Classic Rock Song of the Day (Deep Cuts now being featured!!)

[Unlegit]

One of the best Journey songs from the early days.

[BlobVanDam]

I don't seem to like this song quite as much as typical fans, although I still think it's a great song, especially once it kicks in with Perry's big vocals at the 1:10 mark. Cool solo too.
And it kicks off a great album.

[KevShmev]

The Zombies - Time of the Season

A classic late 60s tune.  I like it, and the keyboard work has always stood out to me.  Kind of Deep Purple-ish, given the time period, but stands out for its time, especially the solo.

[Orbert]

Cool song, and I agree about the keyboard work.  Rod Argent there, always an awesome dude.  He later led his own band, Argent ("Hold Your Head Up"), but I haven't heard anything from him for a while.  Last I heard from him was keys on The Who's "Who Are You".

[Jaq]

Argent's actually done some albums with the singer of the Zombies, a classical thing, and some session work since 1978.

Funny thing about this song, while it's one of the most memorable songs of its era, is that I always eventually forget who did it for some reason, and periodically have to be reminded of it. I have no idea why, but the fact that its the Zombies always slips my mind. This post will keep it in my head for a couple of years, I hope. 

[masterthes]

Like it well enough, She's Not There is better though

[DebraKadabra]

Yeah, it's awesome when played back to back with Schindeleria. 

You're thinking of Long Distance Runaround.

OH MY GOD I'm such a dork...

Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion

Overplayed, but not as bad as Dream On is.  Still not a bad song, though.

Journey - Lights

The Zombies - Time of the Season

I remember my bestie having a serious attachment to this one, which of course drug me along for the ride too.  Great song.

[KevShmev]

George Harrison - What Is Life

This ranks high on my list of songs that immediately make me think of a specific movie scene (Goodfellas!).  Really good song, from a really good record. 

[Orbert]

I still need to see Goodfellas.  But I like most of George Harrison's stuff, including this song.  (And also "This Song")

[Zydar]

Great song from a brilliant album.

[masterthes]

Bah, nothing can match the genius that is "I've Got My Mind Set On You" 



Seriously though, really good solo song from Harrison

[DebraKadabra]

George Harrison - What Is Life

Good call, good song, excellent movie.

[KevShmev]

Santana - Black Magic Woman

Very tasty tune.  To me, it's all about that ending.  The first three minutes or so of the song is damn good, but the ending is absolutely killer.

[Jaq]

MTV went through a period when they acquired a ton of videos of live performance videos of bands from the early 70 from European television around 1981-1982 or so, and they generally weren't so much live as they were the band playing along to a pre-recorded track, and occasionally adorned with odd video effects-if you want to know where MP got the weird effects and split screen shots in Scenes From New York, he got it from early music videos. Anyway, among these videos were a performance of Black Magic Woman from when Neal Schon was the other guitarist, which was always amazing to see, since Schon was just a kid.

Fun facts about this song: Black Magic Woman was an early Fleetwood Mac hit, from the Peter Green Era, and is actually blended with a song called Gypsy Queen, which is where the introduction and the extended instrumental at the end come from. Just some weird factoids that stuck in my head about this song. 

[Orbert]

Yeah, Gypsy Queen is the jam at the end.  I like the song itself, especially the way it builds at the beginning.  Always pisses me off when radio stations play the version that cuts out Greg Rollie's piano solo.  It's like eight measures.  They had to cut out like 10 seconds of music?

[DebraKadabra]

Santana - Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen

FTFY

I remember hearing the album BMW/GQ is on a LOT when I was a nipper - thanks Dad.    Another brilliant song.

[lonestar]

Gypsy Queen has one of my favorite build up/releases, love it.

[masterthes]

Such a great, smooth rock song. I love it!

[DebraKadabra]

Carlos Santana may not be the best guitar player, but he's owned his own style/sound/flavor over the years.

[KevShmev]

Uriah Heep - Easy Livin'

Not a band, or even a song, you hear much about it anymore, but this is still a classic rock staple.  Good song, albeit pretty short.  But it packs a good punch!

[Orbert]

I always liked the hook line.  The song itself is pretty short and simple.  Not bad, just not a lot to it, nothing special, but it's okay I guess.

[Jaq]

As much as I love Uriah Heep, I can never think of a time where they got played on the radio around here. I think I was a few years too young for that. Easy Livin' is a cool song, but for me, Uriah Heep is all about July Morning. 

[KevShmev]

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Free Bird

Undoubtedly, one of the most well-known and overplayed classic rock songs ever.  And it is deserving of that status; it is, after all, a phenomenal song.  I get that a lot of people are simply tired of it, but a song being overplayed doesn't suddenly make it any less great; it can just make it less enjoyable and less special.  Personally, it has never been one of my favorite classic rock songs, but I've always thought it was awesome.  Whenever I see those top 500 rock songs list, this is one of those songs you can almost always count on to be in the top 10, unless the originator of the list decided to be cute and put it way lower just to be different.  Like Hotel California and Stairway to Heaven, it is universally (at least, as much as a song can be) considered an all-time classic rock great.

[JayOctavarium]

Nice


I prefer the alternate studio take that is floating around out there. I think it's from the Meet Joe Black soundtrack. I listened to it so much when I was 15 that hearing the regular studio version throws me off

[BlobVanDam]

I don't recall the song ever being ranked that highly here on top rock lists here (different country and all, all we get is Sweet Home Alabama), so I don't remember hearing it on the rock stations, so relatively speaking I haven't heard the song all that much. Good news for me though, because it means I'm not at all burned out on it.

Great song. It builds up nicely, and nothing like a rock song that ends with an awesome guitar solo.

[King Postwhore]

In America you couldn't get away from this song on the radio if you tried.  This other was Lonesome loser by The Little River Band. I swear, I changed the station 4 times and it was playing.

[masterthes]

Always liked Free Bird, no matter how "overplayed" it is. It's a monster though to play on Guitar Hero 2, as one might expect

[Jaq]

Free Bird being overplayed is nothing new; it was overplayed, along with Stairway to Heaven, thirty years ago, and both songs were a primary reason why I never gave either band a lot of time until much later. Which means I denied myself the sheer awesome of Skyrnyrd's debut for far too long, but seriously, if a day didn't go by and you didn't hear Free Bird at least once, it was because you didn't turn your radio on. 

The song pretty much invented Southern Rock as we know it; if you didn't have a song that ended in an extended multi-guitar jam after this, you weren't Southern Rock. About the only one of these songs I'd put in Free Bird's league would be Molly Hatchet's Fall of the Peacemakers, simply because they had the balls to do it in 1983, when southern rock bands had become largely AOR acts, but even it doesn't compare.

[Unlegit]

Overrated and overplayed, but good song.

[wkiml]

to this day when Freebird comes on...I have to roll down the windows in the car and crank it up


(always prefered the Outlaws...Green Grass and High Tides..over Freebird)  but its still a kick ass song

[masterthes]

My fingers feel numb after playing that on Rock Band

[Hayden]

I'd just like to quickly suggest that any fan of "Free Bird" should definitely go check out Molly Hatchet's "The Journey". If there's any southern rock epic that comes close to "Free Bird", then it's this.

[Orbert]

Molly Hatchet were also very cool.  I'm not familiar with "The Journey" so I'm gonna have to agree with wkiml.  "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlaws takes the prize for me.  On the live version, they even say "Fly, Free Bird!" as they go into the jam.

[wkiml]

Molly Hatchet were also very cool.  I'm not familiar with "The Journey" so I'm gonna have to agree with wkiml.  "Green Grass and High Tides" by The Outlaws takes the prize for me.  On the live version, they even say "Fly, Free Bird!" as they go into the jam.

On the live album, they dedicated the song to the members of Skynrd

[Jaq]

I dunno, I always saw Green Grass and High Tides as trying too hard to be another Free Bird myself. But I'm a total fanboy for Molly Hatchet up until about 1983 or so, which makes me biased.