10 songs that at one time I thought were the greatest song of all time.
in chronological order
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Hello Sternal Journalists,
I’m working on a new show. It will either be ready by this year’s Edinburgh Fringe or in like five years. It loosely has to do with ranking systems, and our cultural tendency towards lists, so I thought I would use the area my brain is in to do a SternJourn I’ve been thinking of for a while:
10 songs that at one time I thought were the greatest song of all time. While there is some overlap, this is not a list of my favorite songs currently. These are songs that, at the time, I was convinced was the best song ever created. They are not ranked by how much I like them, but rather in chronological order because again—they are tied for, at the time, being the song I believed was the best.
[Also I’m in a time crunch and giving you ten songs, so I’m merging the content with the recommendations this week! If you are dying for an article or movie or tv show or podcast instead of song rec, just reply and I’ll give you one I promise]
Here we go:
“Don’t Eat the Pictures.” Cookie Monster. This one is still awesome. From the Sesame Street special of the same name (released in 1983) where the Sesame Street gang is trapped in the Metropolitan Museum of Art overnight, perennial addict Cookie Monster copes via song with his desire to eat all of the mummies and paintings in the museum. I sing to myself, “See pretty picture with lady inside/ Looks so delicious, me fit to be tied” at least once a month.
“I’m a Detective, Too.” DinoRock. This is from a cassette tape I had when I was 10, but it’s available on Spotify. That’s crazy. It doesn’t hold up in the same way that “Pictures” does, but if you have a child who likes detectives and dinosaurs, give it a whirl! It has a very unnecessarily awesome dueling guitar and sax solo as a metaphor for the private eye and archaeologist debating which of them is really a detective.
“Hot in Herre.” Nelly. The summer before 8th grade, I heard this for the first time at a birthday party for a kid who was much cooler than me, and every hormone in my body was activated. People had friends with poles in basements? Why was I at the club if ain’t poppin’ the bottles?? IS THIS WHAT EIGHTH GRADE IS GONNA BE LIKE???? (it was not.)
“Dammit.” blink-182. In ninth grade, a kid who had spiky hair and wore a spiky collar and just had a general spiky vibe told me authoritatively that this was the best song of all time. Nobody had ever said that to me before, so I believed it to be a matter of record. Still pretty sick.
“A Thousand Miles.” Vanessa Carlton. My love for this song is part of the reason people have repeatedly told me that it is a travesty that I have never seen White Chicks.
“Shake Ya Tailfeather.” technically Diddy sadly but I think of it as a Nelly song. An incredible song in its own right, I think the thing that really stood out to my friends and I is that, during the epic intro, right before the drop, Diddy says, “Bad Boys 2, the soundtrack.” Because in fact, this was a song on the soundtrack for Bad Boys 2. We were astounded by the brazen marketing and thought it was funny, but it also does kinda sound awesome.
“Pour Some Sugar On Me.” Def Leppard. As seniors in high school, we made the freshman cross country boys sing this to the girls field hockey and soccer teams. Our coach made fun of us because he was in high school when it came out and said he beat up kids who listened to Def Leppard. All light hazing, all good fun.
“The Way I Live.” Baby Boy Da Prince ft. Boosie Badazz. This was on a mix CD someone gave me in college (lol) and I lost it, and never knew the name of the song or artist and so I “lost” the song for years because you couldn’t Shazam yet and I don’t think (Rap)Genius was around yet. It’s legend grew in my mind until I found it again and it was just as good as I remembered.
“All I Do Is Win.” Technically DJ Khaled and it is definitely DJ Khaled. I heard this for the first time while dancing on a table in Buckhead. For that total-sensory engulfing experience, I am the luckiest boy in the world.
“Bless the Telephone.” Labi Siffre. I heard this for the first time while pulling into my garage and stayed in the dark garage and cried while listening to it a couple more times. This is the type of experience that cements a song as “best song in the world” in your mid 30s. I guess there were still hormones involved.
I should say these are not the only 10 “one time best songs in the world,” but just the 10 that came to mind! Feel free to reply with yours or drop in the comments!
Much love!
Julian
