#72) "Take Me Home" by Phil Collins - Seeing as Phil Collins is a drummer, I guess it's not too surprising that the prominent musical feature of Take Me Home is its rhythm. Collins has been known to ruin some of his more popular songs by allowing heavy percussion to crash the party, but here his drumming keeps the melody and strangely haunting vocals sewn up snugly with almost bewitching precision.
The song reads profoundly sad to me, speaking to an unfulfilled life, a small existence. The line, 'There's a fire that's been burning right outside my door, I can't see but I feel it, and it helps to keep me warm', remains to this day among the most lovely and unsettling phrases ever uttered in a song, in my opinion.
Yet if Take Me Home is actually supposed to be haunting or depressing, it's either so subtly (expertly) embedded as to be almost unnoticeable, or just my imagination. Truth is, the song ponders but never broods, reflects but never complains. This constitutes what I consider to be its brilliance, and is complemented (and affirmed) by the video - a string of pensive but light-hearted shots of Collins in various locations around the world. I remember watching it on MTV when I was twelve years old and being led to wanting to go places. Rather than leaving me feeling unfulfilled and small, it filled me with hope that I one day would.
"Take that look of worry, I'm an ordinary man / They don't tell me nothing, so I find out what I can..."
#73) "Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp - A lot more going on in this song than meets the ear; I think it's quite possibly the greatest protest song ever written.
Okay, maybe not a 'protest' song in the traditional sense, Pink Houses seems to be a stinging indictment of 1980s America nevertheless - the rise of corporatism, the death of the family farm and attendant 'little man', growing economic disparity and the casualty of dreams. Strewn under a deceptively patriotic premise (and refrain), Pink Houses' real meaning socks you in the nose when you come to realize it, and I'd be willing to bet that's just how Mellencamp wanted it. Like Springsteen's Born in the USA, he has more than once refused (certain) politicians and organizations permission to use this song in ads - politicians and organizations who just don't get it, who peg this as a mere flag-waving anthem, rather than a rough portrait of American life at the dawn of the technological age, signed in the lower right corner with the tip of Mellencamp's middle finger.
If nothing else, Pink Houses sounds like trains to me. In the first few measures, it mimics the resonant rumble engines make when they're not moving but turned on and warming up, and then later comes the tell-tale clack-clack embedded in the song's rhythm. I don't think this was intentional necessarily, but I hear it, and I like it. There's never anything about trains I don't like listening to, or looking at.
Same goes for Pink Houses. I love me some Pink Houses...always gets thinking and wondering and wandering in my mind. I'd rate it in the Top 10 greatest pop songs of all time for sure, even if I'm delusional about what I'm hearing. ;-)
"Cuz they told me, when I was younger, they said boy you're gonna be president / but just like everything else, those old crazy dreams just kind of came and went..."
#74) "N.W.O." by Ministry - Just a nice steaming pile of aggression and outrage to growl along with. When I was a young man, this song was actually an effective motivator when I was at work and there was work to be done....still is, come to think of it.
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#75) "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins - No other song seems to have a greater hypnotic effect on people than 1979, and this too is really no surprise. The song flows like cool, refreshing water, a tributary emptying straight into one's stream of consciousness.
I've seen this phenomenon in action, as a matter of fact. When 1979 gets played at my work, a lull invariably sweeps over everyone; seriously, every time. The women bob their heads left and right, mouth along silently with the words (as women tend to do), the men, however raucous and loud they were a minute ago, quietly set to the task at hand, whatever that may be. Some serious, and mysterious, hypnosis going on!
The song has a lulling, and fairly analgesic, effect on me as well, has a way of becoming my stream of consciousness. I should be careful with this song on 1/48/50, come to think of it...don't want to fall asleep at the wheel.
Of course, there are worse songs to be playing when the grim reaper comes a-calling. ;-)
"And we don't know just where our bones will rest, to dust I guess / forgotten and absorbed to the earth below..."
