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What’s the ‘Coolest’ Song Ever?
A cool song needs a groove. Check. The singer needs to sound cool and the musicianship effortless. The lyrics tell a story with no judgement and we are encouraged to see it as we wish. This is the kind of song that works perfectly as background for a party. Not too serious, grandiose, or complicated.
You get a shiver in the dark
It’s raining in the park, but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowin’ dixie double-four time
You feel alright when you hear that music ring
Setting the time and the mood, and the theme “you feel alright”
And now you step inside, but you don’t see too many faces (good music but small audience?)
Comin’ in out of the rain, you hear the jazz go down
Competition in other places (question or answer?)
Oh, but the horns, they blowin that sound (but it’s good stuff..)
Way on down south, way on down south, London town
A joke, because we are expecting New Orleans. But the fact that it’s south London makes it more interesting. Of course, a hot Creole band plays in London whether they hail from NOLA or are indigenous Brits.
The narrator is a fan of music. We can tell he’s got his own band (which is playing the song) He is reporting his observations.
You check out guitar, George
He knows all the chords
Mind he’s strictly rhythm
He doesn’t wanna make it cry or sing
Yes, and an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing
The lyrics make a fine use of the second person. “You” are experiencing these things as they happen. You can see it and feel it. ‘You’ become the narrator with the cool voice. Okay, I’m there…
And Harry doesn’t mind if he doesn’t make the scene
He’s got a daytime job, he’s doin’ alright
He can play the “Honk Tonk” like anything
Savin’ it up for friday night
With the “Sultans”
With the “Sultans of Swing”
Filling out the scene there are some who are underwhelmed…
And a crowd of young boys, they’re fooling around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don’t give a damn about any trumpet playing band
It ain’t what they call rock and roll
And the “Sultans”
Yeah, the ‘Sultans’ played Creole, Creole
This is a perennial problem with playing live music. Genre. If people don’t like or accept the genre, they will not be taken with musicianship. This is even worse if the genre is considered “uncool”.
And then the man, he steps right up to the microphone
And says, “At last”, just as the time bell rings
“Goodnight, now it’s time to go home”
And he makes it fast with one more thing
We are the “Sultans”, we are the “Sultans of Swing”
The players know they are making good music, but it’s hard to remember when you’re playing in front of a small audience, some of whom are ignoring you.
Regardless, he’s saying we are proud of our music and playing, in the humility that musicians are relentlessly guided into with public performance. The ‘man’, the singer and bandleader, is acknowledging his bandmates just by announcing the name and allowing the musicianship to play out.
Every professional musician has encountered these types: ‘Guitar George’ who’s adept at finding tasty chords (we here a couple right after that line) and he’s uninterested in being a wailing lead-player, Harry who’s got a day-job, “doin’ alright”, playing out for fun. Almost every band in the world has these types, and any seasoned musician can recognize the band dynamics instantly.
This song is timeless.
What are your “cool songs” and why?
Published in General
I have always likes this song but now have a deeper understanding of it. Thanks.
A cool song that I like a lot is ZZ Tops’ Sharp Dressed Man. It speaks to something true about men and women and money and power. Men don’t dress to flaunt physical sexuality as much as display power. The sharp dressed man walks in and the room turns to look at him. It is the epitome of cool captured in a moment.
Clean shirt, new shoes
And I don’t know where I am goin’ to
Silk suit, black tie (black tie)
I don’t need a reason why
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp-dressed man
Gold watch, diamond ring
I ain’t missin’ not a single thing
Cufflinks, stick pin
When I step out I’m gonna do you in
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp-dressed man
Top coat, top hat
And I don’t worry ’cause my wallet’s fat
Black shades, white gloves
Lookin’ sharp, lookin’ for love
They come runnin’ just as fast as they can
‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp-dressed man
Anything off of “Kind Of Blue” by Miles Davis is cool. The coolest on the album is probably “Freddy Freeloader.” It’s not my favorite but it grooves like a MotherWatchYOMouth. Speaking of which. Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield have a whole catalog of cool stuff.
Excellent write-up. But the Knofflers were northerners (born in Scotland, raised in Newcastle), so way down south, I think, is in reference to this. Northerners (north of England) look at London as a different world, which it is.
My vote for coolest ever is Sundown by Gordon Lightfoot. The structure seems somewhat random.
Ah, Sultans of Swing.
One of my favorites now, though I got a little tired of it back in the day. I was a bartender in 1980 and had to listen to it on the jukebox dozens of times every night.
Great post and a fun question. Based on your criteria, I’d say it has to be something by the Beach Boys. I’m not sure which song, but if you just want pure cool fun, then it’s gotta be them, right?
The little guitar fill after that line gets me every time.
Eric Clapton. Many to choose from.
Wonderful Tonight
It’s late in the evening
She’s wondering what clothes to wear
She puts on her makeup
And brushes her long blonde hairAnd then she asks me
“Do I look all right?”
And I say, “Yes, you look wonderful tonight”
We go to a party
And everyone turns to see
This beautiful lady
Who’s walking around with meAnd then she asks me
“Do you feel all right?”
And I say, “Yes, I feel wonderful tonight”
I feel wonderful because I see the love light in your eyes
Then the wonder of it all is that you just don’t realize
How much I love you
It’s time to go home now
And I’ve got an aching head
So I give her the car keys
And she helps me to bed
And then I tell her
As I turn out the light
I say, “My darling you were wonderful tonight”
“Oh, my darling, you were wonderful tonight”
One should not neglect “Theme from Shaft.”
I can dig it!
Good Vibrations would be my pick from their discography.
Oh, I hear ya! Because it fits this criteria, is why it was overplayed.
The barman doesn’t mind that he’s heard the song before
Jukebox kids dropping coins to look cool
He just wishes it was something else right now,
just not the the Sultans
Not the Sultans of Swing
I’ve always thought this song was cool, even though I can’t understand the lyrics:
The song is full of those little touches, like the triplet after “Time bell rings.” And those two solos – man. How we labored to reproduce that, particularly that riff in the second solo.
Beat me to it. Kind of Blue was the first album that occurred to me. I have a hard time picking a favorite cut. But I guess if there is an album I can listen to all day it’s The Three on the East Wind label. Joe Sample, Ray Brown, and Shelley Manne. Favorite cut is Manha de Carnaval. Their version of On Green Dolphin Street is a very close second.
A great song! Absolute self-confident swagger, and not because the singer’s vain. He just knows what’s what.
Exactly. It his that spot perfectly. You put it better than I did.
I have two songs, both of them touch personal experiences that I’ve had.
This Masquerade as covered by George Benson.
“We tried to talk it over but the words got in the way we’re lost inside this lonely game we play”.
Go through a failed marriage and that line will have a lot of significance for you.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot.
“ Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours.”
Be on a small boat in incredibly rough water with high winds and waves breaking over your bow and that line will haunt you when you hear it.
You just killed the thread. : (
(Everyone in the PIT knows how much I loathe that song . . .)
The PIT is not only not required reading, but verboten for all pure, right-thinking paragons of virtue and merit. So, yeah, I knew that, but…
I’m never good at picking my “coolest” or favorite song, etc., because as soon as I name one, I think of another that might beat it. But here’s the first few that come to mind under the category of “cool”:
End of the Line by The Traveling Wilburys
A Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash
Running Down a Dream by Tom Petty
So it’s leaked beyond the PIT, then.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is only slightly less creepy than The Sounds of Silence.
Now since the adjective was “coolest,” not “creepiest,” I submit:
I bet you hate Cat’s in the Cradle too, you Philistine! ;-)
I do, I do . . .
I never liked Sultans of Swing. It’s OK that others like it. It just didn’t do anything for me. Your reaction helps explain why it kept getting played on MTV, all those years ago.
Now for my answer. “Cool” makes me think Motown, especially a slow, jazzy Motown. @mountie’s mention of George Benson is pretty close.
But I think that Smokey is even cooler than George Benson. So I’ll go with my second-favorite Smokey song, One Heartbeat:
My favorite Smokey song is Just To See Her, but I don’t think that it’s quite as cool.
That’s funny. I was driving the other day and “Under the Boardwalk” by the Drifters came on, and I thought “This song is a little musical gem, sung perfectly. So evocative of time and place.” My brother and I usually engage in little “best of” music contests, and I was thinking that a future topic could be “best vocal” but I think the entire song fits as “coolest song” as well.
“Lawyers, Guns, and Money” Official answer.
I would add an honorable mention to “Tom Sawyer” but I’m in no rush to be controversial.
Okay, also among the coolest:
Lose Yourself by Eminem
Runnin’ Down a Dream by Tom Petty
Boys of Summer by Don Henley
I like that “Won’t Get Fooled Again” reminds me that political change is often just a mirage of the uni-party and it has been that way my whole life. The Pussy Riot cover is pretty good and helps you appreciate the universal message of political corruption and rock and roll.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Did you know:
Just geddy on out of here with such im-peart-inency.