Your absolute, favorite song

I feel this. Ask me over and over and I probably have a new favorite every day. Today it was REM’s Nightswimming.

 

I saw Simon a few years back on his last trip to Toronto. Incredible show, probably in my all-time top 10. I know he wrote Bridge Over Troubled Water, an amazing song that is one of the real masterworks of the rock era, but he can't sing it like Artie - or Elvis, for that matter. Was probably the low point of the show for me.

 

Another one of the 500 (among several by the Furs) ...

 

Superstition by Stevie Wonder. It's my go-to for karaoke, too.

 

This is my go-to karaoke song:

 

I'll place "God Only Knows" at No. 2 behind "Bridge."

A shame that on GOK, the glorious final, repeating vocal rounds go on for only 40 seconds. That would have been a much more fitting four-minute ending than Hey Jude's "Na na na nananana, nannana.''

 

Great thread.

I'm not a deep tracks kind of guy, so things like Everlong by the Foo Fighters, Yellow Ledbetter from Pearl Jam, Summer Highland Falls from Bill Joel, and U2's Running to Stand Still all are in the mix.

But if I had to pick one, I'd probably go with Lullabye by Billy Joel. The lyrics really hit me hard, as the father of a college-age woman. Whenever I hear that, I think about taking her to Big State College in the fall of 2020, in the heart of Covid, and dropping her off into a world where none of her close friends from high school were going, into a setting and time where there was so much fear and so much uncertainty about the world. It often leaves me in a puddle of emotions.

 

Presley's version is fine for what it is, and yet it still it doesn't come close to Garfunkel's.
Elvis overworks it emotionally, as usual, but Artie's voice just naturally builds and soars throughout.

And no live performance of the song can ever match this, IMO. A truly golden moment in concert history.

 

My wife plays our piano several times a week. I've asked her over and over to play this, just because it's so damn pleasant.

"Too boring," she says.

 

Not sure I've ever heard another song by Heaven 17 and not sure I want to.

If there is a top 25 of in my 500, this is one of them.

 

Just spectacular. I remember Rolling Stone referred to it as something like a "breathtakingly, almost-perfect song" and Artie had a ton to do with that. If Simon had sung the original it doesn't get anywhere near those kind of accolades. For the piece of music, yes, for the performance, no.

 

I can always count on getting chills watching Artie work the song here. His phrasing and momentum are just so fine throughout.