Fourth of July blog: My top 10 favorite American songs

July 04, 2023 Cueball

Commentary by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — Welcome to the eighth annual Cueball Fourth of July top 10 column. This year I’m taking on my top 10 favorite American songs. And what an evolutionary process this list has been. I first wanted to get my lame on and do the top 10 patriotic songs. I couldn’t torture myself. Yes, I love America, and I was an all-state high school tuba player. But I’m not listing to marching band music.

Then I decided to go with my top 10 favorite songs, period. But, wait, some of those songs were sung by Brits, i.e. Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Clash. But this is a 4th of July Apple Pie Red-White-and-Blue column. If the Brits wanted to be part of this countdown, they should have won the damn Revolutionary War.

A few things before we start: picking 10 songs in any genre isn’t easy. I am convinced that I grew up in the best possible moment in music history. I was born in 1964, old enough to experience the heyday of Rock n’ Roll, country, and dance music.

The previous generation may have loved Elvis, Merle Haggard, and Frank Sinatra. But music was still too young for a generation just learning how to be teenagers. The future generations? They will have Taylor Swift, but there aren’t many other long-lasting generation-defining acts. And no one will be listening to Morgan Wallen 50 years from now.

My generation? Musically, it was the best, the foundation, the Alpha, and the Omega. We got to enjoy the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Tina Turner, Elton John, The Who, Whitney Houston, Madonna, Michael Jackson, George Strait, Nirvana, AC/DC, KISS, Bruce Springsteen, and I can keep going on and on and on.

Decades later, when I’m rotting in the ground, they will still be playing music at weddings from my generation. The song “YMCA” will outlast cockroaches after the nuclear war.

OK. Let’s get started. Here are my top 10 favorite American songs counting them down Casey Kasem style.

10. “Crazy” by Patsy Cline.

A plane crash victim, Cline left this earth a year before I was born.

If I go to heaven – and I should after dealing with you numbskulls — I want to meet up with her for some angel tea and tell her how great this song is.

Willie Nelson, one of the coolest dudes on this planet, wrote “Crazy” when he was dirt poor working janitorial jobs. It wasn’t until he ran into Patsy’s husband, Charlie Dick, in a bar boozing it up. Nelson gave the drunken Dick his recording and said the song was better than any country song played then. It went beyond the three-chord limit, and Patsy, with her vocal range, would love it. Dick, plastered, agreed and told him to come to his house, and they would play it for Patsy. He woke her up way past midnight and played it.

Patsy’s response? She said it stunk, threw Willie out of the house, and made Charlie sleep on the couch.

But Patsy would eventually come around, thankfully. “Crazy” is the anthem for a woman’s heartbreak and loneliness.

9. “Star Spangled Banner” by Whitney Houston.

Unpopular opinion: The Star Spangled Banner shouldn’t be our national song. “America the Beautiful” is better. It is more uplifting and easier to sing.

Plus, most people butcher the song, forget the words entirely, and really do not know what the song is actually about (it’s a war song).

But on January 27, 1991, Houston walked onto the stage during the pregame of Super Bowl XXV and delivered her version. OMG. Never has the Star Spangled Banner been sung better before or since. There is Houston’s version, and then there is everyone else. It’s the Harlem Globetrotters of singing the Star Spangled Banner, and everyone else’s is the Washington Generals.

I was in my apartment in Grove, Okla., a year away from marrying my wife and moving to this town in south-central Kansas, when Houston sang it. We were in the throes of the Persian Gulf War – the first war I really remember. I was very young during Vietnam.

There was the controversy that Houston was mouthing the words. It was pre-recorded because they feared the perils of performing it live. So what? It has always been about presentation.

The fact she ended up with Bobby Brown and died of a drug overdose angers me whenever I think about it. Houston was one of a kind.

8. “Rocky Mountain High” by John Denver.

There seems to be a common thread with these selections. Everyone has died early. I maintain that if you will get famous singing songs, stay away from drugs and planes. Denver, like Patsy, died in a plane crash. Like Houston, he also had problems with alcohol and drugs.

This song is a bit sentimental since I grew up in Colorado.

Denver was also the answer to the question: What would happen if a dork became a rock star?

Rocky Mountain High was written in 1972, and Denver was fond of telling audiences it took him nine months to write. It sounds like me writing a Sumner Newscow story.

The radio DJs were so uptight at the time that some would not play it on the radio, thinking it promoted drug abuse. Denver had to explain that it was innocently about some dude who really enjoyed being in the mountains.

Well, OK, John. I (cough, cough) believe you. I think that dude enjoyed being in the mountains because he was also smoking some funny stuff.

7. “Everlong” by Foo Fighters.

Damn, I thought maybe I would get a song from this Century on this countdown until I looked it up, and Everlong was made in 1997 — more than 25 years ago.

I just missed the Grunge movement that became commercially popular in the mid-1990s. By that time, I was marrying and having children. I also made a serious shameful regrettable mistake: I started to listen to modern-day country music.

I think I would have liked Grunge in its heyday. From what I heard, it is about angst, bitterness, and lost opportunity. Sounds like me in the morning.

Dave Grohl was the drummer of Nirvana- the band that defined the Grunge movement. After lead singer Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994, it disbanded. A despondent Grohl formed the Foo Fighters as the lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter, and many refer to the band as “post-grunge.” The Foo Fighters, still with us today, became an even bigger commercial success than Nirvana. Everlong has been its most popular song.

I first heard “Everlong” during David Letterman’s final late-night show in 2015. It was also the last song performed by drummer Taylor Hawkins before his death in March 2022.

6. “Life’s been good” by Joe Walsh.

Unpopular opinion II: The Eagles produced their best music when they weren’t together. Technically, Walsh, the guitarist for the group, released this single in 1978 and the Eagles didn’t break up until 1980. I always loved the 1980s solo efforts of Glenn Frye and Don Henley.

Also, since we are here, allow me to do some “Hotel California” bashing – the most overrated, overwrought, lethargic piece of crap in rock history. It is supposed to be this “masterpiece” that has achieved mythical status amongst its followers. Pffft. It doesn’t even make sense. I can’t get it off the radio fast enough.

“Life’s been good to me so far” is 100 times better because it has no pretension and a great guitar solo. Walsh made this a satirical piece concerning the lifestyles of the “rock star” blended with a little reggae.

And the lyrics…

“I go to parties sometimes until four.

It’s hard to leave when you can’t find the door.”

That, folks, is poetry.

5. “Ode to Billie Joe” by Bobbie Gentry.

I wasn’t quite 3 when this song was released in 1967. My Dad loved this song. So, naturally, I hated it because, ya know, I was cool.

Through the years, the song got played less frequently, and I nearly forgot about it until the other day when I heard it on an oldies station. It took me 50 years to figure out my dad was right.

The song is ambiguous. It’s a story about this boy in a small Mississippi town jumping to his death off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Gentry wrote it in first person with an acoustic guitar. The record got made through Gentry’s persistence because record executives initially thought it wouldn’t sell.

There’s a lot of controversy to the song. People endlessly debate why Billie Joe jumped off the bridge. And in one verse, he and the daughter singing the song were seen throwing something off the bridge earlier that day. The song would never specify what it was.

Gentry said it was beside the point. The song was about people’s indifference to death. It was gossip at the dinner table as they were passing around the blackeyed peas and sharing the news that the preacher was coming for dinner on Sunday.

4. “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye.

Ugh. Another music artist died too young – this time by a gunshot from his father in 1984. It must be rough being a music superstar.

Although it is No. 4 on this chart, I wouldn’t even make this my favorite song of 1971 — the greatest year for music ever. That would be The Who’s “Won’t get fooled again.” But you know the rules, Brits. Win the war, and then we’ll talk.

I liked this song for years because it typified the Motown sound – the greatest music genre ever. For years I erroneously thought the song was about some dude discovering his wife/girlfriend has been cheating on him. Yes, I’m guilty of loving a song without listening to the lyrics.

Little did I know it was a protest song inspired by police brutality and violence during an anti-war protest at the height of the Vietnam War.

I’m not going to get into the politics of the time. But the song is a stark reminder of how music can be a healing force with the divisiveness of the time. I like to think of it as smoothing things over. And the song is just as relevant today.

3. “More than a Feeling” by Boston.

This may be more a product of my growing up when I did. This song is a staple of classic rock stations – they play it every other time.

Still, this song always delivers. And it should since it took Tom Scholz five years to complete. Five years? John Denver must be envious.

“MTAF” contains some of my favorite guitar riffs with roots to the classic song “Louie, Louie.”

The reason it’s No. 3 in my countdown is more about the group than the song itself. The Boston album cover, with its floating guitars through space spitting out blue flames, is the best ever. I had a dorm room with that iconic cover painted on the wall. The “Boston” album came out in 1976. The second one, “Don’t Look Back,” emerged quickly in 1978. It, too, was great.

Then there was nothing. And nothing. And more, nothing. Boston would not release its third album, “Third Stage,” until 1986.

I equate Boston’s three albums to the Godfather movie series. The first two Godfather movies came out within three years of the other in the early 1970s and were masterpieces. People then had to wait until the mid-1980s for Godfather III.

And you know what? The wait wasn’t worth it. Boston’s “Third Stage” stunk, as did “Godfather III.” They should have left it alone.

2. “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James & The Shondells.

When this song is played, I automatically think of it being the featured song of a “Breaking Bad” montage showing Walter White making a fortune producing his crystal blue meth as if it was just another successful family entrepreneur operation.

It is probably safe to say that in 1969 the song was not written with blue meth in mind. “Crystal Blue” actually has religious undertones. James said the song came to him while reading the biblical book of Revelations, in which he tells of a future age of brotherhood of mankind, living in peace and harmony.

Still, those uptight DJs at the time thought it was referring to the blue-colored LSD tablets in circulation at the time, and the song was about an acid trip.

I’m not sure what the song actually means. I never want to stop listening to it.

1. “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen.

If they ever had an American Idol season featuring legendary American musical singers in their prime, I don’t see how anyone could beat Springsteen.

Maybe, Elvis. But I’d still bet on Springsteen for his stage presence.

And “Born to Run” was his best song. I’m unsure I made it through the song without turning up the radio. One of my best memories was being in church and my wife making me go home because we ran out of diapers after one of my kids filled his pants. Born to Run came on the radio as I was driving. I said a prayer thanking the Lord for allowing me to jam out to that song.

The song was released in 1975 and only peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard charts. But it made Springsteen a household name, and the song has been a rock station staple ever since.

The lyrics cater to our inner instincts to say “blank it,” get on a motorcycle with a good-looking girl and ride into the sunset.

The reality is that maybe you were born to run. But the minute you can no longer afford to buy gas, Goldilocks is ditching you and strapping her hands across someone else’s engine. Then your anthem will be, “Baby, I was born to get a job.”

———

And there you have it, another annual Fourth of July countdown. I’ll have another one next year.

In the meantime, here are my previous seven other columns:

In 2016, I rated my 10 favorite Presidents of all time (click here).

In 2017, I rated the American wars in order of importance (click here).

In 2018, I listed the 10 greatest American inventions of the past 50 years (click here).