My Top 1000 Songs #357: Ruby

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

I adore the Apples in Stereo, so it feels odd that I haven't captured them on this list until now. I think it's another example of a band where maybe they don't have that one drop-dead-perfect song you want to run out and tell your friends about, but rather a body of work packed with dozens of terrific songs making it hard to pick a favorite. So it's kind of a roll of the dice that I've landed on "Ruby," from the 1999 Her Wallpaper Reverie EP, as the first Apples track to make the cut. 

It's a bouncy, piano-driven ditty, more a throwback to gleeful 70s bubblegum than the more guitar-oriented power pop and intricate baroque pop in their catalog. Between the McCartneyesque melody and the sing-along ba-ba-bas, it's a jubilant earworm that gets stuck in your head on first listen.

Live 2007: