Best? Is it possible? . Review on Twenty Best Rock Songs

'Best'? Is it really possible? Music has so many colors for each season, and so many muses; is it really necessary to list down a cast-in-stone set of'favorites'? For each season, there is a song - I can remember listening endlessly to Steve Miller Band's album *Book of Dreams *for a few months last year, yet I never got past the first four songs; indeed, I still haven't got past that, and I have even stopped listening to that album for over a year now.

But I can still remember the aching fondness I had for'Jet Airliner' and'Swing Town'.so much good no-nonsense rock in that bleak, murky rock wasteland - the 70's. Still, those two songs were there for that season in my life. Today, I would not consider them for this season I'm in.

That's what I mean. For each time in our lives, we reach out for certain songs with a passion; when the season passes, there are different songs. It doesnt mean we forget the songs we liked in the past; it just means that they arent in the current season, that's all.

So I can list down a few songs that define this season for me - may not be able to come up with 20, but that wont worry me too much. Music must never be boxed into'Top 20s' and things like that - it becomes too much like the charts, an unfotunate travesty of the real thing.

So here goes -

1.Jet(Paul Macartney and Wings, from the album Band on the Run) Simply because I happened to buy the album a few weeks ago. The song itself is a good rock song, nothing spectacular but with that really integral'hook'(the opening riff) that Macartney is capable of putting into his songs.

The whole song sounds like fun rock, with enough rock'n roll to pack it and just barely enough'songwriting', the kind that Macartney is wont to do. He sounds(and the whole band indeed) like the whole thing is fun, which is the essence of any good rock music. For those who care to remember, Band on the Run is, by far, Macartney's most breezy and interesting solo album with Wings.

2.Tangled Up In Blue(Bob Dylan, from *Blood On The Tracks *) His most loved album of the 70s, and the song itself is so deeply felt and carefully and accurately observed. The meagre opening riff(just 2 chords) has just got enough rock'n roll in it to work, and it works wonderfully.

1. Lily, Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts(Bob Dylan again, from Blood On The Tracks) A very canny and caustic examination of relationships that dont work, set in a small town out in the West somewhere(who cares where?). For me, this lovely album has resurfaced after about 9 years ago when I last heard it - the memories are still fresh and the season is back! Those of us who are into how betrayed love and loneliness turns quickly into hate and murder, this song is it.

   
   




2. Lindy Comes To Town(Al Stewart, from his 1995 album Between The Wars, featuring guitarist Laurence Juber) Al was always very good at history, and in this song, the past that he explores is particularly and achingly significant - the triumphant and much-romanticized 1920's aircraft landing in Normandy by Charles Lindbergh. The song celebrates this event against the backdrop of the Depression waiting in the wings; it is a snapshot of how the Americans never expected, in those heady days, a depression to come. The jangle of those guitars is lovely, sprightly and so accurately evokes what the song is about.

   
   




3. Ring Your Bell(The Band, from Northern Lights, Southern Cross) A straight-ahead rocker. Not that you would expect much else from The Band, but the chords(?) that make up the riff are unusual, even if they are really integral to basic rock movements. But the title phrase wails so beautifully and Robertson's guitar is so tight, like a rubber band. The bass-drums interlock actually plays secoind fiddle rather than being the main rhythm, which is the essence of good rock; and the singing is plaintive and beautifully controlled.

   
   

Well that's about it for now - would surely think of churning out another set of five when the season changes. For those reading this'review' expecting another stereotyped list of 20, here's something to think about, till later. Go with the season, as always, folks.and let music be.