For those unfamiliar with my 2020 best list for Rock and Alternative, the Sins Of Omission is my attempt at being creative for the best list.  It includes a list of songs that I felt were deserving to be hits this year, that failed to make the year-end list.  I’ll have up to ten songs in this column, depending on how many songs I hear that I felt were unfairly overlooked.  Today we have four.

“In My Room” – The Beach Boys

#23 peak

When I mentioned at the beginning of my rant on “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days Of Summer” that good songs could be written about mundane subjects, I meant it.  Brian Wilson and his songwriting partner Gary Usher took the most mundane of subjects – being in your own room – and turned it into pop music bliss.

In my opinion, The Beach Boys really began to grow into their craft not when they made their standard surf rock songs like “Surfin’ Safari” and “Surfin’ USA,” but on their ballads like this.  In particular, the harmonies really stand out on “In My Room” – the way they beautifully ride the chord progression to the top of their falsetto range, then back down again. 

Best of all, “In My Room” is the song that broke the curse regarding the Beach Boys’s subject matter.  Rather than focus on their standard subjects about surfing, cars, and girls, “In My Room” was the beginning of Brian Wilson moving away from standard pop music topics and more towards introspection.  While he would increasingly defer to professional songwriters as the years went on, this song about simply being in your room partially marked the beginning of the Beach Boys maturing into the band that made Pet Sounds and Smile.  And honestly, the song comes off as surprisingly relatable, being in a place where no one can judge you.  Really, after a long, horrible day, who doesn’t just want to hang out in their room?

“All I’ve Got To Do” – The Beatles

Did Not Chart

Oh yeah, these guys made their debut this year.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of The Beatles, but they were a pop rock band from Liverpool, UK who released their first two albums – Please Please Me and With The Beatles – this year.  I don’t consider US-only albums like Meet The Beatles! canon, thank you very much.  And after having their music ignored in America in 1963, this little band from overseas would have only the biggest year a band has ever had on the charts in 1964 (suck it, Drake!), with six number one hits, nine songs on the 1964 Year-End Hot 100 (including the top two songs of the year), and eleven top five hits.  With so many songs from their two 1963 albums that did not make an impact on the charts, there are so many Beatles songs to choose from – the surprisingly happy devastation of “Misery,” or the impassioned plea of “Anna – Go To Him,” or the country influenced love of “All My Loving.”  But in the end, this has always been one of my personal favorites by The Beatles.  So “All I’ve Got To Do” it is.

The Beatles could do almost everything they wanted in terms of genre, from British Invasion pop to psychedelic rock and hard rock, and “All I’ve Got To Do” was one of their primary experiments with R&B and soul music, with the song itself heavily influenced by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles.  As Paul McCartney has stated, “Smokey was like God in our eyes.”  And like The Miracles’ compositions of the time, “All I’ve Got To Do” weaves in and out from its D flat minor and A minor chords to the E chord it ends both the verses and choruses on.  A lot of rock stars fail miserably at attempting to incorporate soul music in their songs, in large part because they don’t have the vocal chops.  But the harmonies of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison are more than capable here.  And Lennon’s lead vocals are just as impassioned as the Motown soul performers that were fledgling during this time, without sounding like a complete clone of Smokey.  Plus, it’s just so perfect that the song ends with the Beatles humming the song’s melody – it should never have worked due to the sheer corniness of the idea, but it just feels like a proper fadeout.  But that’s what The Beatles were.  The Beatles were not only ahead of their time, they were so skilled at taking other genres and making them their own – and “All I’ve Got To Do” is no exception.

“Blowin’ In The Wind” – Bob Dylan

Did Not Chart

Sorry for the lack of description, but I’ll get into this song later on during the main list.  Just a spoiler alert for you all.  

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” – Darlene Love

#19 peak (January 2, 2021)

Phil Spector may have been a raving lunatic who both murdered The Beatles’ final single and an actual person, but you have to remember that he was a legendary producer before all that.  And in 1963, he was at the peak of his powers, producing four top ten hits, and capping it off by releasing A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, quite possibly the most critically acclaimed holiday album of all time, and yet another album on the growing list of the few Christmas albums I don’t hate.  And as with The Beatles, I had quite a bit to choose from to represent the album: the fabulous cover of “Frosty The Snowman” or the galloping “Ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding” cover of “Sleigh Ride.”  But in the end, I had to go with the one original song on the album.

It took me forever for me to think about why I like this song, but I think the reason this song sticks out is because of the vocals.  With how dramatic Phil Spector’s wall of sound was even on his best material, here it teeters on the brink of collapse with its ascending chord progression and the crescendoing strings and pianos.  In this song, however, Love’s vocals hold it all together.  She knows when to pull back, such as at the end of most of the song’s choruses, and she knows when to explode, specifically during the climax with the final high note after the call and response between her and the vocals.  And the backing vocals are on-point too, with the “Christmas” backing vocals being the perfect compliment to Love’s impassioned performance.  But maybe the reason this song is so hard to describe is because it’s one of those relatively recent holiday songs that’s always been with us.  It just sounds like the perfect apothesis to the holiday season with its bells, whistles, and wish to be with your lover for Christmas.  “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” has become essential listening during the holiday season.

UP NEXT: One of the few iconic songs from the year barely made the cut. Which song is it at #10?

SOURCES

“100 Greatest Beatles Songs.” Rolling Stone 2020 April 10. Web. 25 May 2022 https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-154008/hello-goodbye-159615/.

IMAGE SOURCES

“In My Room” single cover from Power Pop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

“All I’ve Got To Do” sheet music cover from Wikipedia

“Blowin’ In The Wind” single cover from Medium

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home” single cover from Spotify