My Top Twenty: "Paint It, Black" - The Rolling Stones

Song: "Paint It, Black"
Artist: The Rolling Stones
Album: Aftermath
Year: 1966
Highest Billboard Hot 100 Chart Position: #1
Players: Mick Jagger -vocals, credited songwriter; Brian Jones - sitar, acoustic guitar; Keith Richards - background vocals, electric guitar, credited songwriter; Bill Wyman - bass, electric organ; Charlie Watts - drums; Jack Nitzsche - piano; Andrew Loog Oldham - producer

I could write scads about this middle-eastern flavored classic Rolling Stones single. From the moment Brian Jones launches into a sitar (one of the most recognizable intros in rock music) through the dark, menacing lyrics and driving drums, the Stones have never been harder, cooler or more enticing. I've never been a huge fan of the British band, but between this song, "Gimme Shelter" and "Start Me Up" I have to give them props.

But that's not why this song is one of my Top Twenty Favorite Songs Of All Time. I have a little story about this song. Wanna hear it?

It was about a year ago at Strawberry's on a Karaoke Thursday. I was there with the guy who had dumped me a few weeks prior. We tried to stay friends, so this was the second time I had grabbed the mic with him post-breakup. After a lackluster attempt at Kanye earlier in the night, I was debating what song to try next. He had told me that I wasn't a rock fan, which annoyed me because I pride myself on loving all music. I was in a combative mood, so I picked "Paint It, Black" and worked that motherfucker out. It felt so good to just let loose with a rock strut and, while I'm no Mick Jagger, I think I did a kick-ass job.

Since then, I've taken to doing "Gimme Shelter" on Rock Band every time my gang of friends gather. But if they had "Paint It, Black" I would revisit that moment of attitude-drenched glory. And the next time I go out for drinks and amateur tunes, I may just do it again.



And this conclude my series of Top Tweny Songs Of All Time. Watch for a new series, The Essentials, to start later this week.

My Top Twenty Holiday Extra!: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" - Nicole C. Mullen

When I was a child, we had a Christmas tape that we purchased at Christian Publications in Mechanicsburg. It had a very dramatic three part harmony version of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" by Phillips, Craig & Dean. I liked it, and "O Come" became one of my favorite Christmas songs. The spirit of longing, of waiting for a savior to rescue one from exile and tyranny is palpable. The vivid lyrics are compelling and dramatic. "O come thou dayspring come and free our spirits by thine advent here," I get chills just thinking about it. The origins of the carol are from a Latin text dating back to the 12th century or even further, and you can feel that ancient holiness. The pain and anguish of a captive people, a people that still face religious violence today, is on display.

A few years later, I would have a music and narrative kids tape that featured the voice talent of Nicole Coleman-Mullen. It was really crappy, but I liked her voice. She made a splash a few years later as a songwriter for latin/gospel/pop star Jaci Velasquez, and put out her own album a couple years later. She had a massive gospel hit with "Redeemer" billed as Nicole C. Mullen. On the compilation album WoW Christmas she provided an acoustic version of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" in which she accompanied herself on guitar. I fell in love instantly, she reminded me of Tracy Chapman. It's one of my all time favorite version of the song. (I also like Enya's version.)

My Top Twenty: Matchbox Twenty - "Unwell"

Song: "Unwell"
Artist: Matchbox Twenty
Album: More Than You Think You Are
Year: 2003
Highest Billboard Hot 100 Chart Position: #5
Players: Rob Thomas - singer, songwriter; Kyle Cook - banjo, lead guitar; Brian Yale - bass; Adam Gaynor - rhythm guitar; Matt Serletic - producer

Matchbox Twenty bores me, usually. I liked "Bent" but other than that "Unwell" is the only song that does anything for me. So I'm not even going to pretend like I know anything about them and just direct you to their Wikipedia page. Rob Thomas solo, though? That's some hot shit right there! "Lonely No More" is danceable fun, the breakdown at the end of "This Is How A Heart Breaks" is incredible. But it's "Unwell" that I am attached to, for personal reasons...

It was in 2003 that I assisted the teachers for a class called "Family To Family" for family members of those diagnosed with mental illness. It's produced by a great group, The National Alliance on Mental Illness. I have close family members who deal with Bi-Polar Disorder, so I had taken the class a year or so prior. It's a great class, if you have a loved one with a mental illness you really should check into it.

During that class, one of the mothers of a young man mentioned the song "Unwell" and that her son had said that it exactly express how he felt. It was a moment of clarity for me as I went over the lyrics, and the chorus is what stays with me: "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. I know, right now you can't tell, but stay a while and maybe then you'll see a different part of me." It's a strong statement, one that encompasses the ideas that we relayed in the Family To Family classes. Those we love are unwell, they need us to stick by them and we'll see the real them again.

I don't think that's what Rob Thomas had in mind when he wrote the song, it's more about the fact we are all "fucked up and feel alone." But the song took on a different life for me, and I think that's what music is all about.

My Top Twenty: "Time After Time" - Cyndi Lauper

Song: "Time After Time"
Artist: Cyndi Lauper
Album: She's So Unusual (the acoustic version featuring Sarah McLachlan appears on The Body Acoustic)
Year: 1984
Highest Billboard Chart Posistion: #1 (two weeks)
Players: Cyndi Lauper - singer, songwriter; Rob Hyman - songwriter, background vocals; Rick Chertoff - producer

In 1984, no one was having more fun than crazy/cool Brooklyn-born Cyndi Lauper. The pop star was coming off the highs of the danceable hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" when she released "Time After Time" which would go on to hit number one. The tender ballad was written with Rob Hyman of The Hooters, who also sang the male vocals that echo Cyndi's in the chorus. Named after a science-fiction film, the song was written because the producer felt her breakthrough She's So Unusual need just "one more song" and I'm sure glad he did!

There are so many things to love about "Time After Time;" the emotional vocals, the elegant new-wave guitars and synths; but it's the lyrics that speak to me. "The drum beats out of time" "If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting, time after time" "you say go slow, I fall behind" separately have an emotional quality that screams to be doodled on notebook covers and headlining emo blog posts. But together they weave a story of love-not-lost, just reimagined.

Speaking of reimagined, I really love the version of "Time After Time" on Cyndi's 2005 album The Body Acoustic. Her older, wiser vocals traded with Sarah McLachlan's honeyed tones over acoustic guitar and what I believe is a dulcimer are a revelation. And Cyndi's not the only one who has reworked the song in a new image. From modern song-interpreter Eva Cassidy to jazz legend Miles Davis, from pop-punkers Quietdrive to Broadway legend Patty LuPone, many artists have realized the inherent beauty and grace of Cyndi's and Rob's lyrics and melody. "Time After Time" stands as a modern pop standard.

My Top Twenty: "Samson" - Regina Spektor

Song: "Samson"
Artist: Regina Spektor
Album: Begin To Hope
Year: 2006
Label: Sire
Highest Billboard Chart Position: Album Cut; Begin To Hope peaked at #19
Players: Regina Spektor - singer, songwriter, piano, co-producer; David Kahne - producer

Regina Spektor is probably crazy. She is most definitely Russian, quite probably lives in Brooklyn and is undoubtedly talented at songwriting.

I first learned of her existence through VH1, where I get a lot of my musical knowledge. "Fidelity" was a new video, and I was loving the black and white themed look, the oddly endearing vocals and the interviews in which she discussed being inspired by art and literature. I knew I needed to know this girl, find out what her music was all about. I bought Begin To Hope and have had it in heavy rotation on my car stereo ever since. It sits behind ABBA Gold and Relient K's Two Lefts Don't Make A Right... But Three Do as the longest continuous appearance in my car's CD wallet. Despite the obvious pop appeal of "Better" and "Fidelity," it was the gorgeous ballad "Samson" that had me hooked.

The lyrics of "Samson" owe a huge debt to Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" The genius re-writing of biblical story to tell a tale of heartbreak is very similar, I used both songs (the k.d. lang version of "Hallelujah") on Sweetest Downfall: A Broken Hearted Mix Tape. The mixtape's title comes from the line "You are my sweetest downfall/I loved you first" which opens the track over a simple piano. In the song, which also appears on Regina's out of print album Songs from 2002, Regina's strong voice weaves among the piano and a few strings, singing about Samson, whose hair she cut, who couldn't bring the columns down, remembering that "the history books forgot about us/and the Bible didn't mention us/not even once" Those lines stand in direct opposition to the grandiosity of "Us" a single from her major label debut Soviet Kitsch, in which she proclaims "they made a statue of us." This was a quieter love affair, one where Samson eats a slice of Wonder Bread and went back to bed.

The track was used in an episode of CSI:New York, and was an NPR "Song of The Day."

My Top Twenty: "Strange Fruit" - Billie Holiday

Song: "Strange Fruit"
Artist: Billie Holiday (also sung by Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley and many others)
Year: 1939
Label: Commodore
Players: Billie Holiday - singer; Abel Meeropol - songwriter, (as Lewis Allan)

It was this photograph [warning, do NOT click if easily nauseated, NSFW] that prompted Jewish highschool teacher Abel Meeropol to write a the poem that would become my favorite protest song. In the picture, two African-American men are hanging from a tree, while white men and women mill around below, some pointing, none terrible shocked or offended. These men were lynched, not tried and condemed. they were murdered, because of the color of there skin.

Billie Holiday is a master of the American songbook, her voice infused with emotion both elating and depressing. But on "Strange Fruit" she is not downcast over her man's wandering eye, but by the injustice commited against her people, by her fellow man. It is one song that, to this very day, fills my heart with anger, fills my eyes with tears and makes my fists to clench. How can we have done this? How can people be so violent, so evil? I know it was a different time and place, but that can't even begin to make it right.

It's not just the subject matter that cuts into my heart, but the way it is presented with the evoctive lyrics: "Scent of magnolia, so clean and fresh/then the sudden smell of burning flesh" Just hearing that, it takes you there. To a place, so real, so horrible. It sickens you. Or at the very least, it should. "Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck/for the rain to gather/for the wind to pluck/for the sun to rot/for the trees to drop/here is a strange and bitter crop"

The song inspired Bob Dylan, was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame and named Time's Song Of The Century.

My Top Twenty: "Stay (I Missed You)" - Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories

Song: "Stay (I Missed You)"
Artist: Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
Album: Reality Bites Original Motion Picture Soundtrack/Tails
Year: 1994
Label: RCA
Highest Billboard Hot 100 Chart Position: #1
Players: Lisa Loeb - singer, songwriter, acoustic guitarist; Tim Bright - electric guitarist; Jonathan Feinberg - drummer; Joe Quigley - bassist; Daniel Littleton - electric guitarist; Elizabeth Mitchell - harmony vocalist; Juan Patino - producer, harmony vocalist; Ben Stiller - soundtrack co-producer, Reality Bites director; Ethan Hawke - neighbor, Reality Bites star

In 1994 a chart feat was achieved for the first and only time. An unsigned artist topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart. That artist was Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories.

Lisa was performing in coffee houses in New York City when her neighbor and friend, actor Ethan Hawke, was filming Reality Bites, directed by Ben Stiller. Ethan suggested that Ben use "Stay" in the film, and Ben agreed. The soundtrack went on to sell over a million copies, pushing the single to number one.

After the release of Tails, which failed to produce a hit near as massive as "Stay" Lisa Loeb never released another album as part of Nine Stories. Three years later, her second biggest hit, "I Do," off her album Firecracker, was her last major chart appearance and she has since done a cooking show with then-boyfriend Dweezil Zappa and a reality show on E! Channel.

But it's "Stay (I Missed You)" that will be her legacy, even beyond being a historic chart anomaly. From the delightful acoustic guitar that opens the track, to the impassioned lyrics that are so full of regret and confusion, to Lisa's clear sweet vocals and cat-eye glasses, everything about this song is classic, clean, American guitar pop.

My Top Twenty: "Chasing Cars" - Snow Patrol

Song: "Chasing Cars"

Artist: "Snow Patrol

Album: Eyes Open

Year: 2006

Label: Interscope

Highest Billboard Hot 100 Chart Position: #5

Players: Gary Lightbody - singer, lyricist, guitarist; Johnny Quinn - percussion, songwriter; Nathan Connelly - guitarist, songwriter; Paul Wilson - bassist, songwriter; Tom Simpson - keyboards, songwriter; Jacknife Lee - producer

Snow Patrol was formed almost fifteen years ago as Shrug, but didn't have a breakthrough hit until 2003's "Run" from their third album Final Straw. It was not a smash here in the US, but I really enjoyed it. Not enough to buy the album or anything, but it's symphonic rock quality was something I really zoned in on. The Northern Irish band then replaced the bassist/keyboardist and started work on the follow up, Eyes Open. After releasing a minor Modern Rock hit with "Hands Open" the stunning ballad "Chasing Cars" was featured on One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy and proceeded to blow up.

I had seen the original UK "Chasing Cars" music video right after VH1 first started playing it, I'm not sure if it was before or after the TV appearances. I was immediately interested in the song, like I was with "Run" as the two songs shared a similar symphonic rock sound. I heard it a few times on radio after that, and by then I was hooked. Even after the crazy success of the song, I'm still not sick of it. Lightbody said on the band's MySpace that it was "the most pure and open love song I've written" and I really agree. Besides the iconic opening bars, the sweeping chorus and the impassioned vocals (oh, and Gary's hotness!) "Chasing Cars" is above all an intimate love song that draws you in. In my mind, it is one of the most perfect expressions of love, that someone would want to "lay with me and just forget the world." So, who wants to join me and "waste time, chasing cars around our heads?"

My Top Twenty: "Winner Takes It All" - ABBA

Song: "The Winner Takes It All"
Artist: ABBA
Album: Super Trouper (also on ABBA Gold)
Year: 1980
Label: Polar Music
Highest Billboard Hot 100 Position: #8
Players: Agnetha Fältskog - lead vocals; Anni-Frid Lyngstad - background vocals; Björn Ulvaeus - songwriter, producer; Benny Andersson - songwriter, producer


Everyone knows who ABBA is, right? Swedish pop-masters Benny and Bjorn created perfect melodies and catchy hooks to be sung by pitch-perfect vocalists Agnetha and Anni-Frid to create little slices of disco-dusted pop magic. Despite having only four US top ten hits (including "The Winner Takes It All") ABBA has come to symbolize pop music at its peak, beloved in Europe and around the world for their unabashed mastery of the sing-along hook. From their biggest smash, "Dancing Queen" to the lesser known, but equally catchy, minor singles like "Does Your Mother Know" you can find all the hits on the stunning singles collection ABBA Gold, the band's biggest album in the US.

When the group disbanded in 1982, interest never waned much. The male members wrote the musical Chess with Tim Rice in 1983, Erasure recorded a cover EP called ABBAesque in the late 1980s, films like Murial's Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert used the songs as plot points and the Broadway sensation Mamma Mia! used 25 of the bands hits. Two ABBA cover bands have had great success, Björn Again in the late 1980s and A*Teens during the teen pop craze at the turn of the millennium.

I was first introduced to the pop goodness of ABBA when my sisters and I were given a box of 45 singles that had belonged to my dad and his siblings as kids. I was probably 13 or 14 at the time, and I was entranced by the bubblegummy pop sounds of The Archies and the disco singles by Donna Summer, Chic and ABBA. It was "Dancing Queen" and the b-side "That's Me" and "Fernando" whose b-side I can't recall, and I was hooked. When I was 21 I bought ABBA Gold and was terrified everyone would think I was really gay for liking them. Little did I know, there is a lot more to being gay besides loving a Swedish pop outfit. It was then I discovered "The Winner Takes It All" a tender breakup ballad that uses classical themes for the lyrics. "The gods may throw a dice/their minds as cold as ice" has a Shakespearean quality, the heartbreak so evident in "Somewhere deep inside/you must know I miss you/but what can I say/rules must be obeyed" And why shouldn't it ring so true? The song was written during the divorce of Agnatha and Björn, and when at the end Agnatha cries out "No self confidence/but you see/the winner takes it all" it just hits you right in the gut. And while Mamma Mia!'s Donna manages a happy ending after performing this song, it's only right that Brits should vote this heartrending classic as Britain's Favorite Breakup Song.

My Top Twenty: "Black Is The Color Of My True Loves Hair" - Nina Simone

Song: "Black Is The Color Of My True Loves Hair"
Artist: Nina Simone
Album: Nina Simone At Town Hall (also on Wild Is The Wind and Black Gold, remixed on Verve Remixed 2)
Year: 1959
Label: Colpix Records
Players: Nina Simone - vocals, piano; Jack Gold - producer; Bob Blake - producer


Nina Simone is a fabulous artist, who was a favorite of Bridget Fonda's character in Point Of No Return. Her husky vocals, beautiful piano work and classical training helped her create a high-art sound that combined the best of jazz, blues, gospel, folk and classical music. Her take on "I Loves You Porgy" ranks as one of the best versions of that Gershwin-penned classic, in my opinion. She is probably best known to the casual listener for her cover of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell on You" or the use of "My Baby Just Cares For Me" in a 1987 Chanel No. 5 commercial. But Nina Simone also wrote her own material, often controversial race-themed songs like "Four Women" "Mississippi Goddam" and "To Be Young, Gifted And Black," later covered by the Queen herself, Aretha Franklin.

"Black Is The Color Of My True Loves Hair" was the first Nina Simone song I ever heard. It was on a Starbucks compilation called Something To Believe In, which featured classic tracks by African-American artists like Erma Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Dionne Warwick and a liner note full of paintings by other black artists. I picked it up at a Salvation Army Thrift Store for a buck or two about five years ago. In my ignorance, I usually skipped over Nina's track, since I'd never heard of it before. Eventually, I let it play and fell in love with the dramatic contrast between the gentle piano and the throaty vocals singing an Appalachian folk song on the version from Wild Is The Wind. It's strange, a song about a Scottish lass can sound so perfect coming out of a black woman's mouth. But that was Nina Simone's gift, she inhabited her songs so brilliantly. To this day, no matter how many variations of "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair" come around, it will be Nina's that will stay rooted in my heart. "Ooh, I love my lover, how well he knows/I love the ground on where he goes"

My Top 20: Plumb - "Unforgivable"

Song: "Unforgivable"
Artist: Plumb
Album: Plumb
Year: 1997
Label: Essential Records
Players:

Tiffany Arbuckle - Vocals, Songwriter; Stephen Leiweke - Guitar; J.J. Plasencio - Bass; Joe Porter - Drums; Matt Stanfield - Keyboards; Matt Brownleewe - Songwriter, Producer; Dan Haseltine - Producer

Produced by Jars Of Clay's Dan Haseltine, Plumb's self-titled debut burst onto the Christian rock scene in 1997. Rock singles like "Crazy" and "Unforgivable" were meant to provide a gospel equivalent to Garbage, only the band also flirted with more experimental sounds than the CCM market was used to. Thanks to the faux-Alanis sounds of Rebecca St. James's God the year before, gospel radio was ready for a edgier female voice, after years of the more Adult Contemprary sounds of Amy Grant and Twila Paris.

It was the video for "Unforgivable" that first turned me on the exciting world of Plumb. It was at the end of the WoW 1998 video compilation of Christian music videos, along with other up-and-coming artists like Smalltown Poets and Miss Angie. The strangeness of the video, with it's jars of water and small rubbery discs with words printed on them intrigued my 14-year-old self. The lyrics were some of the most powerful I'd heard as a youngster, "Never told that I am pretty/never told that I am kind... Ashamed and alone/from all that's been done to me/It's not my fault I remind myself" and the brutal chorus of "You say food will be on the table/and birds in the sky... I'm hungry/So hungry/And it's cloudy outside" had the singer questioning God, something I didn't even know was allowed. Perhaps it's only colored by my personal perspective, but this song always felt it came from a place of sexual or emotional abuse. At the ago of 14, I had uncovered a new love. Between Plumb and God I was hooked on chick-rock, an obsession that continues today.

After the success of this album and the Dove-winning follow-up candycoatedwaterdroplets, Plumb (the band) became Plumb (the solo artist) and released The Best of Plumb to fulfill her Essential contract. Jumping to Nashville-based label Curb, Plumb released three more albums, including last year's Blink. That album of lullabies produced her club hit, a remix of "In My Arms" which was number one single on the Billboard Dance Charts. But in my mind, "Unforgivable" is the greatest song Plumb has ever recorded.

Introducing... My Top Twenty Favorite Songs Of All Time

I joined MySpace.com over a year ago, and started blogging on the networking site a short while later. I think the second post I ever made was a link to a new Kelly Clarkson song, I was hooked on spreading the word about hot new pop music.

In May 2007 a post about "Only You" by The Platters started a series of posts about my Top Ten Favorite Songs Of All Time, and it took me a good long while to get through them all. I posted about both the personal story behind my love of the song and the historical significance of the songs, some posts were longer than others, but in Febuary 2008 I completed the series, ending with Amy Grant's "Lead Me On." For a while now, I had been considering a new series, with ten more songs to take the list to a Top Twenty. Since my original top ten was a MySpace exclusive, you won't find the posts on Pictures & Conversations. Until now! Here are the links to my original Top Ten Songs Of All Time:
"Only You" - The Platters
"Jolene" - Dolly Parton
"How Soon Is Now?" - The Smiths
"Lead Me On" -Amy Grant
"Like A Prayer" - Madonna
"Hurt" - Johnny Cash
"You Are There" - Ashley Cleveland
"Jesus Walks" - Kanye West
"Because Of You" - Kelly Clarkson
"We Belong Together" - Mariah Carey

Now, I'm ready to unveil the ten songs that round out My Top Twenty Favorite Songs Of All Time:
"Unforgivable" - Plumb
"Unwell" - Matchbox 20
"Stay (I Missed You)" - Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
"Strange Fruit" - Billie Holiday
"Black (Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair)" - Nina Simone
"Paint It Black" - The Rolling Stones
"The Winner Takes It All" - ABBA
"Chasing Cars" - Snow Patrol
"Time After Time" - Cyndi Lauper
"Samson" - Regina Spektor

I will get to posting about these delicious records as soon as I can. This time around, look for pictures, links to music videos, as well as the same personal reasons for loving these songs.