six songs

anderyn picks me to list my six favorite songs.

I'm going to interpret this as pop songs and things vaguely in that connection. No instrumental music, no Locus iste (my favorite Bruckner motet), no comedy numbers.

So, songs by six different recording artists that have meant a lot to me at one time or another:

1. "I Am A Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel - the only serious song I've ever liked more for its lyrics than its music. Pretty much summed up my self-image in adolescence, before fandom changed my life. I had to define loneliness, angst, and alienation as good things, because they were the only lemons I had to work with.
2. "No Reply" by the Beatles - not for the lyrics so much, just as a tiny gem of a musical composition. I've long admired the Beatles, and when I finally got around recently to listening to their less-famous work, this is the song new to me that most impressed me. Why had I never heard of it before? And why, says this fan of 80-minute symphonies, do great pop songs have to be so bloody short?
3. "King Henry" by Steeleye Span - besides the fact that I once lived with a cat named for this song, there's the charming memory of standing with my friends Jamie and Ginger waiting for the Mythcon cafeteria to open for lunch. It was running late, and we were hungry, so we spontaneously started singing, "Some meat! Some meat! ya King Henry, some meat you give to me ..." and continued right on through to the end of the song. The rest of the people in line looked at us oddly.
4. "At the Harbour" by Renaissance - my favorite, or favourite, song by my favorite, or favourite, rock band. Not surprisingly, considering me, it's acoustic. Still my favo(u)rite even with the Debussy piano prelude and postlude brutally cut off on the CD.
5. "Caribbean Blue" by Enya - I once waltzed to this song (in an abandoned train station, of all places). It was like floating on air, and the music's support was as much responsible as was the skill of my partner.
6. "The Red Queen" by Annwn - of all the great songs I know by defunct folkish bar bands (and yes, I'm including the Flash Girls in that category), I have to name this recruiting song for Anne Bonney because I attended the concert where it was publicly premiered, so I've always known the words of the chorus. And exactly when to clap.

I realize there's not a song on this list less than ten years old. If you want consideration of more recent pop music, you'll not get it from me. I have every reason to believe the average pop song of the last ten years is far superior to the average pop song of the previous ten years, but I've moved on to other things.