Favorite Songs by One Hundred Artists
(A fairly random assortment of favorite songs by performers whose discographies I know well. I’ve done my best to select toward artists lots of people have heard and away from the profound obscurities I love, but as Naomi Shihab Nye says, “The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it,” so who knows? I’ve arranged this list alphabetically by artist.)
Adam and the Ants: Prince Charming
Laurie Anderson: The Dream Before
The Beach Boys: God Only Knows
The Beatles: You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
The Bees: One Glass of Water
Big Star: Thirteen
Björk: Bachelorette
The Blue Nile: Family Life
The Books: An Animated Description of Mr. Maps
David Bowie: Five Years
Billy Bragg: The Only One
Phoebe Bridgers: Chinese Satellite (Copycat Killer EP Version)
Kate Bush: Cloudbusting
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The Ship Song
Kasey Chambers: Paper Aeroplane
Ray Charles: You Don’t Know Me
Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat
The Comsat Angels: The Eye of the Lens
Sam Cooke: Bring It On Home to Me
Elvis Costello: Tramp the Dirt Down
The Creatures: Killing Time
The Cure: Pictures of You
The Decemberists: Grace Cathedral Hill
Iris DeMent: No Time to Cry
Depeche Mode: Waiting for the Night
Dexys Midnight Runners: Tell Me When My Light Turns Green
The Divine Comedy: Tonight We Fly
Nick Drake: Fly
The Drifters: One Way Love
Duran Duran: The Chauffeur
Bob Dylan: Shelter from the Storm
Erasure: My Heart…So Blue
Eurythmics: Love Is a Stranger
Feist: Now At Last
FKA twigs: Two Weeks
Roberta Flack: Our Ages or Our Hearts
John Foxx: Your Dress
Aretha Franklin: Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
Marvin Gaye: Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology Song)
John Wesley Harding: Roy Orbison Knows (The Best Man’s Song)
Ted Hawkins: The Good and the Bad
Robyn Hitchcock: Queen Elvis
Hothouse Flowers: Sweet Marie
Michael Jackson: Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’
James: Lullaby
Japan: Ghosts
Billy Joel: An Innocent Man
Elton John: I’m Still Standing
Kings of Convenience: Misread
Lenny Kravitz: I Build This Garden for Us
Cyndi Lauper: All Through the Night
The Magnetic Fields: Acoustic Guitar
Laura Marling: Ghosts
Maxwell: …Til’ the Cops Come Knockin’
Paul McCartney: No More Lonely Nights
John Mellencamp: Authority Song
George Michael: One More Try
Van Morrison: Sweet Thing
Morrissey: November Spawned a Monster
Mötley Crüe: Red Hot
Alison Moyet: For You Only
Naked Eyes: Promises, Promises
Randy Newman: Marie
New Model Army: (I Love) The World
Olivia Newton-John: Please Mr. Please
Harry Nilsson: Don’t Forget Me
Mary Margaret O’Hara: Dear Darling
Phil Ochs: When I’m Gone
Sinead O’Connor: This Is a Rebel Song
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Maid of Orleans (Joan of Arc)
Michael Penn: Innocent One
The Police: Can’t Stand Losing You
Prince: The Beautiful Ones
Queen: Somebody to Love
Otis Redding: These Arms of Mine
R.E.M.: Country Feedback
Jonathan Richman: That Summer Feeling
Rilo Kiley: Spectacular Views
Josh Ritter: Snow Is Gone (Hello Starling) (live from the 4 Songs EP)
Linda Ronstadt: Long Long Time
Roxy Music: To Turn You On
Bob Seger: You’ll Accomp’ny Me
serpentwithfeet: four ethers
Richard Shindell: On a Sea of Fleur de Lis
The Sisters of Mercy: Ribbons
The Smiths: You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby
The Sound: Winning
The Sundays: My Finest Hour
David Sylvian: Some Kind of Fool
Talking Heads: (Nothing But) Flowers
Talk Talk: Inheritance
They Might Be Giants: Ana Ng
Tindersticks: Raindrops
Tom Waits: Take It With Me
Gillian Welch: I’m Not Afraid to Die
Dar Williams: After All
Stevie Wonder: Heaven Help Us All
XTC: Dear God
Yaz: Softly Over
The Zombies: This Will Be Our Year
— December 23, 2021