Top Twenty "V" songs - PART ONE

Hi All

In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned hoping that Paul Kelly’s recently released book, which he describes as a “mongrel memoir”, would be under the Christmas tree for me. And it was, and I have been reading it ever since. The concept of the book is that he takes one hundred of his songs, in alphabetical order, and then tells a story about them – his inspiration for the song, or other such lists and anecdotes.

Anyway, one thing the book revealed was that Paul does not have any songs beginning with the letter X or with the letter V. X is kind of understandable, but I would have thought the V wouldn’t be that rare of a letter. Indeed in Scrabble, its only worth 4 points, a mid range scoring letter.

So it got me thinking, what are some songs starting with V – and here it is, my top twenty “V” songs.

20 - Voices – Split Enz
When I first got Spellbound, the best of Split Enz, I considered this song to be one of (if not the) weakest on the album. Over time though, I have come to appreciate it a bit more. I would probably still say its one of the weaker ones, but that says more about the quality of the other tracks.

19 - Voices – Cheap Trick
From one Voices to another. Sometimes I listen to this Cheap Trick song and think it is great, other times I listen to it and don’t much like it. Interestingly. I Wikipedia-ed it, and this seems to be a common thread because, according to Wikipedia “The single has become one of the band's more widely known tracks. Critic Rick Clark of Allmusic described "Voices" as being "appealing melodic (albeit wimpy)" and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, also of Allmusic described it as one of Cheap Tricks finest songs. Critic Robert Coyne considers "Voices" to be Nielsen's "best ever ballad," but Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone Magazine described is as "disastrous" and "a ballad from a band that has absolutely no facility for ballads."

18 - Volunteers- Jefferson Airplane
I became familiar with this track from the soundtrack to one of my all time favourite movies, Forrest Gump. This is psychedelic rock, the sort of thing that you associate with the anti Vietnam War movement, exactly how it is used in the movie.

17 - Village Man – Travis
The B side to the single “Why Does it Always Rain on Me?”, this is a nice track without being anything brilliant

16 - Vampire Racecourse – Sleepy Jackson
This is the only song from this WA band that I know, it came on a free bonus cd that came with the Sunday paper one time. Quite a good little track

15 – Vampire – Antsy Pants
I became familiar with this track from the soundtrack to the movie Juno. A brilliant movie, with an interesting, quirky soundtrack. This song, as with several others on the soundtrack, is very kitch and if you weren’t in the mood for it, could be considered a bit annoying.

14 - Vienna – Billy Joel
Several years ago, I picked up Billy Joel’s greatest hits boxed set (I guess you would call it) very cheaply. It contains greatest hits volume 1-3, plus an extra disc that features people asking him questions about his music and him providing answers. On that disc, he talks about the song Vienna, and then a live version of the song is included. Its really a good track. It comes from the album “the Stranger”, which is on my list of albums to get one day, although just looking at the tracklist, I think I already have seven of the nine tracks already anyway (from the greatest hits), so its probably not one I need to rush out to pick up.

13 - Venus – Bananarama.
Some frivolous 80’s pop never goes astray on one of these lists…she’s got it, yeah baby, she’s got it.

12 - Visions of Johanna – Bob Dylan
Mr Zimmerman seems to be making frequent appearances on my lists - hardly surprising given how prolific he is. This is some folk/rock from the Blonde on Blonde album, featuring some stream of consciousness lyrics. Jiggy of the wirelesscranium blog considers this his all time favourite album, as do many others, but I find I have to be in the right mood to listen to it.

11- Vibrations in Air – Josh Pyke
I guess you would call Josh Pyke’s music indie folk. He writes melodic songs with insightful lyrics, and his music is enjoyable to listen to. I have his Memories and Dust album, which is where this song comes from


So there is part one of the list....with some great tracks coming up in the top ten. Do you have a favourite V song? any comments on the list so far? feel free to post a comment with your thoughts...