Honorable mentions:
War Pigs- Black Sabbath
How Many More Times- Led Zeppelin
Blinded by the Light- Manfred Mann
Can't Kick the Habit- Spin Doctors
The Breaks- Kurtis Blow
You Can't Always Get What You Want- Rolling Stones
Layla- Derek & the Dominos
Second five (My Sc2 line if this was NHL '94 for Sega)
10. Living for the City- Stevie Wonder
9. Sinner Man- Nina Simone
8. Foreplay/Long Time- Boston
7. White Lines- Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five
6. Bat Out of Hell- Meatloaf
Top five (Sc1)
5. Hurricane- Bob Dylan. A huge staple during the summer before my senior year of high school, when I started listening to a lot of classic rock, playing frisbee golf, and kicking hackeysack while watching Haley attempt to teach himself how to skateboard. A lot of the music that I listened to during this phase has since fallen by the wayside (especially Dylan) but this song has stuck with me. Besides being a great song, it tells a great story.
4. Shake Your Body Down to the Ground- The Jacksons. Not much to say about this one. Let's just say that if one of my New Year's resolutions was to spend at least 20 bucks playing this song on various jukeboxes in 2009, I'd have accomplished it already.
3. L.A. Woman- The Doors. One of those songs that rocks at first, then slows down a bit in the middle, then starts rocking again, and when it fades out after almost 8 minutes, it's in the middle of such a groove that I don't want it to end. It could be at least 11 or 12 minutes long and it would still be great. (Side note: example #132 that I have the simplest sense of humor in the world: the sound Morrison makes around the 6:10 mark sends me into giggling hysterics every time I hear it. I'm easy to please.)
2. Jessica- The Allman Brothers. Loved this song as a little kid when I didn't know what it was called or who sang it. Loved it more after Schneweis put it on a CD for our road trip to Minot. Maxed out my love for it when it was on Guitar Hero 2 and Wojo and I would play it for hours on end, he playing the lead, me rocking the rhythm guitar. It got to the point where we hardly had to look at the notes while we were playing. Not sure if I'm incredibly proud of that, or incredibly ashamed. Probably a little of Column A and a little of Column B.
1. You and I- Rick James. When I was younger, I knew of the obvious Rick James songs (Superfreak, Mary Jane, etc.) but it wasn't until the Chappelle Show skit that I decided to buy some Rick James cds and hear some more, when I heard this gem of a song. It used to be the song I always listened to on my iPod while walking in between classes (I used to tell my friends that if they saw me walking on campus with my bugs in, there was at least a 70% chance I was strolling to my boy Rick James, which I naturally got made fun of for- a LOT) and now it's the song that I almost always open my road trips with, as well as the #8 most played song in my itunes. Just 8 minutes and 5 seconds of layin' the groove and dancin' on the funk.
And yes, I was surprised too, when I made this list and realized that an effing Rick James song is my all-time favorite song of over 7 minutes. At this point, at age 26, I am what I am.
(Gay.)
