The 16 most popular Turin Brakes songs in 2016

So welcome to Ether Site in 2017! I hope we can make it through!

In December 2016, anyone who visited Ether Site or the Turin Brakes gig at Islington Assembly Hall was able to vote for the Turin Brakes Song of the Year 2016. By sending in your six favourite Turin Brakes songs, which many of you did, you helped choose what songs are currently most popular in the world of Turin Brakes fans. So here are the top 16 (and the rest of the top 50 is below).

SONG OF THE YEAR: Save You

Save You is the most popular Turin Brakes song of 2016. It only beat the no. 2 by 1 vote, but that’s enough to be number 1, and number 1 and 2 of the list are clearly way ahead of the rest of the list in votes. So we have a new entry at no. 1 in the list! Save You is anthemic ballad, that nearly got dropped from the setlist for the second Lost Property tour, but then got picked up by Designated Survivor and found a whole group of new fans for the band. It’s a song of loss, hope and maybe, just maybe it struck a chord with people who need it in a year where we lost a lot of good people in the world, and a lot of bad things went down. Music can provide that hope… Time will save you… indeed!

2. Underdog (Save Me)

Winner in 2011, 2012 and 2015 – and almost this year, Underdog (Save Me) remains a fan favourite both on the band’s debut The Optimist LP and in the live set, where the song has had extended reggae intros, drum solos, and jam sessions. The only thing it has never had was an additional chorus at the end. Just a suggestion, TB, just a suggestion…

3. Mind over Money

Back in the top 3 after a lower position last year (17), Mind over Money combines many of the things TB do well: it’s both acoustic, rocky, with lyrics that have become iconic: keep blood on the inside, and nowhere else… The live set isn’t complete without it so far in Turin Brakes’ career and neither is the Song of the Year list! Song of the Year in 2009!

4. State of Things

Slowly rising to the top again, coming in at no. 5 last year, State of Things is a real tune and I know of at least one person who discovered TB through this song this year. Starting out slowly strumming, then rollicking and intense. This will always be my favourite, I think… This was Song of the Year 2006.

5. Keep Me Around

Keep Me Around will be remembered as THE SINGLE from Lost Property. I can only imagine that had it been released thirteen years earlier, it might have been a great move after the rocky Painkiller. Instead, it has reached a whole new audience with some old fans returning and rediscovering the band at festivals and gigs, thanks to a whole lot of airplay. You gotta love that. Not a new entry, because it was in the list already last year, at no 7.

6. Fishing For A Dream

The most romantic Turin Brakes song ever? Could very well be. It gives me goosebumps when it breaks down at the end and then starts back up again. It was song of the year in 2008. Last year at no. 3

7. 96

As much as I like Keep Me Around, I feel 96 is underrated as a single. It’s the essential Turin Brakes song I feel, in 2016. It combines many of the band strength – climax in the prechorus, some epic riffs by Gale and some great one-liners by Olly. Therefore, it is only right it’s in the top 10 this year, entering the list last year at 24.

8. Jump Start

And so, all the radio singles of Lost Property have made the top 10. Jump Start was the last song to be released from the album, but one of the first to be played live. So while it didn’t get as much radio love, it got a whole lot of cheering throughout 2016. Everybody needs a jump start, after all.

9. The Sea Change

This song from Outbursts has been the start of the encore in recent shows, and has found a second life as a danceable doom tune.Though I wish Gale would bring out his percussion skills once more for the live rendition of the song… It feels more than fitting to dance to such a song when global warming and world politics are constantly dominating news cycles. So let’s dance to the song that predict the end of the world. Or is a call to arms. Is it me, or do Turin Brakes songs become only more and more relevant?
Last year this was no. 2. It was Song of the Year 2010.

10. Feeling Oblivion

So don’t leave me. Here on my own…

(last year this song was at 27)

The rest of the top 50:

11. (42) Long Distance (Song of the Year 2005, 2007)
12. (09) Painkiller
13. (^^) Brighter Than The Dark
14. (10) Rain City
15. (11) Red Moon
16. (45) Come & Go
17. (30) Ether Song
18. (^^) Last Chance
19. (06) Slack
20. (28) Future Boy

21. (^^) Hope We Make It
22. (^^) Rocket Song
23. (^^) Black Rabbit
24. (13) Emergency 72
25. (^^) Rome
26. (26) Blue Hour
27. (^^) The Quiet Ones
28. (^^) Asleep With The Fireflies
29. (12) Blindsided Again (Song Of The Year 2013, 2014)
30. (^^) The Door

31. (^^) The Seagull
32. (^^) Dark on Fire
33. (39) Goodbye
34. (36) Part Of The World
35. (04) Loopa
36. (^^) Last Clown
37. (^^) The Road
38. (23) We Were Here
39. (16) Sleeper
40. (^^) 5 Mile (These Are The Days)

41. (^^) Ghost
42. (41) Invisible Boy
43. (^^) No Mercy
44. (34) Stalker
45. (^^) JackInABox
46. (^^) Little Brother
47. (^^) Martini
48. (32) Never Stops
49. (^^) Something In My Eye
50. (29) Rescue Squad

(^^) denotes it didn’t make the list last year, if it’s in bold it’s a song that was released in 2016.

Thank you everyone for voting!

Here are fifteen fun answers to my question: Where do you usually find your Lost Property?

• Next to The Optimist
• Under my bed
• Underneath the serpentine
• Car
• My local pub
• Bottom of my backpack
• In my ears
• In the lost property box
• Where I least expect to find it
• I never loose anything that can’t be found
• My ex-wife’s house
• On my iPod
• Dog bed
• Nappy bag
• Where I left it

And some nice ones to the question: “Where have you been caught singing Turin Brakes songs out loud?

(please note some answers have edited for privacy reasons ;))

• Public toilet (good acoustics)
• Shower
• The car
• At TB live gigs, yea baby!
• At work, I always listen to Turin Brakes on my pod
• Airplane
• Everywhere
• The library
• Truthfully… at the photocopier in work.
• At the park while walking the dog… I don’t sing well
• Most of the last tour
• On the train with my head phones on.
• On the sofa

Thank you everyone! Let’s do it again next year :).