Saturday, February 03, 2007

TWQ: Songs Of The Decade

This weekend, TWQ (The Weekend Question) looks into songs that shaped a decade.

Can you pick a decade and list some influential songs that you identify with that time? They don't have to be favourites, but important ones of the era.

Here are my answers:

The Sixties:

The Beach Boys: Good Vibrations
Bob Dylan: The Times They Are A' Changin'
Scott McKenzie: San Francisco
Procul Harum: A Whiter Shade Of Pale
The Beatles: Strawberry Fields Forever
Steppenwolf: Born To Be Wild

Now it's over to you...

17 comments:

rashbre said...

Hmm. Influential.

I sometimes wonder whether a song is always seen in the same way at the time as when its looked back upon. Or when a song gets associated with an event, for example.

So my few are not decade bounded in the conventional way.

Nineteen - Paul Hardcastle (1986?) - vietnam
Eve of Destruction - Barry McGuire (1965?) - cold war
War - Edwin Starr (1971?) - war
The Wolf Covers its Tracks - Billy Bragg (2006?) - iraq
Paranoid Android - Radiohead(2000?) - An android observation of post apocalyptic humanity

Aren't I a bundle of fun on a Saturday morning?

;)
rashbre

And hiya - Michele sent me!

kenju said...

The favorites I could mention are all from the 50's and 60's, and most of your readers are too young to remember them. The Beatles had a profound influence on me, and almost any 1950's rhythm and blues song did as well as the early Elvis.

Michele sent me.

Jaime said...

80's

Michael Jackson: Thriller
Madonna: Papa Don't Preach
A-ha: Take on Me
Barry Manilow: Copacabana
Starship: We Built This City
REM: It's the End of the World as We Know It
U2: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I could go on...

Susan said...

The 60s have to be the Beatles, Love, Love Me Do, the first single.

Songs from the seventies, well it's definitely Nights in White Satin, Moody Blues - yes I know it was out in the 60s but I caught it in the 70s.
Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin.
Late 70s have to be Abba, I guess Dancing Queen, though it's not my fave.

1980s, well there is, Wishing (if I had a photograph of you), Flock of Seagulls, it was playing all over the place the day my hubby proposed to me.
Sultans of Swing and Money for Nothing Dire Straits also spring to mind.

90s and naughties, well I stopped listening to Radio 1 about 20 odd years ago!

Anonymous said...

60s: Chamber's Brother's: Time, Bob Dylan: everything. Beatles: Everything. Joni Mitchell: Blue. Neil Young: Southern Man. Donavan: Season of the Witch. Leonard Cohen: Suzanne

What would Michele say?

Oberon said...

......what is the most important thing?

Chris W. said...

Captain, I have a big thing for the 80's stuff, so I'll give you a lucky thirteen of my faves:

Duran Duran - Is There Something I Should Know
Dead Or Alive - (You Spin Me) Round And Round
The Cars - Shake It Up
Nena - 99 Luftballons
A Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran So Far Away
Talk Talk - It's My Life
Dokken - In My Dreams
Ratt - Round And Round
Ozzy Osbourne - Bark At The Moon
Whitesnake - Still Of The Night
Poison - Talk Dirty To Me
Quiet Riot - Cum On Feel The Noize
Stryper - Calling On You

This list kinda mirrors how things went for me in that era, since my tastes did switch in that time from pop to metal. Later, dude!

Paperback Writer said...

Er...

I think I came to music at a pretty late age. So, I couldn't really tell you...

Jean-Luc Picard said...

Good selection; I should have added Barry McGuire's 'Eve Of Destruction' to my list.

Olyal said...

what a challenge JLP! My brain isn't working too good at this late hour, but I have to nominate "Video killed the radio star" as a song that epitomises the 80's.
Michele sent me.

kenju said...

When I was here before, I mentioned 50's and 60's music, but growing up in the 40's, my mom played a lot of 30's and 40's songs and some of them stuck in my mind: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Deep Purple, etc. I still like those old standards, too.

Michele sent me again.

merlyn said...

Big band music, I must admit Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa,Artie Shaw and so on...

swing had a HUGE influence on music.

mighty fine stuff

Unknown said...

Additons to The Eighties:

Little Red Corvette - Prince
Hot for Teacher - Van Halen
The Reflex - Duran Duran
You Gotta Fight, For your right to Party - Beastie Boys

Panthergirl said...

I would say the '60s, and the soundtrack from Woodstock. Every artist, every song, it was all about the cultural, political and sexual revolution that has changed all of our lives forever.

Anonymous said...

My dear friend Sue has just died as a result of alcohol abuse and I would like to mention two groups that remind of when she was a fun, healthy person - Barry White and Abba. We used to dance non-stop to them and really blast the music out loud.

God bless you Sue.

... Paige said...

I like your list; so does Michele and she says hello
I say happy weekend

rashbre said...

I suppose one of us should have mentioned 'Michele, my Belle', from the Beatles.... ;)