Saturday Essay The best song in the world evokes such a tremendous sense of hope that it is seldom experienced

Memory image is slightly depending on interpretation from late service or early spring. The year is likely to be 2014 or 2015.

I’ve been watching my friend’s night out watching the Oscars and sleeping on his couch for a couple of hours before going to work.

I’m still half asleep when I leave the door and I put the headphones on my ears. Drowsiness decreases when bright light hits the eyes. It feels like the sun hasn’t been shining properly for months and now it illuminates the morning for a long, long time. The gloomy, dark and chilly winter is coming to an end. Spring is coming.

At the same time, I make a playlist of my favorite songs play. The delicate keying of the acoustic guitar slowly begins to intensify in my ears. Then it comes out loud George Harrison.

“Here comes the sun, do do do do,” Harrison sings.

Someone may consider the moment cornish and clichéd, but it has remained an exceptionally powerful experience in my mind. Rarely in my life has there been a similar outburst of hope as that morning Here Comes the Sun. as the song plays in my ears.

I think Here Comes the Sun. is the best song in the world. No other song has made me feel as happy as the 1969 classic The Beatles, composed and written by Harrison.

It’s like a music-compressed version of the best of spring. From the promise that the sunniest, warmest and most beautiful months of the year are coming.

I got it to reflect on my relationship Here Comes the Sun. at the turn of the year, when I thought feverishly what I think are the top 20 songs. I was one of more than 70 people who responded to a questionnaire sent to HS music experts about the best songs in the world.

The end result was put together by me and my colleagues thing, which listed the 100 best songs in the world. In advance, one could be sure that in addition to an interesting discussion, the story would provoke a thud and a murmur..

I don’t think you always have to take music and the stuff you do about it mercilessly seriously. Therefore, trying to put the best songs in the world in order (an impossible task, of course) is not, in my opinion, a bad idea that should cause the eyes to spin. No, although in this listing, too, things could have been better handled in terms of technical implementation.

For me, the story offered great aha experiences: for example, it was great to read a colleague I appreciate Mari Koppisen a reflection on what makes it number one on the list Billie Holidayn Strange Fruit of the song so unconsciously fine. I hope that for at least some of the readers, the story opened up what kind of great songs have been released over the history of popular music.

Of course, the listing could have been much more diverse, for example, in terms of the representation of languages ​​and different regions, but I do not think it is any surprise that Finnish and English songs are emphasized in the listening of Finnish music experts.

List the walk-in also made me think about the superiority of the Liverpool band that revolutionized the world of music in the 1960s.

As many as six of the top 100 songs were produced by The Beatles. No other artist or band got nearly as many songs on the list. The Beatles still seem to be in their own sphere among Finnish musicians when it comes to generally respected and beloved bands. Sure, there are also many who hate The Beatles, but basically the band is still the perfect yardstick for popular music even in the 2020s.

In that sense, it’s even a little boring, unimaginative, like The Beatles. List the production of the Beatles as your favorite song.

That’s exactly what I did myself. My first place was familiar and safe Here Comes the Sun..

I’m not even trying to deny that I’m a very typical Beatles fan as a music listener. I like familiar and safe, well-composed, lyricized and produced pop music. Much of the music I listen to is produced by well-known artists on big records. I’m very interested in which new names manage to produce hit music that sinks to the general public.

The best part is how intense the emotions are caused by the perfect songs. Among my own favorites are just as many extremely sad songs as there are – in the absence of a better word – empowering energy bombs.

Still, what I admire most is how the music makes you feel good. It may be cornish and cliché like the moment I experienced in the early spring morning sunshine, but I enjoy the blissful happiness that spreads to my mind while listening to a certain kind of music.

I don’t mean that music should be a childish song-like lens or just a fuss about nice stuff. On the contrary: the forced pursuit of good mood is often the most horrible thing in music. Instead, it’s a really respectable skill to succeed in making music feel as good and joyful as the best songs can.

I’m not I myself never composed or lyrics a single song, and I will not do so. Therefore, my understanding of the creation process is based purely on interviewing musicians and listening to and reading their interviews.

In a biography published in 1980 I, Me, Mine George Harrison wrote Here Comes the Sunin childbirth.

The song takes place in a time that has become known as the beginning of the end of The Beatles. The gaps between the members of the band were inflamed, Get Back -recording sessions were at least some degree of disaster and plagued by financial problems.

Harrison had already momentarily decided to resign from the Beatles, but still returned to its ranks. The guitarist was not interested in the business meetings held at the office of the Apple company set up around the band, as they felt more like going to school. It told me what kind of stuff should be sung next.

To escape the distressing situation, Harrison went to spend time with his friend Eric Claptonin with. There he walked in the garden and enjoyed the freedom.

The time was early spring 1969. Harrison carried a Clapton guitar with him. There was something special about the moment than just the pleasure of not having to deal with “annoying accountants,” as Harrison puts it in the book.

Maybe, just maybe, Harrison has felt some similar corneal happiness in the garden as he enjoys the first rays of spring as I did decades later.

“It feels like winter in England lasts forever, so when spring comes, it really deserved it,” Harrison wrote of the moment Here Comes the Sun. has its origins.