Right now a number of you are probably saying, “What the hell?!?!  What about _______?  How could you leave out _________?  _______ is WAY better than ________!”  Your outrage is entirely justified.  Certainly there are a number of songs and acts that are conspicuous by their absence.  On a different day a different list would feature more obscure works like RL Burnside’s Alice Mae, any number of cuts by Clutch,  Feel Good Hit of the Summer by Queens of the Stone Age, Monster Magnet’s dope classic Medicine.  And so on.  “Well . . .certainly Chuck Berry’s Maybellene should have made this list!”  It should have, and indeed if this were the 16 most important rock n’ roll songs of all time it would be there, as would Ike Turner’s Rocket 88.  Along the same lines, if this were the 16 greatest rock acts of all time the list would not have the gaping Led-Zeppelin-and-Deep-Purple-sized holes it currently has.  But it ain’t, it’s the most rockin’ songs of all times.  And anyway, YOU try picking one Zeppelin song over another.  At the very least Big Mama Thornton’s version of Hound Dog (which makes the Elvis Presley version sound like cotton candy nonsense by comparison) should have made the cut.  Perhaps another day.  But anyway, should there be any rock neophytes out there this might serve as a decent starter-kit, and for the jaded rock vets maybe a good opportunity to get reacquainted with a beloved classic or two.  So head on down to your local mom n’ pop record shop and grab a coupla platters of tasty morsels.  Or rip ‘em from iTunes.  Either way, go forth.  Go forth and ROCK!