The Top 10... songs with a year in the title
John Rentoul on his favourite tunes named after a date
Thanks to Neil O’Brien, Conservative MP for Harborough, for this one. He said there are lots of them, and he was right. We collected 126 nominations, and compiled a Spotify playlist of 84 of them. Here are the 10 I like best, in year order.
1. “Louisiana 1927”, Randy Newman. Nominated by Graham Fildes.
2. “1937 State Park”, Car Seat Headrest. From Johnny Glenn.
3. “Summer ’68”, Pink Floyd. Thanks to George Bosanko.
4. “’74-’75”, The Connells. Nominated by Matt (Art and Books), Steven Richards, Matt Brannigan, Rob Marchant, Will Harris, Julian Druker, Stacey Murray, Mark Fraser, Absolute Shower, John Rendel, Jill Lawless and Harry Davison.
5. “1979”, The Smashing Pumpkins. From Mitchell Stirling, Cairters Corner and Johnny Glenn.
6. “1985”, Bowling for Soup. Thanks to Mark Wallace, Holly Baxter, Peter Smeed, Rob McGregor, Mark Fraser and Mark Worgan.
7. “Disco 2000”, Pulp. The best, I think. Suggested by Faye Harland and Arthur Hughes.
8. “12/17/12”, The Decemberists. The saddest. The date is of President Obama’s national address in reaction to the Sandy Hook school shootings. “I was hit by a sense of helplessness, but also the message of ‘Hold your family close’,” said Colin Meloy, songwriter and lead singer. Thanks to Simon Williams.
9. “It’s Time to Wake Up 2023”, La Femme. Nominated by Marie Le Conte.
10. “Year 3000”, Busted. The most fun. “I’ve been to the year 3000 / Not much has changed but they live underwater / And your great, great, great-granddaughter / Is pretty fine.” Thanks to Faye Harland.
One good one that didn’t make the final cut: “1992”, Blur, proposed by TGM!, Citizen Sane, Martin SykesHaas and PolitiKey.
Two well-known nominations didn’t make the top 10 because I don’t like them: “1984”, David Bowie (nominated by PD Anderson); and “In the Year 2525”, Zager and Evans. Of the second, Peter Claydon said: “It’s particularly significant because it was number one in both the US and UK in the summer of ’69, which must be one of the most significant times ever in music (just look at the top 40 in a random week in that period). Zager and Evans were a one-hit-wonder and never had a record in the charts again.”
The usual attempts (this time by John McTernan, Matthew Bailey, Mark Wallace, Peter Walker, pinko_palest, Paul Burgin, Gerard Alexander, Tim Hailstone, Michael and Rhys Needham) to get past the censor with a Beatles-related nomination, for “Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five”, by Wings.
And there is always one; this time there are three – Joel Dimmock, Ian Reeve and George Bosanko – who nominated “Year Of The Cat”, by Al Stewart. That did at least did qualify (I’ve included it on the playlist). Then there are three more – Philip Cowley, Hugo Ford and Phil Gardener – who nominated “2-4-6-8 Motorway”, by the Tom Robinson Band, which did not.
Next week: Amusing plurals, such as Volkswagen Golves, tantra and umbrellae.
Coming soon: Backing musicians, such as Mick Jagger on “You’re So Vain”.
Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk