by Gareth Hobbs

Created on: December 30, 2008

What is the best rock song ever? Could there be anything other than politics that would be more open to debate? After all, what I classify as the best song of all time could, to someone else, sound like a chimpanzee bashing a couple of metal dustbins with another chimpanzee.

This means we need to set up some criteria for evaluation of what exactly the best rock song would entail. The first criteria is actually pretty straight forward. The song has to be performed by a band that plays their own instruments. This automatically excludes all those dancing puppets, otherwise known as boy bands. Unfortunately, it also excludes most solo artists who just use the best talent available, but fortunately, no solo artist songs made the cut anyway.

The second criteria would have to be based on whether the song made you want to go out and buy a guitar, after all, the guitar is probably the defining instrument of rock music. If you heard a song and went out to buy a violin, you're either a very confused person, or the song in question wasn't rock.

The third and final criteria used to judge this particular contest was how quickly the song insinuated itself into your consciousness and had you playing air guitar and singing into a hairbrush before practicing your Grammy acceptance speech holding a bottle of maple syrup.

There were a number of other factors that could have been used. The propensity for femal fans to throw undergarments at the band is one.
However, that speaks more to the attractiveness of the band members than to the merits of the song. 5 songs have been chosen and these are ranked below.

At number 5 comes a song from Irish Supergroup U2. A number of songs performed by these Irishmen, but the one that made the grade is Sunday, Bloody Sunday. I know what you're thinking. They wimped it up in there more recent live performances, but the original as released on War had everything required and more. As well as the awesome guitar work, crashing power chords and thumping back beat, it had a message. I've never been able to decipher what exactly the message is, but, I'm sure it's there.

The fourth placed song is more a screaming outburst than melodius crooning, but the guitar is the real star. Thunderstuck by ACDC resonated with a whole generation and any self-respecting twenty-something on the verge of becoming a thirty-something will be able to remember jumping around screaming "Thunder!"

In third place was a song that was relatively well known and loved prior to it's inclusion

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