Here it is: My first try at my top 100 rock songs.

I used a couple of criteria: One, that they hold up to the test of time, so nothing on the list is very new. Two, I had to be very familiar with the tunes. Three, it had to feel like a "classic" to me.

As some people know, I have played in a number of cover bands over the years, and a whole bunch of these tunes are ones that we thought about playing at one time or another. And there are a LOT of songs by artists that I love but don't feel like "classics" to me, and might not be known well by a lot of others. Stuff like Cars and Stray Cats and Crowded House are some of my faves but just don't feel like classic tunes. Stuff by Cheap Trick and the BoDeans and a bunch of other midwestern bands are tunes that I will gravitate toward when I'm picking songs to play in a band (and I think Cheap Trick is one of the greatest rock bands around), but again...they don't feel like classics.

So in no particular order and without further ado:

1. Jumpin' Jack Flash
2. You Really Got Me
3. A Hard Day's Night
4. Paint It Black
5. I Can't Explain
6. My Generation
7. LA Woman
8. Good Vibrations
9. Satisfaction
10. Won't Get Fooled Again
11. Bang A Gong
12. Sweet Jane
13. For Your Love
14. Maggie May
15. House of the Rising Sun
16. All Right Now
17. White Room
18. Brown Sugar
19. Get Back
20. Hey Jude
21. Somebody To Love
22. Pure And Easy
23. I Fought The Law
24. I Feel Fine
25. 96 Tears
26. Time Of The Season
27. Something
28. Oh, Pretty Woman
29. Summertime Blues
30. That'll Be The Day
31. Whole Lotta Love
32. Sloop John B.
33. Imagine
34. Stay With Me
35. Ohio
36. We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
37. Stepping Stone
38. I'm A Believer
39. Suffragette City
40. Turn Turn Turn
41. Layla
42. Stairway To Heaven
43. Smoke On The Water
44. Rainy Day Women
45. Get Together
46. Time Won't Let Me
47. Maybe I'm Amazed
48. Band On The Run
49. What Is Life
50. A Day In The Life
51. Whip It
52. Up On Cripple Creek
53. White Rabbit
54. Long Cool Woman
55. Fortunate Son
56. Taxman
57. No Matter What
58. Statesboro Blues
59. Summer In The City
60. All The Young Dudes
61. Peace Love and Understanding
62. Hotel California
63. 25 or 6 to 4
64. London Calling
65. Love Is The Drug
66. Born To Run
67. Hello I Love You
68. Vehicle
69. Black Magic Woman
70. Low Budget
71. Feelin' Alright
72. It's Too Late
73. The Sounds of Silence
74. American Woman
75. Sunshine Superman
76. Ramblin' Gamblin' Man
77. It Don't Come Easy
78. Do You Know What I Mean
79. Spirit In The Sky
80. Born To Be Wild
81. Beat It
82. Radio Free Europe
83. Smells Like Teen Spirit
84. Dream On
85. Can't Get Enough
86. Sweet Emotion
87. School's Out
88. Piece of My Heart
89. Sooner or Later
90. Personality Crisis
91. Blitzkrieg Bop
92. What I Like About You
93. The Letter
94. Sweet Home Alabama
95. Rocket Man
96. Like A Rolling Stone
97. Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'
98. Gimme Shelter
99. Burnin' Down The House
100. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Honorable Mentions go to:

• Kind of a Drag
• 19th Nervous Breakdown
• Little Bit Of Soul
• Cruel To Be Kind
• All The Way From Memphis
• Psycho Killer
• Honky Tonk Women
• It's Only Rock and Roll
• Sunshine Of Your Love
• Eight Miles High
• A Well Respected Man
• Melissa
• Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting
• I Can See For Miles and Miles
• Tangled Up In Blue
• Incense and Peppermints
• Crimson and Clover
• Cecelia
• Love Me Two Times
• 5:15
• Walk This Way
• I Don't Need No Doctor
• I Melt With You

And a score of others...I can keep going and going...

One other comment: I left off most of the 50's stuff, like Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Ritchie Valens, and of course, Elvis. If I included these guys, I probably would have had to knock off about 50 of those songs and replace them with stuff like Jailhouse Rock and Blue Suede Shoes and Great Balls of Fire and Blueberry Hill and Johnny B. Goode and...well, you get the picture...

(And even so, I snuck in an Eddie Cochran song and a Buddy Holly song...)

*****