The Greatest Songs of All Time

My favorite song at the moment is “Circus” by Britney Spears.  Yes, I admit it, I have always been a big fan of Ms. Spears ever since she danced around in a Catholic school girl uniform in “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”  (That’s what 12 years of Catholic school will do for you, folks.  You emerge very smart, but totally dysfunctional.)  I was even one of the few people who thought Britney looked just fine when she made her infamous appearance on the MTV Music Awards last year.  Let’s see you pump out two babies and then dance around in a skin-tight costume!   

Like Britney’s best work, “Circus” is three-and-a-half minutes of pure bubble gum dance pop.  It also features Britney’s speaking voice, which always sounds a bit weird.  At a certain point in the song, for example, she says, “Let me see what you can do,” but it doesn’t sound quite right.  “Circus” also has lyrics that don’t quite fit, but Britney MAKES them fit by changing the emphasis in certain words, another one of her signatures.  “I’m like a PER-former, the dance floor is my stage,” she sings, putting the accent in the wrong place.  Ah, well.  It’s a dance song, for God’s sake. 

As much as I love “Circus,” it does not make my top eight list – or my top eight HUNDRED list, for that matter – of The Greatest Songs of All Time (not to be confused with my recent post discussing The Greatest DANCE Songs of All Time).  Here, in no particular order, are the songs that I love the best:

• “Boys of Summer,” Don Henley – This lyric has influenced my life a great deal: “Out on the road today, I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.  A little voice inside my head said, ‘Don’t look back.  You can never look back.’”  I try very hard to never look back.  The future is so much more appealing.   
• “Let’s Go,” The Cars – There’s something about this song that just makes me very happy.  I like the nightlife, baby!
• “Take Me Home,” Phil Collins – By contrast, there’s something about this song that makes me very sad.  As I’ve written previously, my favorite word is “home” and this song is all about wanting to get back home and it is beautiful and wistful.
• “Wanted Dead or Alive,” Bon Jovi – OK, I absolutely LOVE Bon Jovi and I think this is their best song by far.  “I’ve seen a million faces/And I rocked them all.”  Yes, boys.  Yes.
• “Holding Back the Years,” Simply Red – The vocal on this song is just killer, especially when he wails, “Holdin’, holdin’, holdin’, I…” and holds the “I” for about 20 minutes. 
• “Promises in the Dark,” Pat Benatar – I love it when there is a count down or count up in a song and I love the part in this song when one of the band members counts, away from the microphone, “One, two, three, four…” before Pat kicks it back in and finishes the damn thing.
• “Things Can Only Get Better,” Howard Jones – I am a glass-half-empty kind of guy, but for these four minutes my cup runneth over.  “And do you feel scared? I do/But I won’t stop and falter.”  Me, neither, Howie.
• “Born to Run,” Bruce Springsteen – Yes, this is on everyone’s top ten list, but it deserves to be.  If an alien landed in my apartment and asked me to play one song that embodies the human experience, I would say, “Sit down, Spaceman,” and crank this one to eleven.
• “It Takes Two,” Rob Base – This one topped the list of my Greatest Dance Songs of All Time and it is SO DAMN GOOD that it earns a place on this list, too. 

So there you have ‘em.  The Elite Eight.  Which ones did I miss?

Tags: best songs, britney spears, bruce springsteen, don henley, greatest songs, howard jones, pat benatar, simply red, the cars