Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Song-By-Song Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by KJTC, Sep 19, 2021.

  1. President_dudley

    President_dudley Forum Resident

    i am fine with The Supremes and with "Baby Love". I would, however, place "Back in My Arms Again" in its stead.
     
  2. John54

    John54 Senior Member

    Location:
    Burlington, ON
    Baby Love is a great song, for sure. When it came out though, for some reason I didn't care for it much, preferring Where Did Our Love Go. Maybe I thought Baby Love sounded too much like a clone. Anyway, nowadays I place only Baby Love of these two in my top ten Supremes.

    Other favourites (roughly in descending order) are When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, My World is Empty, Stop in the Name of Love, Nothing But Heartaches, Come See About Me, Back in My Arms Again, and The Happening. By the time they had their big hit Love Child I thought their sound was moving in the wrong direction, but there are still '70s tracks like Nathan Jones and Stoned Love that I prefer to some of the weaker '60s hits (for example the tedious Love is Like an Itching in My Heart and the awful I'm Living in Shame).
     
  3. Axiomatic

    Axiomatic The Old Man Of The Mountain

    Location:
    Vancouver Island
     
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  4. finslaw

    finslaw muzak to my ears

    Location:
    Indiana
    Baby Love is a pure earworm leading Motown into their best years which would last into the early 70's, before funk and disco took over and dumbed it down. Holland-Dozier-Holland must have written songs in their sleep to have such a body of hits in such a short amount of time. The song could have used more variation in its arrangement but as it is a simple ode to "gee whiz" 60's naive teen love, and Diana Ross is the perfect vehicle to put that across.
     
  5. Chief

    Chief Over 12,000 Served

    “Baby Love” is a perfect pop single. Absolutely flawless on every level.
     
  6. motownboy

    motownboy Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    I agree though I like Diana Ross' the slightly deeper, more resonant voice on "Where Did Our Love Go" a little better. My favorite Supremes songs are "You Can't Hurry Love", "My World Is Empty Without You." "You Keep Me Hanging On" is also classic.
     
  7. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    #498. Townes Van Zandt, “Pancho and Lefty” (1972)
    Written by Townes Van Zandt

    From Wikipedia:

    "Pancho and Lefty" is a song written by country music artist Townes Van Zandt. Often considered his "most enduring and well-known song," Van Zandt first recorded it for his 1972 album The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. The song has been recorded by several artists since its composition and performance by Van Zandt, with the Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard version selling the most copies and reaching the Billboard top hits list.

    The song is composed as a ballad of four stanzas which use the two-verse refrain: "All the Federales say they could've had him any day/ They only let him slip away out of kindness I suppose." The first two stanzas are sung back-to-back with the refrain being sung only after the second stanza. The verses of the first stanza introduce Lefty as a restless young soul who leaves home and his loving mother to seek his fortune south of the border. The verses of the second stanza introduce Pancho as a Mexican "bandit boy", who "wore his gun outside his pants for all the honest world to feel." After the refrain, the third stanza tells of Pancho's eventual death in "the deserts down in Mexico" and implies that he was betrayed by his associate Lefty who was paid off by the Mexican federales. Lefty then uses the money to "split for" Ohio, trying to return to friends and family who apparently have moved on. Lefty grows old in cheap hotels without his friend from Mexico. Following the refrain, the fourth stanza poetizes Pancho's life and appears to call for some sympathy for Lefty's attempt at going home. A final extended refrain extends the two verse refrain to three.

    Although the lyrics are not exactly reconcilable with the historic details of the life and death of the famous Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, Van Zandt does not rule out the idea. In an interview, he recalled, "I realize that I wrote it, but it's hard to take credit for the writing, because it came from out of the blue. It came through me and it's a real nice song, and I think, I've finally found out what it's about. I've always wondered what it's about. I kinda always knew it wasn't about Pancho Villa, and then somebody told me that Pancho Villa had a buddy whose name in Spanish meant 'Lefty.' But in the song, my song, Pancho gets hung. 'They only let him hang around out of kindness I suppose' and the real Pancho Villa was assassinated."



     
  8. Snoddywilko

    Snoddywilko Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Agreed, but then their track was based on a sample of the 1979 track, Cola Bottle Baby, who also received a writing credit on Stronger.
     
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  9. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    For me, Edwin Birdsong’s finest moment was when he impersonated Lenny Kravitz back in 1973.



    :nyah:
     
  10. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    As with so many late seventies/early eighties country hits, the eventual hitmakers (Willie and Merle) discovered the song on an Emmylou Harris record. Here’s her version, for those who have never heard it:

     
  11. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    And, of course, the top selling, chart topping hit version from Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard:

     
  12. Lance LaSalle

    Lance LaSalle Prince of Swollen Sinus

    I've always loved this song,mostly familiar with Willie Nelson's and Emmylou's versions.


    But it's a stunning wedding of melody and lyrics and shockingly affecting, emotionally.

    I always think of Townes Van Zandt as what Leonard Cohen would have been had he been born in Texas to goys instead of in Montreal to Jewish immigrants.
     
  13. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    This is the first country-related entry, which is my area of expertise. The list hasn’t gotten the same level of pushback for including a wider and deeper selection of country songs as it has for the increased number of hip-hop songs, but it’s still a massive shift from the 2004 list.

    Having the Van Zandt original here is a deep cut, and reflects that the magazine chose some artists and journalists who really know their stuff. Even I would’ve gone with the hit version here. (Doubly true for the Kristofferson record we will get to later.). Still, it is very cool to see this on the list.
     
  14. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    I am so baffled by this line of argument regarding Daft Punk deserving most of the credit because Kanye sampled them. Is there not a high level of awareness that Daft Punk builds much of its own music around samples?
     
  15. Snoddywilko

    Snoddywilko Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    Agreed, hence my post.

    I love Daft Punk but think credit is due to the people who created the music much of their output is built upon.
     
  16. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    We will see something similar with Tammy Wynette when we get to her, but in her case, it’s the original hit on the list, not the immediate carbon copy follow up.
     
  17. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    Absolutely. Electronic music is huge with sampling, and is often done as creatively as with hip-hop. On the sample/don’t sample thread, I pointed out that what is IMO the greatest Madonna single of all time - not on the list, so not a spoiler - is built around an ABBA sample. As a band, their originals are nearly impossible to top, but I believe that the Madonna record used the deliriously catchy hook to better effect, having it fade in and out throughout the song.

     
  18. KJTC

    KJTC Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    This is the song by song thread, as indicated in the initial post that you quoted from. Please redirect your conversation about the list as whole to that thread.
     
  19. idreamofpikas

    idreamofpikas Forum Resident

    Location:
    england
    I've now listened to all three versions in this thread, having never heard the song before. The original and Emmylou Harris versions are the best. Pleasant listens, but underwhelming as a choice of one of the 500 greatest songs of all time to my ears, though likely not to the fans of this genre.

    My reaction to this song is probably similar, if not as visceral, as the reaction some on this board had to Missy's inclusion.
     
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  20. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    Townes Van Zandt - "Pancho and Lefty"

    Good song, and Van Zandt's version has a really nice arrangement--I like the way that it's both understated yet not too simple/sparse, I like the quirky, almost kind of awkward way the rhythmic turnarounds are handled, I love the Mexican horns on the chorus, etc., but I've always appreciated Van Zandt's albums despite his vocals, which I'm not a fan of--I like both the Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard versions of this tune a lot more, and even those versions I wouldn't nominate for a top 500 song list. There are a lot of other Nelson, Haggard and Harris tunes I'd nominate first.
     
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  21. tim_neely

    tim_neely Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    Central VA
    "Pancho [sic] and Lefty"

    What is the true title of this song? In doing the research for this post, I discovered that both on the original album, the cheekily titled The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (Poppy PP-LA004-F) and a 45 released in 1973 (Poppy PP-XW238-W), the song's title was "Poncho and Lefty." When Emmylou Harris recorded it for her 1977 album Luxury Liner (Warner Bros. BS 2998, quickly reissued as BSK 3115 after a $1 list-price increase), the title was still listed as "Poncho and Lefty." The original pressing of the 1983 album by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson that contained the hit version was called Poncho and Lefty; this spelling was also on the song title as reflected on the back cover, inner sleeve, and record label.

    Amazingly, the title song of the Merle/Willie album was not the first single from its album; that honor went to "Reasons to Quit," which was released right after New Year's Day in 1983 and got to #6 on the Billboard country singles chart. I get the sense that originally Epic, which released the album, wasn't going to issue it as a single at all, but radio stations playing it from the LP forced its hand. Country-music radio still rarely played songs longer than four minutes long, and the Willie/Merle version was 4:45 -- eight seconds longer than "El Paso" by Marty Robbins, a 1959-60 hit that also met with resistance because of its length, but finally was released as a single by popular request.

    When the 45 was released, the song, which had been been spelled one way for more than a decade, was (mis)spelled on the label as "Pancho and Lefty," and the new title stuck.

    Its parent album was re-pressed with the spelling change, and in the CD era, reissues of both the Harris and Van Zandt albums changed it to "Pancho" as well. So Pancho it has been since 1983.

    Copies of the original Van Zandt vinyl album go for crazy money today; recent eBay sales (July through September 2021) show an average of $175 (actual selling price, not merely what someone asked for it), and at least one went for over $200. The original 45 isn't as expensive, but it's still rare; mono/stereo promos are much more common than stock copies. As of the time I write this, 45cat does not have images of the stock copy, though Discogs does, and no copies of either are for sale on eBay.

    ---

    I first heard the Townes Van Zandt version in the most unlikely of places -- a KFC restaurant in Stevens Point, Wisconsin as I was waiting for my order to emerge from the back. How on earth it ended up on that fast-food joint's internal music system, I'll never know. But I heard the song come out of the speakers, and I knew immediately that it wasn't the familiar hit version. I quickly put two and two together and figured it must be the Van Zandt original. And I must say that I really liked it. I liked the mariachi-style horns behind the chorus, a touch that didn't end up on either the Harris or Haggard/Nelson versions. Townes' version is listed as 3:40 on The Late Great LP and 3:41 on the 45 -- basically the same. It doesn't have the instrumental break that is on the other two versions, and it ends more abruptly, but those horns -- I love 'em! If I actually owned this version (alas, I don't), or had a reasonable expectation I could find this version inexpensively on vinyl or CD, I might consider using it on a future volume of A Few of My Favorite Things.

    My first exposure to the Harris version was in this thread. It's easy to hear where the Willie/Merle version came from after listening to this -- her version adds an instrumental break and clocks in at 4:50. Though not credited in the liner notes, it sounds as if there is an accordion rather than horns behind the chorus, giving her version a different kind of Tex-Mex feel than the original. She also had some soon-to-be-famous friends backing her up, including Rodney Crowell (vocals) and Ricky Skaggs (mandolin), and the already well-known Albert Lee of Ten Years After (vocals).

    As was true of Van Zandt's version, I first heard the Nelson/Haggard version under unusual circumstances. It wasn't on a country music station, but on talk radio! WGN-AM in Chicago was an old-fashioned talk station in the 1980s, non-partisan (or multi-partisan) and a lot of fun, frankly. The talkers had significant leeway as to what they did on the air, and under certain circumstances, they played music. I don't remember now whether I first heard Roy Leonard (midday) or Bob Collins (afternoon drive) play the song, but it was in 1983, when it was on the country charts. When I heard the last "All the federales say they could have had him any day," goose bumps ran up and down my spine. Sometimes, they still do when I hear it. I didn't buy the 45 at the time because it never crossed over to the pop charts, and I had an extremely limited leisure budget in those days. Once the money situation improved, I did finally buy a 45 some years later. It's one of my favorite country songs of all time; I included it on A Few of My Favorite Things, Volume 5 (track 17).
     
  22. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    I should also mention that I appreciate the lyrics on "Pancho and Lefty." I'm someone who normally doesn't care about lyrics, really, but there are a few exceptions, and the entire genre of country is one of them. On my view, country almost always has good lyrics, whereas the vast majority of pop/rock lyrics are blah.
     
  23. motownboy

    motownboy Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    Madonna also went about it properly by asking permission directly from Bjorn and Benny of ABBA to use the sample. That has not always been the case when artists sample other artists' work.
     
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  24. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    That's interesting. I've always thought it was weird that it was "Pancho" (as someone from the Midwest U.S., my inclination is to spell it "Poncho" based on how it sounds), but I don't remember noticing the change--I've known the song since Luxury Liner came out, and then I also had the Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard album right when it came out, but I don't know if I even paid much attention to the spelling on the Emmylou album, and I didn't have the Willie/Merle album for long before I switched to listening to CDs instead. It's been a long time since I've had either on vinyl (I got rid of vinyl (and then CDs, too) when I replaced stuff with other media). I can understand that maybe it was a typo made at some point, but then it's weird that everyone wound up changing the spelling on their earlier releases.

    I suppose it's because the standard Mexican name is "Pancho," not "Poncho." So I suppose folks figured that Van Zandt's spelling was a "mistake"?
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2021
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  25. RudolphS

    RudolphS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rio de Janeiro
    Townes Van Zandt - Pancho & Lefty

    It's always a plus when Townes Van Zandt is included in a Best Of list. "Pancho & Lefty" is of course the obvious pick, although there are a few deep cuts on the 'Late Great Townes Van Zandt' album which I prefer. Either way, Van Zandt's original version of " Pancho & Lefty" is way better than the Emmylou or Merle/Willie covers.

    3,5 / 5
     
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