List folly.

That list was torture. For every song there were ten others as good. Probably twenty. You can't squeeze them all in.

Where were Roy Hamilton, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Al Green, Jim Morrison, Chuck Berry, Neil Young (‘Out on the Weekend’ was bumped for something else), and Willie (‘Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain’) Nelson? Where was Van Morrison? (His stunning mindscape ‘On Hyndford Street’ from Hymns to the Silence was in an early draft of the 100.) 

Christ Almighty, WHERE WAS RAY CHARLES? AND JIMI HENDRIX? (I tossed a coin for No. 2 - 'Lucky Old Sun' - and Aretha Franklin's version beat Ray Charles'. And where were Randy ('One Day I'll Fly Away') Crawford, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight, Karen Carpenter, Ella Fitzgerald, Ketty ("Love Letters") Lester and Patsy Cline?

The obvious top 100 habituees (Rolling Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Who and others) are on everyone else's, so they didn't need to be in my inconsequential list. I also excluded stadium rock standards (because, unlike the latter, I generally don't like them) and of course omitted today's inexplicable obsessions such as Queen (about whom everything worth saying was said by Dave Marsh).

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Speaking of which, while compiling my list I thought I might make another: the hundred worst songs of all time. There are plenty of contenders.