Top 5 On Friday

This week, The Music Memoirs' chosen theme is Top 5 Songs Of the 60's. If you're a longtime reader, you can probably figure out that that's my favorite era of rock music, and many of my favorite songs are from that time. Now, I don't want to sound like a broken record, always picking the same songs over and over, so here are five pop songs I loved during the 60's, and used to wait to hear on my AM transistor radio. They aren't necessarily my top 5 now, but I still love every one of these. Besides, you already know my favorite song ever is In My Life, right? So, on with the countdown!

Tommy James & The Shondells - I Think We're Alone Now - My childhood friend, Patty, and I used to sing this on the school bus, and we had this goofy dance we did with only our arms, since we were sitting. If you can imagine Elaine's weird dance on Seinfeld, it was sort of like that. And when it gets to the "beating of our heart is the only sound" part at the 1:40 mark, we used to thump our chests in time to the heartbeat. I'm sure the other kids on the bus had a blast with that one.

The Beatles - She Loves You - I may have mentioned before that I had several older female cousins who were certified Beatle freaks, which is what we called them back then. I remember one party at my Uncle Don's place when we were all out on his driveway and the girls had their transistor radios all tuned in to the same station, so when this song came on, they all cranked the radios and broke out into spontaneous dancing (the Frug or something?) and screaming. I was a Beatle fan from that moment on.

The Turtles - Happy Together - Sends me into some totally blissful pop place. And I even love the Zappa performance on his Filmore East album.

Paul Revere And The Raiders - Hungry - The Raiders had a tv show, I think it was on every day? I had a huge crush on Mark Lindsay, so I would tune in when I could get my siblings away from the cartoons, just to catch a glimpse of him in that puffy shirt and the red tights.

The Monkees - I'm A Believer - I didn't have to beg my dad to buy The Monkees album when the show became my favorite, since he was a music nut and seemed to like The Monkees show. He would play it on that big-assed wooden hi-fi over and over for me. I'd sing and dance around like a fool, and I knew the words to every song. This one was my favorite, and I loved Mickey Dolenz. Can you believe he just turned 63?