Classic Rock Songs that Stand the Test of Time

Everyone has their favorite classic rock songs and it usually has to do with what they were doing at the time when they first heard it. If you were experiencing your first kiss with Suzie Q. and Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” was blasting in your dad’s Plymouth as you leaned over, chances are that every time you hear that song for the rest of your life you will get a cheap thrill. Music and music memory are tied to our emotions and our life experiences in deep, unknown ways that psychologists have been trying to decipher for a long time. Our subconscious is a strange and complex place and for some reason music seems to stir passions and energies that we never even knew existed.

Sometimes the reaction to certain songs is not love, lust, or romance, but annoyance, irritation, or hatred. I myself for some reason cannot abide any songs by the Canadian progressive rock band Rush. It is not so much the songs themselves that I can’t stand, but the high, reedy, whining voice of their lead singer Getty Lee. Yet many of my friends swear by Rush and think that I am off my rocker.

In comparison, I love many of the classic rock songs by another Canadian, Neil Young, and I have been surprised by the vehemence of negative emotions that this name conjures up with some of my less enlightened associates. Suffice to say that Neil Young is no friend of white Southerners, especially after his pointed attack on them in the classic rock songs “Alabama” and “Southern Man” (one obviously was not enough for Neil). When Lynrd Skynrd made “Sweet Home Alabama” and mentioned “We heard old Neil sing about her, I heard old Neil put her down. We hope Neil Young will remember, Southern man don’t need him around anyhow,” this incited a fresh round of racist flag waving.

This whole thing with Neil Young is very strange since Neil basically made his living playing acoustic, harmonica-tinged Southern rock with classic albums like “Harvest”, “Harvest Moon” and many others. Neil also contributed many classic rock songs that endure to this day as some of the very finest ever written. Classic rock songs like “Harvest Moon”, “Southern Man”, “Heart of Gold”, “Old Man”, “Needle and the Damage Done”, and “Rockin’ in the Free World” are all examples of country music mixed with rock and roll.

Classic rock songs have a way of stirring up emotions that you just don’t get in any other genre of music, in my opinion. Take for example one of the greatest classic rock songs of all time, “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zepellin. It was voted as the greatest song ever written and yet continues to be bashed by people saying that it has been overplayed to death. In the hit comedy movie “Wayne’s World” there is a sign on the wall at the Guitar Center that reads “No Playing Stairway to Heaven”. In Hermosa Beach, California, at the great blues and rock club, Café Boogaloo, there is a sign on the wall that reads “No Mustang Sally” which always struck me as hilarious since “Mustang Sally” is not a bad song. After hearing every two bit jam band play that song to the ground I realized that maybe not playing it was a good thing.

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