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Notes -
What’s the Greatest Rock and Roll Song of All Time
I was looking up the meaning the lyrics of Rosalita by Bruce Springsteen earlier in the week, trying to figure out if there was a particular slang meaning to the lines “Windows are for cheaters, chimneys for the poor, closets are for hangars, winners use the door.” What I came across was this thorough analysis arguing that Rosalita is possibly the single greatest rock performance of all time. Which got me thinking, was it? I think the greatest rock and roll song of all time would have to: be recognizably Rock and Roll to the majority of Rock audiences throughout time, I want something that Wolfman Jack would love while still having pushed and developed the genre further, so however much I love Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal it's out. From a great rock and roll band as an aspect of "career achievement" so one hit wonders are out. Can't be too obscure, the all time GOAT should be recognized by mass audiences, so anything by the Queers is out. A great upbeat car-radio song, so ballads and such are out. Covering classic rock and roll themes of teenage love and freedom and joy, so something too political like Eve of Destruction or too weird like Iron Man is out.
What are your nominations? I’ve never been a huge Stones or Zeppelin fan, so I didn’t pick one from those, but I still feel like it’s incomplete without at least a nomination for each. Mine below:
Rosalita Bruce Springsteen
Pro: Great lyrics with classic rock and roll themes of teenage freedom and cars and love affairs, driving galloping beat and energy, fits into the peak rock and roll moment when it had fully risen to cultural dominance but before splitting too heavily into subcultures (punk, metal, alt, etc) and before Thriller really split off pop as a distinct genre, just a little long with multiple excellent bridges without hitting absurd In A Gatta Da Vida lengths. I feel like this song could have opened for Chuck Berry in 1955, and for Van Halen in 1990, and rocked both crowds across thirty five years, Legendary concert piece by a classic concert band.
Con: Relies on the sax for most of the power of the instrumentals and guitar + sax is an evolutionary dead end, Bruce just generally doesn’t feel musically as influential as others on the nominations list like Dylan or Hendrix outside of New Jersey.
Like a Rolling Stone Bob Dylan
Pro: Nobel Prize winner Dylan is certified the greatest lyricist in rock history, covered by a thousand bands for the pure poetry and because it can be taken in a million directions, lines that are both so specific and so universal, The Band is great on this one.
Con: Dylan is more folk than rock and his electric era wasn’t really that long, too slow and not heavy enough, in the last forty years almost no one has ever danced or gotten laid to this which pulls it away from core rock styles.
Johny B Goode Chuck Berry
Pro: Berry deserves more credit than any other individual for putting Rock and Roll together from spare parts and the creator deserves credit for the creation, this was Berry’s most legendary song even though he stole the idea from a concert played by his cousin Marvin, it’s been covered by everyone from Judas Priest to John Lennon because they all thought it was that important.
Con: It’s only halfway there it’s the seed not the tree, the quality of the talent performance and composition just doesn’t hold up to others on the list.
You Shook Me All Night Long AC/DC
Pro: Dave Barry described the opening as the greatest couplet in the English language “She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean;” probably the heaviest rock can be pushed before splitting away from something Chuck Berry’s crowd would recognize at all, and the overall composition is just tight and powerful and perfect.
Con: Cock rock can feel kind of lame to me at times betwixt and between heavy metal and pop music, pretty simplistic and straightforward relative to the artistry in the musicianship of Rosalita or the lyrics of Like a Rolling Stone, kind of advertisement rock at this point.
Imagine John Lennon
Pro: If you thought this was a serious nominee, for even a second, please let me know in the comments so I can ignore everything that you ever post here in the future.
Purple Haze Jimi Hendrix Experience
Pro: Rock is first and foremost guitar music and Jimi was the greatest guitarist of all time, legendary associations of Woodstock, Jimi had the courtesy to stay forever 27 and so never gets the later cringe associations of working with Yoko or Barack Obama or releasing an ersatz Christmas album {though lowkey I love that Dylan album}, everything heavier than the Doors owes Jimi a debt.
Con: Jimi doesn’t have the volume of material to deserve the “career achievement” aspect of the award, short and simplistic, about drugs.
Raw Power Iggy Pop and the Stooges
Pro: Proto-punk par excellence, what differentiates rock from what came before and after is being hard and loud and this is as loud and hard as rock and roll gets, as authentic as punk ever got before the authenticity had to be disputed for those who saw the stooges, covered with bruises. Also, watch the Amazon Documentary it’s great.
Con: the stooges really aren’t very good at music, with Iggy saying he learned most of his composition from Captain Kangaroo.
I'm really kinda thinking Rosalita takes it.
Where do you draw the line between rock and roll and rock? Like, I would place the Beatles right at the drainage divide, with everyone else in the British Invasion worth mentioning being rock musicians.
If you follow the kitchen sink rules of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then I nominate "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" by James Brown and "Lose Yourself" by Eminem.
I would define rock and roll in its pure form by that clip from Back to the Future, when Michael J. Fox does the guitar solo and the 50s teens who were dancing are just left going wtf even is that. Stuff past that gets into your heavy metal, your hardcore punk, etc. That's the test I picture in my head. You can play a later rock and roll song to an earlier audience, and that audience would recognize it as rock and roll music.
To me, almost everything by The Beatles would play just fine at a Chuck Berry joint, same with the Stones, and most of Led Zeppelin or the Who as well. Maybe the audience wouldn't love it but they'd recognize it as the same kind of music they like. For me the line comes somewhere around like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest on the metal side, and then bands like Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys on the punk side. That's where I'd imagine the music/content reaches the point where your hypothetical 50s crowd coming out to hear Roll Over Beethoven gets confused.
Lose Yourself is an interesting one, I feel like I can't take it seriously because it's a movie song.
Well, War Pigs came out in 1970 and wouldn't fly with the rock'n'roll crowd. As did Child in Time (I love the stone faces of the audience). So, on one hand, I think the birth of hard rock and metal and their emergence at the genres of rock should disqualify post-Woodstock rock'n'roll songs from being considered the best. But on the other hand, would I really disqualify the songs by 3 Inches of Blood from being on a "best of heavy metal" list just because they were written after it became a niche genre?
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