The Earwyrms Canon, Pt. VI: Splendor

ISSUE #186

I’m tackling the impossible: the 100 best songs ever recorded. Not ranked from #100 to #1, but instead given their own meaningful sequence, a personal structure to reveal itself over the next few weeks. It will be a compass for navigating my sonic perspective. An Official Earwyrms Canon.

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“It Was Always You, Helen” | Philip Glass
1992

Part the horror of the original Candyman comes from the danger lurking behind intense beauty, whether it’s Tony Todd’s resounding purr or Philip Glass’s bewitching score. Guilty desire strikes the match, and poor Helen is helpless as she scales the pyre. This song is playing as she climbs. Chicago looms over empty lots. A choir casts light on the ramshackle truth that lies where no one’s looking.

“The Ecstasy of Gold” | Ennio Morricone
1966

Ecstasy—that’s one way to put it. I would call it havoc. Intensity builds until it bursts, dusting the next day with fallout. Paranoia, chaos, glory, hope—all are dashing full-tilt towards the prize. Here is Morricone’s masterpiece. No resting easy once gold’s been struck. Find the treasure and you’ll be forced to run.

“First Sleep” | Cliff Martinez
2002

People visit as we sleep. Who will I see in my dreams tonight? The beautiful beings who left me? My old friends come to say goodbye? Solaris is a film about such visitors, the hauntings that come from our beating hearts. Cliff Martinez evokes this repetitive, transient state using steel drums, ringing wine glasses, and swirling xylophones. His has become perhaps my favorite score—it’s what I write to every day.

“The Carnival of the Animals: XIII. The Swan” | Camille Saint-Saëns
1886

Perfection belies true loneliness—it’s the swan who often swims alone. No one touches what’s on the pedestal. Too brilliant, too cold, too easy to break. The cello washes over these trickling pianos as love does the swans who hold each other. Perhaps it’s why they mate for life.

“Nocturne No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 9 No. 2” | Frédéric Chopin
1832

The 12/8 meter of Chopin’s second nocturne makes it drowsy as a midnight waltz. It’s languid like the way moths fly, heavy as the cricket’s chirp, drifting like electric light between the clouds and snow. The most famous, sure, of Chopin’s lullabies, but I also find it filled with ruins.

“Laura Palmer’s Theme” | Angelo Badalamenti
1990

Badalamenti composed “Laura Palmer’s Theme” in a way that makes mountains out of melody, but Twin Peaks always underlined the power of valleys. It begged us to notice the in-between. It matters not who killed Laura Palmer—real life is a simple rhythm. It’s circadian, seasonal, a dance of loss and love. One mountain climbed, one slow descent. Between crescendos? The churning sea.

“Suite Bergamasque: III. Clair de Lune” | Claude Debussy
1905

La Lune is our cosmic spawn, born from us through violent impact and now our closest companion. We get to see her every night and still her power never wanes. Her influence is silent, her light sad and beautiful, so soft it does not wake the birds. Notice the glow of skin beneath it. See how truth is often revealed. “Clair de Lune,” our paean to her, hooks just behind the navel and pulls us up.

“Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18: II. Adagio Sostenuto” | Sergei Rachmaninoff
1901

Rachmaninoff wrote a concerto so romantic it sounds like falling sick with pleasure. Fever ripples up our backs if something hits a certain depth. Emotional sensations cause physical reactions. Anticipation, violation, resolution—for what else was the symphony built? It’s here that we create a climax. A song of mating, like the birds.

“Auld Lang Syne” | Guy Lombardo
1929

Perhaps my favorite ever written, “Auld Lang Syne” remains a song so filled with sadness it stops time. At the depths of pain, our memory is a curse. Yet all who forget are living less. Even morsels of happiness are paid with melancholy— but just as memory makes new loves longer, a sad song makes the next year brighter.

“The Sinking of the Titanic” | Gavin Bryars
1975

This was thought to be the hymn that the doomed band played on the sinking Titanic—the part of the film that makes me cry most. Bryars applauded their dedication by recreating how it might have sounded to hear their song beneath the waves. Listen long enough and you can hear it happen. You can almost hear the lurching metal as the ship scrapes its way to the ocean’s floor. A reverse birth, and the band plays on. It always will.

Next week—more to come.