10 - 1 (my top 100 tunes)

You will note that my top 10 is unchanged from 2010. The truth is, when you get to this point it is incredibly difficult to rate one song above another. Depending on my mood any of them could have claimed the top spot.

10 A New England - Kirsty MacColl 10
It's not just the additional verse or the gender swap that makes this version of A New England very different from Billy Bragg's. The silky voice of the sorely missed Kirsty MacColl, the musical arrangement and the tempo give this version real oomph. Better than Bragg's version? Different, and brilliant. I will settle for that.

9 The Glorious Day - Amsterdam 9

There was a section of my friends at Uni who loved a band called Pele. Indeed at one point it felt like Pele were the house band of Rutherford College Junior Common Room. I never really got Pele, but when I saw Amsterdam (formed from the wreckage of Pele) support Billy Bragg I was won over. Even more so when they played The Glorious Day. There isn't a particularly good version of this song on the internet. Skip to around 40 seconds in on the link above to get a flavour. Then perhaps listen to Billy Bragg's The Warmest Room, the song on which this is based. With Bragg you get a love song, but with Amsterdam it is an ode to revolutionaries. It's a great track but sadly I think for you to appreciate it you will just have to buy their album.

8 Panic - The Smiths 8
I think this may be the first Smiths song I remember hearing. It was certainly the first to capture my imagination, even though it breaks my 5th Law of Pop: "Though shalt never have a choir of children singing backing vocals" or the Excerpt From A Teenage Opera Law as it is otherwise known. Only the Smiths and Pink Floyd are exempt from this Law. Anyway I digress. Do I really need to justify how brilliant Panic is? I don't think so.

7 I Useta Love Her - Sawdoctors 7
In my first year at University the jukebox in Keynes College bar was a new fangled CD jukebox. It was really very novel, but it also only had a small number of CDs. Fortunately one of those CDs included this song which would get played pretty much every night. I get a big goofy grin every time I hear this song. Partly due to the brilliance of this Irish band's songwriting/performing, and partly because it transports me back to some happy and formative years.

6 I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind Of Thing - Pet Shop Boys 6
Despite the deadpan delivery this song is fantastically life affirming song. Every now and then we all need to cut loose. For no reason, just because. We all have the right to be a-typical once in a while. The emotions stirred by this song are summed up by  "I feel like taking all my clothes off. Dancing to the Rite of Spring. And I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing."
 

5 Beat Surrender - The Jam 5
There was a time in the mid 90s when the soundtrack to me getting ready for a night out was a Jam cd. Invariably this was the last song I would play before heading out. It got me in the perfect positive mindset. Shouty vocals, great lyrics, blaring horns and a driving beat. It has all of my favourite ingredients. "Fill my heart with joy and gladness. I've lived too long in shadows of sadness." Succumb to the beat surrender!

4 Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards - Billy Bragg 4
In many ways I suppose it's odd that the top Billy Bragg song in my list is impossible to sing along to live. And yet curiously it's a highlight of his show.Over the years pretty much every line has changed to reflect the topical issues of the day. This original version was written before the fall of the Iron Curtain and muses on the lot of the political singer/songwriter. It gradually gains momentum over the course of the song, through a succession of one liners, into the final glorious shouty refrain. (If you listen very hard you can hear Phil Jupitus shouting amidst the backing vocals towards the song.)

If you want to see how radically Bragg screws with the song check out later live versions:
Live on the Henry Rollins Show 2007
Live at Keele 2011

3 Mr Blue Sky - ELO 3
When I was little, my brothers had the ELO album Out Of The Blue on which was my favourite song of the time: Mr Blue Sky. Were they being mean or were they being principled prog rockers? I don't know. But whenever I wanted to hear Mr Blue Sky I was forced to listen to all of the preceding tracks. I couldn't fully appreciate the song you see, unless I heard it in context. Well that's what distinctly remember them telling me. The only problem being that Out Of The Blue was a double album and Mr Blue Sky was at the end of side 3. Despite this, I still love ELO, I still love Mr Blue Sky and I still talk to my brothers. This is a sublime piece of orchestral rock. I can't listen to it without feeling good. It is 4 and a half minutes of spellbinding genius.


2 Something  - Beatles 2
Frank Sinatra, who knew a thing or two about music, said that Something was "the greatest love something of the past 50 years". Who am I to disagree? From the moment that the drum roll ushers in the mournful guitar riff you know this is a truly special work of art. The song just drips with lush gorgeousness. It oozes class. It is remarkable to think that only 6 years previously they had been bashing out mersey beat tunes like I Want To Hold Your Hand. Has any other band in history changed so radically over such a short lifespan and with such high quality control? 

1 Yes - McAlmont and Butler 1
I used the word lush in describing Something. It applies equally to this gem of the britpop era. Bernard Butler of Suede, and David McAlmont of the impossibly high voice, combined to produce a masterpiece. It is a sweeping, embracing and intoxicating song. I was introduced to Yes by my friend Corinne when I lived in Sheffield. I don't remember the games we played on the Sega Megadrive on that boozy night, and it has been 15 years since I saw Corinne. But 16 years on from that night I can remember the thrill of hearing it for the first time. It sounded like nothing else. Timeless and contemporary at the same time. Is it my favourite song of all time? Maybe not. Can I think of anything that would decisively knock it off top spot? No. 

30 - 21 (My 100 top tunes)

30 Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd 29
I've never bought into the whole 'Dark Side of the Moon is the greatest Floyd album ever' nonsense. I much prefer The Wall, and have done for as long as I can remember. Sometime in the 90s however I started to really appreciate Wish You Were Here (the album). It was a toss up between Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here as to which song to include on this list. It is possible, though I would not admit it to his face, that my University housemate Jamie may have indoctrinated me by playing this song over and over. Whatever the truth is, this is a fantastic song that glides majestically like a swan on a river over honey. And this, despite the memory of Jamie singing "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" being burned forever on my mind

29 2 Of Us - Beatles new
I only 'discovered' this song a couple of years ago. It's a lovely little song. It's very simple, with a delightful melody and pleasing harmonies. It is a perfect nugget of whimsey, and what sealed it for me was the clip of Lennon before it starts saying "I dig a pygmy by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids. Phase One, in which Doris gets her oats." (not on this video clip though) Errant nonsense but somehow appropriate.

28 Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen 28
This is quite possibly the greatest song ever written. So why, I hear you cry, is it languishing at number 28?  It is glorious, subtle, brash, understated and over the top in equal measure. But I am so familiar with it, that though I haven't tired of it, it doesn't quite pack the same punch it once did. I still love it though.

27 Kashmir - Led Zeppelin 27
The guitar line is an intimidating brute that is juxtaposed with the high fragile vocals of Robert Plant. The instrumental chorus is epic, and with the return to the verse you have the feel of an impending crescendo supplemented by the introduction of luscious strings. It builds and builds, even with a segway into a new verse structure, but it never does reach that climatic end. 

26 Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan 26
Don't you just love Dylan? Strip away the innovative video that has been aped more times than I can count and this song stands on its own two feet. This is a supremely confident song that subverted the songwriting conventions of the day. It chugs away with the verse and chorus blurring together, and then in little over 2 minutes it is gone. It may not have had the immediate impact of The Times They Are A Changing or Blowin' In the Wind, but it still resonates today.

25 Rise - Public Image Limited 24
I love the hints of the old Johnny Rotten that you get in this song allied to a controlled and classy backing track. Lyrically there are beautifully succinct phrases: "I could be wrong, I could be right", "Anger is an energy", "May the road rise with you".  Getting more pretentious than usual for a moment, the repetition of these phrases reminds me of Handel and his use of repetitive phrasing in oratorios such as the Messiah. It is certainly effective in Rise.

24 Senses Working Overtime - XTC 15
It starts off a little weird, like a post-punk curiosity. It builds in intensity over the course of the bridge and explodes into a wonderful chorus. Get in! During the course of the song we learn that the world is both football shaped and biscuit shaped. I am still trying to resolve this apparent paradox.

23 Alison - Elvis Costello 23
Songs about unrequited love or lost love always seem to reflect the reality of life more accurately than songs that revel in the glow of being in love. With a song like Alison you feel both the love and the aching disappointment of a lost love. It is beautiful and delicate while at the same time being pointed and edgy.

22 Walls Come Tumbling Down - Style Council 22
I am amused by the fact that the opening line in the video has been changed. The 'c' being removed from "We don't have to take this crap". Those were such innocent days! This is an energising call to action from the darkest days of the Thatcher ("public enemy number 10") era . "You can actually try changing things". "Unity is powerful". Where are the political songwriters in the mainstream nowadays? Anyway that aside, any song that starts with a Hammond organ and blaring horns is always onto a winner with me. Fortunately it never lets up that pace and this is a ramraiding slam dunk of a song from the guy who also brought us The Jam.

21 Don't Stop Moving - S Club 7    21
It doesn't happen very often, but every now and again I am not only on trend but slightly ahead of the curve. The first time I heard this song I was in my car and just about to drive to London to see my friend Sara. As I switched the engine on the radio burst into life with this tune but I had I missed the start so I didn't know the act. But from very early on I knew it would be a hit. Not in the "dumb kids are going to love this piece of xxxx" kind of way, but in the "wow this song is great and will be number 1" way. Pretty much the first thing I said to Sara when I got to her flat was "I have just heard a future number 1". It's a high quality party tune. Forget that S Club 7 were manufactured for the teeny bop market, this is a great pop song. Is it a better song that Bohemian Rhapsody? Of course not. Can I listen to it over and over? Oh yes. Of course my defence is blown out of the water by those who know I also rather like other songs by S Club.