Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Songs

A friend sent me a bunch of youtube links to his favorite songs recently -- it made me curious how many of my favorite tracks were on youtube. So I went looking.

In most cases you probably don't want to watch the video. Watching the First Class "Beach Baby" video recently was one of those mistakes that's likely to haunt me for a while -- the "boy next door/The sun-tanned crew-cut all-american male" is, it turns out, a goofy looking guy with a Monkees haircut. It's not often I wish someone looked like Mike Love, American Asshole, but in this case it would have been an improvement.

The top 10 were mostly there. I'll link in the rest another day (some are linked already.) Where studio versions aren't available I'll link in an alternate version if it's of close quality.

TOP TEN
Thunder Road (Live 75-85) ~~ Bruce Springsteen


Will You Love Me Tomorrow ~~ Shirelles


Don't Worry Baby ~~ The Beach Boys


The Heart Of The Matter ~~ Don Henley (alt live version, but really nice)


O-o-h Child ~~ Five Stairsteps


Dreams ~~ Fleetwood Mac (Warner Music Group apparently don't want this, or much of anything else, on Youtube. This was the closest I could find -- Stevie is a babe, but the song is not the best version. They also took down the copy of "Silver Spring" I linked in on this blog a while back, the live version from "The Dance." A lot of what's missing below is WMG. Update: Apparently some WMG is available on Myspace. I found "Silver Spring" there.)


Here's another version of Dreams, from "The Dance." Still not great, but maybe better than the above. I'm not sure there's ever been a great live version of this.

Watching The Wheels ~~ John Lennon


Bat Out Of Hell ~~ Meat Loaf (opens oddly, but the song is there, and Mr. Loaf is young and not yet 500 pounds.)


You Used To Love To Dance ~~ Melissa Etheridge


Angel ~~ Sarah McLachlan


THE REST, with most links another day
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover ~~ Paul Simon (WMG; I suppose the live version I linked isn't as bad as the Jolie Holland performance I used below.)
A Long December ~~ Counting Crows
A Rock n Roll Fantasy ~~ The Kinks
Accidentally Like A Martyr ~~ Warren Zevon (Click on the 3rd video listed.)
Across The Border ~~ Bruce Springsteen
Ain't No Sunshine ~~ Bill Withers (nice live version)
All I Want To Do ~~ Sheryl Crow
Amazing Grace ~~ Joan Baez (no good version -- anywhere. Ever. If I hadn't downloaded this many years ago while searching for various copies of Amazing Grace, I'd have no idea it existed. I've run into a bunch of versions of AG sung by Baez, but never the right one.)
America ~~ Simon & Garfunkel (WMG)
American Pie ~~ Don McClean
Angels, The ~~ Melissa Etheridge
Atlantic City ~~ Bruce Springsteen
Ball And Chain ~~ Social Distortion (pretty good performance video)
Ballad of John and Yoko ~~ The Beatles
Beach Baby ~~ First Class (found a version without video. You're welcome.)
Boy In The Bubble ~~ Paul Simon (WMG)
Boys Of Summer ~~ Don Henley
Chain, The ~~ Fleetwood Mac (WMG)
Chuck E.'s in Love ~~ Rickie Lee Jones
Comfortably Numb ~~ Pink Floyd
Coming Around Again ~~ Carly Simon
Common People (Feat. Joe Jackson) ~~ William Shatner
Cum On Feel the Noize ~~ Quiet Riot
Danny Boy (the Derry air) ~~ Sinead O'Connor & Davy Spillane
Desperado ~~ The Eagles
Desperados Under The Eaves ~~ Warren Zevon
Devil Went Down to Georgia ~~ Charlie Daniels Band
Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes ~~ Paul Simon
Don't Give Up (with Kate Bush) ~~ Peter Gabriel
Down To The River To Pray ~~ Alison Krauss
Dust In The Wind ~~ Kansas
End Of The Innocence ~~ Don Henley
Enter Sandman ~~ Metallica
Everybody Knows ~~ Leonard Cohen
First Cut Is The Deepest ~~ Rod Stewart
For My Wedding ~~ Don Henley
Free Fallin' ~~ Tom Petty
Georgia on My Mind ~~ Ray Charles
Go Your Own Way ~~ Fleetwood Mac
Gold Dust Woman ~~ Fleetwood Mac
Goodbye California ~~ Jolie Holland (a barely acceptable live version)
Graceland ~~ Paul Simon
Hot For Teacher ~~ Van Halen (I don't feel tardy)
Hotel California ~~ The Eagles
How You Remind Me ~~ Nickelback
I Love LA ~~ Randy Newman
I Will Never Be The Same ~~ Melissa Etheridge
If It Makes You Happy ~~ Sheryl Crow
If You Don't Know Me by Now ~~ Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes
I'm Comin' ~~ Will Smith
Keep Me In Your Heart ~~ Warren Zevon
Kiss The Girl ~~ Samuel E. Wright
Landslide ~~ Fleetwood Mac
Leaving on a Jet Plane ~~ Chantal Kreviazuk (Affleck warning)
Live and Let Die ~~ Paul McCartney (decent live version)
Lola ~~ The Kinks
London Calling ~~ The Clash
Love And Death And An American Guitar ~~ Jim Steinman (an OK live version)
Loves Me Like a Rock ~~ Paul Simon
Mack The Knife ~~ Bobby Darin
Mama I'm Comin' Home ~~ Ozzy Osbourne
Me And Bobby McGee ~~ Janis Joplin
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) ~~ Marvin Gaye
Mohammed's Radio ~~ Warren Zevon (WMG.)
My Eyes Adored You ~~ Frankie Valli
Never Gonna Score Speech ~~ Beavis and Butthead (this is the actual clip -- I have no idea what the show is it's set to, but it's kinda funny)
New York Minute ~~ Don Henley
Nine Million Bicycles ~~ Katie Melua
No Souvenirs ~~ Melissa Etheridge
Not Ready To Make Nice ~~ Dixie Chicks (freaky video, and I think I like it)
Only the Strong Survive ~~ Jerry Butler
Part of Your World ~~ Jodi Benson
Push ~~ Matchbox Twenty (On Joost; you have to sit through an ad first)
Rebel Yell ~~ Billy Idol
Revolution ~~ The Beatles
Right Through You ~~ Alanis Morissette (decent live version)
River (Live 75-85) ~~ Bruce Springsteen (long intro w/story about his father. I said to a friend recently that most men had daddy issues; either from not having had one ... or from having had one.)
Science Fiction/Double Feature ~~ Richard O'Brien
Secret Heart ~~ Feist
Silent Legacy ~~ Melissa Etheridge
Silly Love Songs -- Paul McCartney

Silver Springs (The Dance) ~~ Fleetwood Mac (on MySpace)


Slip Slidin' Away ~~ Paul Simon
Smells Like Teen Spirit ~~ Nirvana (Cheerleaders of Anarchy)
Somebody To Love ~~ Queen
Spaceship ~~ Angie Aparo
Sunset Grill ~~ Don Henley
Suspicious Minds ~~ Elvis Presley
Take It to the Limit (Live Farewell) ~~ The Eagles
Under the Bridge ~~ Red Hot Chili Peppers
What's Going On ~~ Marvin Gaye
Who Wants to Live Forever ~~ Queen
Why Don't You Get a Job? ~~ Offspring (one of the tracks where you could watch the video)
With a Little Luck ~~ Paul McCartney
Woman ~~ John Lennon
Wrong Girl ~~ jaimi shuey (just a sample, but worth a listen. Click on "Wrong Girl" and then "Play Audio Sample.")
You Can Sleep While I Drive ~~ Melissa Etheridge
You Don't Know Me At All ~~ Don Henley

6 comments:

Sean Fagan said...

Well, that was interesting. Unsurprisingly, we have a fairly good overlap of songs we like.

I went and got a few songs from iTunes because of this list.

Steve Perry said...

Nice list.

Save for some of The Clash, not a lot of punk-rock on it, is there ... ?

Daniel Keys Moran said...

Not a lot of harder edged stuff on there at all. Glancing at my playlists, there's plenty -- but on the rated 5 list, I see Social Distortion, Clash, Ozzy, Quiet Riot, Metallica, and Van Halen. (And not the hardest edged stuff from any of those guys; the Ozzy track is an actual ballad.)

Going to my rated 4 list, I see a little over 100 bands that are either punk or metal. The "4" list is pretty big, and the "3" is, unsurprisingly, the largest. (Stuff rated 1 or 2 I tend to end up deleting.)

Maybe a quarter of all my music is metal/punk these days. I suppose you could make a snarky comment, but most of it appears to be rated 3.

Daniel Keys Moran said...

Billie Jean probably belongs on this list. I rated all my MJ a 1 quite some while back so it wouldn't pop up on any of my playlists, because hearing his stuff annoyed me.

I listened to Billie Jean again the other day for the first time in years. It's an amazing song if you can separate it from MJ, which I haven't been able to do in a while.

Joe Wheeler said...

I love Fleetwood Mac and glad to see two on the list "Gypsy" "The Chain" and "Go Your Own Way" and are geat too. Now I have almost finished "The Last Dancer" for the 4th time... can you please post the "AI War?" Dan, you are a GREAT writter. In fact your books are in my top 10 of all time. My top ten scifi (not fantasy) are:

1. Dune
2. Startide Rising
3. Ender's Game
4. A Fire Upon the Deep
5. The Long Run
6. The Last Dancer
7. Mirkheim
8. Gateway
9. To Your Scattered Bodies Go
10. The Lathe of Heaven
11. The AI War

Rob said...

If you have not yet seen the final masterpiece of the inestimable Mr. Cash, you need to. I'm not sure what your general opinion is of Gospel music; but as for me, I am not at all a fan of Gospel music, and yet I am in awe of Mr. Cash’s final Gospel tune.