Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite Cream Songs

On Saturday, former Cream bassist and lead vocalist Jack Bruce died from liver disease at the age of 71.  If you're not familiar with Cream, you can probably stop reading here and go fuck yourself, they were the first supergroup, featuring Bruce (who had been with Graham Bond Organisation and briefly John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Manfred Mann), drummer Ginger Baker (also of Graham Bond Organisation), and, of course, Eric Clapton (who had been with the Yardbirds and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers at that point).

Although Cream was only together for a little more than two years, they put out four studio albums and had a profound influence on rock and roll.  Top to bottom, I'd be hard-pressed to find a more musically talented group.  Bruce was a phenomenal bassist with a great blues-rock voice, Baker is probably one of the top five drummers ever (and was at the top of his game in Cream), and Clapton is, well, God.  I consider them to be the first hard rock group, and they were certainly heavier than anything that came before them.  On top of that, presumably like many others my age, some of the first blues songs I heard were played by bands like Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Led Zeppelin.  Cream seemed to have been more blues-based than the other two, but Cream also predated the others by a couple years.  It wasn't until years later that I realized "Crossroads" was a classic acoustic Delta blues song from the '30s, "Spoonful" was a Howlin' Wolf song, and "Born Under a Bad Sign" was an Albert King song.

With that, here are my ten favorite Cream songs, in alphabetical order.

1.  "Badge"

In addition to being a great song, "Badge" has a great story.  It was co-written by Clapton and George Harrison, and it was untitled.  The word "bridge" was scrawled on the music sheet indicating, well, the bridge, and urban legend is that Clapton read the word "bridge" as "badge" and laughed because he didn't know what it meant, and then a drunken Ringo Starr came into the studio and provided the line about the swans living in the park.  '60s London must have been awesome.

2.  "Born Under a Bad Sign"

This is a great, brooding blues song.  "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all."  Glass half full, people.

3.  "I Feel Free"

From the beginning "bah bah bah bah bah-bah," this is a feel-good song about feelin' free.

4.  "Rollin' and Tumblin'"

This is a blistering take on a traditional blues song.  The band just tears this song a new one.

5.  "Steppin' Out"

"Steppin' Out" is an up-tempo instrumental where the band, and particularly Clapton, shreds, or as BBC DJ Brian Matthews says on the BBC Sessions, "fixin' to blow your mind."

6.  "Sunshine of Your Love"

This is a classic.  There is something primally satisfying about the riff in this song.  It's so heavy, especially for that time.  It's also the first bass line I learned to play (and pretty much the only one I still know how to play).

7.  "SWLABR"

I've always like this song, but until tonight, I never thought to look up what "SWLABR" stands for.  Apparently it stands for "She Was Like a Bearded Rainbow," which makes sense, given the lyric "you've got that rainbow feel, but the rainbow has a beard," even if you have to be under the influence of lysergic acid diethyl amide to really understand what that means.

8.  "Tales of Brave Ulysses"

This is a dark and beautiful song about a dude who goes on journey, and it's the first song in which Clapton used the wah pedal.  I love the wah pedal.

9.  "Traintime"

This version is from the band's BBC Sessions album, and it's pretty much just Bruce scatting some words about a train in between wailing on a harmonica while Ginger Baker plays the drums real fast.  Sounds strange when I describe it, but it does sound like a runaway train, so that's cool.

10.  "White Room"

"White Room" is the first Cream song I remember hearing, and it's still my favorite.  That gothic-sounding intro sets the stage, before the band bursts into four and a half minutes of rock and roll heaven.  Clapton is particularly good on this one, making good use of the wah pedal.  I love the wah pedal.  Not sure if I've mentioned that yet.