100 Songs
I’m using this page to sneak a little biographical detail into my website. It’s not quite a list of my all-time favourite tunes though it’s partly that. Some songs remind me of other places and times. Some remind me of things I haven't done yet.
Since “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” (attribution unknown), I’ve included, where possible, links to an artist’s site, or a YouTube video so you can hear the music yourself.
I realise that there are only 50 songs on this page, not 100. I have left space for 50 instrumental pieces but that’s another day’s work. Also credit where it’s due: I pinched the idea for this from Darren ‘Daz’ Cox.
Now, in no particular order…
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Castles in the Air — Don McLean
I’ve seen Don McLean in concert twice. The first time just himself and another guitarist, the second time with a band. At the latter gig, he played for hours, chatting away to the audience between songs, making sure to cover all the hits while leaving left plenty of room for musical spontaneity too. A classy performer, and this is one of his finest compositions.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Cler Achel — Tinariwen
I’ve never been to Africa but I’d love to visit to explore its rich variety of music some day. I picked up a set of headphones in HMV in London, heard this track and within a few seconds knew I was going to buy the CD.
[ YouTube ][ Official Site ][ MySpace ]
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God Only Knows — The Beach Boys
Every right-thinking person admires this song, and that includes me. It’s sung by the Beach Boys but of course it’s Brian Wilson behind the melody and intricate production. I heard him sing this live in Mountain View, California, in 2001.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Kaze no Shonkanee (風のションカネー) — Mika Uchizato (内里美香)
I’ve only heard Okinawan music a handful of times but each time it has piqued my interest. I discovered Mika Uchizato on David Byrne Radio and subsequently found this song on YouTube. Somehow I’ll have to get my hands on the whole album.
[ YouTube ]
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Ue wo Muite Arukou (上を向いて歩こう) — Kyu Sakamoto (坂本九)
This is a very catchy Japanese song that became a surprise hit in the West in the early 1960s. It’s better known in these parts as Sukiyaki which was thought to be easier to remember for non-Japanese speakers (true, but sukiyaki—a beef dish—has nothing to do with the song’s lyric).
[ YouTube ]
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Quizás, Quizás, Quizás — Nat King Cole
This song is familiar in English as Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps but it is originally a Cuban song, with lyrics in Spanish. It was a surprise to me to learn that Nat King Cole recorded en Español for his Latin American audience. But these are the kinds of discoveries I look forward to in Wong Kar-Wai’s films. Quizás, Quizás, Quizás punctuates his film, In the Mood for Love. (And if you haven’t seen that, see it.)
[ YouTube ]
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For What it’s Worth — Buffalo Springfield
Sometimes less is more. This song has a really pared down arrangement but the effect is striking. The chiming guitar harmonics are the genius touch that lifts this protest song out of the 1960s.
[ Wikipedia ]
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Do You Know the Way to San José? — Dionne Warwick
I could add any number of songs by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. This one always sounded very exotic to me in its references to LA and some unreachable nirvana called San José. When I moved to Silicon Valley to study at Stanford University I finally learned the way to San José: hop on the 22 bus heading south on El Camino.
[ Official Site ]
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Visa från Utanmyra — CajsaStina Åkerström
I spent many a late hour running tests on telephone switches in Sweden back in my telecom days. I used to leave a radio on and got to know Swedish music quite well as a result. CajsaStina’s songs were particularly distinctive so I bought her debut album. This song is not from that album but from a 2001 “best of”. A live performance of a traditional tune with a sparse accompaniment, it reveals the quality of her voice.
[ Official Site ] [ MySpace ]
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Vissi D’Arte — Filippa Giordano
There is a lot of great music in opera but I find the strangulated voices hard to take. Filippa Giordano manages to sing some of the finest arias in a more naturalistic style. I think it’s an improvement; many disagree!
[ Official Site ]
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A Va Saty Va Lomo — Orchestra Marrabenta Star de Mozambique
A beautiful song from Mozambique. I first heard it on David Byrne Radio and was lucky enough to find it on CD on a subsequent visit to Lisbon (Mozambique is a former colony of Portugal’s).
[ Wikipedia ]
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Sweet Baby James — James Taylor
“Ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go.”
[ Official Site ][ YouTube ]
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Moscow Nights (Подмосковные Вечера)
A beautiful Russian tune that has found a home in the repertoire of many jazz bands. It reminds me of listening to shortwave back in the 1980s when Radio Moscow used a couple of bars of Moscow Nights as a station identifier.
[ YouTube ]
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The Only Living Boy in New York — Simon & Garfunkel
“I get the news I need on the weather report.” I’d seen Paul Simon on his own several times but it was a real treat when he got back together with Artie for a tour. Nobody was writing and singing better music in the 1960s so to see them recreate that magic decades later in Dublin was a privilege. And the special guests were The Everly Brothers. Amazing.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Sour Times — Portishead
An argument in favour of sampling in music. Portishead took a few seconds from a little known Lalo Schifrin instrumental and transformed it in into a gloriously moody song.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Teardrop — Massive Attack
Hypnotic. A great vocal contribution from Elisabeth Fraser too.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Blame it on the Weatherman — B*Witched
There is good music in every genre. That includes girl- and boy-bands. Indeed there are often very talented songwriters and producers contributing to the effort so it’s no surprise it all comes together occasionally.
I first heard this song on Hong Kong TV but it was only after hearing another of their singles that I realised they were Irish (the C'est La Vie video was a bit of a giveaway). It was the same with The Corrs. I was familiar with their music before I twigged their provenance thanks to an interview on a Japanese TV channel. You become very tuned to picking your native accent out of the general hubbub when far from home.
[ YouTube ]
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My Love is your Love — Whitney Houston
As I said, every genre throws up a gem or two. I don’t get most contemporary R&B but this song caught my ear with its Wyclef Jean groove.
[ Official Site ][ YouTube ]
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We Gotta Get out of This Place — The Animals
Perhaps the coolest opening of any song—just a bass guitar accented with a little cymbal. And Eric Burdon is singing what we’re all thinking anyway.
[ YouTube ]
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Delaney’s Gone Back on the Wine — Mary Coughlan
When Mary Coughlan sings the blues, you believe her. I remember one of her gigs back in the day: a small club, a few of Ireland’s top jazz musicians and Ireland’s answer to Billie Holiday… magic.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Sinnerman — Nina Simone
“Power!"
[ YouTube ]
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Hearts and Bones — Paul Simon
I have all of Paul Simon’s albums and there is hardly a dud song among them. But this one stands out. I heard him say once that he probably had lines from a Yeats poem in mind when he came up with the title: “I must lie down where all the ladders start / In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart." If this was a poetry list, the poem that line comes from, The Circus Animals’ Desertion, would be top of the heap.
[ Official Site ] [ MySpace ]
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Uninvited — Alanis Morissette
The Wuthering Heights of the 1990s. Scary.
[ Official Site ] [ MySpace ] [ YouTube ]
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Jarrow Song — Alan Price
An epic mixture of music hall, colliery band and modern rock that tells the story of the Jarrow marchers from the twin perspectives of the 1930s and today.
[ YouTube ]
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The Moon Represents my Heart (月亮代表我的心) — Teresa Teng (邓丽君)
Teresa Teng’s songs are probably familiar to anyone who has eaten in a Chinese restaurant as they all seem to have instrumental versions plinking away in the background. They deserve to be heard in their original form though, as sung by the pure voice of Teresa Teng. If you like this one, try Tian Mi Mi (甜蜜蜜).
[ YouTube ]
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The Rocky Road to Dublin — The Dubliners
The quickfire, rhyming lyrics are a treat. The Dubliners probably have the definitive recording but the Chieftans and Rolling Stones did a somewhat deconstructed version that is worth checking out.
[ YouTube ]
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Dirty Old Town — Luke Kelly
I’m cheating a bit here. This is really The Dubliners again but it’s Luke Kelly that sells the song. Though Luke has been gone this last 25 years his version has not been surpassed. It’s not an Irish song but it has found a home in Dublin.
[ YouTube ]
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Redemption Song — Ziggy Marley and The Chieftans
The Chieftans have been playing traditional Irish music forever and have collaborated with everyone in the music business, so far as I can tell. They are great on their own, playing instrumentals, but here I’ve plumped for a joint effort with Ziggy Marley, singing a beautiful song of his father’s.
[ Official Site ][ Official Site ]
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Rocky Mountain High — John Denver
“I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky.” (Thank God) I’m a city boy but this song would make anyone yearn for the mountains.
[ Official Site ][ YouTube ]
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Wichita Lineman — Glen Campbell
There aren’t enough songs about telecoms engineers.
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Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball — Dr Hook
I was at a loose end once, in Karlstad, Sweden, so I went to the cinema. I don’t remember what the film was but I do recall the music playing in the theatre beforehand. I inquired afterwards what it might be and got talking to the cinema manager. Turned out he was a big fan of Shel Silverstein who wrote many of Dr Hook’s songs, including this one, Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball.
[ YouTube ][ Official Site ]
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No Frontiers — Mary Black
In 1995, Mary Black was an enormous star in Ireland, cranking out hit after hit, selling out the largest venues. I was living in Stockholm and Mary Black arrived to promote her latest album. Since she wasn’t well known there, she played a free gig in a bar. I ended up standing right in front of the stage, not believing my luck.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Hao Han Ge (好汉歌) — Liu Huan (刘欢)
This one will wake you up. The solo instrument is a suona—it has quite an electrifying sound. I bought a cheap one but never got a peep out of it. Someday I’m going to get a decent one (and an island to practise it on). Incidentally, you might have seen Liu Huan sing with Sarah Brightman at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
[ YouTube ]
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Wake Up — Arcade Fire
It was the video for this song that caught my attention first. It’s just the band, playing live on stage. They look like they really mean it and the same energy is there in the recording. Name checking a hip, young band is good for my street cred too.
[ YouTube ]
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Locura — Yasmin Levy
Ladino, Flamenco, Sephardic, Middle Eastern... it’s some mix of influences. Seeing Yasmin Levy and her first-class accompanists in an intimate venue knocks any stadium concert into a cocked hat. Cheaper too. I hope she comes back to Dublin.
[ Official Site ]
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Julia — Agnes Bernelle
Agnes Bernelle started life in pre-war Berlin and finished it in Dublin. She took the cabaret of her formative years (her father gave Marlene Dietrich her first job) and kept it alive until I saw her almost 20 years ago. I had never heard music like that, where the artist is an actor conveying a story from the darker side of life, often one with a savage twist. Thankfully, before she left us, she handed the torch on to Camille O’Sullivan who is every bit as good.
[ Wikipedia ]
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Chesspiece (棋子) — Faye Wong (王菲)
I became a fan of Faye’s music while working in China in the 1990s. Chesspiece has rather a lush arrangement but she has explored many sounds over the years and employed an impressive range of vocal styles. Sadly she seems to have retired from recording and performing.
[ YouTube ]
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Dream Person (夢中人) — Faye Wong (王菲)
It’s a toss up between Lawrence of Arabia and Chungking Express for my favourite film of all time. Since Lawrence doesn’t have any songs (unless you count Peter O’Toole singing The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo) I’m including Dream Person, recorded by Faye Wong for Chungking Express. It is the Cantonese version of Dreams by Irish band, The Cranberries.
Faye sang Dream Person at her concert in Guangzhou in 1998. Since I was just about the only kweilou (devil foreigner) there it’s a safe bet I was the only Irish person in attendance. I reckoned, therefore, that this Irish song was sung just for me.
[ YouTube ]
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I Want Tomorrow — Enya
I bought Enya’s debut album when it came out in 1987. She has become her own genre of music since then, of course, but it sounded thoroughly fresh at the time (and, amazingly for ’80s synth music, it still does). The layered, ethereal sound was present even then but there was also a raw element which works great on I Want Tomorrow. Her voice and the lyrics are to the fore and crystal clear. Most surprisingly, an electric guitar chimes in for a solo.
The YouTube video reminds us what happens to any car that parks across the gate of Enya’s castle.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Rise — Louise Hoffsten
Louise Hoffsten is in my top three all-time greatest singers and songwriters. She is Swedish but releases many of her albums in English, straddling the country, blues and rock genres. There are many of her songs I could have picked but I chose this one for the simplicity of the arrangement and the powerful lyric. Rise deals with what happens when life pulls the rug out from under you.
I saw her in concert in Stockholm in 1995, and was tempted back to Sweden in 2006 to hear her play in Gothenburg.
[ Official Site ]
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Umrumda Değil — Candan Erçetin
Another one I picked up from David Byrne Radio. It’s Turkish and that’s about all I know. Turkey always claims to be where Europe meets Asia and this song very cleverly mixes western and eastern modes, instrumentation and percussion.
[ YouTube ]
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Trouble With a Capital ‘T’ — Horslips
This is some of the earliest music I can recall hearing. It’s Irish-inflected rock from the 1970s and still very popular today.
[ Official Site ] [ YouTube ]
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Umbrellas — Fredo Viola
I listen to a lot of songs in languages I don't understand. I just like the voice as an instrument. This song keeps the voice and ditches language altogether. Works for me.
[ YouTube ] [ Official Site ]
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Rose, Rose, I Love You (玫瑰玫瑰我爱你) — Yao Lee (姚莉)
I’ve included this jazz number for its tight arrangement. No bars are wasted as each instrument gets its chance to shine during the song’s two-and-a-half minute duration. The song is also a window into the lost world of Shanghai in 1940. Imagine the collision of Western and Eastern cultures that produced this recording, in a city under occupation by Japanese forces during World War II.
[ YouTube ]
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Le Grenier — Jessica Fichot
I used to have to go to other countries to hear their music; now it comes to me on the internet. Here’s a great example of a track I’d never hear on radio or TV in Ireland. Zut alors, elle chante si vite!
[ The Song ] [ Official Site ] [ MySpace ]
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One of Us — Joan Osborne
I moved to Japan at the start of January, 1996. It was my first time in Asia. While Tokyo was blowing my mind, I heard this song over and over. Neither is easily categorised.
Joan Osborne can do quiet too. Hunt down her version of Dolly Parton’s Do I Ever Cross Your Mind? It's sublime.
[ Official Site ] [ MySpace ] [ YouTube ]
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For No One — The Beatles
Paul McCartney had the edge on his bandmates when it came to forging the best melodies. This is one of his outstanding compositions from the Revolver album. As usual, the arrangement is chosen to suit the song, and not to fit the band format. So out went George and John, and in came the french horn player.
[ Official Site ]
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Stardust — Willie Nelson
Stardust is one of the most recorded songs of all time but it’s not an easy song to sing. Hearing Willie Nelson’s laidback voice nail the subtle melodic line is like watching a magician—it’s happening in front of you but you still can’t figure out how it’s done.
[ Official Site ]
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Jerusalem
“And was Jerusalem builded here Among those dark Satanic mills?” Some year I'll have to invest in a season ticket for the BBC Proms so I can attend the Last Night. One of the highlights will be the hymm, Jerusalem, a rousing tune belted out by a huge choir along with the audience at the Royal Albert Hall.
[ YouTube ]
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Beautiful Affair — Stockton’s Wing
Stockton’s Wing played the 1999 St Patrick’s Day Ball in Beijing. The previous year it was De Dannan. The expat life can be pretty sweet—a reception at the embassy, a fancy dinner, music provided by the superstars of Irish music and afterwards sharing a few drinks with Frankie Gavin and Conor O’Clery. Beautiful Affair stuck in my head after the gig so I hunted it down on CD on my next visit home.
[ Wikipedia ]
