The only piece of Apple electronics I own is an 8GB 4th generation refurbished iPod Touch. I know, I’m a Luddite, right? However, this one device has precisely 1,019 songs that define my 46-year love of music. Within that 1,019 songs, you’ll find a wide and varied appreciation for all types of music from rock to rap, country to classical, and heavy metal to easy listening. For this list, I chose to focus on rock. Our friends at Oxford Dictionary define rock and roll as follows:
a type of popular dance music originating in the 1950s, characterized by a heavy beat and simple melodies. Rock and roll was an amalgam of black rhythm and blues and white country music, usually based on a twelve-bar structure and an instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums.
While doing my Sunday morning workout and listening to my rock playlist (which consists of 316 songs), It occurred to me there are really only about ten of those tracks that really get me moving and keep me motivated. Of course I like all 316 of them, but I never touch the next button when any of these ten songs come on. There are many lists out there, but this one is mine. Get ready to rock!
Honorable Mention 1: Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones
For the record, I am not a Rolling Stones fan. However, credit where it is due. Mick Jagger and company never fail to keep me moving with this iconic track. I’ll admit, there are other really good Stones songs, but if I could only choose one from their discography, this is it. Plus, I had to throw a bone to my friend John, who might be the biggest Stones nerd I’ve ever met!
I really chose them for honorable mention for three reasons. One, the opening chords might be the most recognizable in all of rock and roll. Even with only one note, any rock and roller would probably get this one on Name That Tune. Two, no rock and roll top ten list would be complete without mentioning the 13th best-selling band of all time, and the holder of the most expensive concert ticket face value ($624). The only age these guys show is on their faces because the music is still kicking all these years later. Finally, number three, this video. Mick Jagger looks like a holdover from a heavily edited Richard Simmons workout video and does not care one bit. With their charisma, The Stones and their music will outlive us all.
Honorable Mention 2: Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses
Some rock and roll songs are subtle in their structure. This one is not. Welcome to the Jungle is one that jumps up and smacks you in the face and leaves subtlety lying bloody on the floor. While Guns N’ Roses had several really good rock tracks, I feel like this is the one that put them on the map and separated them from the other 80’s hair band chaff. Many of those bands were and still are amazing, but none of them really had the brazen rock audacity of G-N’-R. They have several tunes that rank high for me, but this one stands out.
The only other one that came close was Motley Crue, and they have a different moxie all their own, but Axl laying down that opening scream cements this one as an honorable mention in my Top-Ten. Click the link and see if they still got your disease!
Honorable Mention 3: Baba O’Riley by The Who
So what happens when you mix a trashed Isle of Wight music festival, an organ with a marimba repeat, the musically sequenced vital signs of an Indian spiritual leader, and the influence of a minimalist composer on Pete Townsend? The obvious result is this track, Baba O’Riley. Townsend wrote this as part of a rock opera follow-up to Tommy, but it never materialized. However, the track was salvaged, shortened and became the lead off single from 1971’s Who’s Next? by The Who.
Townsend subscribed to a concept that music could connect with an audience at the level of their DNA, and tried to put that data into a musical sequence. Another song he wrote, Join Together, was based on the same concept. I know, it hurts my head to think about too, but there may be something to it. There are some songs that when you hear it, the melody just speaks to your soul. It’s hard to explain, but you always feel it when your jam comes on. For me, its just about anything rock-and-roll. Baba O’Riley is one of those songs for me and lingers just outside my Top-Ten All-Time Greatest.
Alright, so enough with the honorable mentions. Let’s get to the meat on this Top-Ten bone. Are you ready? Head to the next page to start my official Favorite Top-Ten Rock and Roll Songs of All-Time list. Buckle in, cupcakes, because here we go.
#10: Roundabout by Yes
There are musicians, there is musicianship, and sometimes you find a group that embodies the very definition of both. Roundabout by Yes is unlike any song I have ever heard. It fits no mold or predefined composition. It is a mashup of instruments going a hundred crazy directions but still makes a melody that cannot be duplicated. Plus, if you see a band with a keyboardist rocking a glitter cape, well, that’s a wizard, Harry. Don’t mess with him.
Seeing Yes inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame back in 2017 and play this song with Geddy Lee standing in on bass was the highlight of my musical observing life. One of my co-workers told me how she went to see Yes in the 70’s and said she didn’t need to smoke anything at the show because the music was so insane she got high off the melody. I don’t believe her about not smoking anything, (if you knew her, you wouldn’t believe her either) but I do believe her about the melody. There’s not a band out there that can put together so much complicated noise and notes and pull out a mega-hit like this, but they did it and I am here for it.
#9: The Trooper by Iron Maiden
A rock and roll song that’s about a historical event is a song right down my alley. The Trooper by Iron Maiden tells the musical story of the famous Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War in 1854. What’s interesting is that today’s listeners try compare the song to today’s military actions going on in the Middle East, but that couldn’t be further than the truth because it was written well before the current hostilities going on there even started. Bruce Dickinson wearing a red coat and waving a Union Jack is all just part of the show.
All that aside, this song rocks. It’s proof that metal can have melody, and that rock can have musical depth. It debuted in 1983 and still stands as a solid metal classic all the way into 2021. Some fans even joke that this should be the new National Anthem of England. I’m not from England, but part of me agrees. That riff mimicking a horse gallop and the scene in the video with the flag being passed just makes this song so awesome that it will always have a home on my top ten playlist.
#8: Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith
Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith is a sentimental favorite on my list. I had the interesting pleasure back in the late 90’s of meeting Steven Tyler at a gas station in Sarasota, Florida, and I met Joe Perry at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. Both guys were stellar to talk to, but I was an Aerosmith fan even before those chance meetings. As a teenager, I was on an awkward date in a pool hall the first time I heard this song and I never forgot that moment. She selected it on the jukebox, and with a single wrinkled dollar bill, introduced me to one of my favorite rock bands of my formative years.
Out of all their tracks, I like this one because riffs are tight, the cadence is smooth, and the off-speed beat changes blend metal with melody. And that opening bass riff—just drills into your soul. Aerosmith has more rocking songs for sure, but this cut IS rock and roll and I am all about it.
#7: Wherever I May Roam by Metallica
I’ve never seen Metallica live, but I’ve been told from more than one person that their stage show is something to behold, and with their armory of head-banging chugging tracks, it was hard to choose one. King Nothing, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Master of Puppets, Whiskey in the Jar, and the list goes on. But if I had to choose one song from them that I like the most, Wherever I May Roam gets the nod. Plus, how could such a proper and divine demonstration of the whammy bar NOT be on my top ten list?
I’m a lyrics nerd and I love alliteration and unexpected twists in the song. At the end, “My body lies, but still I roam, yeah, yeah.” So this whole time, a ghost has been singing us this song? That’s fricken’ awesome just by itself. Plus, I’m just a fan of James Hetfield’s tireless gravel. That guy can grind out a song from the depths of somewhere that doesn’t exist in most of us mortals.
#6: Barracuda by Heart
Though Heart was not the first female-led band in rock and roll, Barracuda leads my list of the best female vocal track in rock and roll. This is no slight to other girl rocker pioneers like Joan Jett, Lita Ford, Patti Smith and the many others in that hallowed pantheon, but Ann Wilson’s voice is so pure rock and roll in this song, it almost makes me cry. And for the record, Heart’s rendition of Stairway to Heaven with Jason Bonham on drums in 2012 at the Kennedy Center was the best thing since the original. Disagree? I’ll fight over that one!
I wish Heart had kept this edgy nature to their music in later albums. but it felt like they caved to the mainstream with their music soon after this gem debuted on their second album. It’s full of metaphorical anger and obscene gestures over a rude comment made to the sisters by some sleazy music executive. Part of me is glad he was a sleaze because without him, we wouldn’t have this track. In one interview, Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson was asked what she liked about playing this song:
“I love playing (Barracuda) every time. It feels really big and muscular and larger than life and, you know, it gets me off to play “Barracuda” because it’s so loud and so big and it’s fun and fast, you know? The cool little parts where it skips a beat here and skips a beat there. There are a couple of odd time signature things in there that bring it into a more sophisticated song. A sophisticated song of rage!”
Nancy Wilson to American Songwriter
#5: All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix died before I was born, but I had the benefit of a rich musical upbringing that included all the gods of classic rock. As I said with Aerosmith above, Jimi Hendrix had a lot of songs that rocked, but none of them struck me as much as All Along the Watchtower. Maybe The Wind Cries Mary or Hey Joe comes close, but neither one jams like this one does.
There have been times I wondered if artists like Hendrix had not died so young, what other awesome songs were still in there waiting to be recorded? Had he and others like Jim Morrison lived to later years, there’s no telling what other songs we would have received. Sadly, we’ll never know, but I’m glad we got what we did before Jimi left the world. He made amazing music and I, for one, am grateful for it.
#4: Crazy Train by Ozzy Osborne
When Ozzy yells, “All Aboard!”, you know what comes next. Everyone gets out their tickets for Crazy Train. I’m not an Ozzy purist, so I don’t really differentiate his solo and Black Sabbath years, but Ozzy is a rock legend that is hard to ignore on any list. Honestly, this song could be interchanged with War Pigs or Iron Man and it would still be in my top ten favorites. In his early years, Ozzy was kinda taboo to be a fan of because of his extreme antics, but as he got older and became a little more commercialized, his career saw a resurgence and he pulled his whole family along for the ride.
If you listen to the lyrics here, they are somewhat hopeful with lines like, “Crazy, but that’s how it goes, Millions of people living as foes, Maybe it’s not too late, To learn how to love, And forget how to hate.” Not exactly the message some might expect from a hard rocker like this, but it just goes to show you that suppositions about Ozzy were not always accurate. Plus, Randy Rhoads’s guitar solo here is ranked 9th best of all time by Guitar World Magazine and VH1 named it 23rd all-time greatest rock song. I concur. It’s dang good.
#3: Far Cry by Rush
I would be a hypocrite to not include my favorite band in my Top Ten list. Rush has a ton of material I like and it was hard to pick just one song. For this list, I chose Far Cry to represent the trio from Toronto. I love all their music, but this song has a little something extra in it. It’s not their most popular, but I will argue that it’s one of their most rocking tracks they ever made. When this song rolls up on the playlist, if I’m driving, I have to be really careful because Neil Peart’s drums make my foot much heavier than it really is.
In all seriousness, Rush is a group like no other and I cannot even measure my level of reverence for their musical genius. It was so hard to pick just one of their songs, but this lead-footer is my choice. I haven’t had to use the excuse yet, but I wonder if an officer or a judge will accept my excuse for going 90 in a 45 because the music made me do it. If this was a list of top ten driving songs, this would be my number one every time. In fact, maybe I should do that list next…
#2: Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
Does Led Zeppelin have more rocking songs than this? Of course they do. But none of them come close to marrying beautiful lyrics, melodic strumming, singing electric solos and legendary bass and drum lines like Stairway to Heaven. I struggled with settling on one song from them to make my list. Achilles Last Stand is a rock triumph. Immigrant Song will blow your speakers at any given moment. Rock and Roll and Black Dog stand the test of time and are great tunes. However, there is no song from the classic rock era more iconic than this one.
When I was a teenager in Tampa, Florida, I remember the 98 Rock radio station there played this song on repeat for 24 hours as a radio stunt. The rumor was the DJ locked himself in the studio and had a heart attack, forever leaving the song that was playing when he died on eternal repeat until the police broke in the door. Of course that was all false, but a glorious and full Gregorian calendar day was devoted to this rock classic and I listened to it all day long.
#1: Shoot to Thrill by AC/DC
Everything about this song is rock and roll. The lyrics, the music, the attitude… it’s all there. In addition, what other group of senior citizen rock legends can rock a stadium full of millennials like they do in this video? And for the record, Iron Man II did not make AC/DC famous. AC/DC wrote the soundtrack 30 years before that movie was made and caused Iron Man II to be the best movie in the Marvel pantheon (yes, it was better than Endgame). I never was lucky enough to meet Brian Johnson when I lived in Sarasota, Florida, but I saw him out driving his green Bentley Vanden Plas, nicknamed “Thunder Guts”, more than a few times. If you honked at him, you’d always get a wave or a fist pump in return.
I have zero doubt that some of you are scratching your head going, “AC/DC at #1? Really?” But not only is the song good, these guys command a stage with this larger-than-life song. I can’t imagine any tune better representing the fictional life of Tony Stark, and rock and roll as a whole. It talks about the excess of a rock star and their goal of thrilling the audience every time they step out on stage. I will always love this song and it is, without a doubt, my #1 favorite rock and roll song of all time.
Well, there you have it. The music world according to me. There are so many more artists I love and would love to list, but I had to narrow this down to my favorites. What did you think of the list? What does your Top-Ten look like? Write it up and let me hear it. Until then, rock on!
Lyle S. Russell 