Top Ten Songs About Rivers
1. Many Rivers To Cross - Jimmy Cliff
Jimmy Cliff is overlooked as a great songwriter because he’s in a niche. It’s more a groove than a rut, though which I’ve always said is a fine line. This is a great tune. It’s a sad song that sounds happy.
2. The Theme From Easy Rider - The Byrds
Not just because of Roger McGuinn’s laconic, somnambulant voice, but because the lyrics are so plain that right before you can say “hang on, that’s stupid”, you think: “Oh. Yeah.” “The river flows. It flows to the sea. Wherever that river flows, that’s where I want to be.”
3. Moon River - Henry Mancini, lyrics Johnny Mercer
I saw my friend’s mother sing this at a school band assembly when I was a kid and I was entranced. It was everything and not too much - just enough sentimentality, sadness, pride. It’s got that ambling pace - it even sounds like a river. And the words “Huckleberry friend”??? Sheer brilliance by Johnny Mercer. Look at the lyrics for Something’s Got To Give. The man had a gift.
4. River Man - Nick Drake
It’s the dissonant strings that do it for me. The arrangement is so good with the mysterious vocals. “Betty said she prayed today - for the sky to blow away. Or maybe stay. She wasn’t sure.”
5. Up On Cripple Creek - The Band
Levon Helm has a great voice, not just because of his deep south drawl and it sounds like he doesn’t know how good he is. Plus, every man who doesn’t deserve it wants a woman like the one in this boozer’s lament. Levon is the greatest singing drummer ever, although that is in a category which includes Don Henley and Phil Collins. (Music fans NB - I do not include Karen Carpenter or Dave Grohl because they didn’t usually play drums and sing at the same time)
6. River - Joni Mitchell
I always thought Joni Mitchell piano songs were better and they get seldom more so than in this bittersweet Christmas song. Listen to it - it’s a soul song. It ain’t folk. You get the embroided embellishing Maria parts on the long vowels. And the lyrics are like Nasty Joni. “He tried hard to help me, you know he put me at ease - and he loved me so naughty, made me weak in the knees.” Damn girl. Anyway, I wish I had a river I could skate away on sometimes. Although a luge run would carry more style: “Whatever, you know. You guys do what you want. I’m off.” (Snaps down visor, whooshhhhh!!)
7. Take Me To The River - Talking Heads
Quirky intellimentals with understated syncopation and their own sound. I like the Heads, but to me they always seemed better than they sounded, hence the low rating. Sorry - I know you’re a cool band, I just don’t love you. It’s not you, it’s me.
8. Cry Me A River - Arthur Hamilton, sung by Julie London
Sweet scorned sarcasm. “Now you say you’re sorry for bein’ so untrue. Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river - I cried a river over you.”
9. The River - Bruce Springsteen
It took me all day to think of this one. The work I put in to this site.
10. River Deep, Mountain High - Ike and Tina Turner
Last place for shouting. Yeah, I noticed you. If it’s good enough, I’ll hear it just fine. Now, there are people who shout really well when they sing: Kurt Cobain, James Brown, Paul McCartney, Mary J. Blige, James Dean Bradfield, Aretha Franklin. But Tina Turner: no. It didn’t work for Shirley Bassey, it didn’t work for Harry Secombe and it’s not working for you.
May 25th, 2006 at 11:29 am
I was going to suggest ‘Burn Down the Mission’, by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, but it really isn’t about a river, it’s really about something else. But there’s a riverside mentioned in it.
May 25th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
You could do, if your list had nothing whatsoever to do with rivers.
Only joking Ed - liked your cameras on a wire analogy, Ed. That stayed with me all day.
May 25th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
I’m not seeing Billy Joel’s River of Dreams here.
Oh. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
May 25th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Scroll down.
Scroll down.
Scroll scroll scroll.
Scroll - wait.
No, down a bit more.
Keep going. Scroll scroll. Hang on. No.
Scroll.
THERE! Just below Boney M’s Rivers of Babylon
May 25th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
I KNOW the song doesn’t have anything to do with rivers, it was just the line in it about bringing the ‘family down to the riverside if you wanna stay alive’ thing.
WHat this has to do with cameras on a wire I’ll never know;)
May 26th, 2006 at 1:18 am
How about a song BY Rivers? Rivers Cuomo of Weezer? Would that count?
Not that I heave heard much of his work.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:29 pm
“On the third day he took me to the river
He showed me the roses and we kissed
And the last thing I heard was a muttered word
As he stood smiling above me with a rock in his fist”
Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue’s Where the Wild Roses Grow, of course.
Is merely mentioning a river enough? I’m guessing not.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Hate to be late, but you’ve missed some very obvious ones:
‘Waterloo Sunset’ by The Kinks
‘Find the River’ by R.E.M.
‘Green River’ by CCR
And the not so obvious ‘Mersey Paradise’ by the Stone Roses, which is arguably the best song ever written about a river.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Thanks Joe. Waterloo Sunset’s fine, but it doesn’t make my top ten.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Number one and number five are my favorites. Jimmy Cliff is the man.