. When all else failed, we could certainly join in the head-banging chorus: "PUMP IT UP! when you don't really need it/ PUMP IT UP! until you can feel it." I didn't know what I was singing about -- drugs? sex? -- but I knew it had to be sung loud. Maybe not a feel-good singalong, but exhilarating? You bet.

22. "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" / "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" / Ian Dury and the Blockheads (1978)
My first couple of years in New York was a charmed era, musically speaking; riding the crest of the New Wave, we had so many clever, catchy bands to listen to. But I was always seduced by the wordsmiths, and there were some days when even Elvis* took a back seat to the razor-sharp wit of Mr. Ian Dury.

23. " A Message to You Rudy" / The Specials (1979)
With Elvis* as their godfather, the Specials got a shortcut onto my playlist in 1979. But it wasn't just the Elvis Connection; one listen to this track and we had to love this band, with their slappy ska rhythm, punk attitude, and pointed social commentary. How much had changed in the 10 years since The Foundations broke onto the charts; by 1979, all the cool bands rallied to the Rock Against Racism agenda, and times were ripe for a ska revival. What better trailblazers than this black-and-white band from Coventry, with their pork-pie hats and mohair suits? For at least a month after we discovered this album, my office mate Susan Roberts and I would drop this onto the turntable the minute we got home from work. That intro accordion would start its lazy wheeze, and we'd kick off the work heels and collapse gratefully onto my sway-backed sofa. I had no idea who "Rudy" was -- only later would I learn it was short for "rude boy," the 60s Jamaican equivalent of a hip-hop gangsta. The context made it clear, though: "Stop your messing around / Better think of your future / Time you straightened right out / Creating problems in town." (I could just picture a scene from that Jimmy Cliff movie The Harder They Come.) Despite a snappy horn section, the Specials' version sounded just amateur enough to be a credible voice from the slums. Terry Hall and Lynval Golding sing the lead together, but not quite together, and lay on the rude boy accent; the backing singers sound like they're way across the alley, kicking at cans; then the whole joint swings when the trombonist lays into his solo in the middle eight. (That would be guest star Rico Rodriguez, who played the same bit on Dandy Livingstone's 1967 original.) Yeah, yeah, the politics were there -- two years later when Brixton burst into riot, I instantly thought of this song. But who am I fooling? What I really loved about this track was simply that ska beat. That happy-go-lucky looseness was the best thing about this track -- how brilliant of producer Elvis* to just say no to slickness.

24. "Rock the Casbah" / The Clash (1982)
In theory, yes, I thought punk music was a great liberating force for popular music. In reality, most punk bands were too crude for my taste. (I'm thinking of a Stranglers show at the Roundhouse in 1977 . . . ) But I always had to make an exception for the Clash.

25. "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" / Dusty Springfield (1964)
Okay, so Dusty had nothing to do with New Wave or punk -- but then, she wasn't really British Invasion either, not in the classic sense. She was just one of the greatest girl singers ever, her voice pure Motown housed by accident in a nice Irish Catholic convent girl. For years, there was a funny sort of competition going on between Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, and Dionne Warwick to see who could be the foremost interpreter of Burt Bacharach/Hal David songs. (Later even Elvis* would give it a shot.) To me, though, there's no question that Dusty won that competition hands down. Memorable as their melodies may be, the point of a Bacharach/David song is always the tortured emotions -- break-ups, separations, dissolving marriages, stealthy lust. And come on, nobody did tortured emotions like Dusty did. The scenario here is all too familiar: Dusty's moping around the house after losing her lover. (Pair this with Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight" if you're really in the mood for self-pity.) "I just don't know what to do with myself," she sighs. " I'm so used to doing everything with you / Planning everything for two / And now that we're through . . . " I love how the lines get progressively shorter, until the final line weakly peters out; it perfectly mirrors how her life is closing in on itself. Even that little trumpet riff that punctuates the verse is a compressed version of that same melodic phrase. Yet she flings her voice into the crest of each line as if there's no tomorrow. "Going to the movies always makes me sad," she wails, "Parties make me feel as bad." She's out there, trying, but it's no use. And now, verse three, here comes the kicker, and it's quintessentially Dusty: "Baby, if your new love ever turns you down / Come on back, I will be around / Just waiting for you . . . " Only Dusty can make crawling back such a noble romantic gesture. The production is exquisite, with just enough strings and backing vocals to underscore the operatic shimmer of Dusty's voice. Oh, and that flagellating kick-drum! This is no time for half-emotions, my friends. Pull out all the stops.

* NOTE: On this blog, the single name "Elvis" will ALWAYS refer to Costello, not Presley.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 26-30

Looking at today's list, I'm struck by one similarity -- when each of these songs hit the airwaves, they sounded so new, so original, even so bizarre. These aren't necessarily artists I've clasped to my inmost heart of hearts -- they're not My Major Artists -- but I can't deny they are all brilliant. As evidence, I give you these specific singles, each of which galvanized a certain moment in my life in some weird and wonderful way.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

26. "Space Oddity" / David Bowie (1969)
Always ahead of the curve, Bowie was. The thing was, he was so damn clever, such a showman -- you could never have a fangirl crush on a guy this elusive, but you could certainly dwell within his fantasy worlds.

27. "Walk on the Wild Side" / Lou Reed (1972)
That same first trip to Europe, summer 1973: Leaving London and "Space Oddity" behind, my college friend Debbie and I headed for the Continent, armed with our Eurail passes and ready to see the "Wild World" that Cat Stevens had warned us about. HA! From predatory lechers in Italy to drug-infested hostels in Amsterdam, culminating in a student riot one afternoon in Paris -- store windows shattered, overturned cars set on fire, masses of gendarmes with nightsticks -- it was WAY more than we expected. Forget Cat Stevens; what we needed was Lou Reed. (Even better, Lou Reed as produced by David Bowie -- though it was years before I learned that connection.) We kept hearing this song in shops and cafes, instantly recognizable from that low, funky, boozy bassline. Bit by bit, we pieced together the gallery of misfits Lou described in his gravelly croak. We guessed that if we were Warhol insiders, we'd have recognized them -- Holly, Candy, Little Joe, Jackie, and (our favorite) "Sugar Plum Fairy came and hit the street / Looking for soul food and a place to eat." But whereas we'd felt we HAD to decode "American Pie," with "Walk On the Wild Side" it just didn't matter. We were venturing out of our comfort zone for the first time in our sheltered lives, and it was daring to sing along to a song that mentioned giving head and taking Valium -- or, most shocking of all, that referred to "colored girls," when we'd been schooled for years to say "black women." But hey, we didn't want to change genders or score drugs or become prostitutes. We just wanted to shuffle along those cobbled European streets to an American rhythm, singing along with the colored girls -- "Doo doo-doo doo de-doo-doo doo doo de-doo doo de-doo-doo doo dooooo." That hot sax solo, the surge of gospel choir -- it was the sound of America, like an anchor, keeping us tethered.

28. "Sweet Dreams / The Eurythmics (1983)
Ten years later, another song that dominated the airwaves, this time -- it being the 80s -- driven along by an obsessively repeated synthesizer riff. You KNOW that riff. It was mechanized, soulless, and yet it functioned perfectly as a bass line (Dave Stewart in fact invented the riff by playing a bass line backwards), stalking the underbelly of the song. Melody? Not much of that, just Annie Lennox's hard mannish voice toggling between the notes of a minor-key chord. "Sweet dreams are made of this / Who am I to disagree? / Travel the world and the seven seas / Everybody's looking for something" -- a scenario of hope and aspiration, turned to despair by that relentless automaton beat. A few whip-slap drum beats, and Annie's ravished wail floating in the background -- it was dark, haunting, anything but sweet. Even in the bridge, when Annie delivers advice ("Keep your head up, movin' on / Hold your head up, movin' on" -- is that Dave or just Annie's low voice on the call-and-response?), it's hardly cheery; I picture robots on an assembly line, hustled heartlessly along. Then there were the S&M overtones -- lines like "Some of them want to abuse you / Some of them want to be abused" -- even if it wasn't promoting kinky sex, it certainly held out a pessimistic view of human relationships. But it was a killer dance track, and a mesmerizing video (gorgeous androgynous Annie, with short red hair and a man's dark suit). And in the Eighties, that was what mattered. Compared to the frantic sex-drive and cheesy emotion of most disco tracks, the taut tension and jaded world-view of "Sweet Dreams" were downright bracing. With Annie in charge, the New Wavers could take over the dance floor for four minutes at least -- that was something.

29. "Layla" / Derek and the Dominos (1970)
Was Clapton God? I never thought so, until this song began to make me wonder.

30. "Mr. Dieingly Sad" / The Critters (1966)
Maybe producing a pop song this perfect required that this band should afterward simply disappear. . .

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 31-35

After the British Invasion petered out, I had to find my own way musically -- what a drag! As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, I was just the right age for brooding poetry, packed with social meaning. All right, all right, everybody in my college freshman dorm listened to exactly these same songs. That doesn't mean they weren't good songs, before they turned into cliches . . .

31. "The Sounds of Silence" / Simon & Garfunkel (1965)
"Sounds of Silence" was the Song That Would Not Die. I heard it first as a gentle acoustic number on Simon and Garfunkel's 1964 album Wednesday Morning 3 a.m.; as a wannabe folkie, I had all those early S&G records -- I even learned to play the guitar so I could fumble through various tunes. "Sounds of Silence" was clearly one of the stronger songs on the album, a melancholy meditation on the lack of communication in modern society. (Paul Simon says it was inspired by the Kennedy assassination, though that never registered with me -- was that what he meant by "the vision that was planted in my brain / Still remains / Within the sound of silence"?). Then a few months later, in September 1965, it emerged as a radio hit, with electric guitars and drums added, to make sure you wouldn't miss the swell of emotion on "'Fools said I 'you do not know / Silence like a cancer grows." I've read that it was remixed without Simon's permission while he was off in London, pondering what to do now that his folk duo had failed. He may have been surprised by the amped-up version, but he didn't refuse to cash the checks when it climbed to #1 on the charts in early 1966. The political preaching of the song found a ready audience: "And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls / And tenement halls / And echoed in the sounds of silence." Pretentious? We didn't know the word in 1965. Simon and Garfunkel quickly reunited, and in January 1966 they rushed out a new album, titled -- what else? -- The Sounds of Silence. Now jump forward to late 1967, when I began to see the trailer for a new movie: a young man in chinos, sitting aimlessly on the edge of a fountain on a college campus, accompanied by Simon and Garfunkel's hushed echoey vocals: "Hello darkness my old friend . . . " Man, I knew I had to see that movie. The Graduate laid down the template for my adolescent view of life; how apt that "Sounds of Silence" would be part of it.

32. "Wild World" / Cat Stevens (1971)
In my Indianapolis high school in 1971, Tea for the Tillerman was the album you had to own to even pretend to be cool. (We weren't hip enough to know the term "hip.") Cat Stevens' folky tracks were just a little snide, a little fey, full of longing for the open road and brooding about the generation gap -- perfect for college-bound suburban kids. I loved so many tracks from this album: "Miles From Nowhere," "Sad Lisa," 'On the Road To Find Out," "Father and Son" (the titles alone give you a good idea of this album's themes). Many people first fell for these songs in the classic black comedy Harold and Maude, but not me -- I liked Harold and Maude BECAUSE it featured Tea for the Tillerman songs. As the album's single, "Wild World" was a shade bouncier than the other tracks, but not much. I suppose you could call this a break-up song -- in verse one the singer wistfully says to his girlfriend, "Now that I've lost everything to you / You say you wanna start something new / And it's breakin' my heart you're leavin' / Baby, I'm grievin'" -- but it's a peculiarly bloodless break-up song. He's not angry, he's not even fighting to get her back. He's more like an older brother, gently advising her about the perils of life, because he doesn't want to see her hurt. (Most guys I know DO want their exes to get hurt.) Cat Stevens was the original Sensitive Male, inventing it as he went along. The arrangement is delicate, mostly piano and acoustic guitar (the chorus adds drums), with the slightest suggestion of reggae in the beat -- no wonder Jimmy Cliff scored a UK hit with his cover. Although Cat seemed to be warning us about the bigger world's dangers, for the half-dozen of us who actually left Indiana for college, it was like catnip. "Ooo baby, baby it's a wild world / It's hard to get by just upon a smile" -- the subtext to me was always, BRING IT ON!

33. "Fire and Rain" / James Taylor (1970)
I saw James Taylor in the spring of 1971 at the Coliseum in Indianapolis; I'd been mainlining his albums for almost a year, I couldn't wait to see him live. Tall, skinny, with long brown hair and a droopy mustache, dressed in faded blue denim -- he was a folksinger, yeah, but so much younger and more with-it than the Peter Paul and Mary types. His acoustic guitar playing was nimble indeed, but he wasn't above throwing drums and electric guitars on his tracks. I knew by then, of course, that James had briefly been in a mental hospital as a teenager; like most kids my age, I thought that was cool, proof of his sensitive soul. So as I pored over "Fire and Rain" -- and indeed I pored over it for months -- I was looking for the inside story. Verse one was clearly about a friend's death ("Just yesterday morning / They let me know you were gone / Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you"). Verse two is set in the depths of melancholy; naturally drugs were part of the equation ("My body's aching and my time is at hand"). In verse three, he's trying to get his head straight, taking long walks and making phone calls; the last line, "Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground" we all thought referred to a plane crash (not knowing about Taylor's failed earlier band, The Flying Machine). And then there was that apocalyptic chorus -- "I've seen fire and I've seen rain," a reference to electroshock therapy and the cold showers that follow it. From these fragments, I made up my own movie -- that Taylor had been in love with a fellow mental patient who had committed suicide, and the evil doctors had schemed to erase his memory of her with anti-depressants and incessant psychotherapy. (I must have just finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.) Yet that night, as I watched James Taylor sit on a stool performing this song -- flinching at the spotlight, gazing warily at the crowd -- I realized that this song was really just one long stream of navel-gazing self-pity. I should have turned off James Taylor completely at that moment, but of course I didn't. Something about his voice, that remarkable mix of cragginess and sweetness, had its hooks too deep in me by then; it still dives right past all my defenses. And I'm always struck by that moment of genuine sorrow and tenderness at the end of the chorus: "I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend / But I always thought that I'd see you again." That's put so exquisitely, so simply -- well, it still makes me cry.

34."It's Too Late" / Carole King (1971)
The opening act for James Taylor that night at the Coliseum was Carole King, a pairing inspired by the fact that James Taylor had just released a cover of Carole's song "You've Got A Friend." We were all so primed to see James Taylor; we had no idea who Carole King was. But I have to say, James set himself up with a hard act to follow. With a cloud of frizzy ringlets, wearing some sort of embroidered hippie blouse and a huge flowing skirt, Carole King took the stage by storm, pounding that piano commandingly, rocking out to tune after tune that we realized we knew. So THIS was the woman who'd written all those early 60s hits like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" and "Up On the Roof"? She won us over immediately, then launched into a string of newer songs that were instantly lovable. The very next day I ran out to buy Tapestry, her second solo album after years of being "just" a songwriter. Of course it went to college with me, and I swear, it was the one record that every woman in my freshman dorm owned. All those years of being a music fan, and I realized how few of the songs I'd taken to my heart were written by women. Carole King stepped in just in time, like a big sister laying down her lessons in life. "It's Too Late" offered so much more nuance than your usual break-up song. "Stayed in bed all morning just to pass the time / There's something wrong here, there can be no denying / One of us is changing, or maybe we've just stopped trying." For psychological acuteness, that can't be beat; I still think of it every time I lie in bed, fretting over a recent fight. And the resignation at the end of a flawed relationship (probably her split from ex-husband and creative partner Gerry Goffin): "It's too late, baby, now / It's too late / Though we really did try to make it / Something inside has died, and I can't / Hide and I just can't fake it." (A triple internal rhyme!) Here my friends and I stood, on the verge of "real" life; Carole King had been there and done that. On my list of Important Life Albums, Tapestry remains a constant.

35. "American Pie" / Don McLean (1972)
Is this a good song? I have no idea, and I'll bet if you were of a certain age in 1972, you don't know either. The thing was, it was being played everywhere -- at least on college campuses -- and we were all abuzz, trying to decode the cryptic references in the song. I don't suppose Don McLean had any idea how irresistible this would be to a generation who'd been weaned on rock and roll the way we Beatle Babies were. Rock music mattered to us in a way it hadn't to previous generations. For starters, we all knew that "the day the music died" was the day that Buddy Holly and Richie Valens died in a plane crash -- the fact that some of us had never heard of Buddy Holly until that moment didn't mitigate the haunting impact of that line. But then we had to puzzle out the rest. Who were the jester, the king, and the queen? (Bob Dylan, Elvis, and -- what girl singer?) Who were the father, the son, and the holy ghost? (Wikipedia tells me it was Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, and Allan Ginsburg -- again, people I had never heard of in 1972). Good that he mentioned John Lennon ("while Lennon read a book by Marx") as well as "Helter Skelter" (thereby referencing both the Beatles and Charles Manson in one fell swoop). And there were the Stones, appearing as Jack Flash and Satan. But there was so much else, and we ate it up, singing lustily along to the chorus, "And we were singing / Bye bye Miss American Pie / Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry / Those good ole boys were drinking whiskey and rye, and singing / This'll be the day that I die / This'll be the day that I die..." We ALL knew those lyrics, and we fell into them with relief, having gotten lost as hell in those interminable word-crammed verses. McLean even snuck in tricks like slowing down the tempo and hushing the volume for later repetitions of the verse. Yes, he had a lovely folkie voice; yes, he played the guitar just fine. None of that matters. Like the Paul Is Dead hoax, "American Pie" knit our generation together in an underground movement, information passed from one kid to another, often at night over guttering candles with a joint smouldering in the ashtray. I still can't hear this song without getting a shiver up my spine.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 36-40

By coincidence, all of today's songs were from late 70s or early 80s New Wave. I had just moved to New York, I had money to go to clubs and concerts, and I proceeded to do so with total abandon. These aren't just singles for me -- I bought the artists' albums too, I saw them perform live, and my associations run a lot deeper than the Obvious Hits.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

36. "Steppin' Out" / Joe Jackson (1982)
Oh, Joe, Joe, Joe. We'd heard his earlier hits, pleasing pop tracks like "Is She Really Going Out With Him?", but when Night and Day came out, I realized we were in the presence of An Important Artist.

37. "Psycho Killer" / The Talking Heads (1977)
Having moved to Manhattan, I settled into a pack of music-loving friends -- all editorial peons at various magazines in Midtown -- who'd meet up after work on summer evenings and head for Central Park and the Dr. Pepper Music Festival at Wollman Rink. On August 16, 1979, we were dying to see the Talking Heads perform their geeky brand of art-school rock. More Songs About Buildings and Food had just dropped; we were mad for it, especially their herky-jerky cover of Al Green's "Take Me To the River." That night, however, it was this song -- their 1977 debut single -- that really riveted me (the Summer of Sam was only two years past; it still touched a nerve). Though there were three other band members on stage -- Chris on drums, Jerry on organ, waiflike Tina on bass -- you really couldn't tear your gaze away from David Byrne, like a stick-figure in brown trousers and short-sleeved plaid shirt. It wasn't so much that he had stage presence; it was more the utter lack of stage presence, as he clutched the mike stand, stared at the crowd with his enormous Seth Brundle eyes, scrubbed a few harsh notes out of his guitar, and yelped these strange lyrics in a strangulated voice. "Psycho killer!" he gasped, "qu'est-ce que c'est?" (I'd be lying if I said that David Byrne's French was as enticing as Paul McCartney's in "Michelle"). Then, over nothing but persistent drum thuds, he stammered like Otis Redding on angel dust, "Fa-fa-fa fa fa-fa fa-fa-fa fa, better / Run run run run run run run away." Who had any idea what it meant? But that didn't stop us from singing along like mad, and flinging our heads up and down in ritual New Wave spastic dance jerks.

38. "Love Shack" / The B-52s (1989)
I always associate these two bands, though on the surface they were total opposites -- uptight arty intellectuals (Talking Heads) versus giddy drama queens (the B-52's). Maybe it's because we saw them both in the same week in 1980, again at the Dr. Pepper Festival in Central Park (and me with a completely different boyfriend). One thing you have to say for the B-52s, they're always fun to watch, with Fred Schneider doing his lounge lizard act in front, beehived Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson bouncing around madly on either side. I always felt somehow that they were my friends, kindred spirits, like so many of us outsiders who came to New York to have fun as much as to make good. I too grieved in 1985, when Cindy's brother Ricky Wilson -- whose dynamic guitar work supplied most of the band's instrumentals -- died of AIDS-related illness. The B-52s could have packed it in after that; they'd pretty much done the novelty act to death. But wonder of wonders, they didn't; Keith Strickland just moved from drums to guitar and the carnival kept on going. Instead of high-concept songs about outer space, novelty dances, and crustaceans, they just relaxed into their Southern dance groove. Although the album Cosmic Thing came along much later, to me it's the fullest expression of who my friends the B-52s really are. In "Deadbeat Club" we joined the girls as they danced in the garden in torn sheets in the rain; in "Love Shack" we jumped in the back of Fred's car ("Hop in my Chrysler, it's as big as a whale / And it's about to set sail!") and cruised down some back country Georgia road to a dilapidated juke joint. There's no story, just impressionistic details flung around (if this were a film, it'd be shot with a handheld camera) -- there's a line outside, a secret knock at the door, and everybody inside is peeling off their clothes and dancing with total abandon. A tinny surf guitar jangles, and there's party glitter everywhere -- mattress, highway, front porch, hallway. Fred, Kate, and Cindy hand the vocal duties back and forth, their overlapping phrases really more percussion than anything. "The whole shack shimmies!" Fred exclaims; "Everybody's movin', everybody's groovin' baby," Kate and Cindy croon in harmony; "funky little shack, FUNK-y little shack," Fred raps out. They begin to tap quietly on the door, but the tom-toms build and build, and they're knocking louder and louder ("bang, bang, bang, on the door baby"), until Fred cries, "You're WHAT" and Cindy sasses back, "Tin RROOOFF, rusted!" And no, that phrase didn't mean she was pregnant -- Cindy claims she just made it up, picturing the rusty roof of the original cabin. It's all delirious nonsense, but sung with deep affection. "Love Shack" turned out to be their one big mainstream hit. But even in 1980, the band we saw in Central Park was the same whacked-out crew of kids from the love shack, cruising north in the Chrysler. The party still hasn't stopped.

39. "Whip It" / Devo (1980)
The term "novelty song" should have applied to this out-of-left-field 1980s hit -- but we New Wave insiders knew that its high-concept kitsch was the Next Big Thing.

40. "Roadrunner (Once)" / Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (1976)
Funny that I had to go all the way to England to hear this eccentric, magical record by Boston's own Jonathan Richman. The nascent New Wave scene in London went mad for this single in 1977; being the only person in the room who'd actually driven on Route 128 and gone to the Stop and Shop gave me major cachet. It was like some eerie late-night connection . . . .

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 41-45

Ah -- a tale of Five Obsessions. Five fleeting obsessions perhaps, but powerful while they lasted.

41. "Get Back" / The Beatles (1969)
The Beatles, of course, are one of the major obsessions of my life. But I'm thinking of a more particular obsession here -- my obsession with the film Let It Be. In May 1970 my friend Karen Butcher and I went to the Vogue Theatre in Indianapolis (then a real movie theater, not a music club like it is now) to see Let It Be the weekend it opened. We saw every showing that first Saturday, in fact, hiding out in the bathroom between screenings so the ushers wouldn't throw us out. Slipping back into our red plush seats in the dark, we avidly drank in every mumbled line of dialogue, every grainy shot of Our Boys. That climactic scene on the rooftop of the Apple headquarters on Savile Row riveted us, as the band played an unannounced LIVE BEATLES CONCERT in the middle of the London working day. (Can you imagine opening your office window and hearing that?) Karen and I were no casual Beatles fans -- throughout that next summer, we'd spend countless evenings sitting on Karen's front porch, holding imaginary conversations with our future husbands John Lennon (Karen's) and Paul McCartney (mine). (I'm not sure how we killed off Linda Eastman and Yoko Ono, but I'm sure it was bloodless and legal.) We lived in that movie. Of course, we already knew "Get Back" -- it had been released as a single way back in the spring of 1969, even before Abbey Road. With its chugging locomotive rhythm track and blithe McCartney melody, not to mention Billy Preston tripping all over on the keyboards, it teased us with riddling character portraits -- loner JoJo rambling from Tucson to California, transsexual Loretta Martin -- everyone trying to get back to where they once belonged. Hearing it resurface in Let It Be was like meeting an old friend. Now, years later, I know that the Beatles actually recorded Let It Be first, planning it as a back-to-basics reunion titled Get Back; it was still in production when -- having moved on to Abbey Road -- they decided to split. Shrewdly, they finished Abbey Road, then recast the Get Back material as their farewell, Let It Be. All along, we fans were kept in the dark, ignorant of how carefully the break-up was being orchestrated. But by the time Karen and I sat in that movie theater -- watching them on that rooftop, Paul with his bushy black beard and John in his round spectacles and short fur coat, peeling off a rare guitar lead -- we knew we'd never see them again. And at the end, John's sardonic sign-off -- "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and I hope we pass the audition" -- well, crikey.

42. "Message In a Bottle" / The Police (1979)
Let's just get it right out there: Sting was the hottest guy in rock music in 1979. Those wary eyes, that sulky sneer . . . and there I was, with my longtime weakness for bassists. Against the hard-edged sounds of punk, metal, and disco, the reggae groove of the Police almost single-handedly kept the roll in rock 'n' roll for a couple of years. It's hard to believe that a three-piece combo could create a sound this full; that melodic, lounging bass line was essential. Their tracks were tight, lithe, muscular, but never felt stripped-down. Add to that the reverbed, minor-key spookiness of tracks like "Roxanne," "Don't Stand So Close to Me," and "Walking on the Moon," and there was really no way I could resist. By the time they hit it big in the US, the Police were cranking out sunnier, blander easy-listening tracks like "Every Breath You Take" and "Everything She Does Is Magic," and I lost all interest. But when this song came along -- their first #1 hit in the UK, from their second LP Reggatta de Blanc -- I was completely under its spell. Fine songcraft, developing the image of a castaway shipwrecked on some desert island (in the Caribbean, from the sound of it), sending out an "SOS to the world" in countless pleading bottles. Sting's mopey wail fit this song perfectly, declaring, "Love can mend your life but / Love can break your heart" (our first clue that the island is a metaphor for heartbreak -- the old John Donne "no man is an island" line). And then after the instrumental break, in the third verse, the money shot: "Woke up this morning / Don't believe what I saw / A hundred million bottles / Washed up on the shore." Can't you just see them, camera panning out to show them all, bobbing in the surf? A lesser songwriter might have turned this into a happy ending, but not Sting -- he interprets it: "Seems I'm not alone / In being alone / A hundred million castaways / Looking for a home." Everybody's lonely, the message goes; everybody hurts. But me personally? All I could think about was mopping the tears of poor shipwrecked Sting, brushing the sand from his blond hair, tasting the salt on his sun-bronzed skin. . .

43. "If This Is It" / Huey Lewis & the News (1984)
Another case of fangirl lust. Huey Lewis wasn't my usual type -- I favored long-haired skinny Brits, not clean-cut virile preppie types from California -- but that hoarse edge to his voice snagged my heart. (His resemblance to Jeff Bridges didn't hurt, either.) Huey Lewis flirted at the edges of New Wave hipsterdom -- his original band Clover, sans Huey, backed Elvis Costello on his first album -- but his essential talent was for clean radio pop, with enough of a retro gloss to cash in on the Eighties' 1950s nostalgia. For a while there, Huey & Co. were just cranking out the hits -- "The Heart of Rock and Roll," "Power of Love," "I Want a New Drug," "Heart and Soul" -- all lively, well-crafted tracks that got tons of radio play. No less than four hit singles were released from their megatuple platinum LP Sports; it would've been the year's #1 album if not for Thriller. In the early 80s MTV exposure was also critical, and the video for "If This It It" is a classic, a stylish sitcom set on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. (Remember the band, buried in sand up to their necks, doing the doowop harmonies on the chorus?) It was all mainstream as hell, and you know me, mainstream is not usually my thing. Besides, in 1984 I got engaged and then married; naively I assumed that the fangirl part of me would now be locked up in a streamer trunk, along with the faded corsages and torn ticket stubs. But there we were, in September 1984, on our honeymoon, a tour of quaint New England inns (no Poconos heart-shaped tubs for us!). And every time we turned on the car radio -- I'm telling you, every time -- there was Huey's pleading rasp, urging me to reconsider, "If this is it / Please let me know / If this ain't love, you better let me know!" I didn't reconsider, of course; I had no reason to. No matter how many times Huey cajoled, "Girl don't lie, and tell me that you need me / Girl don't cry, and tell me nothing's wrong." (Oh, how he growled with frustration on the "rl" of "girl!). I'd look out the car window, press my knees together. But I knew that the fangirl was still in the back seat; she wasn't going ANYWHERE.
44. "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" / Herman's Hermits (1965)
My first post-Paul McCartney crush, fed by a crush of hype in Tiger Beat and Sixteen magazines. But oh, Peter Noone was adorable in 1965, with his crooked front tooth, his shiny gray eyes, and that sleek mop of fair hair. He may have been a manufactured teeny-bopper phenom, but he was MY manufactured teeny-bopper phenom, and he actually had the singing talent -- not to mention the acting chops -- to pull it off. Hell, he's still out there flogging these oldies. (And still adorable.) Herman's Hermits actually had two careers -- an initial run in the UK with a string of respectable R&B numbers, then a crossover to the US when they increasingly specialized in goofy English music-hall songs like "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" and "Henry The Eighth." Released in January 1965, "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" marked the crossover -- it climbed to #2 on the US charts, but in the UK it was only the B-side to "Silhouettes." All I knew was, it was track one on their second US album, Herman's Hermits on Tour (I've still got my battered copy, with its cheesy cover graphic of the band inserted into a hot-air balloon). Producer Mickey Most was taking no chances; "Can't You Hear My Heartbeat" features the same stompy beat and cheery girl-group-style harmonies as the Hermits' debut single "Something Good." The song was written to order by John Carter and Ken Lewis, incidentally the backing vocalists on the Who's "Can't Explain," who also sang in their own group The Ivy League -- remember "Tossing and Turning?" I loved Herman's guttural Manchester vowels as he sang, "Cos you're the one I lo-ove," but the best part is that little cry at the end of the bridge, when he sings, "I get the feeling, you're ooooh-wee (ah!)" He'd cock his head, hook his thumbnail on that crooked tooth, and all us little fanbabies would just dissolve. . . .

45. "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" / Stevie Wonder (1974)
If Jeff Bridges gets the Academy Award for Crazy Heart this year -- and oh, how I hope he does -- it won't just be because he was brilliant in Crazy Heart, though of course he was. It'll be because he's been brilliant in every single damn movie he's made since his 1971 debut in The Last Picture Show. Same thing here with Stevie Wonder. No single Stevie Wonder track stands out enough to make it into my Top Ten, but Stevie is so close to my heart, he had to be on here somewhere. For sheer musicality, nobody (except maybe Paul McCartney) can equal the guy. But which single to write about? "Uptight (Everything's Alright)"? "Superstition"? "Livin' for the City"? "I Wish"? "Part-Time Lover"? It's an impossible choice. But in the end, the Stevie Wonder LP I loved most was 1973's Innervisions, at the apex of his amazing streak from Talking Book through Songs in the Key of Life. It came along the spring of my junior year, when I had just started editing the college newspaper, was proposing my senior thesis, was in the thick of deciding where my life should go (like I've EVER figured that out.) Some days the only way to survive was to lock my dorm room door and put Innervisions on my turntable. By the time "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" came along -- side two, track four -- I'd be lost in Wonder. That crazy tango intro, with Stevie muttering some jive-ass hustle ("Paris, Beirut, Iraq, Iran ... you know, I speak very very fluent Spanish!"), morphing magically into a smooth-as-silk samba. "Everybody's got a thing / But some don't know how to handle it / Always reachin' out in vain / Accepting things not worth having" -- gee, was that my life or what? And there was Stevie, with those long, caressing, overlapping lines of the jazzy chorus, reassuring me: "Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama /Cause I'll be standing on the side /While you check it out." Lyrics aren't Stevie's strength (again, like Paul McCartney) but even an English major like me can forgive a little verbal fuzziness when the sentiment is so beautiful. Stevie in the studio must have been like a kid in a candy shop, delighting in how many musical textures he could pile on, pouring it all into one richly complicated groove. And soaring above it all, his soothing vocals: "Everybody needs a change / A chance to check out the new" (or "loo," as I always heard it). "But you're the only one to see / The changes you take yourself throo-oo-oo-oo-oo-ough," ringing the chord changes on that "through." I can feel myself relax, even now; I can breathe again. Better than yoga, Stevie.