At long last, the promise is fulfilled and here it is: Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Good to know Rob Sheffield and Joe Levy had a say in this; that makes me feel a lot better.

It's hard to question a list this big and filled with so many great songs. It's not like they named "Batdance" the best song ever. But there are still some arguable choices. Some quick thoughts after taking a quick look:

• Nice to see Pavement and Patti Smith represented.


• "Tears in Heaven"? Come the fuck on. No, really. Come the fuck on. This is borderline offensive. Better than all but three Springsteen songs? Better than every R.E.M. song other than "Losing my Religion"? I know his kid fell out a window, and he wrote the song about him, and it's all very sad, but really, let's not patronize the guy.


• Does U2 have more "great" songs than Springsteen? And is "Born in the U.S.A." the third best Springsteen song? I don't even think it's third best on that album.


• "I Believe I Can Fly" by R. Kelly? Now they're just yanking our chains.


• In the history of recorded music, Salt N Pepa's "Push It" is the 440th best? Maybe if there were only 440 songs ever recorded. Even then, I'd probably end the list at 439.