Best of Rock and Roll

Independent Online Edition > Commentators : app2:

"Earlier this year, there was a spate of media stories about Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 'greatest rock & roll songs of all time' . Number one position in the poll of musicians, songwriters, producers, and critics was won by Bob Dylan's 1965 hit, 'Like a Rolling Stone'."

Camille Paglia offers some thoughts on the greatest rock and roll songs, placing Sympathy for the Devil and Gimme Shelter above Like a Rolling Stone. She also rates highly another Dylan tune that I don't remember called Desolation Row.

Using Paglia's template that a great song has "expansiveness, vision, and emotional range," my own short list would include Simon and Garfunkel's The Boxer as well as the better known Sounds of Silence. Also, Procol Harum's Knights in White Satin and Conquistador; The Eagles' Hotel California; Rod Stewart's Maggie May; that's the beginning of the list.