My Ultimate Playlist

      We are the rock and roll generation. We grew up with Johnny B. Goode and doo-wop. We mourned the Vegasization of Elvis, we welcomed the British invasion and grooved to soul. We suffered through disco, were fascinated by punk and grunge, were sometimes confused by rap.

      Rock has been the soundtrack of our lives. And so I started, the other day, to make a list of the best songs of our rock and roll era. It’s something Rolling Stone Magazine has done, several times. Entertainment Weekly did it, too, as have a slew of other publications. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has done it, but perhaps nobody has done it as well or as comprehensively as rock critic Dave Marsh in his book, “The Heart of Rock & Soul—The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.”

The first in a series

      So, what could I—not a rock critic, not an expert, just another older white guy—possibly have to add? I freely acknowledge, after all, I’m not fully familiar with contemporary hip-hop, the music that has dominated popular culture for the last 25 years or so. I don’t know Young Thug from Lil Uzi Vert. Like many of us, I can’t tell House music from EDM.

      And yeah, like everyone else in our generation, I also like the Beatles, and the Stones, of course, and Chuck Berry and Nirvana and Creedence and Prince and lots of Dylan and REM and Smokey Robinson. Who from our generation doesn’t like all of them? How would my top 10 or 20 or 50 differ from most everyone else’s?

      But then I realized that in addition to the great and memorable songs that everyone loves, the “Hey Judes” and “Jumping Jack Flashes,” each of us has a secret mental playlist of songs that have, somehow, stayed with us forever. That make us involuntarily tap our feet or smile or think or remember each time we hear them.

      These aren’t necessarily the most famous or successful songs, or from the best-known artists—although some are. But they may be in some sense the most meaningful. So, here is my annotated list of songs on that playlist, with links, so you can hear for yourself if you don’t know them or have forgotten them. 

      Tomorrow, I might choose a slightly different 10. But right now, here are my 10. What would be your 10?

      “What’s up?"  4 Non Blondes. When I first heard it, accidentally on the radio, I was sure the title was “What’s Going On?” which was the endlessly repeated shouted refrain. And it was a group I had never heard of, neither before or since. So, one-hit wonders, but what a hit that always made me want to shout out that refrain.

      “Celluloid Heroes” The Kinks. I loved the early, raw Kinks stuff, the hard-rocking two minutes of All Day and All of the Night and You Really Got Me. But this was something different, an elegiac commentary on fame and our endless quest for it. It really got me.

      “Rawhide” Frankie Laine. In the 1950s, the decade of the TV western, all the westerns had theme songs (and I can still remember the words to most of them, including “Have Gun Will Travel,” aka Paladin). But this was the best, maybe because it also had Laine’s plaintive wail and the sound of a whip cracking.

      “Quand la Musique est Bonne” Jean-Jacques Goldman. Yeah, it’s French and he’s French and what do the French know about rock? But just listen to the opening guitar chords and try not to tap your feet. Also, the whole song is really about the glory of American rock and roll so extra points for that.

      “Pump It Up” Elvis Costello. His first hit, during his geeky, punky period, and absolutely irresistible, particularly those opening beats.

      “Ride ‘em Jewboy" Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys. Obviously, the best song ever written about the Holocaust. Also maybe the only song ever written about the Holocaust. Haunting.

      “The Living Years” Mike and the Mechanics. Heard it first while driving through New Jersey on the way to see my parents. Always makes me think of my father. Always will make you think of your father.

      “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” Jimmy Ruffin. His brother David, the lead singer of the Temptations, was more famous, but this was the perfect song for anybody young, and we were all young then, who felt bereft after an emotional breakup.

      “Secret Agent” Man Johnny Rivers. Yes, another TV theme song, this from the British spy series Danger Man, which aired in the U.S. as Secret Agent from 1964 to 1966. It’s really chintzy but Patrick McGoohan, as the secret agent, was really cool, even if the song wasn’t exactly. But boy, it was catchy.

      “Coming Into Los Angeles” Arlo Guthrie. He’s better known, of course, for “Alice’s Restaurant,” but—as a very nervous flyer—this was the rollicking song I sang to myself every time I would take a flight, and particularly during bumpy landings.