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“From a Distance” is a song by American singer-songwriter Julie Gold, initially penned in 1985.   Gold’s friend Christine Lavin introduced the song to Nanci Griffith, who first recorded it for her 1987 album Lone Star State of Mind. A successful cover version by Bette Midler was released in 1990. Kathy Mattea released a cover of it on her 1991 album Time Passes By.

Julie Gold has stated that she believes in an immanent and beneficent God, and also thinks that people have a right to interpret the song any way they want, as with all art.   She has stated that the song is about the difference between how things appear to be and how they really are.

“From a Distance” became an international commercial success after it was covered by American singer Bette Midler for her seventh studio album, Some People’s Lives (1990). World events at this time gave the song a resonance as an anthem during the Gulf War.  It reached number one on the US Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and number two on both the Cash Box Top 100 and Billboard Hot 100 charts.   The song went on to win a Grammy for Song of the Year (for Julie Gold) in 1991 and a “3 Million Airs Award” from Broadcast Music Incorporated. The song also reached the top 10 in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand. In the United Kingdom, the song peaked at number six following a re-release in 1991, having originally failed to make the top 40 when released concurrently with Cliff Richard‘s version.

Midler re-recorded a Christmas edition for her 2006 Christmas album, Cool Yule, with additional lyrics by Los Angeles native Jay Landers. Additional recordings of the original have been performed by Gold, Griffith, Simon Nicol (of Fairport Convention) and many others.

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“Mack the Knife” or “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” (German: “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer”) is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera (German: Die Dreigroschenoper). The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld named Macheath, the “Mack the Knife” of the title.

The song has become a popular standard recorded by many artists after it was recorded by Louis Armstrong in 1955 with translated lyrics by Marc Blitzstein. The most popular version of the song was by Bobby Darin in 1959, whose recording became a number one hit in the US and UK and earned him two Grammys at the 2nd Annual Grammy Awards. Ella Fitzgerald also received a Grammy for her performance of the song in 1961.

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“The Ballad of the Green Berets” is a 1966 patriotic song co-written and performed by Barry Sadler, in the style of a ballad about the United States Army Special Forces. It was one of the few popular songs of the Vietnam War years to cast the military in a positive light.

The song became a major hit in January 1966, reaching number one for five weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, and was ranked number one of that chart’s most successful songs of 1966. It was also a crossover hit, reaching number one on Billboard‘s Easy Listening chart and number two on Billboard‘s Country survey. “The Ballad of the Green Berets” was the most commercially successful topical song of the Vietnam War era.

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“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” is a folk song written by American singer-songwriter Pete Seeger in 1955. Inspired lyrically by the traditional Cossack folk song “Koloda-Duda”, Seeger borrowed an Irish melody for the music and published the first three verses in Sing Out! magazine.  Additional verses were added in May 1960 by Joe Hickerson, who turned it into a circular song.  Its rhetorical “where?” and meditation on death place the song in the ubi sunt tradition.  In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of its selections of the “Top 20 Political Songs”.

The 1962 album version of the song was released as part of the Columbia Records Hall of Fame 45 single series in 1965 as 13–33088.  The recording of the song by Pete Seeger was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002 in the Folk category with the release year given as 1964 as a Columbia Records single.

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These Mondays are going by way too fast!

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“We Will Rock You” is a song by the British rock band Queen from their 1977 album News of the World, written by guitarist Brian May.  Rolling Stone ranked it number 330 of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time” in 2004,  and the RIAA it placed at number 146 on the Songs of the Century list in 2001. In 2009, “We Will Rock You” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Other than the last 30 seconds, which contains a guitar solo by May, the song is generally set in a cappella form, using only stomping and clapping as a rhythmic body percussion beat. In 1977, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” were issued together as a worldwide top 10 single.   Soon after the album was released, many radio stations played the songs consecutively, without interruption.

Since its release, “We Will Rock You” has been covered, remixed, sampled, parodied, referred to, and used by multiple recording artists, TV shows, films and other media worldwide.  It has also become a popular stadium anthem at sports events around the world, mostly due to its simple rhythm.  On 7 October 2017, Queen released a Raw Sessions version of the track to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of News of the World. It features a radically different approach to the guitar solo and includes May’s count-in immediately prior to the recording.

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“Islands in the Stream” is a song written by the Bee Gees and recorded by American country music artists Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. It was released in August 1983 as the first single from Rogers’s fifteenth studio album Eyes That See in the Dark. The Bee Gees released a live version in 1998 and a studio version in 2001.

The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, giving each of Rogers and Parton their second pop number-one hit (after Rogers’s “Lady” in 1980 and Parton’s “9 to 5” in 1981). It also topped the Country and Adult Contemporary charts. In 2005 the song topped Country Music Television‘s poll of the best country duets of all time; Parton and Rogers reunited to perform the song on a CMT special. As of May 2023, it has been triple certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for three million certified units.

Named after the 1970 novel by Ernest Hemingway, the song was originally written for Diana Ross in an R&B style but later reworked for the duet by Rogers and Parton.

It has been claimed that the song was also intended for Marvin Gaye. This is attributed to a 2001 Good Morning America interview with the Bee Gees. When Barry Gibb said the song was written for Ross, Robin Gibb interrupted and said, “No, we wrote it for Marvin Gaye … We sent it to him but he was dead so it was a bit difficult for him to sing it.”  Gaye actually died in 1984, a year after the recording.  Separately, Robin Gibb has said the song was stylistically written “… as a Tamla kind of soul song in a Marvin Gaye type feel”, though not asserting it was for Gaye.  In other interviews, Barry Gibb has always maintained that Ross was the original artist for the song with no mention of Gaye.

For licensing reasons, the song was not included on the digital release of Eyes That See in the Dark from Capitol Records Nashville. Sony Music, the current owner of RCA Records, protected copyrights in the recording, which is digitally available only in various compilations from Sony Music, especially those of Dolly Parton.

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“(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” is best known as a hit for the Monkees. Released in November 1966, the song became the first Monkees B-side to chart, reaching #20 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[4] Musicians featured on the recording are Micky Dolenz (lead vocal), Tommy Boyce (backing vocal), Wayne Erwin and Gerry McGee (rhythm guitar), Louis Shelton (lead guitar), Bobby Hart (Vox Continental organ), Larry Taylor (bass), Billy Lewis (drums) and Henry Lewy (percussion).

The single, stereo album, and mono album versions contain several differences. In the stereo version, the track’s title is sung just before the second verse, whereas on the single and mono album versions, this segment is left instrumental. The stereo version has an edit in the fadeout, but the mono album version does not have this edit and therefore has a longer coda. The single also does not have the edit, but it fades out earlier than does the mono album. All Monkees hits compilations through the mid-1980s used the stereo version, and afterward typically used the single version.

The Monkees’ version is featured in the “romp” segments of several episodes of the group’s television series. It has also been heard in episodes of shows such as The Queen’s Gambit and Zoo.

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“Dancing in the Street” is a 1964 hit song by Martha & The Vandellas, released on Motown’s Gordy label. Co-written by Marvin Gaye, it peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song is celebrated as an iconic Motown anthem for summer and social unity, often mistaken as a protest song.

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“Nice to Be with You” is a 1972 song, from the album of the same name, by Gallery.

On Dick Clark‘s American Bandstand of February 26, 1972, “Nice to Be with You” – which had just debuted on that day on the Hot 100 – received a “lousy” average of 57.5, on a scale from 35 to 98, on the “Rate-a-Record” segment of the show. Nevertheless, the group performed the song on the May 13, 1972 American Bandstand.

It became an international top 5 hit, reaching No. 4 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 on Cashbox,  WCFL,  and WLS.  It also reached No. 1 in Canada. The song reached No. 4 in Australia and No. 2 in New Zealand.

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“I’m into Something Good” is a song composed by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and made famous by Herman’s Hermits. The song was originally recorded by Cookies member Earl-Jean on Colpix Records in 1964.