Perfect Songs

Growing up playing music in England in the 80s, playing covers was NOT what you did. You learned three chords and formed a band. However, I'm getting more and more interested in learning some 'perfect' songs.

By which I mean perfectly constructed -- lyrically, melodically and harmonically -- and not dependent on any one performance. I'll give you some of my own examples... generally they're heavily covered already, but not always.

Examples: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Me & Bobby McGee, California Dreaming, Cattle & Cane, Crazy, Always on my Mind, Daydream Believer, Pale Blue Eyes, Leaving on a Jet Plane (seriously), Any Day Now, Alison, Shipbuilding. What songs do you consider perfectly formed?

I was thinking I might learn one a day.

posted by unSane (40 comments total)

My god, there are... so many! of course, definitions of "perfect" will vary widely, so, here's just a very few, off the top of my head, that fall into that category for me...

Georgia
Heard It Through the Grapevine
Stand By Your Man
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
I Threw It All Away
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:03 PM on June 24, 2010

Not being a Dylan fan, I didn't know I THREW IT ALL AWAY, but, hell yes. Also, Lonesome and Georgia would also be on my lists.

My friend Patrick and I used to sing STAND BY YOUR MAN at Karaoke nights, which confused everyone, but I agree there too... it's a hell of a song.
posted by unSane at 9:15 PM on June 24, 2010

I'm gonna add A NEW ENGLAND.
posted by unSane at 10:27 PM on June 24, 2010

Yeah, there's just too many. I'm gonna throw these down for starters...they're a bit all over the place...

Crying
Can't Take My Eyes Off You
Distant Sun
Goodbye
(They Long To Be) Close To You
Killing The Blues
The Disappointed
Something
posted by Jon-A-Thon at 12:22 AM on June 25, 2010

Which Goodbye?
posted by unSane at 4:33 AM on June 25, 2010

Antonio Carlos Jobim was very good at writing perfect songs. Some great examples are: Insentatez or Agua de beber. There are many English versions if you want to sing along, but I posted these because they are acoustic (and not as cheesy as the usual versions).
posted by micayetoca at 9:54 AM on June 25, 2010

teenage kicks (from the ghost of john peel)
posted by the_very_hungry_caterpillar at 11:00 AM on June 25, 2010

Ah yes: Goodbye by Steve Earle. The amazing cover by Emmylou Harris reminds me of another perfect song: Gillian Welch's Orphan Girl.
posted by Jon-A-Thon at 11:04 AM on June 25, 2010

Oh lordy.....that's a toughie. When it comes right down to it my "perfect" songs are, with one or two exceptions, almost always dictated by melody and structure - lyrically they could be singing the phone book. Off the cuff and in no particular order (preferentially or chronologically) here's a few:
Sugar Sugar - Jeff Barry and Andy Kim (seriously - this is a perfect, innocent, joyful little pop gem)
Moon River - Johnny Mercer
Ne Me Quitte Pas - Jacques Brel (must be the original French lyric - even though I can't understand it at all - not Rod McKuen's English translation)
Answer Me - Winkler and Rauch (English lyric by Carl Sigman)
How Long Has This Been Going On - George and Ira Gershwin
Seven Days - Sting
Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours) - Stevie Wonder + others
You'll Never Walk Alone - Rogers and Hammerstein
Oh, Lady Be Good - George and Ira Gershwin
Windmills Of Your Mind - Michel Legrand
I'm Alive - Clint Ballard
Daydream Believer - John Stewart
If You Could Read My Mind - Gordon Lightfoot
Au Suivant (Next) - Jacques Brel (actually I'm a total Brel nut, so almost anything by him counts as perfect in my book)
posted by MajorDundee at 12:55 PM on June 25, 2010

Moon River is, of course, by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini (whose melodies I'm also a sucker for - check out Whistling Away The Dark for a good example).
posted by MajorDundee at 12:57 PM on June 25, 2010

Oh and two more while I'm at it:
Wicked Game - Chris Isaak (although, I have to say, it's probably the prduction I like as much of the song. The sound is absolutely fucking heaven)
Constant Craving - KD Lang (great song, great performance, great record. Perfect.)
posted by MajorDundee at 4:43 PM on June 25, 2010

unSane, excuse me for stealing your post for a second. Major, have you heard this?
posted by micayetoca at 6:10 PM on June 25, 2010

there's no more perfect song than a blues song
posted by pyramid termite at 8:05 PM on June 25, 2010

What? Any blues song? Good to know.
posted by unSane at 8:39 PM on June 25, 2010

there's no more perfect song than a blues song

I honestly wish I could agree with this, but sadly have come to conclude that nothing demands more genuine heart + soul commitment and interpretation from a performer than the blues. Just check out any half-assed 12-bar blues band stumbling through yet another take on something like Spoonful -- it's like a kick in the head (the wrong kind).

Or maybe the songs themselves are perfect but like a magical mirror from a fairytale, they mercilessly reveal the imperfections of the performers.

As my brother loves to say, there are no bad songs, just an infinity of bad performances.
posted by philip-random at 9:09 AM on June 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

there's no more perfect song than a blues song

This will probably start a fire, but it's not meant to be inflamatory (heh) - just a different take on the blues. After eons of playing, I've come to the view that the blues isn't a form or structure at all. It's not a formula. In fact that's where it gets most misunderstood. Someone playing a 12-bar structure is not , in my view, automatically playing the blues. Without the depth of emotion required they're playing the equivalent of shell with nothing beating beneath it - it could be little more than pastiche. And the people listening to it might be equally ignorant. Thinking "oh that's the blues" because that 3-chord formula and its attendant cliches is what the recipe book says is "the blues".

The blues is, in my book, a feeling. And it's not just a simple feeling - melancholy or whatever - it's a complex mix of stoicism, regret, resignedness, anger, frustration and christ knows what else. For me the blues is about channelling your life experience - mostly of the negative variety - into your music. And to play the blues does not, again in my view, have to mean simple forms of music using 3-string guitars, gravelly vocals, pentatonic scales and what have you. Although it can be all those things too. The point is - you can play any form of music and inject the blues into it. If you have that feeling, know how to use it and mean it when you play it. I guess too that, for me, the blues - the real blues - sorts the men out from the boys when it comes to playing.
posted by MajorDundee at 11:23 AM on June 26, 2010 [3 favorites]

This is an impossible question, in a way, because everyone will come up with different criteria. In all of these cases, I like how the chords are strung together, and in many cases the songs have harmonies that are interesting.

Robyn Hitchcock - Flesh Number One (Beatle Dennis), Madonna of the Wasps
Pinback - Loro and Tripoli.
The Decemberists - Engine Driver.
The Dukes of Stratosphear - The Vanishing Girl
XTC - Ten Feet Tall
The Honeydogs - Over You
The Jayhawks - Blue
posted by umbú at 3:45 PM on June 26, 2010

Ahhh "Ten Feet Tall"...oh yes indeed. It was the US version/mix of that that grabbed me at the time. And of course there's "Senses Working Overtime", which I loved too. Oddly enough I replaced Dave Gregory in the band he left to join XTC (I'm from more-or-less the same neck of the woods). Smart move, Dave....
posted by MajorDundee at 4:09 PM on June 26, 2010

What tha--? Seriously, MajorDundee? That's amazing. Last night I went on an xtc binge after reading the Devils Rancher's fpp, listening to everything with great interlocking guitars between Andy Partridge and David Gregory. Gregory is an amazing player. The lyrics of that band still drive me crazy much of the time, but musically, they had a lot to offer.
posted by umbú at 7:53 PM on June 26, 2010

I love all these suggestions -- keep 'em coming.

For me, I love a song that snaps shut like a trap. The melody, harmony and lyrics all interlock, so that you can't add anything or take anything away without making it worse. And some intangible moment of tingle, not repeated too often, often a lyrical or harmonic or melodic surprise, that means you have to listen to the song again, and again, again.

On blues, I agree w/ MajorDundee that it's more of a state of mind than anything. I'm the whitest person you ever met but I tried to teach myself blues a couple of years ago. I quickly realized it's not about technique or riffs. It's basically about taking a note and bending the fuck out of it. As soon as the note is in tune, it's not the blues any more. The blues is fundamentally about being out of tune. Listen to the three kings -- Freddie, Albert and BB. BB is the least blue of them all, to my ears. Albert is the bluest, and he's almost always out of tune in some way. And he only has about three riffs, and two of them aren't that good. But that's not the point.

Some blues/jazz faves, not many because they are almost always performance dependent.

Strange Fruit - by a Jewish high school teacher who later adopted the Rosenberg's children, believe it or not.
Fever
Night & Day
posted by unSane at 9:11 PM on June 26, 2010

Neil Sedaka, "Breaking Up is Hard to Do." Brilliant bit of songmaking. It was a #1 hit for Sedaka in 1962. Then, in 1975, Sedaka recorded a radically different version and hit #8. How often does that happen?

Partridge Family, The Carpenters, The Chipmunks -- all the greats have tackled it at one time or another.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 10:12 PM on June 26, 2010

This question in general makes me think of the Brill Building stuff, which I like a lot -- great song craft, without much thought given to specific performers and often recorded by made-up bands anyway.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 10:14 PM on June 26, 2010

Speaking of the Brill building makes me think of Lou Reed, who learned his craft right there and explains a lot of the melodic sweetness in the Velvets stuff. I already cited Pale Blue Eyes but I think New Age is also pretty perfect, even when you strip away the performance. The song changed a lot over the years but the one on LOADED is lyrically the one for me.
posted by unSane at 2:51 AM on June 27, 2010

What tha--? Seriously, MajorDundee?
Yup, no shit. The band went under various names (including GogMagog and Mondo Cane) and was a sort of Prog thing based in the Forest of Dean (Gloucestershire) when I joined them. Pretty fucking awful when I think back (this is 1979-80), but I learned a lot from them. Totally zero success although, frankly, they didn't try very hard. Gregory lodged with the drummer - one Dave "Sam" Heaps (brilliant drummer btw - wonder if he's still playing..) - but I never met him. Come to think of it there must be loads of tapes still extant of him playing with that band. Before you ask - I don't have any although I did at one time 'cause I had to learn his parts. What a long time ago that all was.....
posted by MajorDundee at 4:38 AM on June 27, 2010

Doing pretty well, have learned/refreshed DAYDREAM BELIEVER, THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE (obviously), ME AND BOBBY MCGEE, EL GOODO and CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' so far.
posted by unSane at 7:00 PM on June 27, 2010

Most of my immediate picks have already been mentioned, but here are a couple of less obvious ones:

Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden You know, I don't even know why this song comes to mind as perfect; I have never been a huge Soundgarden fan, this is probably the only song of theirs I really know, but I just think the composition of it is so... right.

Syncronicity II by The Police This song just hangs together so well. It's odd and untraditional in that it builds up and up and up, and then you get to the bit that would be the chorus, but there it just drops down again. And it has to be that way.
posted by MaiaMadness at 8:25 AM on June 28, 2010

Ooh, I missed one. Not a big Stones fan but WILD HORSES.
posted by unSane at 7:51 PM on June 28, 2010

Harry Nilsson: "Think About Your Troubles," "Are You Sleeping," "Gotta Get Up," and "Driving Along"

REM: "Swan Swan H," and "Can't Get There from Here"

Elvis Costello: "Beyond Belief," "Veronica," and "This Is Hell"

XTC: "1000 Umbrellas," "All You Pretty Girls," and "I Bought Myself a Liar Bird"

Brian Eno: "Julie With..."

Radiohead: "Exit Music (For a Film)"

Low: "Violence"

The Beatles: "Fixing a Hole," "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," "When I'm Sixty Four," "Nowhere Man," "In My Life," "Eight Days a Week," "Eleanor Rigby," and "Across the Universe"

Jesus. That doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:47 AM on June 29, 2010

Oh, and Os Mutantes: "Baby"
posted by saulgoodman at 9:49 AM on June 29, 2010

This is a freakin' awesome list for a set of covers.
posted by unSane at 10:34 AM on June 29, 2010

This is a freakin' awesome list for a set of covers.

speaking of which, I'm still waiting for that still mid-tempo slow but POUNDINGLY HEAVY take on Neil Young's Heart Of Gold. It is, after all, a song about digging for metal.
posted by philip-random at 12:51 PM on June 29, 2010

Os Mutantes' baby is actually Caetano Veloso's, who has done himself a good share of perfect songs, now that we speak of him.
posted by micayetoca at 2:07 PM on June 29, 2010

Well...the July/August MeFi music challenge is pretty obvious now. Cover one of the songs listed above. Flapjax??
posted by MajorDundee at 1:25 AM on June 30, 2010

Well...the July/August MeFi music challenge is pretty obvious now. Cover one of the songs listed above. Flapjax??

Nope! Sorry Major, but it seems a little too soon for another covers Challenge, plus, the July one (suggested by our beloved chococat) is already decided. I'll be throwing it out there within a few hours or so...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:44 AM on June 30, 2010

Os Mutantes' baby is actually Caetano Veloso's

Is that right? I had no idea, micayetoca. Thanks for correcting me. Credit should go where it's due. And now I've got a new artist to learn more about.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:29 AM on June 30, 2010

I'm still waiting for that still mid-tempo slow but POUNDINGLY HEAVY take on Neil Young's Heart Of Gold. It is, after all, a song about digging for metal.

this is a pretty good cover of heart of gold, i think...
he also had an unexpected take on sabbath's 'snowblind' that i really dig.

(here's hoping my html doesn't fail...)
posted by g.i.r. at 5:02 PM on July 1, 2010

I love this exercise! Here are nine that I think get within striking distance:

Picture in a Frame - Tom Waits
Strawberry Blonde - Ron Sexsmith
Big River - Johnny Cash
Pancho and Lefty - Townes Van Zandt
Dear Someone - Gillian Welch
Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McClintock
Political Science - Randy Newman
Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
Fairytale of New York - Shane MacGowan
posted by blue bar at 8:48 PM on July 1, 2010

Mike Hart's song "Almost Liverpool 8" is probably the most perfect song I know of. Recorded by John Peel, too, back when he was still trying it out in the music biz previous to his radio days. Sadly little-known, but my god, what a song...
posted by koeselitz at 8:29 AM on July 2, 2010

That Mike Hart song is amazing. Had never heard it before. Instantly reminded me of another piece of heartbreak perfection -- Toussaint McCall's Nothing Takes the Place of You.
posted by unSane at 11:23 AM on July 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Roger Miller's "King of the Road"
posted by saulgoodman at 12:39 PM on July 7, 2010 [2 favorites]