30. Whispering Pines - The Band. Richard Manuel's plaintive vocal guarantees immortality, while Lowery organ shivers overhead like a cold moon.
29. From the Beginning - Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Once upon a time there was a progressive rock band that was so ridiculed (“ELP = Extremely Long and Pretentious”) that they decided to wreak revenge by writing the most perfect short pop song ever. So they did. And it was. (Although it did blow out to 4:23.)
28. Papa Was a Rolling Stone - Temptations. You can pick your friends but you can’t pick your parents.
27. I Got a Name - Jim Croce. Finally rewarded with fame, then cruelly smashed by fate when his plane crashed days before the song's release.
26. It’s Just a Matter of Time - Brook Benton. Brook Benton’s voice stole out of a billion radios in houses, factories and shops as the ‘50s gave way to the ‘60s. Lives were lived, novels were written, children grew up, and the sun rose and set to Benton's voice.
25. Blue Moon of Kentucky - Elvis Presley. Presley's 1954 output alone would have made him a legend; but unlike Cochrane, Holly, J.P. Richardson and Valens we got a couple more decades out of Elvis.
24. Second Avenue - Art Garfunkel. That rarest of beasts, a break-up song without a single maudlin word, thanks to writer Tim Moore. Garfunkel soars towards a crescendent vocal impossibility while ambient orchestral arrangement places the listener squarely on that lonely third floor landing - from where, having listened to the song, he would never escape.
23. If You See Her Say Hello - Bob Dylan. Dylan's best song. A copy - an actual record in its sleeve - of the album on which it appeared was thrown into the earth along with all the requisite flowers when my Dylan-fan sister, two weeks short of her thirtieth birthday, was buried in 1981 (story in this weblog 3/3/2010).
22. At Last - Etta James. Some people have an 'at last' moment once - or even twice - in their lives. And some don't.
21. Itchycoo Park - Small Faces. Best British rocker: Stewart, Jagger, Daltrey? ... or Marriott?
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