Musicians seemed to have particularly strong feelings about the perfect song. In some cases it changed their lives, and got them motivated to make music. Below are responses from musicians, many having been featured on All Songs Considered in the past. You can hear the whole show with the links above or individual tracks below.
"I'm in awe of big songs, national anthems, rock opera, the Broadway musical.
But what I always come
back to, after the din and drum roll, is the small song that makes careful
observations about everyday life. This is what makes the music by The
Innocence Mission so moving and profound. 'Lakes
of Canada' creates an environment both terrifying and familiar using
sensory language: incandescent bulbs and rowboats are made palpable by careful rhythms, unobtrusive rhyme schemes, and specificity of language. What is so remarkable about Karen Peris' lyrics are the economy of words, concrete
nouns-fish, flashlight, laughing man-which come to life with melodies that
dance around the scale like sea creatures. Panic and joy, a terrible sense
of awe, the dark indentations of memory all come together at once,
accompanied by the joyful strum of an acoustic guitar. This is a song in
which everyday objects begin to have tremendous meaning."
"Clive Davis once told me that a hit song consists of a catchy melody
and lyrics with a formula: verse, verse, pre chorus, chorus,
instrumental, verse and chorus fade. The perfect song to me would be
Pete Seeger's "Turn Turn Turn" even though it doesn't follow the
formula. Pete wrote a lovely melody and adapted the lyrics from the
timeless truths of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8"
"While I find what I consider the perfect song to be relative to the
constantly changing moods and emotions in my life, the one song I
constantly come back to is 'There She Goes' by the La's. It defines the
perfectly written pop song: an instantaneously recognizable melody and
lyric set to simple, economic musical structure. It is such a simple
song that it boggles the mind that someone hadn't already written it.
Regardless, for just over two minutes, 'There She Goes' lifts me off the
ground and removes the troubles from my mind in a way no other song has
ever done. even when I hear it now, I feel the same sense of joy and
elation that I did when I heard it for the first time nearly 15 years
ago. I can only hope that I have the ability to write a song that has
the same effect on someone else."
"A deceptively simple song about a singer who is ashamed by his poor,
drunken performance in front of his friends 'and their best friends too.' How
does he overcome his humiliation? 'Helped with a few last glasses of gin, I
nervously mounted the stage once again, got through my performance and
no one complained, thank God I can go back to normal again.' This song is
right in the middle of the Kinks golden period (it appears on the Village
Green Preservation Society) and one of 50-60 I could chosen. No one wrote about the mechanics of creativity like Ray Davies."
"Today, I'm thinking that the perfect song might just be 'Tin Soldier,' by the Small Faces. The speed with which 'Rock and Roll' split, one half of it Whitening itself up and becoming 'Rock,' and the other half changing the 'R' to an 'S' and becoming 'Soul,' is mind boggling. Why it should be that a term like 'Blue-Eyed Soul' had to have been coined by the mid 60s, when The Small Faces wrote this 'rocking' AND 'soulful' plea for... you guessed it: love, is beyond me, since it's always been music more than any other form of art that engenders empathy among people of vastly different backgrounds, and in fact, tends to actively
encourage cross-pollination among genres."
"An enormous number of songs seem perfect to me. But in most cases, I
wouldn't be able to explain why. But here is one whose magic is out in
theopen: Every Little Thing by the Beatles. The lyrics are happy and
simple, but the melody is sad and deceptively complex. The disconnect between
these two elements is what gives the song such depth. What are the words
hiding? It's as if the song is desperate to whisper a confession to the
listener. It ends with the words every little thing repeating in harmony, giving the
song just a little more time to sink in, for better and for sadder. Or for
happier. They're both there for the taking."
"It's good
that you ask me because I actually do know what the actual capital-p
Perfect capital-s Song is. I belong to an order similar to the
Rosicrucians that regards the true identity of the Perfect Song a piece
of knowledge as important as the lineage of Christ. And we don't even
allow anyone but the highest ranking elders of the order to know the
TRUE identity-- most of our members are under the impression that the
perfect song is "Peg" by Steely Dan, a smiling depiction of a young
girl's induction into the porn industry and the sleekest, most
contagious hook ever. It's damn close but it's not the real Perfect
Song. The true Perfect Song is "Babooshka" by Kate Bush, a saucy number
about a woman testing her husband's loyalty in a story that unfolds in
the most graceful, flawless way: intriguing the listener to the point
of helplessness, then rewarding her handsomely. Gives me shivers to
think about it, perfection."
"This is a classic song by Jimmy Webb and a pitch perfect performance by Glen Campbell. Most importantly, it has a magical production featuring onomatopoetic string arrangement by Al DeLory. This song captures a certain kind of loneliness at a certain time of day along the highways."
"The perfect song is obviously "Sugar, Sugar," composed by Jeff Barry and
Andy Kim, and first performed by the Archies in 1969. This laidback
three-chord anthem full of sweet double entendres and soulful hand-clapping
enthusiasm is recorded with minimal guitar and maximal two-finger Farfisa
organ. The pinnacle of bubblegum music, if not pop itself, S.S. was
performed by cartoon characters on a Saturday morning television, and went
to #1 with no band to back it up on the road."
