My favorite: Its everything I love about the grunge movement, and an awesome yet melancholy rock song.
Psychadelia meets grunge. There's so much to love about this song: Pulsating, almost hip hop-like drumming, a double guitar solo, and cynically mischievous lyrics. Watch a live version; Bill turns the crowd into a madhouse.
My list of "favorite" songs changes. I can't possibly come up with a top ten, say, because there's always a mix of classic ones and current earworms of some sort. But, this seems to consistently be number one, especially this particular live version:
At this moment, my favorite song of all time: This is just the perfect indie rock opera song. The album that it is from, Blueberry Boat, is also my favorite album of all time. In my opinion the record is 76 minutes of perfection and is still the only album that I feel like I "experience" every time that I listen to it. It is definitely an acquired taste, as the lyrics on probably all of the songs are random stories that Matthew and Eleanor made up, not real life experiences, but I recommend just sitting back and enjoying the ride.
When I was in prison, I got bored one night and decided to make up a quiz to send to my friends. It was twenty questions long, and had four options for each question. Questions included: "If Bandit was a bird, which bird would he be?", "What does Bandit fear the most?", "If Bandit were a cartoon character, which would he be?", and "When Bandit gets out of prison, what does he plan to do first?" Anyway, one of the questions on the quiz was: "Which of the following songs most accurately captures the essence of Bandit's life?" A. Sportin' a Woody - Dangerous Toys B. It's Good to be King - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers C. Bad to the Bone - George Thorogood and the Destroyers D. It Coulda Been Me - Social Distortion The first person to accurately guess the answer wins a rep point, and then I'll post the answer. Only one submission per board member.
This one is tough for me. There is so much varied and different music that I love, and in fact the biggest motivator for me getting the phone I got was so I could put more music on it (128 GIGS - suck it, Juice). I've actually thought long and hard about this. Some of the songs that crossed my mind were 'Mean Streets' by Van Halen, the live version of 'Firth of Fifth' by Genesis, 'Combination' or 'No More, No More' by Aerosmith, 'Can't You See' by the Marshall Tucker Band, 'Spirit of Radio' by Rush, 'Can't You Hear Me Knockin' by the Stones, the live version of 'Goin' Down' by Satriani, Vai and Johnson, 'Milkcalf Blues' by Clapton, 'Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) by SRV, 'My Morning Song' by the Black Crowes, among others. Eventually, I came back to this song again and again. It really gives me a feel for a time in my life when I was quite impressionable, and this album is probably my favorite of all time.
Like VI said, this is difficult and changes probably from day to day depending on the mood I'm in. I'm (Kind of) a musician and my music tastes vary wildly. To declare a song my all time favorite, I can't. The first thing that comes to my mind for favorite song is one that I thought the video was awesome, and I still think is the greatest rock video ever. It's a good song, but the video made me want to have the band play the song. Even Don Dokken (Great vocalist, huge dork) looked cool. Learning George Lynch riffs was a bitch, but I always felt extra cool playing this song because I dug the video: EDIT: This was, without a doubt, my favorite song ever to perform, bar none. It's so simple to play I could play it at the end of the night and it always fired everyone up. And got me laid.
Nitwit is wishing death upon the mods right now, I'm sure. I'll pick this one as my favorite right now, because I have two ways to enjoy it. "All I Really Wanted" by Manchester Orchestra, from the album "Cope" And the version from the album "Hope" (same track listing, stripped down)
I'm kind of a weirdo from my generation of guitarists in that I never got into Zeppelin. I appreciate Jimmy Page as a guitarist, but for some reason the band just never appealed to me. I only learned 3 Zeppelin songs; D'yer Maker (I really dig that song), Black Dog, and of course Stairway just because it was pretty much required. I did learn this alternate version of Stairway also just because it's so fun to play and I don't have to finger pick. Zeppelin songs, reggae style with a 300lb Elvis impersonator? What could possibly go wrong?
Since music threads rule, here is another one of my favorites: It's rare that a song by a male vocalist gives me goosebumps, but this one not only does but also still manages to upon repeat listenings. This song was written about his relationship with his mother (whom he loved deeply) and his stepfather (whom he had a lot of animosity towards), and the raw emotion is ubiquitous throughout the whole song. He may have been the most depressed person in history, but when Elliott wanted to he could really write a song. I agree with the general consensus that "Waltz #2 (XO)" is his best song, though I still think that Either/Or and Figure 8 are both better albums than XO.
I'm going to go with A, but I may biased. Actually a good song from the same album, that just came up on my random shuffle as I was starting to write this: As for my overall favorite song, I can only really get to down to a top three.