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. . .

"Mr. Dyingly Sad" / The Critters

Talk about pure pop gems. When this song came out in the summer of 1966, all I knew was that it had that swoony sound I'd loved in Chad & Jeremy's "Willow Weep For Me." Hey, I was a drippy adolescent girl; this was just the sort of song I wanted to play on long summer nights, mooning over some boy who didn't know I existed.

And then the song disappeared . . . and the band disappeared . . . and the Summer of Love hit and I forgot all about "Mr. Dyingly Sad." (Apparently spelled "Dieingly," or so the internet tells me, though that would be wrong -- if I could only find my old single I'd prove it!) When I heard it again about a year ago, it hit my ears like a whiff of Oh De London! cologne -- by which I mean, the pure distilled essence of the mid-60s. Now I learn what happened: that half of this band -- a bunch of high school friends from New Jersey, several of whom went to Villanova together -- got shipped out to Vietnam before their first album was even released. There's a classic case of bad timing for you.

The song was written by lead singer Don Ciccone (who years later did a tour of duty as bassist with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons -- once a Jersey boy, always a Jersey boy). God, his tenor voice was perfect for this song, mellifluous and earnest and just slightly breathy. It's like one of those Clairol commercials with sunshot women in white dresses running slow-mo through a meadow, their blond tresses bouncing (as opposed to the Tampax ads where they caper in white slacks down a beach). "Just a breeze will muss your hair," he begins adoringly, over a gentle samba beat with a touch of Latin percussion. "But you smile away each little care / And if the rain should make you blue / You say tomorrow is anew." It seems all so perfect. SO WHY IS HE SAD?

Yes, she's the perfect girl, as he describes in affected poetical word order ("Blue be your eyes, blonde your hair"). But underneath this portrait of WASPy perfection, the diminished and seventh chords, the achingly sweet backup harmonies, hint at something fragile and evanescent. Sure, she may be "mystifyingly glad", but there he is, her rhyming opposite: "I'm Mr. Dieingly Sad." And that dichotomy gives this song all the tension it needs, like a grain of sand grinding away inside the oyster shell.

It's the change of seasons, you see -- part of that time-honored pop tradition of the end-of-summer song ("See You In September," Chad & Jeremy's "Summer Song," "A Summer Place," "All Summer Long" by the Beach Boys). He already knows it's coming, and he can't get his mind off it -- because the end of summer inevitably means being separated from her. (That's the beauty of summer romances -- they always end too soon, before life cruds them up.) "And when the leaves begin to fall / Answering old winter's call / I feel my tears, they fall like rain / Weeping forth the sad refrain." Okay, so it's self-consciously poetic -- but that slots right into the adolescent mindset. "Blue, dark, and dim it may seem," he moans, depressive-in-training that he is; "You mark a grin, a moonbeam / Brightens your smile." Forget the stilted grammar; the images are hazy, soft-focus beautiful, underscoring the cruel irony: The happier she gets, the sadder he gets. He just can't stand it that she's not miserable about the impending end of summer. The impending end of their time together.

The bridge slides into even more minor chords, as he mournfully resists her attempts to cheer him up: "You say, 'Take my hand and walk with me / Wake this land and stop the sea / Show me love, unlock / All doors / I'm yours." She's doing everything she can, offering her body to him -- and all he can do is mope. What a sensitive guy!

"Then the tide rolls up to shore," he sets the scene for his final verse; "I whisper low, 'I love you more / More than even you could know'." He's finally ready to take her up on her offer -- solemnly, of course, because he's a nice guy, not some cad who'll take advantage of her. (Thirteen-year-old girls cannot resist this line.) "Adore me, do, so I could show / I'm so mystifyingly glad / Not Mr. Dieingly Sad." Yes! What a neat resolution! It's within her power to transform him! What girl doesn't love that idea?

I know, I know, I can't help making fun of it -- all the pop cliches, falling neatly into line. But you know what? The song still works. For all its lush dopiness, that yearning vocal and those falsetto harmonies weave their end-of-summer spell all over again. Let's suspend our cynical selves for just a minute and admit it: Running along a beach hand-in-hand with someone you love is still a bittersweet thrill. I love a tough-minded relationship analysis as much as the next person, but the soaring melody here, paired with those rueful close-clustered chord changes, works its emotional magic. Don Ciccone may not be a genius, but he struck gold with this little number.

Mr. Dyingly Sad video