A Dozen Great Bob Dylan Songs

America’s greatest songwriter. Perpetual enigma. Constant live performer. Bob Dylan has created an everlasting body of work that contains dozens of influential, ground-breaking songs. Here are a twelve of my favorite…

The song: Masters Of War (from the album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan)

What makes it great: After nearly 50 years, ‘Masters Of War’ remains one of the most convincing and chilling protest songs against the military industrial complex of the United States – a righteous finger pointed at those who pull the strings on the war machine.

Listen: Masters Of War

The song: Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (from the album The Times They Are A-Changin’)

What makes it great: Even if Dylan fumbled a few of the facts here, this is still an intense portrait of racism in the 60’s. With a barely controlled fury, Dylan recounts the tale of William Zanzinger, a wealthy tobacco farmer who received a six-month jail sentence for beating a maid to death with his cane.

Listen: Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll

The song: Subterranean Homesick Blues (from the album Bringing It All Back Home)

What makes it great: The first hip-hop tune? You be the judge…

Listen: Subterranean Homesick Blues

The song: Highway 61 Revisited (from the album Highway 61 Revisited)

What makes it great: Dylan looks at the highway that connects his native Minnesota to the Mississippi Delta, and finds it strew with gods and kings, and telephones that won’t ring. This is Bobby D at his myth-making best.

Listen: n/a

The song: Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (from the album Blonde On Blonde)

What makes it great: Dylan’s a master of imagery, and this is one of his best and brightest pictures.

Listen: n/a

The song: Girl From The North Country (from the album Nashville Skyline)

What makes it great: Not Dylan’s greatest song, but this duet with Johnny Cash makes for a memorable tune featuring two giants of music.

Listen: Girl From The North Country (With Johnny Cash)

The song: Buckets Of Rain (from the album Blood On The Tracks)

What makes it great: Dylan didn’t make many ballads, but this is one of his best. A simple metaphor and sincere tone put this one over…

Listen: Buckets Of Rain

The song: This Wheel’s On Fire (from the album The Basement Tapes)

What makes it great: Filled with Old Testament fury and scorn, this wasn’t the first or last time that Dylan would get biblical on your ass…

Listen: This Wheel’s On Fire

The song: Gotta Serve Somebody (from the album Slow Train Coming)

What makes it great: A terrific reminder that you’re somebody else’s appetizer, no matter where you sit on the food chain.

Listen: Gotta Serve Somebody

The song: Tangled Up In Blue (from the album Real Live)

What makes it great: More short story or movie treatment than mere song, this epic finds two souls ricocheting around the country and occasionally crashing into one another. This live version features compelling alternate lyrics…

Listen: Tangled Up In Blue (Live)

The song: Political World (from the album Oh Mercy)

What makes it great: Dylan practically spits out this disgusted missive on the state of the world that’s enslaved to politics.

Listen: Political World

The song: Love Sick (from the album Time Out Of Mind)

What makes it great: Dylan’s never been what you might call sentimental, but here he sings like a man who’s very soul has been scorched black by love gone bad. To the chagrin of his fans, it would also serve as the soundtrack for his first commercial – for Victoria’s Secret, no less.

Listen: Love Sick

A Dozen Great AC/DC Songs

AC/DC has never made the kind of music that drives eggheads and bookworms to seek out cross-references in their poetry anthologies, but few bands are better at the kind of pulverizing, crude hard rock that these Aussies have been serving up for the last 30+ years. Bon Scott, the group’s original lead singer, was one of the most gifted and charismatic rock singers of the 70’s, but he drank himself to death in February of 1980. The band hardly missed a beat, picking up a brand new belter in Brian Johnson, and releasing Back In Black (itself a tribute to Bon Scott) within a mere few months. It quickly became one of the best-selling albums of all-time, and established them as one of the top draws in rock.

AC/DC is what I think of as a ‘Rorschach Band’. Depending on whose ears you’re listening with, they either sounds dumb, sinister and loud, or… well, they always sound like that, but for a lot of us that’s a great thing. I grew up in Springfield, OR, and in that blue collar neck of the woods listening to AC/DC was as much of a rite of passage into adulthood as sprouting pimples or skipping the junior prom. Of course, our high school parking lot was full of Camaros and El Caminos, and AC/DC’s brand of “high voltage rock and roll” always sounded great pumping out of those muscle cars.

With the recent release of their umpteenth album, Black Ice, I thought it was a good time to take a stroll down memory lane, and review a dozen of their finest tunes. “Are there really a dozen?” the P asked me rhetorically on her way out the door today. Honey, if you ask me, there are at least three dozen, but let’s start with these twelve, from twelve different albums…

The song: ‘T.N.T.’ (from the LP T.N.T.)

What makes it great: Bon Scott compares himself to a stick of dynamite, then lives up to it.

Key lyrics: “So lock up your daughter n’ lock up your wife/Lock up your back door and run for your life”

Listen: T.N.T.

The song: ‘It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll)’ (from the LP High Voltage)

What makes it great: Best… bagpipes… ever. This is also an eye-opening tale of the slime pit that any band has to crawl through to make it big.

Key lyrics: “Getting old, getting grey/Getting ripped off, underpaid/Getting sold, second hand/That’s how it goes playing in a band”

Listen: It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll)

The song: ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ (from the LP Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap)

What makes it great: Got a dirty job that needs handling? Bon Scott’s your man. This lurid little song features one of the best of the thousands of insanely catchy guitar riffs that Angus Young has knocked out over the years.

Key lyrics: “For a fee, I’m happy to be/Your back door man”

Listen: Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

The song: ‘Let There Be Rock’ (from the LP Let There Be Rock)

What makes it great: Bon Scott rips through this song like he’s reading the lyrics from the holy scriptures of Rock-n-Roll. Hilarious, over-the-top, and absolutely mesmerizing, this powerhouse performance is quintessential Bon.

Key lyrics: “”Let there be light/Sound/Drums/Guitar/Let there be rock”

Watch:

The song: ‘Sin City’ (from the LP Powerage)

What makes it great: Las Vegas is a place where the party never stops, and this is the perfect soundtrack for it.

Key lyrics: “So, spin that wheel, cut that pack/And roll those loaded dice/Bring on the dancing girls/And put the champaign on ice”

Listen: Sin City

The song: ‘Problem Child’ (from the LP If You Want Blood You’ve Got It)

What makes it great: Recorded live on their 1978 world tour, this is a tantalizing slice of AC/DC’s epic live show. This bruising version surpasses the excellent studio cut that appears on Dirty Deeds.

Key lyrics: “What I want I take/What I don’t I break/And I don’t want you”

The song: ‘Highway To Hell’ (from the LP Highway To Hell)

What makes it great: This ode to the long, hard road of concert touring was generally misunderstood to be some kind of pact-with-Satan thing. Here Bon Scott sounds bone-tired, and he would be dead before AC/DC would complete another album.

Key lyrics: “Hey Satan/Payin’ my dues/Playin’ in a rockin’ band/Hey mumma/Look at me/I’m on the way to the promised land”

Listen: Highway To Hell

The song: ‘Back In Black’ (from the LP Back In Black)

What makes it great: Channeling their grief and cranking the volume to 11, the band soldiered on with new singer Brian Johnson, who sings here like a man shrieking into the void.

Key lyrics: “I’ve been looking at the sky/’Cause it’s gettin’ me high/Forget the hearse ’cause I never die”

Watch: Back In Black

The song: ‘For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)’ (from the LP For Those About To Rock We Salute You)

What makes it great: I played this song on the jukebox at Jack’s Cable Car bar in SF every time I set foot in the place… for years. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the regulars thought of me as “that AC/DC guy.” The place was full of loonies, and it’s no exaggeration to say that this song was the best thing about that bar.

Key lyrics: “Stand up and be counted/For what you are about to receive”

The song: ‘Who Made Who’ (from the LP Who Made Who)

What makes it great: Created for a forgettable Stephen King movie, this song instantly, and rightly, took its place among their best tunes. It has been a concert staple ever since.

Key lyrics: “Who made who?/Who turned the screw?”

The song: ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ (from the ep ‘74 Jailbreak)

What makes it great: ‘74 Jailbreak rounds up the songs from the Australian pressings of their first two albums that had been left off the US pressings. This cover of Big Joe Williams’ classic reveals the blues/rock heart that beats within the band’s heavy metal exterior.

Key lyrics: “Baby please don’t go down to New Orleans/You know I love you so/Baby please don’t go”

Watch:

The song: ‘Live Wire’ (from the box set Bonfire)

What makes it great: Recorded live at Atlantic Studios on December 7th, 1977, this song crackles with the electricity promised in the lyrics. This fully-charged performance was unearthed for the appropriately titled 1997 box set Bonfire.

Key lyrics: “Well if you’re lookin’ for trouble/I’m the man to see/If you’re lookin’ for a-satisfaction/I’m satisfaction guaranteed”

Listen: Live Wire

A Dozen Great Johnny Cash Songs

Johnny Cash was more than just a legendary musician – he was an American icon. The pioneering spirit of determination and strength is etched into the lines of his music, with extra helpings of drunkenness and murder thrown in for good measure.

The Man In Black was a man of contradictions. He was a hell-raising pill-popper who sang gospel music and loved his mother and daddy. He was a ne’er do well troublemaker who married into the first family of country music. He was a ruthless beast with a heart of gold. He brought a rock and roll mentality to the staunch confines of Nashville, and in the process created some of the best music on record.

Here are a dozen songs that helped define the legend…

The song: Big River (from the album The Sun Years)

What makes it great: Cash’s larger-than-life presence comes shining through on this classic track. Partly Paul-Bunyanesque braggadocio and partly a stiff upper lip in the face of heartbreak, it’s a defining song on the defining collection of JC’s music.

Key lyrics: “Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry/And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky/And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River”

Listen: Big River

The song: Don’t Take Your Guns To Town (from the album The Fabulous Johnny Cash)

What makes it great: A surprisingly cautionary tale about the mortal price of reckless gun play. Cash empathetically sings from the point of view of a worried mother – this from one of the most hell-raising figures in the history of popular music.

Key lyrics: “Don’t take your guns to town son/Leave your guns at home Bill”

Listen: Don’t Take Your Guns To Town

The song: Five Feet High And Rising (from the album Songs Of Our Soil)

What makes it great: Cash’s music always reflected the concerns and travails of common folk. Even as the flood waters roll in, he sings with a spark in his voice that signifies the indomitable American spirit.

Key lyrics: “How high’s the water, mama?/Five feet high and risin’”

Listen: Five Feet High And Rising

The song: Ring Of Fire (from the album Ring Of Fire: The Best Of Johnny Cash)

What makes it great: Well, those killer mariachi horns, for one thing. Here Cash sings of falling in love as if he were plummeting to certain death – qualifying him as “wise” in my book.

Key lyrics: “Love is a burning thing/And it makes a fiery ring/Bound by wild desire/I fell in to a ring of fire”

Listen: Ring Of Fire

The song: The Ballad Of Ira Hayes (from the album Bitter Tears)

What makes it great: Cash made a string of pseudo-concept albums in the mid-60’s. The best of those is 1964’s Bitter Tears, which found him recounting the struggles of the Native American. Here he tells the tale of Ira Hayes, a veteran who drowned in two inches of water.

Key lyrics: “He died drunk one mornin’/Alone in the land he fought to save/Two inches of water in a lonely ditch/Was a grave for Ira Hayes”

Listen: The Ballad Of Ira Hayes

The song: I Walk The Line (from the album I Walk The Line)

What makes it great: Quite simply the most bad-ass declaration of marital fidelity in the history of cheating husbands.

Key lyrics: “Yes, I’ll admit that I’m a fool for you/Because you’re mine, I walk the line”

Listen: I Walk The Line

The song: Orange Blossom Special (from the album Orange Blossom Special)

What makes it great: One of the best of Cash’s railroad/train songs, this little ditty sees JC singing ‘Woo’ and ‘Woo-Hoo’ more times than the rest of his career put together. It also contains a classic spoken word segment regarding Nutrition Vs. New York.

Key lyrics: “Hey, look a-yonder comin’/Comin’ down that railroad track/It’s the Orange Blossom Special/Bringin’ my baby back”

Listen: Orange Blossom Special

The song: Folsom Prison Blues (from the album At Folsom Prison)

What makes it great: Having done a little time in the pokey himself, Cash electrified this captive audience with a string of songs about jail and redemption. His line in ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ about shooting a man in Reno, just to watch him die is one of the most cold-blooded lyrics ever penned – gangsta rappers are still trying to top it.

Key lyrics: “When I was just a baby, my mama told me, ‘Son/Always be a good boy; don’t ever play with guns.’/But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die”

Listen: Folsom Prison Blues

The song: Starkville City Jail (from the album At San Quentin)

What makes it great: One of the best examples of Cash’s great sense of humor, this based-on-a-true-story tune sees him getting arrested by Starkville, Mississippi’s finest for wandering around and smelling the flowers at 2am.

Key lyrics: “At 8 a.m. they let me out. I said: ‘Gimme them things of mine!’/They gave me a sneer and a guitar pick, and a yellow dandelion.”

Listen: Starkville City Jail

The song: Thirteen (from the album American Recordings)

What makes it great: It’s songs like this that cemented Cash’s reputation as The Man In Black. This Glenn Danzig-penned tune is beyond evil, and sees JC turn in the most bone-chilling performance in a long career full of them.

Key lyrics: “Got a long line of heartache I carry it well/The list of lives I’ve broken reach from here to hell”

Listen: Thirteen

The song: Rusty Cage (from the album Unchained)

What makes it great: Like much of the material that Rick Rubin selected for Cash to cover on his American albums, this Soundgarden tune feels like it was written by – or for – The Man In Black. At any rate, he takes this grunge classic and makes it his own.

Key lyrics: “When the dogs are looking for their bones/And it’s raining icepicks on your steel shore/I’m gonna break my rusty cage and run”

Listen: Rusty Cage

The song: The Cremation Of Sam McGee (from the album Personal File)

What makes it great: The source tapes for this album were quite literally found in Johnny Cash’s personal files after his death. Recorded at home by himself, these are some of the most intimate and revealing tracks in his catalogue. His spoken word reading of Hank Snow’s ‘The Cremation Of Sam McGee’ is delivered like a spooky campfire ghost story.

Key lyrics: “There are strange things done in the midnight sun/By the men who toil for gold/The Arctic trails have their secret tales/That would make your blood run cold”

Listen: The Cremation Of Sam McGee

A Dozen Great Beastie Boys Songs

America’s favorite white rappers have made a career out of confounding expectations and continually evolving. I was a junior in high school when their debut album dropped, and I’ve been on board ever since. From juvenile rap punks to funk jam band to record label impresarios to world-conscious thinkers, the Beasties have taken a lot of left turns in the last two decades. It’s been a long strange trip lined with an impossible number of great tunes…

The song: Cooky Puss (from the album Some Old Bullshit)

What makes it great: This pre-Licensed To Ill curiosity is constructed around a prank phone call to a Carvel Ice Cream shoppe. Hilarity ensues…

Key lyrics: CARVEL: “Hello, Carvel?” BEASTIES: “Yo man Cookypuss there?” CARVEL: “Who?” BEASTIES: “Cookypuss, I want to speak to Cookypuss man!”

The song: She’s On It (from the Krush Groove soundtrack)

What makes it great: The heavy rock stomp of the samples used here hinted at what was coming on Licensed To Ill, but this is as good as anything on that landmark album. Plus, it’s got a phat old-school video.

Key lyrics: “She studies real hard – all night she’ll cram/In school she majors in advanced Def Jam”

The song: Rhymin & Stealin (from the album Licensed To Ill)

What makes it great: The first song on the Beasties multi-platinum debut sets the tone for the whole album: obnoxious, snotty, and totally awesome.

Key lyrics: “Because mutiny on the bounty’s what we’re all about/I’m gonna board your ship and turn it on out”

The song: Shake Your Rump (from the album Paul’s Boutique)

What makes it great: Includes no less than a dozen crazy samples, notably Funky 4+1’s ‘That’s The Joint’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Good Times Bad Times’. Sets an impossibly loose yet dense vibe that continues through the whole album.

Key lyrics: “A puppet on a string I’m paid to sing or rhyme/Or do my thing I’m/In a lava lamp inside my brain hotel/I might be peakin’ or freakin’ but I rock well”

The song: Funky Boss (from the album Check Your Head)

What makes it great: Terrific funk groove that marked a strong departure for the band. When I saw them at the Oakland Coliseum in ‘98, they dedicated this song to everyone working in concessions on the concourse.

Key lyrics: “Funky Boss Funky Boss Funky Boss/Funky Boss Funky Boss Funky Boss/Get Off My Back”

The song: The New Style (from the album No Alternative)

What makes it great: For this benefit album dedicated to helping eradicate AIDS in children, the Beasties contributed a smoking live version of ‘The New Style’ that far exceeds the original cut from Licensed To Ill.

Key lyrics: “Down with Ad-Rock and Mike D. and you ain’t/And I got more juice than Picasso got paint”

The song: Bodhisattva Vow (from the album Ill Communication)

What makes it great: Over a swirling electronica world beat and chanting Tibetan monks, the Beasties rap earnestly about the path to peace and the enlightened mind.

Key lyrics: “I give thanks for this world as a place to learn/And for this human body that I know I’ve earned/And my deepest thanks to all sentient beings/For without them there would be no place to learn what I’m seeing”

The song: Deal With It (from the ep Aglio E Olio)

What makes it great: Just in case anyone thought they’d softened with their newfound Buddhism trip, the Beasties came out with this blistering hardcore ep that sounds like something released by Dischord or SST in 1983. Deal with it, indeed…

Key lyrics: “Rob and steal from the health food store/The ideas you shout that are so hardcore/Screaming at the phone man collecting the change/Ideas discovered then rearranged”

The song: Groove Holmes (from the album The In Sound From Way Out)

What makes it great: This album compiled the group’s instrumental jams in one place for the first time. ‘Groove Holmes’ – named after the jazz organist – is just one of the many fine pieces here that are as stout and funky as mid-period Meters.

Key lyrics: n/a

The song: Flowin’ Prose (from the album Hello Nasty)

What makes it great: Over a bumping bass, sparse scratching, and phased samples, King Ad-Rock pays self-fulfilling tribute to his sweet flow.

Key lyrics: “So like a cloud carries rain I’m gonna carry my rhyme/Coming like thunder with lightening timing”

The song: All Lifestyles (from the album To The Five Boroughs)

What makes it great: A complete about-face from the bratty, homophobe lyrics that littered Licensed To Ill, this track celebrates diversity over a driving, irresistible dance groove.

Key lyrics: “We gotta keep the party going on/All lifestyles, sizes, shapes, and forms”

The song: Suco de Tangerina (from the album The Mix-Up)

What makes it great: This track sounds like the kind of long-lost, instrumental funk jam from the 70’s that the Beasties would have sampled mercilessly on Paul’s Boutique. Like the rest of The Mix-Up, it’s a funky, fuzzy good time.

Key lyrics: n/a

A Dozen Great Neil Young Songs

You know the drill - a dozen (or so) great songs, from a dozen different albums by the incomparable Neil Young. Of course, as always, this is dealer’s choice…

The Song: ‘Mr. Soul’ (from the album Retrospective: The Best Of Buffalo Springfield)

What makes it great: Hinting at Young’s uneasy future ride with fame, and sporting the kind of totally indecipherable lyrics that would grace his best work, ‘Mr. Soul’ is arguably his first great song.

Key lyrics: “In a while will the smile on my face turn to plaster?/Stick around while the clown who is sick does the trick of disaster”

The song: ‘After The Gold Rush’ (from the album After The Gold Rush)

What makes it great: A sad, weird, environmentally conscious tune that features french horn – quintessential Neil.

Key lyrics: “There was a fanfare blowing/To the sun/That was floating on the breeze/Look at Mother Nature on the run/In the nineteen seventies”

The song: ‘Are You Ready For The Country?’ (from the album Harvest)

What makes it great: If you boiled all of Neil’s songs down into a single ur-song, this would be the one.

Key lyrics: “I was talkin’ to the preacher, said God was on my side/Then I ran into the hangman, he said it’s time to die”

The song: ‘Ambulance Blues’ (from the album On The Beach)

What makes it great: Rusty Kershaw’s mournful fiddle adds a dirge-like air to this outstanding cut from the great, long lost album On The Beach.

Key lyrics: “So all you critics sit alone/You’re no better than me for what you’ve shown/With your stomach pump and your hook and ladder dreams/We could get together for some scenes”

The song: ‘Cortez The Killer’ (from the album Zuma)

What makes it great: Neil the primitive meets Neil the conqueror. His heaviest moment on wax comes courtesy of the reconstituted Crazy Horse, with Frank Sampedro on guitar.

Key lyrics: “He came dancing across the water/With his galleons and guns/Looking for the new world/In that palace in the sun”

The song: ‘Will To Love’ (from the album American Stars ‘N Bars)

What makes it great: Neil compares himself to a fish swimming upstream in this epic that has plenty of “the spook” he and producer David Briggs were always looking for. Neil has frequently cited it as one of his best pieces of work.

Key lyrics: “But somewhere someone calls my name/I’m a harpoon dodger, and I can’t, won’t be tamed”

The song: ‘Thrasher’ (from the album Rust Never Sleeps)

What makes it great: Performed with acoustic guitar and harmonica, this is nonetheless Neil’s rallying cry against complacency – and a big middle finger to his old pals Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Key lyrics: “So I got bored and left them there/They were just deadweight to me/Better down the road without that load”

The song: ‘The Needle And The Damage Done’ (from the album Live Rust)

What makes it great: One of Neil’s most gut-wrenching songs, this was written for the late Danny Whitten, onetime guitarist for Crazy Horse. This version just edges the original from After The Gold Rush, which was also recorded live.

Key lyrics: “I’ve seen the needle and the damage done/A little part of it in everyone/But every junkie’s like a settin’ sun”

The song: ‘Transformer Man’ (from the album Trans)

What makes it great: Generally dismissed as a vocoder novelty, this is perhaps Young’s most autobiographical song. It was written for his son Ben, who has cerebral palsy and is cast here as a super hero.

Key lyrics: “Transformer man, transformer man/Unlock the secrets/Let us throw off the chains that hold you down”

The song: ‘Ten Men Workin’ (from the album This Note’s For You)

What makes it great: Hearing Neil with horns is enough to make this worth a listen – the fact that it cooks is what makes it great. After soaking this one in, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had released a rap album.

Key lyrics: “We are men at work/We got a job to do/We gotta keep you rockin’/To keep your soul from the blue”

The song: ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ (from the album Freedom)

What makes it great: A deliciously ambiguous take on that shitty (and fantastic!) place that is America.

Key lyrics: “There’s colors on the street/Red, white and blue/People shufflin’ their feet/People sleepin’ in their shoes”

The song: ‘Sleeps With Angels’ (from the album Sleeps With Angels)

What makes it great: Neil’s nod to Kurt Cobain is full of prowling menace and emotionally raw power. Backing band Crazy Horse proved that after two decades, they could still take Neil’s music to a higher place.

Key lyrics: “He sleeps with angels/Too soon/He’s always on someone’s mind”

The song: ‘Silver & Gold’ (from the album Silver & Gold)

What makes it great: This song had been kicking around Neil’s archives in various forms for a couple of decades before he made it the title track of his 2000 album. Not only was it worth the wait, it proved to be one of his best ballads.

Key lyrics: “I used to have a treasure chest/Got so heavy that I had to rest/I let it slip away from me/Didn’t need it anyway”

A Dozen Great Rolling Stones Songs

In honor of the Rolling Stones’ gazillionth album – the soundtrack to the Martin Scorsese-directed documentary Shine A Light, which was released last week – I thought I’d run down a dozen (or so) of the band’s finest songs. Because there are so many great ones to choose from this is by no means a definitive list. And to keep this from turning into the Exile/StickyFingers/LetItBleed show, I’m limiting myself to one song from each album.

Let the debate begin…

The song: ‘Time Is On My Side’ (from the album 12X5)

What makes it great: This twist on the forlorn love-lost ballad contained the seeds of the sneering, supreme self-confidence that would make the Stones great. Heartbreak doesn’t get any snottier.

Key lyrics: “Cause I got the real love/The kind that you need/You’ll come running back”

The song: ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’ (from the album Out Of Our Heads)

What makes it great: In addition to featuring perhaps the greatest guitar solo in the history of music, this anthem of discontented youth hasn’t aged a minute since the day it was released.

Key lyrics: “When I’m watchin’ my TV/And that man comes on to tell me/How white my shirts can be/But he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke/The same cigarettes as me”

The song: ‘Paint It Black’ (from the album Aftermath)

What makes it great: Has interior design ever seemed so sinister?

Key lyrics: “I see a red door/and I want it painted black”

The song: ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ (from the album Beggars Banquet)

What makes it great: The hypnotic beat is the perfect bed for Mick Jagger’s suave satanic come-ons. Far from a horror movie monster, the devil presented here is a sexy, seductive beast.

Key lyrics: “Please allow me to introduce myself/I’m a man of wealth and taste”

The song: ‘You Got The Silver’ (from the album Let It Bleed)

What makes it great: Keith Richards sounds a thousand years old on this song of surrender. He’s made many fine vocal cameos throughout the years, but this is his best by far.

Key lyrics: “You got my heart you got my soul/You got the silver you got the gold”

The song: ‘Midnight Rambler’ (from the album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out)

What makes it great: Charlie Watts dances like a maniac on the front cover of the album, and it’s his measured drumbeats – like a knife to the heart – that give this song its killer sound.

Key lyrics: “I’ll stick my knife right down your throat, baby/And it hurts”

The song: ‘Gimme Shelter’ (from the album LiveR Than You’ll Ever Be)

What makes it great: The ingrained weariness of this tune is enhanced on this full bore – but delightfully rough around the edges – version from the famous 1969 Oakland Coliseum bootleg.

Key lyrics: “Oh, a storm is threatening/My very life today/If I don’t get some shelter/Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away”

The song: ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ (from the album Sticky Fingers)

What makes it great: A dirty blues number that is quintessentially Stonesy. Watts’ propulsive drumming, Jagger’s studied snarl, Richards’ intense guitar figures, and Bobby Keys’ incredible saxophone all stand out.

Key lyrics: “Y’all got cocaine eyes/Yeah, you got speed-freak jive”

The song: ‘Shine A Light’ (from the album Exile On Main St.)

What makes it great: The perfect emotional cap to a rough-and-tumble double album, ‘Shine A Light’ is as close as the Stones have come to creating a church hymn. The lyrics are one of the sweetest blessings ever laid down in a rock song.

Key lyrics: “May the good lord shine a light on you/Make every song you sing your favorite tune”

The song: ‘Winter’ (from the album Goats Head Soup)

What makes it great: An overlooked gem from the Stones’ most underrated album, this gloomy gust of cold air features a vocal turn from Jagger that sounds near suicidal, like he’s fighting to find the will to sing.

Key lyrics: “It sure been a hard, hard winter/My feet been draggin’ ‘cross the ground/And I hope it’s gonna be a long, hot summer/And a lotta love will be burnin’ bright”

The song: ‘Shattered’ (from the album Some Girls)

What makes it great: Perhaps the best example of the group’s fascination with disco music, this track sounds like the all-night, cocaine-fueled, Studio 54 party that its creation no-doubt interrupted.

Key lyrics: “Laughter, joy, and loneliness and sex and sex and sex and sex”

The song: ‘Neighbors’ (from the album Tattoo You)

What makes it great: This song is ostensibly a tale about the golden rule and respecting your neighbors. But since it’s totally meant to be played at FULL VOLUME it kind of defeats its own (ROCKING!) purpose…

Key lyrics: “No peace and no quiet/I got TV’s, saxophone playing/Groaning and straining/With the trouble and strife”

The song: ‘Slipping Away’ (from the album Steel Wheels)

What makes it great: Featuring vocal turns from both Jagger and Richards, this ballad showed a more mature side of the group. As the band members approached 50, their sound softened a bit, but their music has maintained the emotional honesty that has always set them apart.

Key lyrics: “Here comes just another day/That’s drifting away/Every time I draw a breath/It’s dying away”