ISSUE #344
In 2021, I wrestled with the impossible: I isolated the 100 greatest songs ever written.
Five years later, I'm ready to reckon with the terror I hath wrought—it’s time to expand the list from 100 to 200. That’s right: we’re adding a cool hundred to the Earwyrms Canon.
Hear the first 10 additions here.
“Si Tu Vois Ma Mére” | Sidney Bechet
1952
New Orleans jazz saxophonist Sidney Bechet spent the last decade of his life in France, after developing the swinging style of the genre with the likes of Louis Armstrong. Duke Ellington called him “the epitome of jazz,” despite Bechet’s inability to ever read music. He found more freedom in France than the United States, and his audience more appreciative, too.
There he wrote one of the most beautiful, innovative, and tender instrumental solos of all time in “Si Tu Vois Ma Mére,” blending the jazz he helped originate with an ornate French-romantic style, cutting a sonic line back through the eddies of time and further tying the cultural knot between the Mississippi and the Seine. Whatever it expresses, words never could.
“Fireworks” | Animal Collective
2007
Starting stretched in 6/8 time, the primordial drumming in “Fireworks” is musical onomatopoeia—the triplets burn, then the cymbals explode. The song taps into some cosmic quiver, like plucking a superstring. An upright piano in a summer camp mess hall; drunken shouts around a plaintive campfire; that first time you realized you were trapped forever in yourself.
About this time, the song shifts to 4/4. The future starts to sound a little brighter. You feel better talking to a friend, close as a sister. Some miracle built you both from dirt out of nowhere. The universe itself was born in a big bang—a firework. It reminds you that maybe there's still time to be good.
“Into the Mystic” | Van Morrison
1970
The sailing song to end all sailing songs, “Into the Mystic” rocks like a fishing boat off the shipyards of East Belfast. Morrison has that tenor sax he makes call like a foghorn. The ride cymbal splashes like whitecaps against the hull. The bass rises and falls at the behest of the moon. But ultimately, it’s how it swells—oh, how it ultimately swells.
“In Dreams” | Roy Orbison
1963
The thinking-man’s Elvis, Roy Orbison actually wrote this song, and he sang through it all while spanning two octaves. A trailblazing blend of country, doo-wop, and what would become known as chamber pop, “In Dreams” never charted higher than #7 in its time. Until it was featured in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet—the thematic resonance and unnerving lip-sync scene cemented it in the cultural psyche of an entirely new generation, and generations to come. Regardless, its power is undeniable: rare is the song that’s structured like this, and rare is it paired with this depth of emotion.
“Londonderry Air (Danny Boy)” | Traditional Irish
1855 (first pub.)
“Danny Boy,” as we know it, is actually just some 1913 English lawyer’s lyrics pasted onto an older Irish folk tune dubbed “Londonderry Air”—and even before that was finally put to paper in 1855, the song had been an old Irish air, or solo folk song, that had been passed down for who knows how long in the oral tradition. Its power comes from this ancient lineage—this melody lies close to the primeval human spirit, and it speaks in that universal language that reaches across time and generations.
“All Along the Watchtower” | Jimi Hendrix
1968
How did he get his guitar to sound like this? In the greatest cover of all time, not only did Jimi’s perfect fingers give some much-needed spice to Bob Dylan’s original, but he made his poetry all the more resonant by coming from Hendrix’s mouth.
“The Path of the Wind” | Joe Hisaishi
1988
Despite being part of the Ghibli powerhouse, Hisaishi is still a very underrated composer in the West. While all his work is genius, from Kiki’s Delivery Service to Spirited Away to The Boy and the Heron, it’s this moment in My Neighbor Totoro that showcases his ability to capture whimsy, childhood, fantasy, and innocence.
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” | Tears for Fears
1985
Tears for Fears didn’t have to write this in a 12/8 time signature, but it does make it sound more bouncy and propulsive than any other pop song in history. The leapfrog skip of the bass drum under the syncopated hi-hat keeps your head spinning while the lyrics start with an existential standstill and expand to all the ways we get fucked by the way we’re wired to destroy ourselves.
“Here's Where the Story Ends” | The Sundays
1990
Newfound access to The Sundays’ catalog and their recent discovery by a new generation has me saying something I never thought I would again: the internet can still be good sometimes. The light and hyper-literate lyrics of Harriet Wheeler, the perfect jangle of guitarist David Gavurin, and the lockstep of bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan are more than just the ideal of 80s British indie—there’s something as transcendent and special here as The Cranberries, Cocteau Twins, and Björk.
“Ashokan Farewell” | Jay Unger
1982
There are many Ken Burns documentaries that make me cry, but there’s only one that does so every ten minutes—it’s called The Civil War, and it has nothing to do with the subject matter. Instead, it has everything to do with “Ashokan Farewell,” a perfect facsimile in 1982 of mountain music from centuries ago that plays over the reading of actual soldiers’ correspondence that often goes something like:
“Dear Sarah,
Oh, how I miss your sweet and delicate face. My love for you is nourishing as a summer’s breeze. Our vows in marriage are deathless; even if I don’t return, do not mourn. Wait for me, and we shall meet again—I will greet you with open arms, and hold you once more no matter what.
— Major John S. Briggs, 72nd Regiment”
Then you hear the narrator say something like “Major Briggs was killed by cannon fire one week later, at the First Battle of Bull Run.” And even more than the actual photos, it’s this perfect song that builds that bridge through time—straight to the tear ducts.
Next week—more to come.
New Orleans jazz saxophonist Sidney Bechet spent the last decade of his life in France, after developing the swinging style of the genre with the likes of Louis Armstrong. Duke Ellington called him “the epitome of jazz,” despite Bechet’s inability to ever read music. He found more freedom in France than the United States, and his audience more appreciative, too.