Most people cannot can put their favorite songs of all time into a concise list. I am not most people.
We’ve established that music takes up a massive part of my heart (it was literally one of the first things I said). It’s in my earliest memories. Performing it has been a constant throughout the years. I cannot start or end my day right without it. I am the main character, and my movie has an incredible soundtrack.
This morning, I got out of bed, turned on the kitchen light, and lit a candle. I put on my “Liked” playlist on Spotify and made breakfast (a simple celery juice). The vibes were, in a word, immaculate. I should start every morning that way!
However, putting a random playlist (as opposed to a curated one) can lead to a harshed mellow. A killed vibe, if you will. A pump-up workout jam came on my playlist as I finished juicing my celery, and it completely changed the mood. The mood was back a mere SECONDS later, but it made me reflect on how music can make or break my day. It’s a microcosm of the way music defines my life!
At some point in either my final year of high school or my first year of college, I made a list of my top ten favorite songs. I still have that list, and to be honest, it hasn’t changed much since!
To clarify, GREAT music has come out in the past ten years (give or take). My taste in music has grown and changed over time. These ten songs have, for the most part, stayed consistent!
Here are my favorite songs of all time. Yes. In ORDER. I will note that I left “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin out of this top ten list, intentionally. I place it in a class of its own.
10.The End of All Things – Panic! at the Disco
Have I not done a crash course on the infinite ways I love this band? I think what appeals to me so much about Panic! at the Disco is that they don’t have a specific genre. Of course, “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” is on every self-respecting emo/pop-punk playlist, but that’s one song, from one album, in the early days of the band. Their albums have bounced from showtune to Sergeant Pepper meets the Monkees to Vegas residency. As a girl who similarly doesn’t subscribe to a particular label or aesthetic, I find their lack of definition comforting! “The End of All Things” is one of few songs written entirely by frontman (and sole remaining founding member) Brendon Urie. He wrote it two days before marrying his wife, and the lyrics consist of his wedding vows. How romantic, right? THAT’S just the words. The hook sounds like what I think heaven sounds like. Not “Brendon Urie has the voice of an angel,” but “when you enter the gates of divine eternity, it sounds like this.”
9.The Wind – Cat Stevens
This simple song is less than two minutes long. It’s short, sweet, and puts me at ease with a lilting melody. I can’t remember the first time I heard it, but I’ve listened to it at sentimental points in my life. I’m an introspective person, and when I want to feel a moment in its entirety, I find the right song and feel the stillness. “The Wind” tends to be that song, when I’m alone and at peace. I also think of this carefree moment from my favorite movie, “Almost Famous.”
8. I Don’t Want to Be – Gavin DeGraw
I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and this song just UGH. It reminds me (and everyone else) of “One Tree Hill,” which in turn reminds me of high school. The angst, the adrenaline, the heartbreaks, the fleeting energy of it all, gets encapsulated in this song. In addition, as someone who wants to go big or go home at all times, I love the line “Part of where I’m going is knowing where I’m coming from.” That line just hits, even if I hate when sentences end with a preposition!
7. April Come She Will – Simon and Garfunkel
This was the first Simon and Garfunkel song I ever heard. I heard it because my dad used to play it on his guitar when I was really little. This song reminds me of being young and having my dad around and everything being okay. This also reminds me of an incredible episode of “Parks and Recreation.” They use the song in a way that is so perfect and makes me cry every time. Are the two connected? I don’t know. Probably not. It’s just a beautiful, sad, lovely little song.
6. All You Need is Love – The Beatles
If I had to pick a favorite band, it’s between Panic! and the Fab Four (which is a great name for a Panic! at the Disco/Beatles cover band. There’s potential crossover there. I can sense it). Both bands appear more than once on this list, and for good reason. I just think this is a perfect song. In a time that was ravaged by war and social activism, this message feels as real now as it did then. I would never DARE, D-A-R-E to say that a Beatles cover is better than the original, but… this cover from jukebox musical Across the Universe comes pretty close. I just love a callback; “All You Need is Love” closes with a miss-mash of music, but in the background, you can hear John Lennon singing “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah…” in reference to one of their earliest hits. It’s beautiful, and wonderful, and I love it always.
5. Transatlanticism – Death Cab for Cutie
I love this band, and I love this song. The first time I heard it was in Easy A, and I might have heard it elsewhere, but high school Mallory used to listen to it on repeat at the beach thinking about a boy who didn’t love her back. The extended melody in the middle with the repeated line “I need you so much closer” had Mallory in her FEELINGS. Even now, I think there’s a reason I don’t listen to it often. It’s like a fine wine (I assume). I don’t want to drink it every day, which makes me enjoy it every time I do.
4. Nine in the Afternoon – Panic! at the Disco
Hey! They’re back! Like every 12 year old, I knew “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” and wanted to be as cool as the eyeliner wearing emo girls on Myspace. I was a loser and a wannabe and never even snuck out of her bedroom window once. A few years later though, their second album (“Pretty. Odd.”) came out when I was looking forward to Saturday nights almost exclusively to watch Saturday Night Live. Panic! at the Disco performed this song on the show. It was my first time hearing it, and some part of my brain snapped. Some part of my heart opened. Time froze. Emotions transcended. I cannot explain why the chorus grips me so much, but it did then, and it still does now. Man, it feels good to feel this way.
3. Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
This song is forever associated with Grey’s Anatomy. I have never seen Grey’s Anatomy, save for a few scenes here and there because my mother and sister would watch it together. That said, I listened to it when I borrowed the soundtrack album my mom had (for some reason. Why did I take that?). I loved it. The final chorus just, to quote the current vernacular, SLAPS. The simple line “If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?” is what it means to love someone. I love it and I think it’s perfect.
2. Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles
Speaking of things that are perfect, there’s this absolute masterpiece. I think it might be the best song ever written. I love it so much. It is, probably, the first Beatles song I ever heard. I remember it specifically: 1998’s The Parent Trap. This is such a defining movie for me! I feel like I can point to it for multiple things, but there’s this scene specifically, as Hallie Parker (as Annie James) walks through London with her mother for the first time. It is such a quintessentially British moment (that they parody with an Abbey Road reference). I remember watching once (for probably the millionth time, thanks to VHS), and asking my mom what song it was (granted, the movie uses a cover version, but it’s really just a copy/paste for a budget). I didn’t know why, but something in her response told me that “The Beatles” were important. As a result, that scene cemented “Here Comes the Sun” as the song form of beauty, happiness, warmth, and home. It does sound like the clouds making way for the sun, doesn’t it? It’s all right. Biggest understatement of the year.
1. Tiny Dancer – Elton John
I wish I could put into words why this is my favorite song of all time. Is it the piano? The distinct Americana feel? I don’t really know why this song makes me smile so much, but something tells me that this scene from “Almost Famous” has something to do with it. “To blindly love some silly piece of music… so much that it hurts.”
I played some of these songs while writing to help me reflect on why I love them so much. I’ll say this: I needed to take a deep breath after listening to that last one.
Taste in music is subjective. Some may look at my list and think that it’s all mainstream and shallow. Some may agree, or even have a similar list to mine! I wonder how much this list will change, if at all, in the next ten years. You can’t really improve on perfection, right? However, I always give every (and any) kind of music a fair shot. I’ll dance to anything.