Best Chrissie Hynde/Pretenders songs

Back on the Chain Gang is one of the finest songs ever written.

You like that Adult Contemporary dreck the best?

Go, R2!

You showed him what that hole was for....yeah

Even Chrissie Hynde hates I'll Stand by You.

Back on the Chain Gang is their best.

Written by Hynde after half the damn band OD'd, it was profound, almost poetic, with beautiful guitar work. Their biggest American chart hit.

One of the greatest rock songs of all time

THE WAIT

"Middle of the Road" is one of the best hard rock songs I've ever heard.

and I write this as someone who mostly has listened to soul and R&B all my life.

Back to Ohio, Every Mother's Son, and Stop Your Sobbing.

Four more replies and someone will chime in about her father being a Trumper.

I'll Stand By You is the only song of theirs I can stand.

R4 Agree. It really is perfection.

The whole song is infused with melancholy but when she goes up to a higher note at 2:37 or so and then again sings "I found a picture of you".....that whole verse.......it made me cry at 13, and makes me tear up today.

MARY! *sobs*

I don’t care r4 whether Hynde likes that song. I love it because I’m living it.

[quote] Back to Ohio

I believe R7 is speaking of My City Was Gone.

I got the Extended Play EP released in between their first two albums and played it into the ground.

Talk of the Town was probably my favorite on the record. Chrissie Hynde at her most seductive.

R12 Talk of the Town and I Go to Sleep are awesome!

Get Close was a bit glossier, but this was a great song.

I liked this too - though clearly it was a bit more poppy

Show Me is a great song. It’s one of the few love songs that fesses up to not really being sure what love actually is. Which I find kinda brave.

So many great Pretenders songs though. Stop Your Sobbing, 2000 Miles, Don’t Get Me Wrong, Back On The Chain Gang, Tatooed Love Boys, Watching The Clothes Go Round… it’s hard to choose just one. I fucking LOVE Chrissie.

This is very mellow and different for the band and for Chrissie, but it means a lot to me.....it reminds me of my late mother.

Back on the Chain Gang is horrid

I'm special

I'm......precious

No love for KID yet?

2000 Miles Christmas song

Message of Love is my all time favorite.

Extended play.

Not a fan of theirs, but I like Brass In Pocket.

Has anybody ever seen Chrissie Hynde's forehead?

Back on the Chain Gang

R23 I forgot about Message Of Love! Oh it’s good, good, good! Like Brigitte Bardot!

I had a fantasy of Message of Love playing at my wedding.

That ending just always reminds me of that era, and of Cleveland/Ohio.

OP, I agree. I love I'll Stand By You. It's a heartbreaker and not at all like Chrissie's usual thing. I love her and was amazed at how touching this was.

I loathe I'll Stand by You.

Night in my Veins is OK.

Maybe "Kid." I saw them in concert in the late '80s. Her voice was beautiful, on key, like a bell.

I’ve seen them a couple of times in concert, and it’s always a good show.

I do think Back on the Chain Gang is their best, but I also love I Go To Sleep, Stop Your Sobbing, Brass in Pocket, Mystery Achievement, Precious. Do not care for Middle of the Road or I’ll Stand By You.

Talk Of The Town, Kid and Show Me are my favorites.

The unusually heartbreaking ‘Back on the Chain Gang’ is my fave.

I absolutely love them. Can’t pick one.

Last year I listened religiously to the demo for “Talk of the Town”.

Chrissie sounds like she lost her voice or was sick and there’s a charm to it I love.

That was great R35. It has kind of a funk sound to it. Chrissy sounds like she is recovering from a cold.

That is really cool, R35. I've always loved how Chrissie says "I had a weesh" on that track.

[quote]I don’t care [R4] whether Hynde likes that song. I love it because I’m living it.

Don't be a doormat.

Fun fact: Chrissie is pregnant with Ray Davies' baby in the Back on the Chain Gang video.

Yep, R39. The woman flying through the air at various points looks like Chrissie, but it's a stuntwoman.

Chrissie was about five months along, and trampoline work was out.

[quote]the lucky bitch

Except Ray Davies dumped her when she got pregnant, and half her band died within months.

Kid, Tattooed Love Boys, Night in my Veins, everything. Chrissie is brilliant in every way. A true artist.

[quote]Except Ray Davies dumped her when she got pregnant

I thought she dumped him for the guy from the Simple Minds?

Even her backup vocals on "My Love Life" by that dreadful egotist nationalist Morrissey is sublime.

Private Life.

R38, you are a shit. The song is important to me because I’m taking care of my husband. He has cancer.

Kid and Brass in Pocket are my favorites by the Pretenders.

Her solo record is fucking BEYOND. Completely different from her Pretenders' stuff

Hey OP. Been there. I see you. What you're doing is exhausting. noble, and an ultimate act of love. Wishing you all the best.

Glorious. Where it goes at/after 2:45.......*sobs* MARY!

Some of her work outside the Pretenders is quite interesting.

She did a record of standards and old pop songs that is quite good. She said she did it because she missed melody, which she finds largely lacking in contemporary pop.

I like this version better than Streisand’s.

And the stripped-down Dylan album she did to keep her sanity during the pandemic is really wonderful.

She makes some very interesting, quite unexpected choices in her song selections.

Their first two LPs mean a lot to me as I listened to them a lot as a troubled youth in the early 80’s. I always tear up when I hear “Birds of Paradise.”

But I also thought so many songs they did in the years following were incredible too.

I LOVE the Pretenders... tried to get tickets to their show at Pappy & Harriet's but it sold out in less than 20 seconds. Love all the songs mentioned here... My Baby is one of my favorites.

Also love Boots of Chinese Plastic... very punky

I really don't understand "Best of" threads like this... is there really a "best"? I prefer "Favorite" and yea, for some it's the more radio-friendly tracks from the bands later albums, a few posters have referenced earlier, edgier, punkier tracks.

I'm in the latter camp and one of my favorites is Pack it Up. Damn, it is so good.

And btw, the cover photo for Pretenders II is fabulous.

OP?

❤️😘❤️

R48, perhaps this post is what needed to be said, in order for some perspective to be gained, & turn things around in a positive direction.

OP is necessarily shooting in the dark.

Correction:

“isn’t necessarily shooting in the dark.”

I don't love a lot of late Pretenders, but I love Break Up the Concrete

The only song I like is Show Me and I like it for a couple reasons: first, her voice of course which is full of longing and at the 2:34 mark she sings, ‘welcome here from outer space’ and then the guitar makes a sound how one might imagine outer space would sound like or portrayed in a movie. Like when you hear a brassy sax and expect a stripper, or a harmonica indicates a western.

I like subtle and clever things like that. I would’ve liked to have been in their recording session to see how that part came to fruition.

R58 I like everything about your post except for the part where you said Show Me is the only Pretenders song you like.

The lyrics of Show Me are awe-inspiring.

Hilarious that OP picked the worst Pretenders song of all time.

The correct answer is "Middle of the Road."

I beat the shit out of her one time.

Yep, it's Kelly/Steinberg shiteous twaddle.

It's about as "authentically" Pretenders as "All I Wanna Do" is authentically Heart.

But it seems to be an anthem for recovering addicts

Happy 72nd Birthday, Bitch!

Here she is doing Back on the Chain Gang live three days ago, now age 73. She sounds amazing.

There's a lot.

Talk of the Town is one of my all time faves.

Stop Your Sobbing. By far. Then the deep cut Every Mother's Son. I wish this song were more well known. The lyrics are so real and heartbreaking.

I saw them in concert several time back in the early days with the original band. This thread is making me feel old and very sad for a lost world.

Stop Your Sobbing was originally a Kinks song.

Their first album was absolutely brilliant—hard to pick a favorite song. I do think of the song Time the Avenger (from the Learning to Crawl album) every birthday now.

Message of Love is my favorite.

Talk of the Town is brilliant, everything of those first records (I, II and the EP) is. The Adulteress is awesome.

Great pick, R72. Love drumming, and the vocal fade out.

So hard to choose. I do love their cover of “I Go to Sleep”…and also this trippy 60s cover.

"Tattooed Love Boys" is a masterpiece. I used to lip sync to "Brass in Pocket" with the literal hairbrush in the mirror when I was in 2nd grade (MTV had just come out and it was played all the time). As for deep cuts I rock out to "Up The Neck" regularly. And "Kid" still chokes me up. And of course, whenever Chrissie would channel her lover Ray Davies it would always turn out SO good. I also love "Middle of the Road." I checked out when she started doing that UB40 type of shit. If there is a good song/album from more recent times, I would be into checking it out. "I'll Stand By You" is too maudlin. I loved her autobiography.

R44 Hynde sang on the Morrissey track and he covered "Chain Gang" and released it as a single a few years ago. He's a fan.

Still cannot visualize Chrissie Hynde dating Lemmy of Motorhead, or going to Sex Pistols shows regularly. Dated Ray, had his baby, married Jim Kerr, had his baby, and still making music. Girl has lived a life.

Brass in Pocket is the best. Then Back on the Chain Gang.

R8 Thats because youre a huge FAG.

Tattoed Love Boys. Loathe the ballads. Thin Line Between Love and Hate came on the radio today. I had to turn it off. Sappy.

Brass in Pocket is my favorite.

R8 I just noticed your post is from last year. Youre probably dead now. Sorry.

The whole first album is classic, as is Learning to Crawl.

I personally love Hymn to Her, a highlight on the otherwise overproduced Get Close.

Some basic bitches will love songs like I'll Stand By You and Human, of course.

R79 Did someone show you....what that hole was for?

Yeh!

I wonder if it was Chrissie who gave Rush Limbaugh permission to use "My City Was Gone" (Back to Ohio) as his theme song.

Brass in Pocket is my favorite. Basic, I know. It was one of those songs that, as soon as I heard it, I immediately went to the record store and bought the album.

Same R85. First time I heard it on the radio my bliss chemicals exploded and I bought the 45 the next day.

R84 Reportedly, Hynde never gave Limbaugh permission. She knew what he was doing, but there was a personal reason related to he own father as to why she let him go unchecked .. that is until he opened his big mouth.

R87, IMO, she should NOT have let him use that song, for any fucking reason.

That said, it's a very good riff and I can see why someone would want to use it.

I've seen The Pretenders several times, love their concert energy. The drummer was in one of those 'cube' bpxes, first time I had seen that. They were the opening act for The B 52's, which I thought was crazy, the B's shtick was getting old at that point. Chrissie and Kate Pierson showed up at a rally at Procter and Gamble to protest animal testing - which was cool. Chrissie rocked at the concert, her voice was tremendous and My City Was Gone was particularly great cuz we were in Ohio.