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The Four Greatest Songs of All Time
Some of the very best people say I have impeccable taste in music. So when I say that these are the best songs of all time, you can take that to the bank.
Folsom Prison Blues. Well, duh! Johnny Cash’s song is terrific in any context, but when he sang it for the inmates at Folsom Prison in 1968, he added another dimension to the song. The back and forth between the prisoners and Cash gives the song a gritty and authentic feel. That “conversation” transformed Folsom Prison Blues from merely great into a pop masterpiece.
The inmates, who seem to embrace Cash as one of their own, cheer and whoop throughout the song. Inspired by his audience, Cash shouts right back at them. At one point he shouts “Sooie!” at them, which is the word a farmer uses when he calls his pigs to slop.
Some of the shouts of approval by the audience take us into the creepy minds of the inmates themselves. When Cash sings, “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die,” the prisoners’ whoops and hollers of approval remind us why these guys were behind bars in the first place.
The actual Folsom Prison lies just above Sacramento and close enough to a railroad line that the prisoners can hear the trains’ whistles. Cash puts us in the minds of prisoners who hear those whistles:
I bet there’s rich folks eatin’,
From a fancy dining car,
They’re probably drinkin’ coffee,
And smokin’ big cigars,
Well I know I had it comin’,
I know I can’t be free,
But those people keep a-movin’,
And that’s what tortures me.
Darby Ram (by the Greenbriar Boys). This seminal folk group first got together in impromptu jams in New York’s Washington Square Park in the early 1960s. I like almost everything they sing, but Darby Ram is my favorite.
Darby Ram’s lyrics resemble a folk tale handed down through the generations, full of bluster and exaggeration, The ram’s horns, for instance, are so large that one guy climbs up a horn in January and doesn’t get back till June. More surprising yet is the song’s sympathy for the ram himself. He’s a marvelous ram, full of spunk, who loves his life as he “rambles” around the village “until the butchers cut him down.”
It’s just a great folk song by three accomplished musicians at the height of their powers. That introductory banjo by Bob Yellin is just a pure pleasure.
Me and Bobby McGee. From the beginning, I knew I was going to include this song. It’s been an earworm through a good part of my life. (It was first released in 1969, sung by Roger Miller.) I just wasn’t sure which singer I was going to choose, so I listened to fifteen different singers’ covers of Me and Bobby McGee.
You probably know the Janis Joplin version (released in 1970 just before she killed herself by overdosing on heroin), but I’ve always been put off by her ostentatious slurring of words and exaggerated Southern accent. I also don’t like the organ in the background. (By the way, I was sitting in a little alcove in the UCLA library doing some post-graduate work on Restoration drama when I looked up at the spines of a few books on a shelf next to my chair. One of those books was called Going Down with Janis Joplin, written by her lesbian lover, Peggy Caserta. This was in 1972 and I was a bit shocked by the title.)
The version I finally settled on is sung by Gordon Lightfoot, Canada’s gift to the ’60s and ’70s folk music scene. In my mind, Lightfoot’s cover is slightly better than other excellent versions by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Arlo Guthrie, and Kris Kristofferson.
The lyrics tell the poignant tale of a couple of rounders who hitch rides on semis as they travel from Baton Rouge to Salinas, California, singing their little hearts away as they move across the country. They eventually lose track of one another when Bobby, male or female depending on who’s singing, “slips” away around Salinas.
In the background, one of the musicians mimics the sound of the semi’s windshield wiper, and a dobro picks out some great riffs between pauses in the lyric stream. (I’ve always been a sucker for a dobro.)
In a surprisingly careless error, Lightfoot mispronounces Salinas, an important part of his narrative. (He pronounces the city with a long i on the second syllable.) I sympathize with Lightfoot because I made a careless error around Salinas one time myself. Just outside of the city on my way to Ford Ord, I blew the engine on my ’51 Ford because I had forgotten to add oil to the car’s leaky crankcase. I sold the Ford for scrap to a Salinas junkyard and hitchhiked the rest of the way to Fort Ord. I made it just in time for reveille.
Proud Mary by Tina Turner. Has there ever been a more electric moment in pop music than the moment when, exactly halfway through Proud Mary, Tina, Ike, and the band suddenly shift from first gear to overdrive as they turn up the speed and volume of the song. In live concerts, Tina breaks into frenzied dancing that always brings down the house.
The lyrics of the song are also compelling. The speaker tells us she has worked at a lot of menial jobs in Memphis — washing dishes and pumping gas — but she had never seen the “good side of the city” until she hitched a ride aboard the paddleboat named Proud Mary as it traveled by Memphis on its way down the Mississippi.
So after, oh, 70 years of listening to music, those are my choices for the four best songs of all time. (In the spirit of openness, I must confess that I may not have given a fair shake to Sergey Ivanev, the Slovenian who, strumming on his balalaika, sang a love song to his goat on Russian television in 1975. I’m a nationalist. Sue me.)
Here are six that almost made the cut:
The City of New Orleans by Arlo Guthrie. I love the piano riffs on this long piece by the son of Woody.
Sink the Bismarck by Johnny Horton. All of those songs by Horton, including The Battle of New Orleans and North to Alaska, are narrative songs at their best.
Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Earl Scruggs. Best banjo picker ever.
England Swings by Roger Miller. Cleverest songwriter ever.
Saginaw, Michigan by Lefty Frizzell. The best of classic country. That distinctive catch in his voice, in which he moves half a note up or down, makes Frizzell always fun to listen to.
It’s obvious that I‘m partial to uptempo folk narrative songs. I’ve liked a few rock songs over the years — ZZ Top’s Legs comes to mind — though none made the cutoff. I don’t care much for classical, rap, ska, emo, punk, heavy metal, or slow love songs. There are only two love songs on the list, both of which are quirky, medium tempo narratives, Me and Bobby McGee and Saginaw, Michigan. I used to hate slow love songs when I was a kid. I still do. I’m just not much of a romantic.
Postscript: I know, Mr. and Mrs. Ricochet, my list is an old man’s list, heavy with narrative songs and folk music, the most outdated and lifeless of music genres these days. At any rate, perhaps you can come up with a song or two that you think are the “greatest.”
Published in General
LOL. Okay, I’m going to need to see the names of those vouching for your taste.
Hmmm. Based on your choices and self-described tastes, I’m surprised that at least one of these three don’t appear on the list:
The Weight – The Band
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down- The Band
Up on Cripple Creek- The Band
The Derby Ram, sir. The British have no idea how to pronounce their language and certainly none for their place names. Derby is pronounced “Darby,” just as Berkshire is pronounced “Barkshuh.”
And it is said the George Washington once sang it to the children of a friend.
None of the three has much appeal to me. I’ve never cared much for The Band: too much background noise for my taste
What is that in the background of Up on Cripple Creek, a juice harp? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song in which the featured “musical instrument” was a juice harp.
.I like the instrumental, Cripple Creek, by Flat and Scruggs.
Really? Washington sang Darby Ram. Wow.
One version of Darby Ram spells it Derby Ram.
The Greenbriar Boys use the pronunciation rather than the normal spelling.
Do they say this to your face?
EJ, no. It’s all second hand knowledge, just like all the stuff that was thrown at Trump to try to impeach him.
But I believe it to be so.
I always prefer to go with the songwriter if I can, so I lean towards Kristofferson’s version.
And again here, I suggest the songwriter:
Obviously ‘Muricans who don’t know no better.
Bet my list would sound even older. I also love lyrical ballads and their descendants. I especially love the Western part of Country & Western:
Going back a bit further:
Hi Kent,
While we have different tastes in music, I appreciate you putting yourself out there. I appreciate your openness, and, yes, courage to express yourself.
Gary
Arahant, I love his guitar. I don’t love his voice as much.
It’s those piano riffs that I love on the Arlo Guthrie version.
By the way, I hate folk singers who talk.
Arahant, I too like Marty Robbins.
And this cannot be forgotten:
Awful, Arahant, just awful. It hurt my ears it was so awful. I think you dropped that one on me just to torture me.
One more just for the season:
Arahant, why are you torturing me with Paul Robeson? The guy is too slow, too corny, and too pretentious for me.
I like bass voices. I could pull out others.
And I reckon we could also throw a bit of Rabbie in for another upcoming holiday:
Marie the wife, Bob the dog, and Dana the sister-in-law. The sister-in-law regularly calls me a rotter, but she also admits that I have impeccable taste in music, although that’s usually when I hold her down and give her a Dutch rub.
And he was a commie. Well, not just a commie, but a Stalinist, IIRC.
There you go again with the singers who talk.
I’m also fond of bass voices, especially Cash’s. I don’t, however, care much for Cash when his only accompaniment is his guitar. I’m fond of his band. Did you know that Cash died just four months after June died? I almost include Johnny and June’s Jackson.
Yep. That was part of why I chose his versions. 😈
Throw in “Acadian Driftwood”
I thought it was a Jew’s Harp as well, but according to a review on allmusic.com, “…producer Don Was notes that the use of the Clavinet — an electronic facsimile of a harpsichord — on the song, in a non-traditional, funky style, predates Stevie Wonder’s similar use of the keyboard in his own ‘Superstition.'” Garth Hudson used a wah-wah pedal in combination with the Clavinet to produe that sound.
Guys, I can’t keep up and Marie is calling me for our morning walk with Bob and a little grocery shopping at Costco.
Carry on. I’ll catch you later.
Thar’s just a flat-out fun, fantastic performance.
Danoki, it is, isn’t it? The best thing Cash ever did was marry June. Did you know they died within four months of one another. Have you ever listened to Cash’s last recording. I think it’s called Hurt. Damn that is painful to listen to. His voice is shot and his pain seems terribly real.