My Top 1000 Songs #548: Waterfall

[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.]

The Stone Roses' eponymous 1989 debut is another one of those albums where I could just throw darts at the tracklist and come up with a bunch of favorites, but I've tried to be selective. "Waterfall" manages to stand out by perfectly encapsulating the record's indebtedness to late 60s pop-folk-psychedelia (shades of Simon & Garfunkel and the Byrds) while giving it a modern British sheen. It's a beautiful lick, hypnotic and enduring, even when flipped over and played backwards (as on the record's following song).

In the studio, 2013:

Live, 2016 reunion show: