I have a fun idea for a topic. Name what you consider a Perfect song. Something where everything just clicks: Not a note out of place, not a second too long. It just couldn’t be improved upon. It can be whatever genre you want. It’s all subjective, of course.
For me: Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts 1-5, Pink Floyd.
The bass, the guitar, the synth, drums, tone, feel, everything. It’s just there. It works as part of the whole album but works equally well on it’s own. And when you know the story behind it (Written for their bandmate who was kicked out for substance abuse who showed up during the recording and they didn’t even recognize him) It hits even more.
Yes Hotel California but not by the Eagles but Don Felder and a bunch of cool people like Tommy Shaw and Todd Sucherman playing tambourine, No A-holes zone,
If we define this as songs that IMO cannot be meaningfully improved I can think of far too many. So, for an extra challenge, I will go for a twofer here - perfect songs on debut albums.
Here’s four I can think of off the top of my head.
The most perfect BASS PART ever. Is “Doctor My Eyes” by Jackson Browne, bass by Leland Sklar. Every note is sheer perfection. Attack, length, volume, separation on those 16th notes, etc. His slides are so buttery smooth they’re almost like a fretless gliss. The part moves without getting overly busy. It drives the song without standing out and overwhelming anything. His mastery of dynamics is phenomenal. It showcases a variety of playing without getting into show-off territory.
I’ve got this sort of personal theory about the quest to play a perfect note. That there are so many factors that go into how any single note can be played. And seeking to play a note absolutely perfectly for the context of everything else around it. It’s something that’s effective impossible to attain. On this song, Leland Sklar comes as close as anyone ever has, and for almost every single note he plays.
Steely Dan isn’t my thing but even I’ll admit it’s sort of borderline cheating to use them here in terms of perfection, given the weird ethic they had of slaving for months to get perfect single takes without comping. If there was ever a poster child band for “the perfect is the enemy of the good”
Which is to say that they went to weird extremes in effort to lay down what the producer considered was a perfect complete take for each part, one at a time, and individual songs took weeks or months to record. I have never heard of a less productive way to produce an album but hey, it was their thing, and it worked for them.
Like the great, primeval myths, perhaps the perfect song not only ‘clicks’ with, and carries the energy of, the cultural milieu from which it emerges but also offers up new possibilities of reception to the ever-arriving future. Pretty Vacant energised us when our practice band butchered it in 1977, and your cover still gave me chills today!
Not quite though. It was either Bernard Purdie or Chuck Rainey who talked about recording for them and telling them, “Yeah, we can do more takes, but you’re just going to use my second one anyway.” Which is exactly what happened.
What they more often slaved over was getting takes from multiple different musicians for each part (three different guitarists take on one solo), and then figuring out which ones worked best together for the mood of the song and the mix.
But they had a handful of drummers and bassists they kept coming back to regularly. On Aja, Chuck Rainey plays bass on every song except for “Deacon Blues”, which is Walter Becker.
from the first time i heard this song i have said-- If i could ever write a song I would want it to be like this one. it’s not a verse - chorus - verse song, it just builds and builds. I love it.
I’ll take any opportunity to share Driving My Love by ANRI.
It’s very bass-forward, and it’s impossible for me to listen to this song and not want to move to the groove. I can’t imagine how it could be improved on.
Some day I will get my fingers around that bass line. Call it a stretch goal.
