A few weeks ago, Owen asked me to name my favorite song.
He asks this sort of question quite frequently. What’s my favorite book? What’s my favorite TV show? What’s my favorite movie? I wish he had asked me these questions twenty years ago, because then I had concrete answers – I had a definite favorite movie, a definite favorite TV show, and certainly a definite favorite song; with the passage of time, however, these things have all gotten muddied. But I guess twenty years ago he wasn’t around, so…fair enough.
A favorite song? That’s particularly tricky. Asking for my favorite song is almost like asking for my favorite TV episode. Sure, there are some great TV episodes out there, but it’s tough to pick out one truly awesome episode – they’re part of a greater whole, right? So, for the most part, while there are albums I consider to be among my favorites, I’m hard-pressed to single out just one song.
Still, I was able to narrow it down to about a dozen hot contenders.
But before I tell you how I did that, and what the results were, let me give you a history of my favorite songs…
In the beginning, there was my Dad. He owned boxes full of vinyl albums and singles. I swear he had, like, every song that hit the Hot 100 between 1955 and 1985: rockabilly, blues, R&B, county, rock, jazz, disco, pop…it was all there. And if that wasn’t enough, he kept cassettes and 8-tracks in his car and the best part about riding in his car was getting to listen to the one-hit wonder collections he’d discovered in the budget bin at Sam Goody. My particular favorite was Wild and Craaazy Hits, which included such classics as “Wooly Bully” and “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose it’s Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight?”
However, my favorite songs were the ones we listened to in the house: the ones he had on vinyl.
I can’t offer any valid reasons, but at some point in my preschool and Kindergarten years, I decided upon a favorite song. In fact, I decided upon three favorite songs. This, I suppose, became my first list ever.
My third-favorite song was “Splish Splash,” by Bobby Darin.
I think I just liked the silly idea of a guy unexpectedly hosting a party in his living room, and how he’s just dancing in a towel and everyone else is (I presumed) fully dressed. How did he not know there was a party going on! Better still, he didn’t kick them out, he just joined in (after grabbing his shoes, of course)!
In second place was Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
For some reason, the line about having “a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe” really spoke to me. On at least one occasion, I inserted a dollar bill into my shoe just to see if I could really grok the song. My mom told me to take it out. She cared not for such frivolities.
But my favorite song was “Hair,” by the Cowsills:
This number two hit from 1968 was just sheer fun for me and my sister. My hair, of course, was never allowed to grow past the tops of my ears, but we reveled in the nuttiness of the song nonetheless.
So there you have it, my original three favorite songs, each from a different decade. I think it’s a rather eclectic mix for a five-year old.
That’s where the title of “Favorite Song” sat for years, until, one day when I was in sixth grade, my friend Chris played a song he’d recorded off TV. I immediately tossed aside my stagnant list and bequeathed the title of “Favorite Song” upon this new tune, this tune which had never been in my Dad’s collection.
But that’s for another blog post.