Best song ever?

[Guest mAXi]

"Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive Attack.

Nice try but you spelled "Teardrop" wrong.

[Skummy]

I'm not going to try and stake a claim for any objective "best" song, because you've all got your opinions, and me saying OMGz, BEST SONG EVAR isn't going to change them. Besides, I haven't heard every song ever, so I couldn't rightly say.

That aside, my favourite song, almost without a doubt, would have to be There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by The Smiths. They're one of the most important bands ever, and that song sums up everything they ever were, and everything they meant to be, and thousands of other people all over the world, just perfectly. They could have never recorded another song in their entire career, Stephen Patrick Morrissey could have gone back to living in a Manchester bedsit obsessing over James Dean and Johnny Marr could have recorded another hundred Healers and Electronic albums that no one bought, and it wouldn't matter, this song would still be a timeless classic, even without the Smiths mythology adding to it.

As a tiny bit of background, The Smiths did something hitherto unheard in rock music, they took a completely self-deprecating, self-loathing and self-pitying standpoint in their lyrics...every other rock song about lost love or broken hearts was always placing the blame squarely on the other party, or on the events that took place, but Smiths lyrics were just about how terribly useless you were, and it struck a chord with hundreds of like-minded, shy, retiring lost souls across the globe, who otherwise were doomed to gaze on glam rock idols they could only aspire to be like. Anti-everything the '80s were both aesthetically and thematically, they changed everything.

Fast-forward to 1986, when the song in question was released, and we find Johnny Marr "borrowing" a riff The Rolling Stones half-inched from Marvin Gaye, and adding some beautiful synth-strings to it, as Morrissey waxes lyrical over the top about his own shyness (which, yes, is criminally vulgar) preventing him from reaching out to his lost love, preventing him from telling her/him his own emotions, and it's that reluctance, that shyness, that inability, that gives us one of the greatest pieces of songwriting, in my opinion, anyone has ever produced, the finest way of skirting around having to say those pesky three words that I have ever seen; "And if a double-decker bus crashes into us/to die by your side/is such a heavenly way to die/and if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us/to die by your side/the pleasure, the privelege, is mine"

In any other song, that alone would be a work of genius, but every other line is just dripping with the same self-conscious melodrama, the same desperate yearning, and the same absolute brilliance as that chorus.

I can't think of another song in the world that even comes close to eliciting the same response that this, or any number of cover versions, elicits in me. There's just no competition. Unfortunately the official video doesn't come close to expressing the true power of the song, instead focusing on the nature of post-Smiths Smiths fans, but the snippet of Derek Jarman's "The Queen Is Dead" film dedicated to the song more than makes up for it.

Edited May 6, 2007 by Awkward Beast

[gunnar hendershow]

"Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive Attack.

Nice try but you spelled "Teardrop" wrong.

I actually prefer both Blue Lines and 100th Window over Mezzanine. Blue Lines is the stand out, probably because it has more of a hip-hop vibe and as for "Teardrop" i think "Angel", "Be Thankful For What You've Got", "Special Cases" and "Daydreaming" are much, much better. Oh and "Intertia Creeps".

Blue Lines > all I say. But "Teardrop" is by far my favorite song. Also the first Massive Attack song I heard, and that surely has a lot to do with it.

[Cactus Drags]

Everybody walk the dinosaur!

"And if a double-decker bus crashes into us/to die by your side/is such a heavenly way to die/and if a ten-ton truck kills the both of us/to die by your side/the pleasure, the privelege, is mine"

[MalaCloudy Black]

Love Will Tear Us Apart.

[Tarheels.]

Love Will Tear Us Apart.

[Nerf]

Fuck man, my favourite song of all time?

I think I'm going to have to say "Trust" by Megadeth. I knew as soon as I heard it that it stood out from everything I'd ever heard as one of my favourites, and over time my love for it has grown. I'll probably go ahead and say that's my favourite of all time man, but there's so many other songs that popped into my head while thinking about this shit. A Tout Le Monde is another by the same band, that's a classic right there. Also, one I only discovered recently through GTA:SA is Danzig's Mother, but man that completely lasted as one of my favourites of the moment and hasn't died out yet. The Foo Fighters' Best Of You was another one I loved for a long fucking time, but again that sort of died. They're my top three, anyway. Jimmy Eat World's Pain comes close too, as does Welcome Home by Coheed & Cambria. Man, I have no idea.

[Iain76er]

Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones. 'Tis true.

[Nerf]

I now want to say Bittersweet Symphony as one of the best songs ever, but it's nowhere near my favourite :ohwell:

[Cactus Drags]

It isn't the best, by a mile. It's good yes, but I don't know why it's so revered. It's a fucking sample start, not like it took that much effort. I think it gets its fame largely for the video to be honest.

I'd have no real problem with Love Will Tear Us Apart being the ebst song. But I will just say this:

Good eye, sniper.

[Tarheels.]

It isn't the best, by a mile. It's good yes, but I don't know why it's so revered. It's a fucking sample start, not like it took that much effort. I think it gets its fame largely for the video to be honest.

I'd have no real problem with Love Will Tear Us Apart being the ebst song. But I will just say this:

Good eye, sniper.

[Bushmeister]

After a lot of pondering on this subject, this is my answer:

"March To The Sea" by Pelican.

For those who have never been exposed to this excellence, a live version:

[Guest Di Grind]

I'm definitely torn here, but I'd have to give it to either "The Wagon" by Dinosaur Jr. (which I bet nobody else on Earth picks), "Sisters of Mercy" by Leonard Cohen, or "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden as part of my quest to pick the three songs that have the least in common ever.

[Dingle]

As much as I love Coheed, I could never place one of their songs as something I considered the "best of all time" or even my "Favourite of all time" and even if I could, "A Favour House Atlantic" wouldn't be what I would pick out of their songs. If I was to choose a favourite Coheed song off the top of my head I'd have to say either "The Crowing" or "Everything Evil". The latter being my preferred choice but when I heard "The Crowing" about a year or whatever back, that's the song that got me into Coheed.

Hmm... I would probably go for "Beyond The Wheel" for what I'd consider to be my favourite song because the vocal range in it is incredible, it's the song that made me love Soundgarden (even if it was years after that I discovered it), it made me search out for Cornell's songs and it also forced me into buying Audioslave's self-titled album.

Amongst these I also love RATM's "Killing in the Name Of" but "Vietnow", "Fuck Tha Police" and "No Shelter" all get a BIG nod for being awesome. "No Shelter" being my favourite of the four.

In Summary I'd perhaps list "No Shelter", "Beyond the Wheel" and "Hurt" (NIN's version) as my favourites. A note on "Hurt"... I love Johnny Cash, and Cocaine Blues would be another song I'd list here, but unfortunately his songs, aside from "Hurt", never seem to have an impact on me the way any of these other songs I've listed do.

[Tarheels.]

As much as I love Coheed, I could never place one of their songs as something I considered the "best of all time" or even my "Favourite of all time" and even if I could, "A Favour House Atlantic" wouldn't be what I would pick out of their songs. If I was to choose a favourite Coheed song off the top of my head I'd have to say either "The Crowing" or "Everything Evil". The latter being my preferred choice but when I heard "The Crowing" about a year or whatever back, that's the song that got me into Coheed.

[Toe]

My favourite song is "Sink Into The Underground" by CKY.

Edited May 6, 2007 by desiredtoe

[Cactus Drags]

It isn't the best, by a mile. It's good yes, but I don't know why it's so revered. It's a fucking sample start, not like it took that much effort. I think it gets its fame largely for the video to be honest.

I'd have no real problem with Love Will Tear Us Apart being the ebst song. But I will just say this:

Good eye, sniper.

NOW/HERE I'LL SHOOT, YOU RUN!

Not even the best Coheed song though.

[Lowerdeck]

Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones. 'Tis true.

That's easily the best Stones song yes, and it was that much more awesome being in The Departed too. But um, best ever... not quite.

I'm slightly tempted to say "The End of the Innocence" by Don Henley, but that's a tough call as well. Then again, it is my #1 most played on iTunes.

[NobBe Nobbs]

It isn't the best, by a mile. It's good yes, but I don't know why it's so revered. It's a fucking sample start, not like it took that much effort. I think it gets its fame largely for the video to be honest.

I'd have no real problem with Love Will Tear Us Apart being the ebst song. But I will just say this:

Good eye, sniper.

NOW/HERE I'LL SHOOT, YOU RUN!

Not even the best Coheed song though.

[Tarheels.]

It isn't the best, by a mile. It's good yes, but I don't know why it's so revered. It's a fucking sample start, not like it took that much effort. I think it gets its fame largely for the video to be honest.

I'd have no real problem with Love Will Tear Us Apart being the ebst song. But I will just say this:

Good eye, sniper.

NOW/HERE I'LL SHOOT, YOU RUN!

Not even the best Coheed song though.