- Song: Over the Hills and Far Away
- Artist: Gary Moore
- Year: 1987
I bet you didn’t see this coming! Neither did I, until three years ago. I had first heard this song on the old Finnish TV show ”Levyraati” where five panel members reviewed new singles. Back in those days, it was one of the very few ways of catching new music as it was released. At the time, I thought that Over the Hills and Far Away was an ok song and I sure didn’t turn off the radio or the TV when the song was on, but I never thought about getting the single myself. Somehow though, the memory of the song stuck, and 26 years later when I had entered my ”rock phase”, I wanted to listen to the song again. I found it, listened to it, and was blown away by it. Just like that! The song has everything I love about a song – it has flow, it has drive, it has big drums and a wicked guitar solo, it has a story, it has a violin and it powers on as a force of nature, like storm waves hitting the Irish coast.
When I thought about which song I would lift as the number one, I kept putting other songs in the top position. On paper. But then every time I hear this song, I’m blown away again, and I think about how this could very well be the best song ever made. In reality, it was a hit for Gary Moore but not a global number one hit. It didn’t win any awards and I can’t remember if it won a lot of critical acclaim otherwise either. All of that doesn’t matter to me. I hear this song and everything in my world is beautiful and perfect, there are no worries and no pain, there is no war, unfairness, inequality, terrorism, poverty, global warming or famine.
If a song can do all that, then how could it be anything else but my all time favourite song?
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