Some of My Favorite Songs

Truth is, I'm one of the least musical people you'll ever meet. As I sometimes put it, I'm about as musical as a fencepost.

Nonetheless, there are certain songs that are favorites of mine. I was formed in my musical tastes from the mid 60s on up through the early-to-mid 80s. Here's my list, not of the best rock songs, probably, but just a few of my favorites. In no particular order. A lot of this became favorite music for me simply because I was young, and I was there, and there it was:

1. Incense and Peppermints, Strawberry Alarm Clock
   
2. White Rabbit, Jefferson Airplane
   
3. Jackie Blue (long version), Ozark Mountain Daredevils (gee, is that rock? well, I don't care :)
   
4. Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (definitely not rock— but it was the music for the opening credits of A Clockwork Orange)
   
5. Journey to the Center of the Mind, Amboy Dukes
   
6. Paint It Black, The Rolling Stones
   
7. Mighty Quinn, Manfred Mann
   
8. Venus, Shocking Blue
   
9. Back in the USSR, The Beatles
   
10. Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, The 5th Dimension
    
11. There Is a Mountain, Donovan
    
12. Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall, Simon & Garfunkel
    
13. Midnight Confessions, Grass Roots
    
14. The House of the Rising Sun, The Animals
    
15. You're So Vain, Carly Simon
    
16. I Am the Walrus, The Beatles
    
17. Mellow Yellow, Donovan
    
18. I Am a Rock, Simon & Garfunkel
    
19. Fragile, Yes— the entire damn album, from beginning to end
    
20. Waterloo, ABBA
    
21. Hooked on a Feeling, Blue Swede
    
22. I'm on Fire, 5000 Volts
    
23. Brandy, Looking Glass
    
24. Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Steely Dan
    
25. Shambala, Three Dog Night
    
26. Ebony Eyes, Bob Welch
    
27. Rhiannon, Fleetwood Mac
    
28. Bungle in the Jungle, Jethro Tull
    
29. Electric Guitar, Talking Heads; also, off the same Fear of Music album:
    
30. Heaven and
    
31. Paper
    
32. Seen and Not Seen, Talking Heads
    
33. Reeling in the Years, Steely Dan
    
34. Dust in the Wind, Kansas
    
35. The Other Side of Life, The Moody Blues
    
36. Oliver's Army, Elvis Costello
    
37. When Doves Cry, Prince
    
38. I Want to Know What Love Is, Foreigner
    
39. Fingers on a Windmill, Damnation
    
40. Revolution 9, The Beatles (yeah, well, I'm weird)

Remember, when you read that list, you've got to think of a boy in a small town up north of Madison, Wisconsin, listening to the Madison rock stations on his Aircastle AM/FM/SW radio. I remember when The Age of Aquarius was at the top of the charts: I was just finishing seventh grade. May 1969. Yes, it was the Sixties. That was a different world back in those days.