Please Post Some of your Favorite Songs.
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2025 11:54 pm
What, an opportunity to completely destroy the tiny remainder of my ZBB credibility by posting a collection of really bad and deeply unoriginal music? How could I miss that!
Two or three warnings: First of all, my music tastes are extremely conventional, boring, and unoriginal. Almost all of this will be stuff you've already heard. The vast majority of songs I like either are on their respective artists' Greatest Hits albums or would be on their respective artists' Greatest Hits albums if their respective artists would have Greatest Hits albums.
Second, I have a clear weakness for sappy sentimental stuff that would put many other people off. This shows less in this post than I had expected it would when I started working on this post, but it still shows up from time to time.
Third, the less sentimental songs on this list are often quite loud and noisy. Some are quite crass, and some have "vulgar" lyrics. Depending on where and when you are as you read this post, you might want to keep that in mind before clicking on any links.
These are not in any way sorted in order of how much I like them. I usually dislike picking favorites, and which of these songs I like "most" probably depends more on my mood at any given moment than anything else. They are mostly sorted in alphabetical order of artists, usually going by first names in the cases of individual artists, except for some thematically distinct ones that I put at the end.
First, despite the fact that I was born way too late for them and despite the fact that they're the most overhyped band of all times, I actually quite like some Beatles songs.
Eleanor Rigby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y
Yellow Submarine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2uTFF_3MaA
Lady Madonna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLRiGX3L-kw
Let it Be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGj85pVzRJs
Next, I know that Bob Geldof has turned into quite an embarrassment since then, but I still like the Boomtown Rats' I Don't Like Mondays. On a serious note, I don't think anyone has really come up with a better explanation for why people do that kind of thing than the opening words of that song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kobdb37Cwc
Of course, by today's standards, the singer's choice of swear word for the people he's against is extremely sexist, and I can understand it if that's a dealbreaker for you. But, that said, I wholeheartedly agree with the overall sentiment of the song. Running the World, by Jarvis Cocker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRGGbyZzuTg (age restricted)
No comments on this - Dreams by the Cranberries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yam5uK6e-bQ
Yes, it ended up as a Rugby song, but it's still pretty great - Zombie, also by the Cranberries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ejga4kJUts
This is probably mainly here for the famous opening bars - Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2FzZSBD5LE
I was always pretty weird. As a result, my music tastes are a lot less shaped by the fact that I grew up in Germany in the 1990s than you might expect. But, that said, I'm still quite fond of Westerland, by Die Ärzte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIFFfP87Ooc
Oddly enough, and I'm probably breaking some kind of law by doing that, although I like Westerland, I also like some songs by Die Toten Hosen. For instance, although I don't really agree with the sentiment of the song any more these days, I still quite like it as a song, and the video is hilarious - Kein Alkohol ist auch keine Lösung: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFmzrCAocq8
Ever wondered how the story of Bonnie and Clyde would look like if set in 1990s Germany? Watch the video for Bonnie & Clyde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaR4RQA ... aR4RQAE2fc
For this one, for cultural context, Americans might imagine how it might have looked and sounded like if, back in the late 20th century, when the Yankees still regularly won the World Series, fans of some other team would have made a popular song about hating them - Bayern. IMO the first part of the video makes for an interesting somewhat romanticized view of working-class life in Germany at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LHGY33cFiE
Back to English. I'm not that much into the Decemberists so far, but The Mariner's Revenge Song is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD165Xn2PXw
What I really like about this song is the instrumental opening minute, with the way they add one musical element after another over time - Walk of Life by Dire Straits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd9TlGDZGkI
OK, now we get to the sentimental stuff I warned you about at the start. Yes, it's sappy enough to make many people barf, but it sometimes pushes my buttons in just the right way - American Pie, by Don McLean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRpiBpDy7MQ
Sometimes, some folk rock is nice. Here's the Dropkick Murphys' version of The Irish Rover: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf_1uVFCkRY
Yes, I know, the instrumental part at the end is way too long, and the song might be overplayed in some places, but overall I still like the song - Hotel California, by the Eagles (do I get this right that the basic plot is the same as that of the MST3K classic Manos: The Hands of Fate?): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09839DpTctU
It's a bit weird - the whole point of this song is to spread a pacifist political message, and politically, I'm not at all a pacifist, but I still like it as a song. And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, by Eric Bogle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajPSmnZ2PRY
Back to stuff that a lot of people would find barf-inducing, but that I like myself: Up, Up And Away by The 5th Dimension: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKkNlwpajNk
English-language song by a German Band - Time To Wonder by Fury In The Slaughterhouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk7Xt4X0qyw (not the official video, but the only version of the full track I could find)
I'm from Europe, where we never had an anti-Disco backlash, so I'm not at all embarrassed to post this here - I Will Survive, by Gloria Gaynor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dYWe1c3OyU
Back to my 1990s upbringing (although it's actually from the 1980s), back when I sometimes tried to do some not very convincing attempts at dancing, this was, of course, one of the standard songs for that - Madonna's Like A Prayer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79fzeNUqQbQ
The band with more songs in this post than any other act, Queen. Let's start with The Show Must Go On: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99KH0TR-J4
A Kind of Magic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p_1QSUsbsM
Radio Ga Ga: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azdwsXLmrHE
Can't leave out Bohemian Rhapsody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ
Some of their songs are not that danceable, others are very much so, IMO - Don't Stop Me Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM
...which probably means I'm basically legally required to also post that scene from Shaun of the Dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4tVH7BPb-Q
Seven Seas of Rhye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7e4Tr9IH5U
We Will Rock You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tJYN-eG1zk
One of the many things that I don't think I'll ever forgive Donald Trump for is using this as his entrance song - We Are The Champions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04854XqcfCY
Sometimes, I'm in the mood for the Joey Ramone version of What A Wonderful World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IoO5nkxT_4
One of the songs from Rent, here's Our Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LroABeeh99E
And yet another rock cover of an originally non-rock song, the Sex Pistols' version of My Way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWKDInTo3CE
What better way to follow a Sex Pistols song than with a ballad by Simon and Garfunkel? I suspect The Boxer is one of those songs where a lot more people would recognize it if you played it to them than could tell you what its title is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LFML_pxlY
I'm not at all a fitting kind of person to like this song, but I still do - Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igvP806798U
That much for the alphabetically sorted stuff. Now for the thematically distinct songs and pieces. I'll start with one of the few Christmas carols I actually like, Carol of the Bells. When that song is performed really well, it sounds almost sinister, which gives it a beautifully haunting and eerie quality. Years ago, I read somewhere that the Ukrainian folk song the tune is based on is so old that some believe it to be of prehistoric origin. Ever since I read that, I've had a specific mental image when I listen to it: A forest in prehistoric Eastern Europe, in a dark, cold, snow-covered winter night; and a group of teenagers that is led through that forest as part of some ancient rite-of-passage thing, while adults and older teenagers who take part in the ritual as assistants chant a prehistoric song to this tune from behind the trees. Here it is performed by the Westminster Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJzq_Cf7UF8
Orchestral music! I quite like Leonard Bernstein. He is, of course, best known for West Side Story, but I'm one of the people who think that his real masterpiece was Candide, with which I've been in love ever since I watched a school play version of it when I was twelve. First, the Overture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haYuPdKZKYc
We clearly live in The Best of All Possible Worlds (/sarcasm): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8hVP9dZd1A
Can't beat a comedy scene accompanied by music about people being burned at the stake - Auto-da-fé: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQUkOwXOR9M
And to placate my aforementioned sappy and sentimental side, the grand finale - Make Our Garden Grow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DROkQJc_F0
Moving on to other composers, it's great in movies when it's used to accompany funny montages - Johann Strauss's An der schönen blauen Donau, performed here by the Wiener Philharmoniker with Daniel Barenboim conducting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzamukLICm8
If I would ever found a new country on some island that just emerged magically from under the sea, its national anthem would be the main theme from the movie Star Trek VIII: First Contact, composed by Jerry Goldsmith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXrRFjcqUys
Same franchise and same composer: I think the original first Star Trek movie was not a complete waste. It gave us the IMO best mood music for tense moments ever, the Klingon Battle Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wJRrvVgZI
Not really orchestra but big band, here's what was apparently the unofficial theme tune of the USA's participation in World War 2, Glenn Miller's In The Mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aME0qvhZ37o
Speaking of moods, how about we get into the mood for some comedy songs? To start with one of the classics, Monty Python's best known song is, of course, Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, from Life of Brian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_-q9xeOgG4
...but as Monty Python songs go, I myself actually prefer Every Sperm Is Sacred, from The Meaning of Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk
Keeping with the somewhat risqué theme, there's the best-known part of the musical Avenue Q, The Internet Is For Porn (if only it was still for porn instead of fascism): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJvdGcb7Fs
A bit more off the beaten track, there's the classic brilliant parody of old-school boygroup songs, Title of the Song, by Da Vinci's Notebook, which I first discovered when someone posted it on the ZBB ages ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgmUgFEFzco
I won't spoil what this song is about for those of you who haven't heard it yet - Self Esteem, by Garfunkel and Oates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uSw8XcWihs
Going more old school and wholesome, but still funny, there's the classic Major General's Song from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs3dPaz9nAo
Being German, I can't really post a collection of comedy songs without including Reinhard Mey's Ein Antrag auf Erteilung eines Antragsformulars. Good luck trying to figure out the lyrics of the chorus if you're not German, or, for that matter, if you are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrcKzP4B6UE
Above, I completely non-ironically posted a Bob Geldof song. Given that he co-wrote that notorious festival of condescension, Do They Know It's Christmas?, I guess I'm now obliged to also post one African response to it, Africa for Norway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJLqyuxm96k
I won't post the original version of it, but I quite like two particular parodies of Rebecca Black's Friday. First, one about Jesus, Good Friday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cMhcikAbCc
Second, one about the great British phone hacking scandal of a while ago, Rebecca Brooks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5z4CJRFBKY
Finally, going back to more serious stuff, let's say thanks for all this, with one last sob to my sappy side, ABBA's Thank You For The Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dcbw4IEY5w