Best Rock Song Ever?

[naymissus]

[pippa]

Chuck Berry, is a brilliant choice for the best. but then that excludes the likes of Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Bill Hayley, Bo Diddley, etc. so its a tough challenge. what a great song to wake up to on a sunday, though. and the trouble is nowadays intruments are tuned/made such to give out the richest tone that you loose that raw freshness you can hear in that particular song, especiallly the piano - so vibrant.

one of the very good things about Quentin Tarantino is his exceptional taste in music. reservoir of dogs has an excellent play list:
i wonder if 'rock' is too wide a genre for your challenge, though, nay. i'd say chucky's "you never can tell" falls specifally into 'rock and roll'... but your're on for that challenge!

[naymissus]

Re: Best Rock Song Ever?

Why Chuch Berry's 'You Never Can Tell' is the best rock and roll song ever

This song flows like a mississippi steam-boat.
It is simple unaffected, joyful, with masters of the genre coming together in superb sympathy.

It tells a story where the word fit in so well with the music that the effect is astonishing; just listen to these lines

'He had a Hi-fi phono and boy did he let it blast'
'He bought a souped up chimney was a cherry-red fifty three'

Note how the final word in each of these lines slides downward meeting superbly the next line- see how perfectlty they fit with the music!

Poetry! Sheer demotic poetry from the US of A!

I cannot think of any other rock song that has such a perfect intermarriage of words and music
And the music swings and you want to dance, and the initial guitar introduction sets the scene of relaxed but driving rock'n'roll, and then the piano comes in driving the rhythm along.
Note how Bery segues his words letting his voice fall at just the right pitch to make the impact with the next pitched word.
There is simply no artificiality about this record - these are professionals enjoying themselves, disciplined but letting it all rip and swing
Here you will find no self-conscious poncy Pink-Floyd type guitar riffs, no playing for effect, no pretentiousness. The tune comes across all those years with a startling originality and freshness. No heavy-metal nonsense here, no androgynous middle-aged druggies playing the guitar with their teeth in clouds of ice smoke.
No, This music is sheer joy
Even 'Stairway To Heaven' is pretentious guff in comparison, contrived, artificial Rock-God stuff.
The Stones?
They were the singularly most impressive group of my youth.. I will never foreht the first time I heard 'Satisfaction' in the sweltering heat of Aden.
But they learned their trade from the likes of Berry - a master musician playing here at his best.

Come on admit it, you swayed as you listened!
You just loved it!

[marchesarosa]

Agreed!

[pippa]

can tell i'm hard pressed to find a contender for that truly excellent song, which is why i haven't posted anything, YET.

you are right, though, cant keep still while listening and it is joyful as well as gutsy. i too never appreciated all that pretentious, poncy, very metal, super electric, crescendo music- just a little too self engrossed for my liking - wanksville!

very early Stones were great, i agree, but as you say they snitched their music from the blues greats who never received any credit for it at the time.

i was once outraged when i bought tickets to see Muddy Waters, to find Eric Clapton head lining. blimming cheek i thought, it should have been the other way round with Muddy Waters as the main attraction that night.

i consider Hendrix in a league of his own, though, as Janis Joplin - 'belly button window' (Hendrix) is such a great song - lazily rolls off his guitar.

brilliant post, nay - music to my ears.

[arealfarmer]

i consider Hendrix in a league of his own, though, as Janis Joplin - 'belly button window' (Hendrix) is such a great song - lazily rolls off his guitar.

Well of course he is Pippa . I have quite a stash of Hendrix but have never heard of this track .


Best Rock Song Ever is just too impossible a task ........

Best 1000 rock songs ever might be a better thing ( the Fall might just get in there then ! )

[pippa]

you’re right it is a tall order, farmer. nay really did chose a brilliant song to beat.

the only one so far i think can think might be in the running is ‘Sympathy for the Devil‘. great song that was the inspiration for Mikhail Bulgakov’s, ‘The Master and Margarita’ which is a favourite of mine. a witty satire on soviet society and the claustraphobic beurocracy. surprisingly, Bulgakov was never punished unlike other authors that were forcibly shut up. even though the book was suppressed it still had a wide circulation.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgD-D_z0Cs8&feature=related
sympathy for the devil[/youtube]

two versions of 'Belly Button Window'
one with no frills the other a little more than the basic one, give or take you only got two hundred days.

[naymissus]

Well Pippa, I do not think that that is the Stones at their best - although they made an enirmous impression on me amidst the bombs and bullets of Aden

This one I love.
It came out just as we got married and is always ecvocative of our beautiful youth.
That and the Beatles basing Sgt Pepper on it

[naymissus]

And here is a good Rolling Stones number, much improved in the telling

[pippa]

ah, Melanie - my brother's heart throb.

funny isn't it how we link music with events, the people and places in our lives. certainly different times in my life are marked that way.

although i was never that crazy about the beach boys i cannot deny the huge impact they had being virtually the sole creators of that west coast sound. Brian Wilson is an nteresting odd bod. my faviourite of theirs is 'Sloop John B' - cant remember what was on the 'a' side of the single i bought when i was about 14 but it was that song on the 'b' side that left the impression.


cant believe i said sympathy for the devil was the inspiration for the master and margarita. of course it was the other way round.