Favorite/Best song of Cale's Career

So I thought this would be an interesting topic. First, what is your personal favorite Cale song? Second, what do you think objectively is the best song of his career from a critical standpoint? It can technically be the same song but I think favorite and best song are two different things. You can pick a couple if you can't choose one.

This is a hard choice but I'm going with:

1. My personal favorite Cale song is "Amsterdam".
2. I think his best song is "Dying on the Vine".

1. Evidence
2. Autobiography

Hmm,

1. Wilson Joliet
2. Wilson Joliet

Strange Times In Casablanca
Riverbank

1) Almost impossible to pick just one favourite song! "Style it takes" maybe.
2) That one is easier. "Dying on the Vine"

I’m sorry Paul. I just can’t seem to make up my mind. Hmm,

A Dream
Adelaide
All I Want Is You
All My Friends
All Tomorrow's Parties (Velvet Underground)
Amsterdam
Angel Of Death
Antarctica Starts Here
Archimedes
Autobiography
Baby What You Want Me To Do
Baby You Know
Bamboo Floor
Barracuda
Been There Done That
Big White Cloud
The Biggest, Loudest, Hairest Group Of All
Black Rose
The Black Angel's Death Song (Velvet Underground)
Bring It On Up
Broken Bird
Broken Hearts
Brotherman
Buffalo Ballet
Burned Out Affair C
Cable Hogue
Café Shabu
Captain Hook
Caravan
Caribbean Sunset
Casey At The Bat
Changes Made
Charlemagne
Child's Christmas in Wales
Chickenshit
China Sea
Chinese Envoy
Chorale
Chums of Dumpty
Cleo
Close Watch
Coral Moon
Cordoba
Crazy Egypt
Crime In The Desert
Damn Life
Dance Of The Seven Veils
Dancing Undercover
Darling I Need You
Daybreak
Dead Or Alive
Dirty Ass Rock 'n' Roll
Dixieland And Dixie
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Don't Know Why She Came
Dr. Mudd
Dying On The Vine
E Is Missing
Emily
Empty Bottles
Empty Frame
The Endless Plain of Fortune
Engine
Entre Nous
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
Everytime The Dogs Bark
Evidence
Experiment Number 1
Faces And Names
Fadeaway Tomorrow
Fairweather Friend
Fear Is A Man's Best Friend
Fighter Pilot
Footsteps
For A Ride
Forever Changed
Frozen Warnings
Fucking Your Neighbour's Wife
Ghost Story
Gideon's Bible
Graham Greene
Grandfather's House
Gravel Drive
Gun
Guts
Half Past France
Hanky Panky Nohow
Hedda Gabler
Helen Of Troy
Helium Sunset
Hello It's Me
Hello There
The High And Mighty Road
Honi Soit (La première Leçon De Français)
Hungry For Love
Hush

I Believe
I'm Not The Loving Kind
If You Were Still Around
Images
Imitating Violin
In A Flood
In The Backroom
In The Library of Force
Indistinct Notion Of Cool
It Wasn't Me
Jack the Ripper
The Jeweller
Jumbo In Tha Modernworld
King Harry
Lament
Lay My Love
Leaving It Up To You
Legs Larry At The Television Centre
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Letter From Abroad
Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed
Look Horizon
Love Me Two Times
Macbeth
Magazines
Magic & Lies
Maps Of The World
Magritte
Mailman (The Lying Song)
Mary Lou
Memphis
Mercenaries (Ready For War)
Model Beirut Recital
Modern World
Momamma Scuba
Mr. Wilson
My Maria
Nobody But You
Ocean Life
Old China
On A Wedding Anniversary
One Word
Only Time Will Tell
Ooh La La
Open House
Outta The Bag
Over Her Head
Overture
Paradise Nevada
Paris 1919
Pastoral Angst
Perfect
Perfect Moon
Please
Praetorian Underground
Punk Christmas
Queen Victoria
Reading My Mind
Ride Into The Sun
Risé, Sam And Rimsky-Korsakov
The River
Riverbank
Rollaroll
Rosegarden Funeral of Sores
Russian Roulette
Sabotage
Sanities
Satellite Walk
Satisfied
Save Us
Secret Corrida
Secrets
Set Me Free
She Never took No For an Answer
Ship Of Fools
Short Of Time
Ski Patrol
The Sleeper
Slip Away (A Warning)
Smalltown
So Much For Love
So What
Sold Motel
Somebody Should Have Told Her
Some Friends
Song Of The Valley
Spinning Away
Starlight
Strange Times In Casablanca
Streets Come Alive
Style It Takes
Sudden Death
Sylvia Said
Taking It All Away
Taking Your Life In Your Hands
Tell Me Why
The Hunt
The Man Who Couldn't Afford To Orgy
The Soul of Carmen Miranda
The Soul Of Patrick Lee
There Was A Saviour
Thoughtless Kind
Things
Things X
Ton Ton Macoute
Trouble With Classicists
Turn The Lights On
Twilight Zone
Verses
Vigilante Lover
Villa Albani
Waiting for Blonde
Wasteland
Where There's A Will
Why Don't You Smile Now
Wilderness Approaching
Willow Weep For Me
Wilson Joliet
Who's In Charge?
Woman
Work
You & Me
You Know More Than I Know
Zen

Justine wrote:Strange Times In Casablanca
Riverbank

I almost picked Riverbank too. I feel like the song is really overlooked.

Quite tough...but still...

1. Leaving it up to you
The studio and the Fragments version - I'm totally addicted to them what leads to experiments like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhmoMyf8xwE

2. Dying on the vine
But the naked version like on Fragments. Until now everybody I forced to listen to it loved it, while other songs lead to mixed reactions.

Nayika wrote:Quite tough...but still...

1. Leaving it up to you
The studio and the Fragments version - I'm totally addicted to them what leads to experiments like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhmoMyf8xwE

2. Dying on the vine
But the naked version like on Fragments. Until now everybody I forced to listen to it loved it, while other songs lead to mixed reactions.

Same here, except I use the version with the string quartet from the BBC. People always seem to like it and it's the perfect introduction to Cale.

Paul wrote:I almost picked Riverbank too. I feel like the song is really overlooked.

Hi Paul, I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs Cale has written. It’s a song from the pacifist heart. Always gets me very emotional. It was partly inspired by the story of Ophelia’s suicide by drowning in Hamlet. It also refers to the war widows of Vietnam and the mothers of children killed there. Cale wrote the Honi Soit songs when becoming more and more aware of his own painful emotional condition. This was the state of mind he was in when he created his next album, my favourite, Music for a New Society.

This is a damn tuff one to answer, but I´ll still go for it:
1. King Harry - still haven´t sussed out how many instruments there are, each playing it´s own sweet little tune. And then you´ve got Cale´s sinister whispering. Love it!
2. Sabotage - dissonant and destructive. This is Cale at his subversive best!
Definitely his worst song is Cleo!!!!! AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

1. Model Beirut Recital
Magazines
Look Horizon
Guts
Dying On The Vine
2. Evidence
Turn The Lights On
Over Her Head
Mercenaries
The Hunt
Ghost Story
Hedda Gabler
3. Helen Of Troy
Dancing Undercover
Wake Up The Boys
Uncle Sam In Samoa
Wilson Joliet

1. Hedda Gabler
2. Chorale

Hi! Another side to Cale’s wealth of musical talent that really has me hooked is his ability to put to music, or recitation as he did with Lament when I saw him in Leiden in 2003, the poetry of Dylan Thomas. Not at all easy to read let alone put to music. And yet he orchestrated the now familiar four – There Was A Saviour; On A Wedding Anniversary; Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed; and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, to create a masterpiece in Words For The Dying. The latter three became more popular after the release of his Fragments album, especially the romping Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. But to hear him recite Thomas’s Lament was quite an unexpected treat.

Yes, Hedda Gabler, Chorale is wonderful. Very Gaelic in way . Or should I say Celtic to keep Wales in.
Really this thread should be asking for more than two categories:
1. personal fave - no problem, it's personal
2. critically best
3. most appealing to the masses

I think the last two are quite different. Above I see Dying on the Vine branded as no. 2 for reasons that would but it under no. 3. It could probably be broken down even further. Just keeping things interesting.

Nolan wrote:Yes, Hedda Gabler, Chorale is wonderful. Very Gaelic in way . Or should I say Celtic to keep Wales in.
Really this thread should be asking for more than two categories:
1. personal fave - no problem, it's personal
2. critically best
3. most appealing to the masses

I think the last two are quite different. Above I see Dying on the Vine branded as no. 2 for reasons that would but it under no. 3. It could probably be broken down even further. Just keeping things interesting.

When I first made this thread I was already afraid my 2 categories were too specific. But I like the additions and the worst song thing.

I find it interesting you think Vine is more of a 3 than 2 in your mind. While Vine does appeal to a larger audience I was think it is critically the best song of his career.

I would say his version of Hallelujah is most appealing to the masses.

I wonder, my logic for no. 2 category is this:
-John Cale is a very special artist (we all agree on this, I am sure)
-What song best captures that 'specialness' in a fairly objective way (as opposed to personal factors)?

Now that is the interesting category and I really don't think 'Dying on the Vine' is up to the job. It is lovely but I think it is a bit ordinary to capture the zeitgeist of Cale for us. To me the song in this (new?) category must capture the discord and sonic terrorism that somehow is reconciled with an immense beauty. It must be obscure and intriguing. It must be frightening and melodic...

Nolan wrote:It could probably be broken down even further. Just keeping things interesting.

Oh! And then there are the great songs he’s co-written, like Cordoba with Brian Eno; Style It Takes with Lou Reed, and Dying On The Vine with author Larry “Ratso” Sloman.

ForARide wrote:Definitely his worst song is Cleo!!!!! AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Haha! Cheers ForARide, I can’t stop singing that damn Cleo now. One song I definitely don’t get is Outta The Bag. Drives the dogs mad and I can't sing it. And Ski Patrol is not far behind.

Ski patrol is indeed odd. Was its purpose to break the flow of Slow Dazzle allowing Guts to hit us in the, well, guts? The contrast highlighting the darkness around it. That said I don't quite trust the jauntiness, it still seems dark - like a nursery rhyme sung sweetly by a lunatic. I guess that it therefore adds to Slow Dazzle even though as a stand along track, it's not much.

at the Flux festival Edinburgh in 1999 Cale played a few other Dylan Thomas poems at the request of the concert promoter