100 favorite songs of all time (Part 6)

This post is part of a series counting down my favorite songs of all time. Follow the links at the bottom of this post to read related posts.

75. Billie Holiday – You Don’t Know What Love Is

If you’re in the mood for a good brood, “Lady in Satin” should be your album of choice. It’s a powerful testament to the inevitable defeat faced by all living things. Forgive the hyperbole, but the sentiment is undeniable. Holiday lived a rough life and on this album, it shows. Her voice became tenuous toward the end of her life and these songs are fragile portraits of that hard-lived life. Yet, even as the strength of her voice weakened, her phrasing was as strong as ever. The fragility of her voice gives these American Songbook classics a unique temperament and added character. With her sullen croak, she transforms a dreary tune like “You Don’t Know What Love Is” into a song for the end of the world.

74. Sun Ra – Love in Outer Space

This song comes in a million iterations. There are abrasive free jazz versions, coordinated big band attacks and a few dozen lo-fi whoppers that go in diverging directions. I’m not sure which specific version is my favorite, but I do know that the first time I heard it was on the album “Something Else,” a late-era Sun Ra album I found at the public library at an impressionable age. Listening to that album was the first time I really tried to grok jazz. I recall buying a copy of the Sun Ra album “Atlantis” not long after that, which is pretty much the jazz equivalent of diving into the deep end. I didn’t know what to make of it. I’m still not sure I know what to make of “Atlantis,” but this song has always been a keeper.

73. Erik Satie – Gymnopédie, No. 1

Classical music is a pretty foreign thing to me. It fascinates me, but I’m afraid it’s a little bit over my head. It’s unfair to view any genre from such a monolithic viewpoint, though. Naturally, there are a few classical songs that have resonated with me over the years. Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies” pieces are probably one of the few that I do find truly affecting. I don’t know where I heard it for the first time, probably in some movie. Due to the starkness of the composition, it can be difficult to listen to, but the beauty is tremendous. As an aside, Satie also fits my ideal description of an artist: unappreciated in his lifetime, died destitute and drunk. Oh, but if we could all only go out like that.

72. LiLiPUT – DC-10

LiLiPUT songs don’t make sense. They aren’t supposed to. That’s why I love them. Blasts of noise intermingle with lyrics chanted in a language that exists somewhere in the neighborhood of Swiss-German and some kind of bastard English parlance. Each song is cobbled together with punk rock amateurism and the zest of a five year old hopped up on a fatal dose of Pixy Stix. I would describe “DC-10” as one of their more accessible songs, but I suppose accessible is a subjective term. And by God, listen to that sax.

71. The Olivia Tremor Control – California Demise, Pt. 3

These guys. When this band reunited back in 2005, I was ecstatic. Seeing them perform at the Great American Music Hall was probably one of the more memorable moments from that year. I usually don’t remember the details of events, but do I recall stumbling out of the venue that night and nearly tumbling into a pimp and his whores. Anyway, this song, I don’t know what to say about it. You could write this band off as a Beatles rip-off, but that’s just a cop out. These guys rock a mean banjo and wander the dangerous terrain known as Theremincore.

1-5 | 6-10 | 11-15 | 16-20 | 21-25 | 26-30 | 31-35 | 36-40 | 41-45 | 46-50 | 51-55 | 56-60 | 61-65 | 66-70 | 71-75 | 76-80 | 81-85 | 86-90 | 91-95 | 96-100 |