Five Songs

I struggle when making top N lists. What are my N favorite books? favorite movies? music albums? and et cetera. First there's the problem that it's nearly impossible to consider at once all options and guarantee that the list is complete. Then there's the temporal issue, which is that today's list will not always be tomorrow's list.

Despite these limitations I'm today posting a list. But it's just a list and not The List. It consists of five songs that I really like. Some days they're my favorite, and some days they aren't.

* * *

Rush
The Camera Eye
Moving Pictures
1981

The buildings are lost
In their limitless rise
My feet catch the pulse
And the purposeful stride

Lyrically and musically The Camera Eye captures the excitement and vigor as well as the inhumanness and stupefaction of life in a large city. It's one of three songs from the Moving Pictures album that could have made this list, with Tom Sawyer and Red Barchetta being the other two. When I listen to the album, though, The Camera Eye is the song I most eagerly await.

I'm nagged with the thought that I should enjoy and appreciate Rush more than I do. Musically and ideologically they're progressive and complicated and subtle, and their lyrics exhibit a poetic quality that is beautiful in and of itself.

* * *

Yes
Close to the Edge
Close to the Edge
1973

Seasons will pass you by
I get up, I get down

This was the song that introduced me to progressive rock, and it's partly because of this historic fact that it's on this list.

Close to the Edge suffers something of a problem in that I can't appreciate it as something playing in the background; I must actively listen to it for full enjoyment, like a symphonic work. And it's eighteen minutes in length and so requires something of a commitment. Its third section, I Get Up, I Get Down, delivers by way of Rick Wakeman's organ solo a very awing moment.

* * *

The Beatles
A Day in the Life
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1967

I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I'd love to turn you on

This is the one on this list that everyone knows, and it's not merely a token mainstream selection; A Day in the Life has an epic feel with its grippingly foreboding narrative and yet is compacted into five minutes. I can't imagine Sgt Pepper's ending any other way.

* * *

Genesis
The Cinema Show
Selling England by the Pound
1973

Take a little trip back with Father Tiresias
Listen to the Old One speak
Of all he has lived through
"I have crossed between the poles
For me there's no mystery
Once a man, like the sea I raged
Once a woman, like the earth I gave
And there is in fact more earth than sea"

There's the whole sex thing told through a short narrative involving Romeo and Juliet followed by that metaphysical trip with Tiresias and then, of course, the extended Moog solo, which I may say with certainty is my favorite rock keyboard solo of all time.

I wish I could unlisten to The Cinema Show so that I could listen to it for the first time again. And then a hundred times after that.

* * *

Dream Theater
Octavarium
Octavarium
2005

I feel the relapse -- can't break free
Eyes open but not getting through to me

Medicate me, infiltrate me
Side effects appear as my conscience slips away
Medicate me, science failing, conscience fading fast
Can't you stop what's happening?

My present employer has lost about one man-day because of Octavarium, which is the estimated amount of time that I've spent listening to the song while at work over the last two years. When this song starts I stop everything and just listen. And the song is twenty-four minutes long, so it's quite the interruption. I should remove it from my portable music player.

I like The Cinema Show more, but technically Octavarium is like an improved version of it. I think Octavarium's shortcoming lies, as is the case with most of Dream Theater's songs, with its lyrics. Dream Theater's lyrics often fail by belying the band's true nature, which is that of rock-virtuoso robots possessing a mechanical perfection that makes their lack of heart all the more apparent.

But what about Octavarium? Its narratives, including one about a doctor who is clearly Oliver Sacks, follow the theme that life passes through a repetition of cycles before the invariable tragedy of death. Midway through is an extended keyboard solo that could possibly be my second favorite rock keyboard solo of all-time, and, as one would expect of any Dream Theater work, there are countless time signature changes and other nuances that stagger the mind.