Eh, he is just a student. He'll be fine.

38. "Nobody's Empire" by Belle and Sebastian



I love many Belle and Sebastian songs, but the first time I heard this, the lead single from the Scottish band's most recent album (their eighth overall), it enchanted me, and I have come to consider it their crowning achievement to date. With characteristic lyrical wit and melodic warmth, Stuart Murdoch recounts his disabling experience with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a young man and a close friend he made during his treatment, now a mother of two and, in Murdoch's estimation, "a quiet revolution." This is intimate, poignant, even proofund pop music by masters.

"My soul was floating in thin air"

37. "Nightswimming" by R.E.M.



R.E.M. were often a very enigmatic band, and I love them for it. They were frequently impenetrable in the most enticing way; deciphering by ear the words being sung by Michael Stipe could be daunting, particularly early in their career, let alone contemplating their meaning. But they were also capable of this incredibly direct and heartfelt song, a nostalgic ode to youthful nights spent on peaceful and secluded shores. With a stirring string arrangement by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and arguably Stipe's warmest ever vocal performance, it is a composition of crystalline beauty and the best song on their best album.

"I forgot my shirt at the water's edge"

36. "Lost Cause" by Beck



It is now a cliché present in every article and review related to him, but Beck truly is a chameleon. He is a wizard of sonic and stylistic reinvention on par with David Bowie and Madonna, as comfortable in the realm of low-fidelity absurdist-vulgar hip hop as he is with buoyant post-disco, which seems to be the predominant mode of his upcoming record. The album Sea Change and the sumptuously heartrending song "Lost Cause" found him in a chiefly acoustic mode, conjuring a pastoral and lightly psychedelic atmosphere to sing painful songs of love lost. The song lives deeply within a single moment—the moment when one truly realizes a relationship is doomed and/or firmly concluded—and finds much lovelorn grandeur and resonance there.

"I'm tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause"

35. "The Weight" by the Band



This song is 49 years old, but it feels far older. Or much newer. It feels timeless, mythic even, and torn from deep within the American identity...despite being chiefly written by a Canadian, Robbie Robertson. "I pulled into Nazareth," the song opens, and so begins a wild, elliptical ride overflowing with colorful Southern characters and apocalyptic Biblical allusions. Set to perfectly dusty and inviting roots instrumentation by Levon Helm and company, it is a song of (and for) burdened searchers and travelers.

"My bag is sinking low, and I do believe it's time"

My list isn't ready and my computer is broken right now so it will be a week or so.

34. "Time for Heroes" by the Libertines



The Libertines, and Peter Doherty in particular, were a major component of my teenage musical fandom. Following their turbulent run from 2002 to 2004 from across the pond helped solidify my taste in music, even art in general. I believed wholeheartedly in Doherty as indie music's Arthur Rimbaud, a heroin-chic Artful Dodger perilously navigating a thin line separating glory from despair. Maybe a part of me still does. He is certainly one of my favorite musicians and songwriters, and I am glad he is still alive. "Time for Heroes" captures the Libertines' acidic, Clash-style wit, as well as their romanticism, with descriptions of civil unrest and class immobility giving way to the refrain, "You know I cherish you, my love."

"Did you see the stylish kids in the riot?"

I will probably jump you in line then

I love Dire Straits, great to see them featured in your list.

33. "That's Entertainment" by the Jam



Paul Weller, brash and sneering young mod revivalist, blue-eyed soul man, improbable early adopter of house music with the forgotten final Style Council album, a British institution, sadly undervalued in America. And ever the dynamic songwriter, as exemplified by "That's Entertainment," recorded with his first band, the Jam. The song at once hilariously and poignantly contrasts scenes of suburban annoyance and tedium—the sound of a pneumatic drill on concrete, a cold flat with damp walls—with jubilant calls of the Judy Garland-evoking title phrase.

"Opening the windows and breathing in petrol"

32. "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin



I have a soft spot for Led Zeppelin's soft spot. Don't get me wrong, I also love the songs in which they gyrated and roared and thrashed and helped lay the blueprint for heavy metal, but their excursions into the realms of the melancholy, the mystical, and the romantic are always so atmospheric and compelling. "Tangerine" is a delicate and splendid number, driven by a country-flavored blend of acoustic and pedal-steel guitars, with Robert Plant bemoaning the distance (in time and space) between he and a former lover on an idle summer day. My appreciation for the song is further buoyed by its inspired use in the final scenes of Cameron Crowe's great film Almost Famous.

"I was her love
She was my queen"

I had never heard "Vienna" but it was decent. Not something I'm gonna add to my library though.

Wasn't sure if I knew "U.R.A Fever" but I definitely did. Great track and I love the call and response singing. I like The Dead Weather, and was introduced to them first, but I'll always share some of that love with The Kille.

I very much agree on soft Zeppelin. Even though I eventually settled on "Heartbreaker", through the first few years of my fandom my favorite song was "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp".

31. "Shadowboxer" by Fiona Apple



Fiona Apple was still a teenager when she released her debut album, but she emerged a complicated, confident, even ferocious performer whose considerable, smoky vocal prowess was matched by her lyrical sophistication. Jazz by way of baroque pop, this darkly smooth, piano-driven song craftily uses shadow boxing as a metaphor for the fear of trusting another person and falling in love, particularly after being betrayed or deceived in the past.

"Oh, it's evil, babe
The way you let your grace enrapture me"

30. "Girl from the North Country" by Bob Dylan



It is hard to wrap one's arms around Bob Dylan. Shape-shifting, mercurial, and brilliant, he can be annoying, beautiful, frightening, reassuring, and any other number of adjectives. But as extensive and rich as his catalog is, I always return to "Girl from the North Country" as my favorite. Interpolating parts of the traditional English ballad "Scarborough Fair" a few years before Paul Simon, Dylan's narrator pleads with a traveler to visit an old flame he left behind in the cold and unforgiving north, a place where "rivers freeze and summer ends." There is a slightly later version of the song recorded by Dylan with Johnny Cash. While it is novel to hear two of the most iconic voices of the 20th century sharing a studio, the forlorn and wintry lyrics are served best by Dylan alone with his guitar and harmonica.

"Remember me to one who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine"

I have to listen to each song you post! Not heard most of these from the name. Maybe I heard them but don't know their titles. I'll have some time later and look forward to listening to a few.

The cover for "Shadowboxer" reminds me of Evan Rachel Wood.

Love Time to Pretend.

Also nice to see Midnight Oil on the list.

Go ahead.

29. "Free Man in Paris" by Joni Mitchell



Joni Mitchell recorded this empathetic and lively jazz-folk fusion at the height of her critical acclaim and commercial clout. The song's main character is inspired by entertainment-industry magnate and philanthropist David Geffen; he escapes his professional duties and pressures by traveling to Paris and wandering the Champs-Élysées with no particular direction or goal. Mitchell's lyrics describing the world he temporarily leaves behind, with its "telephone screamers" and "star-maker machinery," are particularly colorful.

"I felt unfettered and alive"

28. "Apartment Story" by the National



With their literary, sophisticated lyrics (at once aloof and moving) and luxuriously doleful sound, the National are among the very best bands of their generation. This song, driven by a tight drum beat and vocalist Matt Berninger's brooding baritone, begins with a couple preparing for an evening out, but a type of opaque tension enters and only grows and grows until the chorus finds them "tired and wired," awaiting an indistinct salvation. It is a miniature portrait of malaise among a privileged class, and it is delivered with the type of tender ambiguity at which the band excels.

"Sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave"

27. "12:51" by the Strokes



A brief and glorious distillation of why the Strokes are a sensational band. The lyrics, in which a nervous male protagonist decides to meet his girlfriend after learning her parents are out of town (they fall into bed at the titular time), feature a just-right blend of humor and angst, and the band achieve a too-cool-for-school, retro-futuristic sound anchored by a guitar disguised as a synthesizer.

"Friday nights have been lonely"

This is such a classic, I pretty much forgot about it. Great to hear it again.

Rest of 50-41

I've definitely listened to a Dire Straits greatest hits and The Killers' Sawdust album, but I can't remember hearing "R&J". Nice little track thoug

I didn't know I knew The Passenger but its been in a thousand movies.

Operator has some good lyrics but i got bored and turned it off halfway through

Tolerate is my favorite song of the bunch by far and I will add it to my library

Forgotten Years was a cool little low tempo punk song.

I've been trying to like country more, and I can hear how Loretta influenced the people I do like. But im not there yet.

I was making a quiz the other day for my friends, and in the music section I put the cover of this album and asked who painted it. Nobody even knew about The Band, let alone that Dylan was the painter of the cover.