Bob Seger at Xcel
The message I took from the concert in St. Paul by 66-year-old Bob Seger is that rock’n’roll is here to stay. Although some songs he sang were 40 years old, this was not an oldies concert. The Silver Bullet Band played the songs as written, with no need for a musical update, and they […]
Introduction to Top 25
The first step in naming the Top 25 Songs of the Rock Era, which happens to coincide with my personal music-listening era, is determining the criteria for a “Top” song. Obviously, the criterion is not best-selling, or most-played, or even most-requested. If you rank songs by how many weeks they were #1 on […]
1. My Girl, The Temptations
Perhaps the most effective, evocative three-note opening sequence in rock creates an aura of anticipation so utterly fulfilled when the guitar starts ascending and the voice comes in, “I’ve got sunshine…..on a cloudy day.” What a sunny, upbeat, mood-improving song! It’s hard, nay, impossible, not to smile any and every time I hear this […]
2. Brown-Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
“Hey, wherever we go,” you’re pretty much assured of hearing this classic. It’s totally infectious, whether you’re singing along on the car radio or bopping on the dance floor: “We used to sing – sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-di-la-di-da.” I’m generally not big on lyrics, but that’s one I can remember. The key words for me in this […]
3. Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin
This is the song that defined how I define this list. It was in the mid-70s, driving back with the guys from touch football, and we reached my apartment on West End and 77th maybe two minutes into Stairway to Heaven. I can’t just leave in the middle of this song, I said; the other […]