My Top 1000 Songs #675: Little Fluffy Clouds

[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 am, as you've likely surmised, generally a two-guitars-bass-and-drums kinda guy. But this jubilant bit of electronica was pretty inescapable back in 1990, well-timed for my law school years when I was a little at sea musically and picking up whatever caught my attention. Spoken-word samples from an interview with singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones are backed by a catchy synth hook, kept percolating along courtesy of a drum loop apparently sampled from legendary/tragic session drummer Jim Gordon on a Harry Nilsson song. Yet ambient act The Orb somehow wove those stray pieces into pure magic. Sure, a lot of it is the child-like wonder in Jones' voice as she describes the cloud formations from her childhood in Arizona, but it makes for a compelling collage that all these years later still feels emotionally rich and absolutely unique. 

Extended mix:

Live world music version, 2013: