My Top 1000 Songs #360: Stand & Deliver!

[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.]

Following yesterday's post with another song where it's all about the percussion--in this case, a feel-it-in-your-bones rolling thunder that reminds me of the locomotive thrust of those Sweet songs that had excited me as a little kid. 

I have a vague recollection of first coming across "Stand And Deliver!" (from 1981's Prince Charming) on one of those late-night cable video shows back in high school. I don't think MTV paid any attention to Adam & The Ants (they'd catch up once he was simply Adam Ant), so it was new to me, and like a lot of UK new wave music, felt totally thrilling. The video, of course, was captivating, unnaturally pretty Adam and the whole theatrical motif. But the music really got my attention, the flamboyant, confident vocals and those barreling drums and the bagpipe guitars and the rousing call-and-response shouts in the chorus. And the long fade-out, the vocal chants and drums, that could've gone on forever and I would've stuck around. Another great song that had me thinking, wow, there's a lot of really exciting new music they're not playing on the radio around here...

Live:

Adam Ant live in 2012: