Top 10 favorite songs of all time

Why, thank you! Gerry Rafferty's amazing City To City album is the only one to get two entries in Ron's Dream Jukebox.

OK I'll try:

Ozark Mountain Daredevils - Jackie Blue
Gary Numan - Cars
Kenny Loggins - Heart to Heart
Steve Winwood - Valerie (both versions)
Camel - Unevensong
Kajagoogoo - Too Shy
Foreigner - Urgent
Cliff Richard - A Little In Love
Little River Band - Night Owls
Journey - Lights

And see, I'm not sure that's really a comprehensive list at all. For example, I really like the Jermaine Jackson "... Serious" track mentioned earlier (mind you, that didn't really get a lot of airplay in Southern Ontario - thank heavens I lived in near proximity to the greater Buffalo, NY area). I never mentioned Gerry Rafferty, but "... Next Time" and Right Down the Line" are gems. How about Gary Numan's "We Are Friends Electric"? See, too many.... lol

I've been working on compiling my top 10 since I started the thread three years ago. I'm having trouble narrowing it down, too!

Nice to see this thread revived. :-) I agree w/ most others here - honestly, when you own as much music as I do (collected for over 33 years now), it's impossible to pick just 10 songs, or even 100. And even if you went w/ 100, how do you realistically differentiate between how much you like the song you list at #1 and the one you put at #100 - and will you feel the same way tomorrow??? For that reason, I usually think in terms of categories, for the sake of narrowing the field - i.e., favorite songs that all share a common thread (or two), whether they're tied together by origin, subject matter, time period, genre, chart performance, etc., etc...

So for this post, I've chosen 50 songs - all from the '80s, and all by Canadian acts - that for inexplicable reasons, somehow MISSED the top 40 here in the U.S. (and therefore, aren't included in Pat's on-line db)! I've simply listed them chronologically, as most of these have been favorites of mine for 15 or more years now, and I enjoy them all just as much as any of my top faves that did make the top 40 during the '80s. Most (but not all) were top 40 hits in Canada, and at least half of them deserved to be top 10 hits here in the U.S. as well! About 25% of the songs did actually scrape into the "bottom 60" of the pop charts here ("Limelight", "Baby Step Back", "Your Daddy Don't Know", "New Girl Now", etc.), while several others performed quite well on Billboard's "Top Rock Tracks" chart ("Lunatic Fringe", "Anyway Anytime", "Eyes of a Stranger", "Devil's Deck", etc.), or even the dance chart ("Echo Beach", "Gonna Get Over You", etc.). For those who may wish to track them down, I've also listed the record label & catalog no. of the U.S. 45 that these songs were issued on, where applicable - remarkably, 37 of the 50 (74%) were released as 45s here in the States as well, while another 7 saw their original parent album issued here, but no 45 (while the remaining 6 never came out here at all). And because this was the dawn/apex of the video era, and most were singles, that means practically all of them also had a music video that was made for them, which aired on MTV and/or MuchMusic back in the day - so I've painstakingly provided a link to ALL 50 songs on YouTube, so you can hear them, and decide for yourself (just click on the artist/title). :-) If you only have time to listen to a fraction of them, I recommend going w/ the 20 that I've numbered in bold - I don't think you'll be disappointed, if you're not already familiar w/ them. Hopefully most people here will find something new that they'll want to add to their collection on 45 or CD, so let's celebrate the "Great White North"!

01. (1980) MAX WEBSTER - "Paradise Skies" (Capitol; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45)
02. (1980) MARTHA & THE MUFFINS - "Echo Beach" (Dindisc/Virgin 68000)
03. (1980) HARLEQUIN - "Innocence" (Columbia 02574)
04. (1980) THE KINGS - "This Beat Goes On"/"Switchin' to Glide" (Elektra 47052; also Elektra 47006, w/ different B-side) ("Hey, little Donna, still wanna...")
05. (1981) PAT TRAVERS BAND - "Snortin' Whiskey" (Polydor 2107) ("Got this feelin' I'm gonna drive that girl insane...")
06. (1981) RUSH - "Limelight" (Mercury 76095) (prefer this one to "Tom Sawyer")
07. (1981) ROUGH TRADE - "High School Confidential" (Boardwalk 176) ("It make me cream my jeans when she come my way...")
08. (1981) UNION - "Mainstreet U.S.A." (Portrait 02149)
09. (1981) FRANCE JOLI - "Gonna Get Over You" (Prelude 8030)
10. (1981) RED RIDER - "Lunatic Fringe" (Capitol 5062)
11. (1982) STRAIGHT LINES - "Letting Go" (Epic 02689)
12. (1982) WRABIT - "Anyway Anytime" (MCA 52010)
13. (1982) GORDON LIGHTFOOT - "Baby Step Back" (Warner Bros. 50012)
14. (1982) PAYOLA$ - "Eyes of a Stranger" (I.R.S./A&M 2438) ("Can I touch you to see if you're real?")
15. (1982) TORONTO - "Your Daddy Don't Know" (Network 69986) ("Shake it up/Turn it on...")
16. (1982) LOVERBOY - "Gangs in the Street" (Columbia 03054; B-side of "Lucky Ones", but they also made a video for it!) ("What would you do, if they were lookin' at you?")
17. (1982) HEADPINS - "Don't it Make Ya Feel" (Atco 99969)
18. (1982) CONEY HATCH - "Devil's Deck" (Mercury; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45) ("Like a one-eyed jack/She'll stick a knife in your back...")
19. (1982) SPOONS - "Nova Heart" (A&M 2446)
20. (1983) STRANGE ADVANCE - "She Controls Me" (Capitol 5214)
21. (1983) FRANK MARINO - "Strange Dreams" (Columbia; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45)
22. (1983) LUBA - "Everytime I See Your Picture" (Capitol 5378)
23. (1983) THE TENANTS - "Sheriff" (Epic 03798)
24. (1983) PROTOTYPE - "Video Kids" (Mercury; not issued in U.S. - album or 45)
25. (1983) HELIX - "Heavy Metal Love" (Capitol 5294) ("I like the caress of steel/It's the hard edge that I feel...")
26. (1984) LEE AARON - "Metal Queen" (Attic; not issued in U.S. - album or 45) (best metal song ever, w/ female vocals???)
27. (1984) THE ARROWS - "Meet Me in the Middle" (A&M; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45)
28. (1984) KIM MITCHELL - "Go for Soda" (Bronze/Island 99652)
29. (1984) HONEYMOON SUITE - "New Girl Now" (Warner Bros. 29208) ("I don't want you on the phone/Don't you play 'good girl' with me...")
30. (1985) BRUCE COCKBURN - "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" (Gold Mountain/A&M 82013) ("How many kids they've murdered, only God can say...")
31. (1985) THE PARACHUTE CLUB - "At the Feet of the Moon" (RCA 14144) (prefer this one to "Rise Up")
32. (1985) TRIUMPH - "Follow Your Heart" (MCA 52540)
33. (1985) GARY O' - "Shades of '45" (RCA 13985)
34. (1985) NORTHERN LIGHTS - "Tears are Not Enough" (Columbia; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45) (Canada's answer to "Do They Know it's Christmas?" and "We are the World")
35. (1985) IDLE EYES - "Tokyo Rose" (Mirage/Atco 99626) ("I got the picture from the stains on your clothes...")
36. (1985) GINO VANNELLI - "Black Cars" (HME 04889)
37. (1985) GOWAN - "(You're a) Strange Animal" (Columbia; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45) (lead singer of Styx since 1999)
38. (1985) PAUL JANZ - "Go to Pieces" (A&M; not issued in U.S. - album or 45)
39. (1985) PLATINUM BLONDE - "Crying Over You" (Epic 05593)
40. (1986) CATS CAN FLY - "Flippin' to the 'A' Side" (Epic 06244)
41. (1986) TRANS-X - "Living on Video" (Mirage/Atco 99534) (released in other countries as far back as '82, before finally gaining traction in the U.S. in '86)
42. (1986) CHALK CIRCLE - "April Fool" (Duke Street; not issued in U.S. - album or 45)
43. (1987) EIGHT SECONDS - "Kiss You (When it's Dangerous)" (Polydor 885352)
44. (1987) THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS - "I'm an Adult Now" (Chrysalis 43316) ("I don't write songs about girls anymore/I have to write songs about women...")
45. (1987) FROZEN GHOST - "Should I See" (Atlantic 89279)
46. (1987) THE NORTHERN PIKES - "Teenland" (Virgin; parent album issued in U.S., but no U.S. 45)
47. (1987) HAYWIRE - "Dance Desire" (Attic; not issued in U.S. - album or 45)
48. (1987) TU - "Stay With Me" (RCA; not issued in U.S. - album or 45)
49. (1988) BLVD. - "Never Give Up" (MCA 53297)
50. (1989) NEIL YOUNG - "Rockin' in the Free World" (Reprise 22776) ("Now she puts the kid away, and she's gonna get a hit/She hates her life and what she's done to it...")

Bonus track - wanted to somehow shoehorn this one in as well, even though it's actually from '79:
(1979) (DOMENIC) TROIANO - "We All Need Love" (Capitol 4709) (former guitarist for the James Gang and Guess Who)