The 5 Greatest Feel Good Songs of All Time Essay

1.One Love/People Get Ready-Bob Marley And The Wailers-This is the ultimate feel good song to me. Bob Marley took a few lines (actually an entire verse) from the Curtis Mayfield-penned classic “People Get Ready” and added some more lyrics to it and like that song, another anthem was born. I challenge you to listen to this song without bobbing your head or tapping your feet. It is nigh impossible.

2. Optimistic-The Sounds Of Blackness– This song used to get me going in the morning years ago when I was a textile worker working twelve hour shifts. Ann Nesby and company put just the right touch on this song. The beat is funky, the melody is catchy and the lyrics are inspirational. For those of you who’ve never heard the album “The Evolution Of Gospel,” from which this song came, you owe it to yourselves to check it out. Great song and great album.

3. I Feel Good-James Brown-The title says it all. Look at the dance moves here. James shows why he has often been imitated, but never duplicated. Such showmanship wouldn’t come close to being matched again until the arrival of Michael Jackson.

4. Say It Loud, I’m Black And I’m Proud-James Brown-This might have been the first real rap record. Whatever you view this song as, it came during a time when African-Americans needed encouragement and a sense of pride. This song has stood the test of time and is still relevant over forty years later.

5. One Nation Under A Groove-Funkadelic-“So wide, can’t get around it………..so low you can’t get under it…………..” The moment you hear those words, you know that you are not just listening to a song, but you are undergoing an experience. This song with its heavy percussion which recalls the motherland, its thumping bassline and all the other elements that made this song great, is not a song which you want to tap your feet to, but that when you hear it, you’ve got to dance. Now I know what Irving Berlin meant.