My Favorite Music

Most self-indulgent personal web sites these days have a page or more listing the owner's favorite songs. Here are mine.

You'd think I'd break them up by genre, wouldn't you? Rock'n'Roll, Folk, Classical, whatever. Well, I don't. I like anything as long as it's good. As long as the composer put some time and trouble into it. As long as it means something. So I made up my own categories. Nyah.

Awe-inspiring.

Adagio for Strings. Samuel Osborne Barber II, 1936.
Also Sprach Zarathustra. Richard Strauss, 1896.
Fanfare for the Common Man. Aaron Copland, 1942.
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Ralph "Rafe" Vaughan Williams, 1910.
How Great Thou Art. Carl Gustav Boberg, 1885.
Incidental Music. Star Trek, the Animated Series. Yvette Blaise and Jeff Michael, 1973.
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. Byzantine, 7th century.
Listening to You. Tommy. The Who, 1969.
National Anthem of the Soviet Union. Sergei Mikhalkov, 1944.
Symphony #9 in D minor, Op. 125. Ludvig van Beethoven, 1824.
Symphony #9 in E Minor, "From the New World", Opus 95. Antonin Dvorak, 1893.

Chilling.

Behind Blue Eyes. The Who, 1971.
Day in the Life. The Beatles, 1967.
I Can See for Miles. The Who, 1967.
Vehicle. The Ides of March, 1970.
White Rabbit. Jefferson Airplane, 1967.

Driving.

Africa. Toto IV. Toto, 1982.
Another One Bites the Dust. Queen, 1980.
Ballroom Blitz. The Sweet, 1973.
Boku-tachi Wa. Kawashima Ai, 2006?
Bumble Boogie. Jack Fina, 1946.
Come Together. John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1969.
Flight of the Bumblebee. The Tale of Tsar Saltan. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 1900.
Frankenstein. The Edgar Winter Group, 1973.
Get It On, Bang a Gong. T Rex, 1971.
Going Down. The Monkees, 1967.
I Will Survive. Gloria Gaynor, 1979.
Johnny B. Goode. Chuck Berry, 1958.
Layla. Derek and the Dominos, 1970.
No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature. The Guess Who, 1970.
Rosanna. Toto IV. David Paich, 1982.
Summer in the City. Lovin' Spoonful, 1966.
Takin' Care of Business. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, 1973.

Driving, with exceptionally offensive lyrics.
These are better as instrumentals.

American Woman. The Guess Who, 1970.
Brown Sugar. The Rolling Stones, 1971.
Die Fahne hoch. Horst Wessel, 1929.
Only the Good Die Young. The Stranger. Billy Joel, 1977.
Spirit in the Sky. Norman Greenbaum, 1969.
Sweet Home Alabama. Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974.

Funny.

Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B. The Andrews Sisters, 1941.
A Boy Named Sue. Shel Silverstein, 1969. Best performance: Johnny Cash.
One Piece at a Time. Wayne Kemp, 1976? Best performance: Johnny Cash.
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window. Paul McCartney, 1969.
They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! Jerry Samuels, 1966.
Uneasy Rider. Charlie Daniels, 1973.

Gothic, medieval, and faux-medieval.

Beatus Petronius. Arvo Pa"rt, 1997.
O Fortuna! Carmina Burana. Carl Orff, 1936. Based on verse by 11th-13th century students and clerics.
Riu, Riu Chiu. Mateo Flecha the Elder? 1553?

Hard to classify.

Orinoco Flow (Sail Away). Enya, 1988.
Walk Away, Renee. The Left Banke, 1965.

Relaxing or just plain beautiful.

An der schönen blauen Donau ("On the Beautiful Blue Danube"), Op. 314. Richard Strauss II.
Canon and Gigue in D Major. Johann Pachelbel, 1694?
Down to the River to Pray. George H. Allan? 1867 or earlier. Best performance: Alison Krauss.
My Hope is Based on Nothing Less. Words: Edward Mote, 1834. Music: John Stainer, 1873.

Tearjerkers.

Early One Morning. English, traditional. First appearance in print: 1787.
Eleanor Rigby. The Beatles, 1966.
It Is Well With My Soul. Horatio Gates Spafford, 1873.
Tears in Heaven. Eric Claption, Will Jennings 1992.

Triumphant.

And Can It Be? Charles Wesley, 1739.
Battle Cry of Freedom. George S. Root, 1862.
Marching Through Georgia. Henry Clay Work, 1865.
To God Be the Glory. Fanny Crosby, 1875?
The Maple Leaf Forever. Alexander Muir, 1867.

Page created:	05/16/2012
Last modified:	05/16/2012
Author:	BPL