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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
Oh, yes!
Yup, that’s one of his best songs. The music is so good!
Well, if we’re going for the furrin stuff:
3 watercraft classics:
When the Ship Comes In (Clancy Brothers cover performed at Dylan’s 30th anniversay concert in Madison Square Garden)
Sloop John B (Bahamian calypso folk song first transcribed in 1916, Nassau town refers to Bahamas’ capital)
The Water is Wide (Scottish folk song from the 1600’s)
My top 4 have been the same for a long time now. In order:
Possibly the most epic, fantastical story from ancient folk music is The Famous Flower of Serving Men. Since we are doing a deep dive ( sorta) this song is fairly obscure ( although Martin Carthy was awarded a MBE for his interpretation of this song) . This doesn’t exactly fit the modern under-three-minute requirement for attention. But worthwhile nonetheless.
It could be a film.
I most enjoy how forces of nature, animals, conspire to enlighten the King and use him as an instrument to reconcile the wrong.
My mother did me deadly spite
For she sent thieves in the dark of night
Put my servants all to flight
They robbed my bower they slew my knight
They couldn’t do to me no harm
So they slew my baby in my arm
Left me naught to wrap him in
But the bloody sheet that he lay in
They left me naught to dig his grave
But the bloody sword that slew my babe
All alone the grave I made
And all alone the tears I shed
And all alone the bell I rang
And all alone the psalm I sang
I leaned my head all against a block
And there I cut my lovely locks
I cut my locks and I changed my name
From Fair Eleanor to Sweet William
Went to court to serve my king
As the famous flower of serving men
So well I served my lord, the king
That he made me his chamberlain
He loved me as his son
The famous flower of serving men
To each his own, but none of those make my top thousand. And for top four, I don’t think anything commonly played on the radio could possibly come close. I don’t think it’s possible for me to come up with a top four because desirability of a piece of music is so dependent on one’s current mood, and it also depends on the skill of the performer.
It’s a fool’s errand to make a list of the four greatest songs of all time.
No Christmas Music?
Oh oft time he’d look at me and smile
So swift his heart I did beguile
And he blessed the day that I became
The famous flower of serving men
But all alone in my bed at e’en
Oh there I dreamed a dreadful dream
I saw my bed swim with blood
And I saw the thieves all around my head
Our king has to the hunting gone
He’s ta’en no lords nor gentlemen
He’s left me there to guard his home
The famous flower of serving men
Our king he rode the wood all around
He stayed all day but nothing found
And as he rode himself alone
It’s there he saw the milk white hind
Oh the hind she broke, the hind she flew
The hind she trampled the brambles through
First she’d mount, then she’d sound
Sometimes before, sometimes behind
Oh what is this, how can it be?
Such a hind as this I ne’er did see
Such a hind as this was never born
I fear she’ll do me deadly harm
And long, long did the great horse turn
For to save his lord from branch and thorn
And but long e’er the day was o’er
It tangled all in his yellow hair
All in the glade the hind drew nigh
And the sun grew bright all in their eye
And he sprang down, sword drew
She vanished there all from his view
And all around the grass was green
And all around where a grave was seen
And he sat himself all on the stone
Great weariness it seized him on
Great silence hung from tree to sky
The woods grew still, the sun on fire
As through the woods the dove he came
As through the wood he made his moan
Oh, the dove, he sat down on a stone
So sweet he looked, so soft he sang
“Alas the day my love became
The famous flower of serving men”
The bloody tears they fell as rain
As still he sat and still he sang
“Alas the day my love became
The famous flower of serving men”
Our king cried out, and he wept full sore
So loud unto the dove he did call
“Oh pretty bird, come sing it plain”
“Oh it was her mother’s deadly spite
For she sent thieves in the dark of the night
They come to rob, they come to slay
They made their sport, they went their way”
And don’t you think that her heart was sore
As she laid the mould on his yellow hair
And don’t you think her heart was woe
As she turned her back away to go
“And how she wept as she changed her name
From Fair Eleanor to Sweet William
Went to court to serve her king
As the famous flower of serving men”
Oh the bloody tears they lay all around
He’s mounted up and away he’s gone
And one thought come to his mind
The thought of her that was a man
And as he rode himself alone
A dreadful oath he there has sworn
And that he would hunt her mother down
As he would hunt the wildwood swine
For there’s four and twenty ladies all
And they’re all playing at the ball
But fairer than all of them
Is the famous flower of serving men
Oh he’s rode him into his hall
And he’s rode in among them all
He’s lifted her to his saddle brim
And there he’s kissed her cheek and chin
His nobles stood and they stretched their eyes
The ladies took to their fans and smiled
For such a strange homecoming
No gentleman had ever seen
And he has sent his nobles all
Unto her mother they have gone
They’ve ta’en her that’s did such wrong
They’ve laid her down in prison strong
And he’s brought men up from the corn
And he’s sent men down to the thorn
All for to build the bonfire high
All for to set her mother by
All bonny sang the morning thrush
All where he sat in yonder bush
But louder did her mother cry
In the bonfire where she burned close by
For there she stood all among the thorn
And there she sang her deadly song
“Alas the day that she became
The famous flower of serving men”
For the fire took first all on her cheek
And then it took all on her chin
It spat and rang in her yellow hair
And soon there was no life left in
I’m in general agreement, which is why my contributions are absent. But it’s stll a fun exercise.
I think narrowing the field down by genre makes the task a little less intimidating. How else can I work in “You’re Gonna Miss Me” by the 13th Floor Elevators as the greatest garage band tune ever?
BTW, I’m no longer able to embed videos by simply cutting and pasting the url. Has the procedure for this changed over time?
For a good story, I love Judy Collins’s “The Blizzard.” :-)
Wichita Lineman is hauntingly beautiful. And no one seems to have mentioned the great classic Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.
My favorite of theirs.
Speaking of Judy Collin: Albatross
Discussion of the lyrics here.
I played that for the guys at work a couple of months ago. They’d never heard of it. I also like 59th Street Bridge Song, from the same album as I recall.
Witchita Lineman is a near perfect song. I might be able to describe why given a few thousand words…
The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa. It’s our best patriotic tune (one must respect the National Anthem and the feelings it stirs, but it’s not a great piece of music), and who doesn’t love a rousing march?
Highly recommend the recent Ken Burns Country Music series that aired on PBS a few months ago. Always consider Ken Burns slightly suspect in some ways, but this was excellent.
Amazing Grace by Sam Robson. Not sure if it fits into “greatest of all time,” but I think he has incredible talent, and does a fine job of recording and editing all the “parts,” which he sings himself, into a seamless whole. Would much rather listen to him than to, say, Taylor Swift, and her highly synthesized tracks.
He has a YouTube channel, and sings other things besides hymns.
Well, that probably explains the number of comments on this thread thus far (and I include myself in the number, because I’ve made a few . . . )
I’m partial to “Morning Has Broken,” although I find Cat Stevens, or whatever he calls himself at the moment, highly problematic. Unfortunately, I don’t like any other version as much as the original.
(It’s possible that I am drawn to this as a result of my childhood, in which the original poem’s author, Eleanor Farjeon, loomed large in my reading canon. Many stories and poems, read by little English children of a certain generation, and remembered forever. My favorite, from the book, Kings and Queens, which she co-wrote with her brother Herbert:
So much of the history I learned, that has stuck with me, and which, of course, I later learned about in a more structured way, was first introduced to me by these sorts of poems and stories. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and I’m sorry that it seems to be an art that’s mostly lost.
The Army let him cash in as much as possible before he had to go to Vietnam. True fact.
Another one for lossless on a Big Stereo.
Whoever you have to kill or step over to listen to this lossless on a Big Stereo, just do it.
She, you seem to have had an amazing intellectual and cultural upbringing. It’s just the sort of upbringing that smooths a kid’s path through school, however far he goes, and vocation. I hope it was as idyllic as it was cerebral.
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