We’ve hit the TOP 40 of the most awarded songs #12. They’ve been cited by the Grammys and the Oscars, not to mention Rolling Stone magazine, RIAA, ASCAP, CMA, NPR, and so forth.
40. Superstition – Stevie Wonder. The lead single from the Talking Book album, the first of four albums over five years was at the height of Stevie’s creativity. Jeff Beck plays guitar.
39. Piano Man – Billy Joel. I saw Billy Joel at Elting Gym in New Paltz in 1974. This song and Captain Jack were the only songs of his I knew well at the time. Piano Man was based on his experience as a piano-lounge singer for six months in 1972–73 after his commercially disastrous first album, Cold Spring Harbor. It has of course become his signature tune.
38. Tutti-Frutti – Little Richard. “Got a gal, named Daisy, she almost drives me crazy. She knows how to love me, yes indeed. Boy you don’t know what she do to me.” This makes the nonsense lyrics – “A wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom” – even more suggestive. Songfacts notes the chorus was “Tutti Frutti, Good Booty,” until it was changed. This song went to #17 in 1956. The version by Pat Boone went to #12 the same year, proving the public is NOT always right.
37. Behind Closed Doors – Charlie Rich. One of my sisters says, quite often, “You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.” But it has a very different meaning than the lyrics to this song.
36. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana. Seriously, I thought this was a bit of a joke when I first heard it. “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido.” What? And now I own four Nirvana albums. Related, Smells Like Nirvana is my favorite Weird Al parody.
I found my thrill
35. Blueberry Hill – Fats Domino. The song was recorded by several artists from the time it was written by Vincent Rose and John L. Rooney in 1940. Sammy Kaye, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, and Louis Armstrong were among those who recorded it before Antoine Dominique Domino Jr.
34. Good Vibrations – The Beach Boys. The title of this expensive and expansive “pocket symphony” derived from Brian Wilson’s “fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their ‘bad vibrations’.”
33. The Twist– Chubby Checker. I wrote a whole post about this significant song.
32. Killing Me Softly With His Song – Roberta Flack. Lori Lieberman says she co-wrote this song while seeing Don McLean perform. Charles Gimbel and Norman Fox say they wrote it for Lieberman.
31. Hound Dog – Elvis Presley. Elvis had to sing this song to an actual basset hound on “The Steve Allen Show” in July 1956. The song was written by Leiber and Stoller and originally done by Big Mama Thorton in 1952.