You Make My Dreams (Come True)
Hall & Oates
1980

You know what this song is?  This song is what epitomizes walking around the city like you're in your own movie, with this song as the backdrop.  LIke in this scene.  This song is the very reason the iPod was invented, so that you could cruise around with those headphones dangling from your ears and pretend that life revolves around you and that you're the star.  You could literally put this song on in any context -- you just got the girl/guy, you just crushed an exam, you're just bopping along adding items to your grocery cart -- and it works.  Very, very few songs that fit that mold.  

This is unbelievably simple, but it's also unbelievably catchy.  The hook is very much like Joy to the World in that it's just instant happiness (with a very similar keyboard sound from the outset of the song, I might add).  Another favorite aspect to this is when Darryl Hall sings during the bridge, "Well, listen to this" and all he gives us is, "Ow!"

And speaking of Darryl Hall, I'll conclude with two other goodies on this one.  The first is that Max has loved this band from around the age of 7.  So much so that as we were driving one day he felt the need to tell me that "Darryl" was the lead singer, as though he was on a first name basis with the guy.

But my favorite part of this band comes from a very pure, but very awesome misinterpretation.  We've all had those - for a long time I thought Aerosmith was actually singing "Do It Like a Lady" instead of "dude looks like a lady."  On that vein, in her younger days Tiffany thought the name of this band was...."Haulin' Oats."  Ahhhhh I crack up every time.  😂😂

Other Songs Considered:
They never had anything else this good.