Expecting Rain

Has there been a top 10 favourite shows? If not i'll start with mine off the top of my head.

1. Tennessee

2. Women's Names

3. Flowers

4. Fools

5. Weather

6. Number 1

7. Madness

8. Texas

9. War

10. California


Nice to hear some other favourite shows!

oke.
1. Telephone
2. Radio
3. Summer
4. Flowers
5. Hair
6. Springcleaning
7. Birds
8. Time
9. Coffee
10.Luck.

War
Trains
Devil
Jail
Madness
Classic Rock
Water
Goodbye
Texas
Number One

Just listened to the 'Questions' show, gotta squeeze that in the top 10 somewhere. Apart from the great catchy playlist we get bob educating the folks on the history of the question mark and punctuation, the story of the sphinx & Oedipus, a piece on Socrates, and his answer to the callers question on how to write a song leading into Marvin Gaye is priceless. Sometimes the show's just click, I reckon this is one of em.

P.S I've been hoping for more top 10 shows from others, There are 100 shows and this is a good way of revisiting those which I may have not listened to closely or fully appreciated.

Great to hear some reasons why these are your favourite shows too!

In no particular order:

coffee
the devil
smoking
drinking
war
cops & robbers
rich man, poor man
radio
baseball
friends & neighbours
heroin (actually that one hasn't been recorded yet)

Ask me tomororw and you'd get an almost new list!

These aren't my "Top 10" as much as "10 of My Favorite TTRHs"... I liked the music on all these - but I can say that for nearly any of the 100 TTRHs. These are the ones that stand out in my mind for more than the music.

1. Weather - Because it was the first and set the standard for the rest.

2. Baseball - Mr. D. doing an a capella Take Me out to the Ball Game.

3. Flowers - The leader in def poetry readings and the bonus of Tiny Tim.

4. Friends & Neighbors - The "What happened to country music?" rant.

5 (tie). Halloween/Christmas and New Year's - "The Raven" and "A Visit from Saint Nick." Plus both handled a holiday theme without crossing over into Dr. Demento territory, or even "Christmas Party with Eddie G." territory.

6. Days of the Week - The "Commercial Affiliations" rant.

7, 8, 9. California, Classic Rock, and Cadillac - The Three Big C's from `07. I thought these three consecutive shows that ran in the early part of Season 2 were arguably the apex of TTRH.

10. Goodbye - Not only because it was the last, but you could tell the TTRH team wanted to go out with guns blazing... and they did.

Thinking it over, I'm biased towards Season 1, probably because I've re-listened to those shows more than the other two seasons. But I've found I like Season 2 more than I did when it first aired. I just re-listened to "Walking" for instance, and found I liked it a lot better than I remembered from the first time around.

I still feel that Seasons 2 and 3 weren't as strong overall as Season 1, although there are individual shows from each season as strong as anything that aired during Season 1. And I go back now and listen to some of the early shows and I'm amazed at how much Mr. D. grew into his deejay role over the three seasons. The first few shows you can almost see him and Eddie G. groping around for something for him to say... lots of repetition of lyrics when they had nothing else, with Bob doing his patented inflections. By the end he sounded like he had been broadcasting from the Abernathy since Methuselah was a pup. Go listen to "Weather" and then "Goodbye" to hear what I mean.

Anyway, as I said, "10 of My Favorites." I could have easily picked ten others. And probably 10 more after that. But I'm a fanboy.

In no particular order:

Baseball
Summer
Christmas
Goodbye
Radio
Sugar & Candy
Heat
Young & Old
Time
Devil

I just picked the ones that have the most songs that I love. There are a lot of great bits by Bob in many of the shows, but I can never remember which shows have which bits. I remember thinking I wasn't that crazy about the Neighbors episode because I didn't recall many of the songs but then when I went back and listened to it again I realized it had the classic "country music" rant!

Some reasons for my favourites:

Tennessee: for single handedly giving me the addiction to country music.

Women's names: every song is a ripper on a perfect theme.

Flowers: When the Roses bloom again, George Jones, oh alright & Tiny Tim.

Weather: Yeah it's the first, The beautiful voice of Johnny Bragg and his story, and this one almost sounds like it's being recorded in a bunker away from some stormy weather, sometimes it's like you can hear the wind blowing outside the studio.

Fools: another perfect theme so many good fools songs the tradgedy of Frankie Lyman.

No 1: Harry Nilsson starts of another smooth flowing collection.

Madness: Love Bob's Symptom list at the beginning, Pretzels but really what holds this one is Jack Kittel's Psycho creepiest song ever written.

War: It's epic sombre proportions make it stand out.

Texas: Love it like Tennessee.

California: I sense a lack of reverence which clearly exists in the other themes of great states Bob seems to be poking a bit of fun at California also his reading of the chapter from Grapes of Wrath blew me away & immediately went and read it!