Having a favorite band is like having a favorite song, it doesn’t seem to work as well when you are older than, say, 15. Two bands come to mind, Def Leppard (through the Hysteria album) and R.E.M. I’ve never seen the former in concert but I’ve seen the latter twice. However, when I think about it, I discovered and enjoyed Def Leppard quite a few years before I discovered and enjoyed R.E.M. so I guess I’ll go with them as my favorite band.
Now there’s the difficulty of picking a song. First of all, I’ll rule out anything after Hysteria because I think that album was really their peak. In going through the list of songs in the first four album, one most certainly comes to mind, but it isn’t one that I’ve ever heard played on the radio:
Overture by Def Leppard
For those who’ve never heard it, the song is the final track of their debut album, On Through the Night. I like the song for many reasons. It is an epic, much like the hEagles “The Last Resort”; one that tells a futuristic story. There is no chorus to the song and I like when songwriters do that. A number of Pink Floyd songs do this as well. It’s got an intro and conclusion that are completely different from the rest of the song, something that you can find in some of Metallica’s longer pieces. And it is itself one of Def Leppard’s longer songs. It is also a heck of a lot of fun to listen to. If you’ve never heard the song before, you can listen to it here. Check it out.
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