Friday, January 24, 2025

The System Has To Be Rigged: The 396th Greatest Song

 

In spite of being a song that was never released as a single by a group I've never heard of, Big Star's "Thirteen" somehow made it into Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at Number 396.

I almost suspect it's because the lyric mentions "Paint It Black"...a hit for the magazine's namesake band. (Pretty flimsy reason, considering it's only 3% of the song's lyric.)

Big Star frontman, Alex Chilton, wrote the acoustic ballad about two kids in love with rock & roll, and admitted, "It's simple musically. I was still learning to play and stuff."

I wonder what he meant by "and stuff."

As in...who did he have to sleep with in order to get the song noticed by a national magazine?

Not that I'm jealous or anything.




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