You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) - Meat Loaf

I have been listening to Bat Out of Hell in preparation for Meat Loaf's Guilty Pleasures tour next week. Listening to an artist's music over and over before a concert is something I always do and really helps me enjoy the show more. I'm hoping for a show featuring lots of theatrics but am especially looking forward to my absolute favourite Meat Loaf song: You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night).

The song starts with one hell of a bang and scales up even further into a full blown attack on the senses in the best possible way. I love the piano lines, the rock guitar runs punctuating each third line and the in-your-face female backing vocals during the verses. The second verse goes on longer than expected but just prolongs the experience. The dynamics in the bridge and vocal ending contrast the intensity of the rest of the song, completing this celebration of sound.

Turn it up and sing it loud. I do.

Reckless - Australian Crawl

I might say this a lot, but I really mean it when I say that Reckless by Australian Crawl is one of my favourite songs of all time. The lyrics left me always wanting to catch the Manly Ferry to Circular Quay the next time I was in Sydney, something which is not as glamorous as this song makes it sound.

From its simple start featuring nothing but fretless bass, kick drum and a gated snare, the magic of this song is largely in the gaps between notes ; teasers, if you like, or pregnant pauses filled with anticipation. (Gosh, that's poetic for a Friday!) The bowed cello parts are complemented beautifully by a lightly plucked nylon acoustic guitar, which comes to the fore and steals the scene during the classical style solo and outro. Pure magic.

Dream Police - Cheap Trick

Dream Police is the title track from an album released in 1979 by Cheap Trick, a highly underrated American rock band. It is a very cleverly organised aural represenation of a nightmare. (That doesn't sound quite right; I know plenty of other songs that are aural nightmares, but they're not clever at all. The key word here is: organised.)

Dream Police is a feast of orchestration, integrating driving string lines with an intense rock sound. The lengthy solo sequence has a definite pattern if you listen closely before the ongoing nightmare resumes when the chorus come crashing in again. I've listened to that bridge over and over and over and was chuffed when I eventually clicked on the 2:1 phrasing. Once again, this is a song best enjoyed repeatedly and loud.

She's Not There - The Zombies

She's Not There was released by English rock band The Zombies in 1964. The tone is distinctively different to your usual 60s pop sound, even if the image of the band remains somewhat sanitised and respectably scrubbed up.

The song pumps up during each verse before abruptly stopping and letting the bass calm things down again. Listen for the lower harmony; it's what defines the tone of the song at any given point as the chords modulate between major and minor keys. Add a distinctively melodic bass line and a superbly anticipated electric piano solo (there is a complete stop before the solo begins) and you have the makings of something really different.

There are a few versions of this song floating around, some of them pretty good, but The Zombies' original composition remains my favourite.

Hold On Tight - ELO

Hold On Tight was a major single for the band ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) in 1981 but I don't remember being really aware of it until sometime during the 1990s. To me, this is a very different sound to any of their other material. Hold On Tight is the first ELO song that doesn't feature strings, but it's more than that; I love the throwback to rock and roll with a chunky piano part that punctuates each line. Nostalgia kicks in as I hear the guitar during the chorus; for some reason, I can envisage the guitarist from my old band leaning back with his eyes closed and strumming those long chords, even though I don't think he/we ever played this song.

This has to be one of the most uplifting songs EVER, lacking even the tiniest touch of cynicism. The lyrics have got me through some tough times; this song always seems to play at just the right time and place for me. It was several years before I looked up the lyrics for the third verse and discovered that it is the first verse repeated by in French. Très intelligent!

Lola - The Kinks

Let's start with a classic. :-)

Lola, Ray Davies' 1970 hit by The Kinks, really is one of my favourites. Its raunchy rock style describes an ultimately sleazy scene that a fresh-faced, wide-eyed boy encounters just a week after leaving home. His naïve introduction to the seedy side of the city and one particular drag queen is way more than he bargained for. Slow and measured, the music plunges you further into the tangled mess that unfolds.

The sheer terror the boy feels once he realises that Lola is not the woman he expected is perfectly captured in these desperate lines, after which he completely succumbs to Lola's charms:

I pushed her away.
I walked to the door.
I fell to the floor.
I got down on my knees.

You need to listen to this song nice and loud.