Max Picks …songs from 1965

1965

All of these songs are stone-cold classics. The first two are probably the best-known in their catalog by their respective artist…and that statement is saying a lot. These are in no order but we will kick it off with the song that Keith Richards wrote the riff in bed and then turned over and went to sleep. Luckily he had his tape recorder running and the next morning he listened to his riff and him snoring for hours. The Rolling Stones‘s Satisfaction.

Bob Dylan has his mega vindictive hit Like A Rolling Stone. It’s been voted in some polls as the best rock single ever. I picked a live version backed by the future Band at the Royal Albert Hall the following year.

The Beatles released their second soundtrack album in 1965. The album would bridge Beatlemania to Mid Beatles. It was one of John Lennon’s personal favorite songs he wrote. How they did those great backup vocals without proper monitors is beyond me.

The Who released My Generation in 1965. It wasn’t a top seller in America but it would become one of their best-known songs. They would release brilliant singles throughout the 60s and then help to invent arena rock in the 70s. A band we will be hearing more from.

This fifth spot was hard. I’m being open and honest…it was between Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and The Byrds. This whole thing is based on what I like the most…well, I like Tracks of My Tears and Mr. Tambourine Man around the same. I’m going to include Smokey coming up.

I loved those glasses that Mcguinn wore so much that in 1987 I tracked a pair down. No, they were not easy to find in the eighties. Parachute pants? One white glove? Hair spray? yes…but not the out-of-style small rectangle glasses.

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

47 thoughts on “Max Picks …songs from 1965”

  1. The best Satisfaction ever was when the Stoned played in Cuba. When Like A Rolling Stone was first written it was ten pages long and it didn’t have a name, just a rhythm thing on paper all about Bob’s steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. Dylan referred to it as long piece of vomit, but it went on to become a beloved piece of American art. Nice selection today, Max and some great videos.

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  2. Another year of tough choices. I wouldn’t call “Help” the Beatles best of the year but being the title cut from a movie with a plot gives it a place in history. 1965 also introduced The Yardbirds to US charts – along with ersatz sitar (“Heart Full of Soul”), soon to be followed by the real thing. Then there was the song that became the unofficial anthem of US troops in Viet Nam – “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” (which was also the class song of the class of ’69 at my high school, but the administration picked a different one to overrule the voters). This was the year of James Brown’s first crossover hit with “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”. While a one-hit wonder, Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” brought anger over the war to the pop charts. Soon the greatest music would not appear on records at all but only be heard in San Francisco ballrooms and dance clubs, with attempts to capture the sound on vinyl with varying degrees of success.

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    1. I had Barry McGuire also in the last slot…and Smokey…I went with the Byrds because it represented that era so well. You are right…so many choices to leave off!

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  4. I grew up with parents who listened to country music. Even though I had my transistor radio tuned to the local rock station, three songs I remember so clearly from 1965 are Roger Miller’s King of the Road, Buck Owens singing I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail, and my favorite, Girl on the Billboard by Del Reeves. 1966 was the year of my immersion into rock and roll when the town’s pizza parlor got a brand new jukebox.

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    1. I do know those country songs…I live here so growing up in the 70s as a pre teen I got exposed to a lot of 60s country. I like all of the ones you just mentioned.

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      1. My dad’s dad rode the rails, too, during The Depression and worked for the railroad afterward. King of the Road was an anthem song for many people. His advice to me (and others) was, “Never keep your money in a bank.” He kept his hidden in his toolshed.

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  5. getting to those years where picking just 5 would be tough! Even picking just one Beatles song would be tough I’d maybe opt for ‘In My Life’ , but there was ‘Norwegian Wood’ too… and that’s just one act!

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    1. I just went with Help! because it was a huge seller…and it is a great song. It’s been covered by so many people… most of the time people slow it down to what Lennon originally wanted…it was a ballad but they sped it up to be more commercial.

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      1. oh yeah, perfectly valid choice and good song… you could’ve had all 5 picks be the Beatles and they’d all be reasonable picks, but you’d be missing a lot of other good stuff if you did .

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  6. Yep, it was a good year. The Byrds made the biggest splash with their folk-rock sound. Dylan, the man of mystery writing. I believe he and Joan B were an item about that time, or until he grabbed a strat and broke the folkies hearts. I viewed the Stones as I did the Beatles; you expected a new song from them every month, sort of like the Columbia Record Club. Good picks Dave.

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    1. Thanks Phil! I can’t imagine being around at that time and being in a band that has to put a single out every few months. Both of those bands would not pad their albums with singles either…many times they left them off…well the Beatles consciously left them off their albums.

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  8. There were so many great songs in 1965, I’m surprised you were able to keep it at 5. These are great ones. My 5 would include “Help!”, the Ramsey Lewis Trio’s “The In Crowd,” The McCoys’ “Hang On Sloopy,” The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” and The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.”

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  9. This is where the Boomers/My Generation steamroller really started rolliung in musical terms. No more listening to what the parents wanted to hear; now was the time of portable transistor radios,
    where you could walk down to some empty lot or a park, tune in your Toshiba and listen to the Who, Stones, Beatles, Bob, whoever- and most all of them were articulating the uneasy feelings you were feeling.

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    1. There was so many great songs at this time…I just concentrated on what I knew for sure and didn’t look at anything else…just too many good songs. A good problem to have.
      The radio at that time…yea I would have loved to hear it.

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  10. Another incredible year and I can easily see how it was tricky to keep it to just five songs. While “Satisfaction” certainly hasn’t suffered from underexposure, Keith’s guitar riff remains one of the most iconic ones, and I still love listening to it – also, not bad for something he essentially wrote while he was half asleep! I also dig Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and “Tracks of My Tears” but if given the choice also would have picked the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man” – that jingle-jangle guitar sound is just too sweet to leave out.

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    1. I had to limit myself or you guys would be waiting on this page to load forever…Yea I wish I could list 20 at least.
      I’ll probably finish around 1994 (Cobain dying) and I’ll do a wrap up of the songs I missed…like Stand By Me and many others.

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    1. In 1966…Im finished but I’m going to change them again…I hampered myself with only 5 slots.
      It is getting harder…in 67 it’s hard to pick a Beatles song….but I do know the Kinks song…

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  18. A great post on an impossible target. I loved that you were honest about choosing between the Byrds and Smokey Robinson. Both were great.

    Help was a great political choice, Any Beatles song would have worked (well, within reason) but Help is a great choice. Who could choose?

    So much great music.

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  19. I am new to this blog and having a great time. I wasn’t around when Max originally picked, and while all of his picks (so far, I haven’t seen all the posts yet) are spot on, I trust some would change only because there really is so much great music and he did limit himself to five posts. Me? I don’t remember when records were released. So I hit up the Billboard Top 100 list.

    For this year, out of the Billboard Top 100 list I the number of tunes I didn’t know or don’t like (sure, I know “Laugh At Me” by Sonny without Cher, but, uhm) were in such a minority. Billboard’s #1 ain’t nowhere near the top of my list, but Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs is still a great list. Max is right, though, the top of the list is Satisfaction.

    They list “Cast Your Fate To The Wind” as being by Sounds Orchestral. I heard it by Vince Guaraldi. Hmmm…

    For anyone questioning why Max wisely listed his favorites for the year over the hits, the list I referred to has “Red Roses for a Blue Lady” above Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag. I DON’T THINK SO.

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  20. Found this on YouTube yesterday. Max, if you haven’t seen this, well, I am sure you will love it. Cool British Singles from October 1965.

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