My Top Ten David Bowie Songs

*UPDATE: Originally posted in 2012, I'm reposting this today as a tribute. I'm not going to think about whether my song choices have changed - they probably have; they always do. Goodbye, you freaky kook. I'm glad I knew you...*

Compiling these Artist Top Tens is much more difficult than the regular, subject-oriented 10s. If The Smiths was an impossible task, I've virtually given up on Springsteen. I thought Bowie might be easier, but it didn't prove that way. No, I'm not saying that any of the tracks below are necessarily better than Jean Genie, Rebel Rebel, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide... or even This Is Not America. They just mean more to me, for one reason or another.


10. Kooks

Early Dave, at his most romantic, and playful...

And if you ever have to go to school
Remember how they messed up this old fool
Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads
'Cause I'm not much cop at punching
Other people's Dads
And if the homework brings you down
Then we'll throw it on the fire
And take the car downtown

9. Ashes To Ashes

In my late teens, Scary Monsters was probably my favourite Bowie album. I tried to find a way to squeeze Because You're Young or Teenage Wildlife onto this list, but I'd be lying if I said any of them were better than this. The lyrics below were a major influence on a number of storylines in my 90s small press comic The Jock...

The shrieking of nothing is killing me
Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis and I
Ain't got no money and I ain't got no hair
But I'm hoping to kick but the planet it's glowing

Time and again I tell myself
I'll stay clean tonight
But the little green wheels are following me
Oh no, not again
I'm stuck with a valuable friend
"I'm happy, hope you're happy too"
One flash of light but no smoking pistol

8. Starman

That weren't no DJ
That was hazy cosmic jive!

7. Oh! You Pretty Things

I'm always a sucker for just one man and his piano... and then that chorus kicks in. Wow. Plus, Dave = Big X-Men fan?

Gotta make way for the homo-superior!

6. Space Oddity

Probably the first Bowie track to have any kind of impact on me. My sister (a good 18 years my senior) was a huge Bowie fan in the 70s* (she used to tease my Dad that he looked like the Thin White Duke - Dad was not amused). Although she moved out soon after I was born (who could blame her?), I probably absorbed this through osmosis in the womb. A semi-autobiographical extract from my last novel follows, in which I explain how, when I was a kid, I imagined I ran my own TV station...

We had Breakfast Television before anybody else. Ready Brek, Weetabix, or bacon and egg with fried bread on weekends; followed by a lift to the bus stop in my dad’s Ford Granada. Hardly gripping viewing, but when your only competition is the Open University, you don’t need too much sensation to snatch the ratings. We beat MTV to the punch too, though admittedly our playlist was limited to the contents of my brother John and sister Candy’s record collections, Mum’s ‘Country Music Greatest Hits’ Box Set from the Readers Digest, and any songs I managed to tape off the Top 40 on a Sunday afternoon, usually with bits of Tony Blackburn talking over the end before I pressed pause. We didn’t have any videos, but sometimes I’d dance around and act out various routines to fit the lyrics. I did a mean ‘Wuthering Heights’ (complete with Kate Bush hand gestures) and a moody ‘I’m Not In Love’. But the one the viewers raved about was my ‘Space Oddity’. For five and a bit minutes, I actually was floating about in a tin can, and the papers really did want to know where I got my shirts. BHS usually, very occasionally C&A. David Bowie even stopped by to sing a duet, live on air. He said it was a pity I wasn’t around when he recorded that album; he’d have had me on backing vocals for sure.

(*It was my sister who broke the news to me this morning, via text. Kind of appropriate, really.)

5. Golden Years

Just plain funky.

Run for the shadows...

4. Modern Love

The LP Let's Dance is sneered at by purists, but as a child of the 80s it was my first proper teenage exposure to the Madness of King Dave and I love just about every song on it (although the album version of the title track goes on for about 6 weeks and that's really not necessary). Modern Love though - you can't beat Modern Love. From the Michael Caine-esque intro to the idea of Bowie chasing after the paper boy... what's not to love?

3. Heroes

I'm sure many people would have this at Number One (even though - insanely - it only reached #24 in the charts) and I couldn't really argue with any of them. Except... there's two other songs I'd take to a desert island with me first...

2. Changes

Turn and face the strange
(Ch-ch-Changes)
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Turn and face the strange
(Ch-ch-Changes)
Just gonna have to be a different man

1. Young Americans

Another controversial choice because a) it's from mid-period Bowie, and b) it features a prominent saxophone (always upsetting to purists)... but the intro gets me every time. Like 75% of Bowie's songs, I've no real idea what it's about, but it doesn't matter.

Ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?

 *Today, there are lots...*

 

An impossible task, especially today. But which of your favourites will you be playing tonight?

SEE ALSO: MY TOP TEN SONGS ABOUT DAVID BOWIE.

My Top Ten Songs About David Bowie

So, there's a new album out from The Dame. And from what I've heard of it (admittedly only the first two singles so far: the album's still in the post), it sounds pretty spiffy. Since I already did My Top Ten Bowie Songs... here's some other people paying tribute.


10. Liam Lynch - Fake David Bowie Song

I've been stuck in space for such a long time
Sorry mum, I'm 5 years late for tea time

One of many fake songs Liam recorded, from the album of the same name... sadly, this one ends far too soon.

9. The Very Sexuals - Bowie Eyes

I always took Bowie's eyes to be the clearest evidence that he was, in fact, not of this earth.

And I want a star that guides me
To a girl with Bowie eyes
Got visions of my glamrock idols saving me

8. The Flaming Lips with Neon Indian -  Is David Bowie Dying?

The end of the universe, the death rays of the sun, with Wayne Coyne channeling the ghost of Bowie, the last man in existence.

Or something. 

7. Phish - David Bowie

An 11 minute jam, the only lyrics being repeated mentions of "David Bowie"... and, erm, "UB40".

Look, don't hold your breath waiting for my Top Ten Songs About UB40, OK?

6. Tori Amos - Not David Bowie

There's an underlying bitterness to this lyric that appeals to me. Tori's boyfriend blames her for the fact he's never made anything of his life, so she hits back...

...but I am not the reason you are not David Bowie...

5. They Might Be Giants - Au Contraire

David Bowie came to town
Flying overhead
"Don't you dig my chops?" he cried
This is what they said...

Au contraire, Dave
Quite the opposite, in fact
As it happens, au contraire
Au contraire, mon frère

Yeah. It makes as much sense as anything else TMBG ever recorded. Still ace.

4. Amy MacDonald - Barrowland Ballroom 

Amy's tribute to a legendary Scottish music venue... wishing she saw The Laughing Gnome there.

And when the night turns to day
And the lights they fade away
I wish that life and love would pass me by
And when the band stops a song because there's something going on
Well there is magic in the air I swear.
And I wish that I saw Bowie, playing on that stage
I wish that I saw something, to make me come of age.

3. Veruca Salt - With David Bowie

Extra marks for naming your band after a character from Charlie & The Chocolate Factory.

I'm never alone
Cause you're following me home
I'm falling in love
My walkman and me
With David Bowie

2. Rolling Stones - Angie

Enough people believe this is about Dave's first missus that it merits inclusion. Plus, it's a great song. And no Mars Bars were hurt during the recording of this track. That's just apocryphal.


1. Flight of the Conchords - Bowie

A tribute and pastiche in one, though no other record on this list does justice to the unique insanity of the "freaky old bastard" behind Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust and the Thin White Duke... I like to think he'd approve.

Do you have one really funky sequined space suit, Bowie,
Or do you have several ch-changes?

Got any about-Bowie songs you want to share with the class?

My Top Ten Supremes Songs

Another 50th Anniversary Ten! The Supremes actually formed in 1959 (I know, it's unfathomable), yet released their first album for Motown three years later. With or without Diana Ross, there's never been a better girl band in my humble opinion. Here's Ten Reasons Why I Love 'em...


10. Reflections

It begins like the opening to a classic sci fi film... and gets progressively more divine with each passing second.

9. Baby Love

You may be surprised to find what's arguably their most famous record only coming in at #9. I can't deny it's a stone cold classic - it was written by Holland-Dozier-Holland, how could it not be? My only defence is what I like to call "The Beatles Effect". Ubiquity can damage even the greatest of records.

That said, on a chart that could easily have run to a Top 50, #9 is hardly a poor showing. 

8. 5:30 Plane

The only post-Diana song that made my Ten - though there were many which deserved consideration (Automatically Sunshine, Nathan Jones and Up The Ladder To The Roof being just three). What makes this one particularly special though is that it's written and arranged by the great Jimmy Webb. Nuff said.

7. Love Child

The words "tenement slum" never sounded so sweet.

6. I Second That Emotion (with The Temptations)

Written by Smokey, with the Temps on duet duties...

A taste of honey is worse than none at all

5. You Keep Me Hanging On

From that teletype intro to the thumping drumbeat that powers it, another heartbreakin' classic.

4. I'm Livin' In Shame

And some people think Morrisey invented kitchen sink songwriting...

This one's a genuine heartbreaker.

I was always so afraid for my uptown friends to see her
Afraid one day when I was grown, that I would be her

3. You Can't Hurry Love

Look, not even Phil Collins could kill this one. And let's not forget how many other great records owe their existence to that intro. Just ask The Jam for starters...

2. I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (with The Temptations)

Strictly speaking, it's the Temptations who win this one, but it's still one of the greatest love songs ever written... and when Diana joins in on the chorus: shiver me timbers.

1. Stop! In The Name Of Love

Not sure if it's the wind-up intro, the pleading title or the sweetness of Diana's voice, but right now - and this could easily change depending on when you asked me - this one wins it for me.


I know what you're saying - "Rol, Where Did Our Love Go?" Sadly, there could be only 10. But which one rules... ahem... Supreme for you?

My Top Ten Beach Boys Songs

50 years. Wow.

I could pick up any Beach Boys Greatest Hits album and the first ten tracks would blow most other records recorded in the last fifty years out of the water. With lots of surf spray. So, yeah, this was another damned hard chart to compile...


10. Lady Lynda

A late 70s comeback record that was a surprise hit in the UK. Mostly an Al Jardine song, it steals heavily from Johann Sebastian Bach's Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring. One of the few classic Beach Boys records I can actually say I heard first time round... unless you count Kokomo. Which I do have great fondness for, but not enough to include it in a Top Ten... or even Twenty.

9. Long Promised Road

Everyone always says Pet Sounds is the greatest Beach Boys album, and far be it from me to argue with the experts. However, my personal favourite is Surf's Up, from their troubled early 70s phase. Here, as on the best Brian Wilson songs, the sunshine is tempered with darker shadows. Surprisingly, though, this was brother Carl's first full composition for the band. You wouldn't know it.

8. Don't Worry, Baby

One of Brian's early heartbreakers.

7. Sloop John B

Not that I'm about to ignore Pet Sounds entirely. Not an original composition, Sloop John B is actually based on an old folk song, The John B. Sails. One of the most covered songs in the Beach Boys canon, the original is also heavily referenced by other artists, most notably Okkervil River's haunting John Allyn Smith Sails.

6. California Girls

I can't help but be upset when I type 'California G...' into youtube and all I get are Katy Perry tracks. I must be getting old.

Let's face it, when the Beatles write a song that's little more than a parody record of one of your songs, you've pretty much got it made.

5. Surfin' USA

The archetypal Beach Boys song, from the early days. That opening riff never fails to make me want to hit the beach. They're often pigeonholed for writing sunshine / good times surfing songs... but not every surfin' song is automatically about sunshine...

4. Surf's Up

Some accuse Van Dyke Parks of writing pretentious, pseudo-poetic lyrics. And if you were merely to read the words to this song, you'd probably agree. Yet, when you hear them sung by Brian Wilson, accompanied by his ethereal, piano-led music... it's hard not to find them magical. A song that reminds me of the dark, spooky atmosphere Ray Bradbury created when writing Something Wicked This Way Comes. Yes, it's that good. 

3. Good Vibrations

A truly revolutionary recording. Pop music would never be the same again.

2. Heroes And Villains

The first Brian Wilson / Van Dyke Parks collaboration, a song that gets inside your head and just won't get out. I've listened to it thousands of times and I still haven't a clue what it's about. Perhaps that's why I love it.

1. God Only Knows

The greatest love song ever written? And it begins with the line "I may not always love you." That is the very definition of genius.




So, it was a damned hard list to compile. Which of your favourites did I miss out? Darlin'? Tears In The Morning? Do It Again? I Can Hear Music? Wouldn't It Be Nice? Lonely Sea? The one with Paul McCartney chewing a carrot? And which would have been your surfin' supremo? Do tell...

My Top Ten Pulp Songs

And I thought My Top Ten Smiths Songs was hard to compile...



10. Cocaine Socialism

Tony Blair invited various Britpop artists to Number 10 in a brazen effort to inject some cool Britpop chic into his politics. This was Jarvis' response. And it was only ever released as a b-side!

9. Inside Susan

The first Pulp album I ever heard was Intro. I found it in the chuck-out bin in the radio station where I used to work. I loved every track, but this was the one that made me fall in love with Jarvis the storyteller.

She's still thinking about this when the bus goes past Caroline Lee's house where there was a party last week.
There were some German exchange students there who were very immature
They all ended up jumping out of the bedroom window.
One of them tried to get her to kiss him on the stairs,
so she kicked him.
Later she was sick because she drunk too much cider.
Caroline was drunk as well
She was pretending she was married to a tall boy in glasses,
and she had to wear a polo-neck for three days afterwards to cover up the love-bite on her neck.

8. The Fear

Sends shivers down my spine every time I hear it.

This is our music from the bachelor's den
The sound of loneliness turned up to ten
A horror soundtrack from a stagnant waterbed
And it sounds just like this...

After the heights of Britpop fame, Jarvis has a mental breakdown on record, becomes plagued by panic attacks, finds his libido failing him... and even ends up quoting Paul Daniels. You're gonna like it - but not a lot.

7. Countdown

A long time ago I read an interview with Jarvis where he explained what this song was about. Pulp had been together (in one form or another) almost sixteen years before their first minor Top 40 hit in 1994. Countdown was about feeling like you were stuck on the launchpad, waiting for your life to take off, wondering if the countdown would ever begin.

6. Do You Remember The First Time?

I can't remember a worst time...

5. Bad Cover Version

Gets in on the strength of the video alone (which doesn't even feature Jarvis' vocals... although he does do a mean Brian May).

Here's the video version... if you've never seen it before, you MUST press play now.



4. Babies

Young Jarv hides in his friend's sister's wardrobe to spy on her teenage shenanigans. And then things get out of hand...

3. Sorted For Es and Wizz

Reminds me of every music festival I attended in the 90s, and I never took an E or some wizz in my life. (Well, I take a few wizzes every day... and that increases with age... but not that kind of wizz.)

And this hollow feeling grows and grows and grows
And you want to call your mother, and say,
"Mother - I can never come home again
'Cos I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere
Somewhere in a field in Hampshire - all right."

2. A Little Soul

Jarv confronts his estranged father with his most heartrending lyric. I'm in the minority: I actually prefer the album This Is Hardcore to its predecessor, the million-selling Different Class. It's so much darker and so much deeper: my favourite album of the 90s. I could have filled an entire Top Ten with its tracks (then again, I could have done the same with DC). No other Pulp song chokes me up like this one though.

1. Common People

I tried to convince myself there was a better Pulp song than Common People, I really did. Then I listened to it... and realised that there's a very reason it's their biggest hit. The lyrics are quintessentially Jarvis and the song just builds and builds and builds. One of the few Britpop anthems that never grows tired. And that's before we even get to the Shatner version.



If you're as big a Pulp fan as I am, you're no doubt grinding your teeth in horror at the absence of Disco 2000, Misshapes, Razzmatazz, Stacks, Help The Aged and many others. Sorry, but ten is my limit, and these are the ones that make me Love Life. I could have compiled a Top 100 and still not have included all my favourites...

My Top Ten Kinks Songs

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this blog in 2022, I might compile a Top Ten Beatles Songs. Before that, there are far more important acts who deserve my attention...


10. End of the Season

If this wasn't an influence on Everyday Is Like Sunday, I'll eat Morrissey's hearing aid.

9. Death Of A Clown

Released as a Dave Davies solo single (though it was co-written by Dave). Anything that involves drinking to the death of clowns is a hit with me. I do hate me some clowns.

8. The Village Green Preservation Society

We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards

7. You Really Got Me

The world's first Heavy Metal record?

6. Days

Superceded in many of our memories by Kirsty's version, but the original is still ace.

5. All Day And All Of The Night

The world's second Heavy Metal record? The Stranglers did a mean version in the 80s, but by then we'd all heard hundreds of records that sounded like this. Back in 1964, nobody had ever heard anything like it.

4. Sunny Afternoon

One of those "woe is me, I'm a poor millionaire pop star" songs, forgivable because of Davies' playful lyrics. Take that, Jimmy Carr and, erm, Take That.

3. Come Dancing

The second Kinks song I ever truly loved, their 1983 comeback record and final UK chart hit. The band were much bigger abroad in the 70s and 80s, nobody seemed that bothered back home. Which is a shame, because much of their later material stands up really well.

A truly great story song.

2. Lola

The first Kinks song I ever truly loved, as Ray takes a walk on the wild side and ends up upsetting the BBC. Not for writing a song about a transvestite, but for rhyming the title character's name with Coca Cola. No advertising on the BBC, Ray - change it to Cherry Cola or else!

The way I remember it, we didn't actually get Cherry Cola in the UK until the mid-80s... a good decade and a half after this song was a hit.

1. Waterloo Sunset

Although I do get a bit tired of the whole "in't London brilliant" brigade who claim this as an anthem, you can't deny it's a timeless classic. Just beautiful.



Stop your sobbing - many great Kinks songs were rejected during the compilation of this Top Ten. I know, everybody's (not) gonna be happy. I never claimed to be a dedicated follower of fashion. Did I leave out one of your kinky favourites?

My Top Ten Smiths Songs

When I kicked off this new blog, Kelloggsville set me an impossible challenge: my 10 favourite Smiths songs?

Hardest. Top. Ten. Ever.

How do you narrow that peerless oeuvre down to just ten tracks?

Well, I gave it my best shot... though I'll probably change my mind as soon as I've pressed "publish".



10. Panic

A song for Steve Wright... and DJs everywhere.

9. Jeane

It was a toss-up in the obscure b-side stakes between this and Sweet And Tender Hooligan. Yet Jeane has a rawness to it that never grows tired, and it's also the best kitchen-sink lyric Morrissey ever wrote / stole. Better than most of the debut album it was rejected from, criminally unavailable on CD until 2008. And let's not forget Billy's version...

8. I Know It's Over

If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight?
I know...
'Cause tonight is just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms...

7. Reel Around The Fountain

Morrissey at his most sexually mischievous. Slap me on the patio, indeed...

6. This Charming Man

An obvious choice, but it has an intro that would get me on the dancefloor at any indie disco... if I ever went to indie discos.

I would go out tonight
But I haven't got a stitch to wear

5. Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Johnny at his most dramatic, Morrissey at his most pathetic (in the best sense of that word).

No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm

4. Rusholme Ruffians

Perhaps a surprise choice, but I love that Johnny stole the riff from '(Marie's The Name) His Latest Flame', one of my favourite Elvis songs. And if the lyric doesn't take you back to the fairgrounds of your youth... you haven't lived.

3. Ask

Possibly the most positive, supportive, warmhearted song Moz ever wrote.

2. How Soon Is Now?

The guitar still sounds like nothing else ever recorded, a horror film soundtrack to the dark night of the teenage / twenty-something soul.

There's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody
Who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry
And you want to die

If you've never been to that club, you probably don't get The Smiths at all.

1. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Although this was the hardest Top Ten I've ever compiled, the Number One was never in doubt. Ironically, it was John Peel who changed my opinion of The Smiths from "whinging miserablists" to "best band in the world ever". Sadly, this epiphany occurred a couple of years after the group had split. I could really have used them in my corner when I was 14... but maybe I just hadn't earned them yet, baby.

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die

OK, that was my impossible selection. Which of your favourites did I exclude?