The 23 Twelve Greatest Songs of All Time

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.  We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly.  We grow partially.  We are relative.  We are mature in one realm, childish in another.  The past, present and future mingle and pull us backward, forward or fix us in the present.  We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”

–     Anais Nin, French-born American short story author (1903-1977)

And music is part of it.  Music is big, big, BIG for me.  I simply can’t imagine a world without it — all types and genres — all parts of the “soundtrack of our lives.”

My soundtrack often comes back to “The 23 Twelve Greatest Songs of All Time.”

“What?” you might be saying.  “How can there be twenty-three “twelve greatest” songs…?”

There just can.  Partly because of the concept of being pulled backward, forward or fixed in the present.

The 23 Twelve Greatest Songs were written down on a napkin over the course of a cool Spring evening in 1984 — the first ten or so at The Tap Room in Kirksville, MO, the remaining 12-13 at Too Talls II.  There may have been Budweiser involved.  At the table were Hutch, JY, Tuffy, Resh and Gut, Special Ed, Yeet Yeet, me and a few others.

The point isn’t the list.  I lost it some where in the late 90’s.

The point isn’t even the songs themselves.  The point is the impact of the songs — at that intersection where the past, present and future mingle.

“Main Street,” by Bob Seger in on the list and it always will be.  The live version.  There was some argument about whether the entire “Nine Tonight” album could count as one entry on The List.  Our goal was twelve songs.  One album’s worth.  We were going to create the greatest album of all time.  We never got closer to a dozen than our list of 23 songs, and thus, The 23 Twelve Greatest Songs of All Time was born.

Thirty years on, I can’t tell you which songs were included in the 23.  But, thirty years on, I still know one when I hear it.  And, unabashedly, I also know a dozen or so songs released since ’84 that qualify.  Some days.

The soundtrack of our lives is constantly playing in our minds.  And when a sad song hits us in such a way that we just know it’s one of the 23, or one of the 12, or one of the 23 Twelve — there’s a question for us to ask ourselves.  Why are we “registering” with “sad” just now?  When a classic, or a song that hit us like a ton of bricks when we were 17 — in such a way that we just know that song must be on “our list,” we ought to ask “Why is this one hitting me this way, right now?”  When “Shout!” (the one from Animal House’s soundtrack) “clicks,” what party are we harkening back to, and why that party — why right now?

Who we are today is a sum of the parts — the literally billions of parts — that were created in the moments before right now.  And music, that soundtrack of our lives, provides clues to what we can do next, to honor the feeling, instinct or memory in our mind right now.