Shivers Down Your Spine: Great Moments in Good Songs

People often talk about their favorite songs, but sometimes we love the music we listen to for particular moments instead of whole recordings. There may be ten excellent seconds in the middle of an otherwise okay five-minute song. Looking at a number of individual tracks in my library, I realize that I keep them around because of those brief, stellar solos, bridges and drops and not because I really find the entire song compelling. I don't think one approach is inherently better than the other. A few minutes of steady pleasantness is no better or worse than a handful of exhilarating seconds, but I do think the former variety gets a lot more attention when people start making favorites lists. Here are a few individual moments that justify the full length of the songs in which they appear.

The Chorus of Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (coming home)"

Recently the car company Lincoln has been pushing an ad for one of its new products with the help of The Shiny Toy Guns, an electronic pop group that deserves some recognition on their own merits but will probably grab a significant chunk of their new listeners with their cover of "Major Tom" by Peter Schilling. The original version was recorded in 1983 in German. It performed rather well on the charts during its initial release, grabbing several #1 spots in Europe as well as in Canada and topping out in America at #14 on the Billboard pop chart. "Major Tom" is an excellent dance track, but the whole thing revolves around its simple, beautiful chorus. The song ends with a triumphant extension of the chorus during which Schilling (and subsequently everyone who ever covered the song) shows off the power of his pipes.

Dave Navarro's Solo in "Three Days" by Jane's Addiction

When a rock band makes a ten-minute song, they better pack it with something to justify the listening experience. For the first several stages (and yes, it does go by in stages) of "Three Days" off the album Ritual de lo Habitual by Jane's Addiction, it doesn't seem like the song is going to give us anything that will really make us want to listen to all ten minutes and forty-eight seconds of it. Then, vocalist Perry Farrell steps back from his bizarre, druggy lyrics to let guitarist Dave Navarro launch into one of the greatest solos ever laid down in a studio. The intense, wailing licks of the "Three Days" solo is everything that "Freebird" desperately wants to be. It not only justifies the track's length, it practically requires it for a buildup and cooldown.

The Drop in "Heaven Scent" by DJ John Digweed

Electronic music, especially the Trance subgenre, has always relied on major hooks and drops to give individual tracks a much-needed energy boost in the middle. So much of any given track is usually driven by heavy percussion and flavorful samples that melody takes a back seat to the more immanently danceable segments. Oh, but when that drop comes there's nothing in the world quite like it. DJ John Digweed has been at the top of the list of great Trance men for over a decade and one of his most widely loved tracks is "Heaven Scent". Its insistent, echoing drop is the track's gorgeous signature, a little slice of paradise in an otherwise rough, thumping dance number.