Polly Paulusma – She Moves in Secret Ways
There are few lyricists that can create an image better than Polly Paulusma, while she has only received limited success on the commercial scene Polly released one of the greatest acoustic pop albums ever created. Overshadowed by the marketability of Norah Jones and James Blunt, Paulusma produced the album Scissors in my Pocket by herself in a shed in her back garden and played 90% of the instruments. The story telling behind this song allows the listener to understand the problems with struggling which fork to take in the road and to try and avoid the devil wherever he may be.
Eric Clapton – Tears in Heaven
This song takes Clapton away from his image of a guitar God and allows him to be placed high in the rankings of the greatest songwriters ever. At the time Eric struggled with alcohol and drug problems not to mention the tormenting loss of his son. While nothing can truly captures the pain of having to bury one of your children ‘God’ gives us a beautiful insight into the feelings that may come up in such a horrifying situation.
Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek
From the moment the initial harmonies begin playing, the listener is immediately drawn into this song, stops everything and becomes immersed into try and figuring out what is taking place in this song. While the Vocoder and autotune techniques have been mocked and waved off by many of the world’s greatest producers. Imogen Heap shows an audience how effectively it can be used. While the true meaning behind the lyrics may never be explained, the way that it is sung and produced make you understand that it is an emotionally filled four and half minutes.
Paul Simon – Father and Daughter
Makes the JCB song by Nizlopi sound like Right Said Fred. Paul Simon just plain and simple knows how to write good songs. This song perfectly explains the love felt between a father and an offspring. The production values of using a child’s voice for certain lines add to it’s beauty and the simplicity of some of the lyrics truly prove that you don’t need to write lines like Shakespeare to be a genius. This should go down as one of his greatest beating (do I dare say it?) Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Greenday – Time of your Life (Good Riddance)
The ultimate anthem for the ultimate punk rock band. This song changed the way that punk rock bands were allowed to write songs. Never has a band pushed boundaries more than Greenday did at the time of this song’s release. Since then all modern punk bands have tried to recreate this style of acoustic emotional rock. The more modern interpretations have simply come up short, writing lyrics about missing their girlfriend, or being cheated on. Good Riddance doesn’t have to spell it out so obviously, Billie Joe relies on himself and the guitar to tell a masterpiece of a story.
Jamie Cullum – London Skies
Jamie Cullum may have played some beautiful songs in his time when he has covered some of the greatest, most romantic jazz and pop ballads of all time. For this song Jamie relies on his own songwriting skills and instead of writing about New York’s atmosphere or the sun-kissed San Francisco, he goes in an untold direction, telling the world about your average cloudy, miserable day in London Town. However the spin on the style of playing and lyrics shows that, as Mr Cullum states ‘there is beauty in our London Skies’.
Jimmy Eat World – Hear You Me
There may not be a rock album like this ever again, and certainly Jimmy Eat World can never dream of recreating the power the found behind Bleed American. The album goes from powerful punk pop, to hard rock and to a moment of clarity that would become the song Hear You Me seamlessly without ever sounding awkward. There may be better songs, better albums and better bands but everything came together in this amazing package. If there is an upcoming band looking to get the perfect running order for an album, they should listen to this album in it’s entirety to truly see how to set one up with Hear You Me being the pinnacle of beauty on a beautiful album.
Queen – These are the days of our lives
Freddie Mercury had gone public with knowledge of the HIV Virus and he was nearing his death. This would make the toughest man take some time to look back on life. This should have been the perfect ending to a wonderful career and a wonderful life. It’s a shame that half of the band felt the need to sell their music to anything that could continue to make them money. But for a moment, this song wonderfully produced with heartfelt lyrics seemed to be exactly what the world needed to say goodbye to possibly the greatest rock singer and performer to set foot onstage.
REM – Nightswimming
When many of you saw the band REM breaking the top ten, it may have taken your minds to the wonderful song of Everybody Hurts. While this may be the bands greatest combined achievement, Michael Stipe wrote this lone piano and voice song telling the tale of skinny dipping. The reason it trumps the Everybody Hurts is the warm fuzzy feeling it gives you when you hear it. Everybody Hurts is genius but is quite frankly depressing and this image perfectly passed from Stipe’s mind onto the listeners should always bring a smile to your face.
Tom Waits – San Diego Serenade
You can’t fit any more similes or metaphors in a song than Tom Waits has in San Diego Serenade. During his days of writing beautiful jazz and blues songs before he went a little insane and began combing this with hip hop and melodies that would make Marylin Manson shudder, Waits is trying in every way possible to describe the love he feels for someone special. He portrays his feelings perfectly when the song rounds out and it’s only then that we may truly know what love is.
Bright Eyes – The First Day of my Life
This Country Rocker has received high praises from Bob Dylan and numerous folk greats and with due respect. This particular song tells the story of the fresh feeling that envelops you when you meet your true love for the first time. The emotion in his voice brings a fragility to the performance that is extremely endearing and only adds more reasons to want to fall in love with his music.
Some of you will have read this and will begin asking questions; What about U2 –With or Without You, RHCP – Under the Bridge, the entire Beatles back catalogue?
True there are brilliantly beautiful songs and this has been an incredibly tough list to widdle down to just ten. There could be ten more top ten lists with the same title but should there be a gun held to my head and I have an hour to listen to ten songs before the trigger is pulled, this collection would create a feeling of acceptance and relaxation ready to take me to wherever I may be heading at the end of the final song.
I suggest you take some time to listen to these songs, you may just agree.
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