Apologize for the delay in reposting.

The temptation to post merely a flippant ‘Cool’ or ‘No, you’re wrong’ was great. But I overcame the urge to be a fucking prick (at least in this instance) and decided to attempt to craft a worthy response. And by the way, I didn’t leave your article until you mentioned scotch, whereupon I googled ‘single malt’ and came across this link.

Also, ‘You’re right’.

How so? Well, you’re right that I made some great picks. Hats off to me. Cleary, I know my music and am in the zone....uh, maybe I missed the stop for ballsy and went straight to ass.

You’re right in the sense that my choices were less about favs than about what I thought was an appropriate pick. Dylan, The Beatles, The Stones, and Motown pretty much define the decade musically so I chose what I assume to be the most important or signature tracks. I like ‘A Day in the Life’ a lot more than ‘She Loves You’ and appreciate the fact that there is so much more going in, musically and lyrically in the former than in the latter. I think there’s something to be said, though, for the infectious simplicity of a song like, ‘She Loves You’. Though I wasn’t around at the time, I think what happened, collectively, when people first heard ‘She Loves You’ was an instant recognition that something was different, new, and exciting, that had nothing to do with hair or cute Liverpudlian accents. Can I use the words ‘paradigm shift’ and not expect a smack upside the head when next we meet?

A comparison from when I was actually living would be the experience that I (and most of the people I hung out with in university at the time) had the first time I heard ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana. Though in part a distillation of the sound of the Pixies, REM, and hard rock, there was something about this song that people seemed to recognize as significant without having to ever say, ‘This is significant’.

‘A Day in the Life’, is a great song but seems more like a shift in tone and songwriting for the Beatles than for pop music as a whole. By 1967, when Sgt. Pepper’s was released, there were other musicians who were taking far more musical risks and experimenting with sounds. (Side Note: For the Beatles, my top five would include: ‘In My Life’, ‘For No One’, ‘I Will’ and ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘A Day in the Life’)

Which brings us to your selection of Velvet Underground. Albeit balsiness personified, it seems a tad idiosyncratic a choice. You dig them, I dig them but my god man, it’s not even the best song about heroin! (Stranglers, Golden Brown, different decade but still).

There are probably 15 Rolling Stone songs from the 60s that I like better than Satisfaction and Street Fighting Man is definitely one of them. The guitar throughout the verses and the call-to-arms-like lyrics that epitomize the era…I need to learn to play an instrument so I can better articulate what I like about a song—I’m sure you’ve got it nailed down with ‘arpeggios’ so I’ll just say it’s got a good beat and you can groove to it.

I now leave the floor open to resident contrarian when it comes to all things Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr to lament our misguided deification of the Fab Four. Over to you, Mr. Mercer.

[And incidentally, Stuart, get off your ass and type something—I know you’re breathlessly awaiting your impending mid-August ‘window of bachelorhood’ but surely you have a few seconds to name a few songs and make a few observations. Clearly I’ve proven that reservations about banality shouldn’t be a deterrent).

When does CBC reveal their 1970s list?