Top 40 no Beatles

Boys like lists. Top 5 hot female bass players. Girlfriends from Wales (a very short list). Leeds Utd first team, 1973-74 (a very embarrassing list), Suzi Quatro’s Top 10 singles (another short one). That kind of thing

So when I was asked for a list of my Top 10 songs “of all time”, and to come in to a Radio Ulster studio to talk about them, I knew the only problem would be cutting “all time” down to 40. A Top 10 seemed impossible.

Might as well say ‘Top 10 Shakespeare lines’, ‘Top 3 Martin Amis novels’ (OK, that one not so difficult), Top Sister. Top 3 movies where Julia Roberts looks good, Top 10 Dinners Made By Mother, Top Breakfast Cereal available in more than 3 continents.

The other problem was a practical one – the train to Great Victoria Street station left in twenty minutes. All I had was a pencil and the back page of the Irish Times. Well – people have survived in the wilderness on less.

My first decision – I would have to take the Beatles out of the equation.
Not because of the fuss going on about the remastered albums, not because of that video game where if I could only remove the numbers and whizzing plastic guitars I could see what’s going on.

No, it’s just because there isn’t room for much else in a Top 40 with the Beatles included. Since hearing ‘Revolver’ playing on a Black Box record player at an early birthday party, they’ve always been in a list of their own, for me.

At the height of punk, walls covered in pages torn from the NME, I remember asking a girlfriend if it was still OK to have the White Album photographs stuck above my bedroom window, “Yes. They’re like church,” she gasped, shocked, inserting another safety pin into an artfully-ripped T shirt.

So here it is – Top 40 No Beatles, as scribbled down on the back page of the Irish Times while waiting for the train from Holywood to Belfast. It’s a true list – these songs are the soundtrack of my life so far. Old wave, new wave – any wave is OK.

They are In sort-of chronological order – or at least, this is how they happened to me:

1. Froggy Went A-Courtin’ – Burl Ives
2. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Film soundtrack
3. Metal Guru – T. Rex
4. Life on Mars – David Bowie.
5. Working Class Hero – John Lennon
6. My Sweet Lord – George Harrison
7. Heartbreaker – Led Zeppelin
8. I Know What I Like – Genesis
9. Band on the Run – Macca
10. Walk on the Wild Side – Lou Reed
11. Sheena is a Punk Rocker – Ramones
12. Marquee Moon – Television
13. Teenage Kicks – The Undertones
14. Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick – Ian Dury
15. Heroes – David Bowie
16. Another Girl Another Planet – The Only Ones
17. Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan
18. Tangled up in Blue – Bob Dylan
19. Rainy Day Women – Bob Dylan
20. Beasley Street – John Cooper Clarke
21. A Forest – The Cure
22. Almost With You – The Church
23. You Can’t Always Get What You Want – Rolling Stones
24. The Big Music – The Waterboys
25. When Love Breaks Down – Prefab Sprout
26. Don’t Give Up P- eter Gabriel & Kate Bush
27. Waiting For The Man – Velvet Underground
28. Bang on the Ear – The Waterboys.
29. Losing My Religion – REM
30. Nothing Compares To You – Sinead O’Connor
32. One – U2.
33. Way Down Now – World Party
34. Persuasion – Tim Finn
35. Human Behaviour – Björk.
36. Wonderwall – Oasis
37. Crazy World – Aslan
38. This Year’s Love – David Gray
39. Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
40. Madame George – Van Morrison

As we passed George Best international airport I had got the 40 in the right hand margin. On the left, 10 which just missed out:

GPT – Martha Wainwright
Out of Reach – Gabrielle
Big Time – Rudi
Rio – Duran Duran
Enola Gay – OMD
Here Comes The Rain Again – Eurythmics
You Never Can Tell – Chuck Berry
White Riot – Clash
China Girl – Bowie
Bus To Baton Rouge – Lucinda Williams

The train clunked into into Central Station, which meant I had about five minutes until Botanic and then Great Victoria Street the BBC. I still had the front cover of the G2 section of the Guradian to get the Top 10 sorted. The train heaved its way through, under and around the Markets:

Top 10 no Beatles:

1. Heroes
2. Tangled Up In Blue
3. Waiting For The Man
4. Losing My Religion
5. Wonderwall
6. Hey Jude*
7. A Day In The Life**
8. Madame George
9. Subterraean Homesick Blues
10. Life On Mars

Times of my life in other peoples songs, you could say. It’s not even just the songs, it’s where you are, where you remember them playing.

Just made it, passing the Crown I thought for a moment I’d left the ’papers on the train. No worries, these songs are in my head anyway

See you on tour, album’s out tomorrow.

Andy

* OK, there had to be one

** OK OK – two. Just two.

'songwriter' album cover