My 13th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Hard to Imagine” by Pearl Jam

I formed my long-held adoration of Pearl Jam during my most serious drinking years.  They were years filled with mostly sorrow, self-doubt, regret, and love-sickness.  The music and lyrics of Pearl Jam meshed perfectly with this era of my life, and fewer songs left such an impression as “Hard to Imagine”.

I am far from alone in feeling such an intense connection to this song.  It never appeared on an official Pearl Jam album, but is certainly one of their more famous “b-sides”.  Until the mid-2000s, it had only been played live a handful of times, and it became notorious for it’s absence from the band’s live sets as more and more fans expressed their intense emotional connection to the song.  Eventually, around 2007, the band started putting it in setlists to wide acclaim (I knew I’d seen the band too many times when I actually started to feel annoyed by them opening with ‘Hard to Imagine’ again).

What’s interesting about the song is the completely interpretable lyrics.  Sure, Eddie Vedder doesn’t always write the world’s most straight-forward lyrics, but “Hard to Imagine” tells a story that can be viewed from about a hundred angles.  That’s part of what lends itself so well to a wide emotional connection, as well as it’s universal chorus of “Things were different then.  All is different now.  I try to explain…somehow.”  I mean, who doesn’t feel that in your GUT, no matter what you’re going through in life?

Below are the (very short, so read them!) lyrics, and then the studio version of the song, and then the best live version I could find.  I highly encourage everyone to watch and listen to this (everyone!).  I promise—promise!–you will be emotionally affected.

Hard to Imagine
by Pearl Jam

Paint a picture using only grey.
Light your pillow. Lay back. Watch the flames.
I’ll tell a story but no one
would listen that long.

It’s hard to imagine.

Tear into yourself, count days on your arm.
Ah the beating ticking like a bomb.
After having seen all that they saw,
it’s hard to imagine.

Things were different then. All is different now.
I tried to explain, somehow.

Things were different then. All is different now.
I tried to explain. I hope this works somehow.

My 14th Favorite Song of All-Time

“Styrofoam Plates”
by Death Cab For Cutie

There’s a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes;
I threw them to the sea,
but a gust blew them backwards
and now the sting in my eyes—
that you then inflicted—
was par for the course
just as when you were living.

It’s no stretch to say you were not quite a father
but the donor of seeds to a poor single mother
that would raise us alone—
we never saw the money—
that went down your throat
through the hole in your belly.

Thirteen years old in the suburbs of Denver,
standing in line for Thanksgiving dinner
at the Catholic church
(the servers wore crosses
to shield from the sufferance
plaguing the others).
Styrofoam plates, cafeteria tables,
charity reeks of cheap wine and pity
and I’m thinking of you,
I do every year when we count all our blessings
and wonder what we’re doing here.

You’re a disgrace to the concept of family.
The priest won’t divulge that fact in his homily
and I’ll stand up and scream
(the mourning remain quiet)
you can deck out a lie in a suit,
but I won’t buy it.
I won’t join the procession that’s speaking their piece,
using five dollar words while praising his integrity.
Just ’cause he’s gone, it doesn’t change that fact:
he was bastard in life, thus a bastard in death!

 

My 16th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to read an explanation of this list.

Click here to see all previous entries in the list.

…and my 16th favorite song of all-time is:

“Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman

To me, few songs simply drip with emotion in the way that “Fast Car” does.  While the narrator’s story is something completely unlike my own, I have no problem imagining my life having taken a similar course.  Chapman’s narrator has lived a difficult life, and she tells of it in straight-forward fashion, but nuances in the lyrics tell of an immense sorrow just below the surface, an aching for relief, an interminable wait for life to come into sharp focus.  A perfectly crafted song.

My 17th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“This is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan

I hear what you’re saying.  You are kind of confused by this one.  Well, so am I!  I have no idea why this song hits my sweet spot so much.  It’s definitely not a song I “identify” with or that means a lot to me personally.  First, it is just extremely catchy and pleasant to my ears.  But that is not usually enough to make me passionate about a song.  It is this song’s link to a very specific time period in my life (late teens) and the things that were happening, and the people I was hanging around with, and the general tenor and tone of my life at the time. These things are all wrapped up in sensory memory with this song.  I’m sure you have songs like this, too.  And although many other songs compete for the title, “This is How We Do It” reigns as the Song of My Youth.

Click here to go to the song’s Last.fm page to stream a clip of the song or watch the full-length official video.

My Favorite Music of 2012

Well well fair blog readers, it is time once again for my year-end favorite music list.  Unlike in years past, this will be the only year-end list here on Notes From the Fire, as I simply haven’t been paying enough attention to anything else to make a decent list.

If you’d like to go back in time, here are links to previous years’ lists:

2011

2010

2009

There were two years of lists before these, but they were on my MySpace blog, which has mysteriously disappeared.  As usual, a mix disc representative of this blog has been made and will be automatically sent to those of you on my “mailing list”; if you aren’t and you want to be, contact me!

All music on this list was released in calendar year 2012.  The list itself is limited to only full-length albums, but there are some runners-up after the list by artists that either didn’t release full-length albums, or whose album sucked, but since this is literally a list of my “favorite music” released this year, it seemed silly to continue limiting it to only full albums.  Now: the list!

10.  Benjamin Gibbard, “Former Lives”

Death Cab for Cutie frontman Gibbard unleashed his first solo effort this year, and of course, it sounds and feels a lot like Death Cab, but lyrically, the album sticks solely to relationships (mostly romantic, but occasionally musing on friendship, too) and never veers onto some of the larger topics Death Cab albums often deal with.  A highlight is Gibbard’s duet with Aimee Mann on “Bigger Than Love“.

9.  Delta Spirit, “Delta Spirit”

The California indie rocker’s, on their second album, grow and evolve from the raw, straight-ahead power they used on 2010’s “History From Below” into a band with more textured, layered sublety, while still retaining their ability to outright gut-punch their listeners.

8.  Alabama Shakes, “Boys and Girls”

The Shakes have spearheaded a new movement of indie Americana, and nobody is going to do it better than they do. They’re not writing songs for the radio.  There are no enormous, sweeping, soundtrack-ready singalong choruses (hello there, annoying second chapter of the Mumford and Sons story), just genuine feeling and the ache of living and working in an America that doesn’t notice you.

7.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Psychedelic Pill”

Young and Crazy Horse had quite a year this year, putting out an album of covers, as well as this album, their first new original music together in many, many years.  And it did not disappoint.  A double-disc album, it only has eight songs on it, as these crunchy blasts of feedback perfection keep stretching over the 20 minute mark.  Not to be missed if you’ve ever been a fan of what Young and Crazy Horse do together.

6.  El Ten Eleven, “Transitions”

Practitioners of the dark art of Post-Rock, this duo uses live looping to replicate their large sound in the live setting.  This year’s album, “Transitions”, found them reaching even further toward the epic, big-idea tomes their genre-mates usually turn out, although they still often give their songs goofy titles, like “Thanks Bill“.

5.  Public Enemy, “The Evil Empire of Everything”

I know what you’re saying!  “Rap?!”  Well, yes.  Way back in the day when I was solely into rap (ie, high school) Public Enemy was one of my favorite acts.  Chuck D is an amazing lyricist and they are very hard-hitting musically.  A review in a magazine prompted me to check out this new album, and I was instantly smitten.  Their music is, in fact, closer to “rock” than most hip hop acts, and Chuck’s radical social conscious speaks to my ever-more-liberal than last year ideals.  But warning: this dude is more liberal than you are (whoever you are), and if you have a problem with a black dude still accusing the white establishment of fucking with black folks (which definitely still happens, black president or not) then you should stay away from Public Enemy (and enjoy your Kenny Chesney concert).

4.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Americana”

The first album Young and Crazy Horse put out this year, “Americana” is a collection of classic American folk songs, re-written in gritty, in-your-face grunge style that goes great lengths of changing (or in some cases, re-enforcing) how we view these songs we’ve all heard hundreds of times.  Read more about it and stream the entire album here.

3.  Emily Wells, “Mama”

Emily Wells, a solo artist who utilizes live looping much like El Ten Eleven, writes haunting, unconventional visions of angst and longing, but on this year’s “Mama” she took things a step further by writing flat-out stunning poetry for lyrics.  On previous albums she had always witten very effective, affecting songs, but on “Mama” she gets subtle, roundabout, and mysterious while keeping things just within reach of accesibility.  If she continues to evolve at this rate her next album will cement her status as a cult hero.

2.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!”

Aside from perhaps classical and some jazz, there is absolutely nothing more serious in the world of music than Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  Do not approach this band if you are not capable of listening to music to ponder your absolute and complete reason for existence.  And to explore where the line between perfect joy and utter despiar lies.  The godfathers (and godmothers) of post-rock, Godspeed hadn’t released an album in 10 years, and speculation had asserted they probably were not going to.  So when “‘Allelujah” was announced, it sent shockwaves through the post-rock community, with most people assuming no album they could release would possibly be able to live up to expectations.  But they proved everyone wrong.  The album came out to almost universal acclaim.  Most people are actually somewhat baffled by the post-rock perfection that goes on here, and how, after 5 of their own albums and countless (truly, countless) copycat bands, Godspeed is somehow still able to surprise us and find new, truly incredible ways to make this kind of music.  Also, having purchased the album on vinyl, I have a code for a free download of this album that I will pass along to the first person who asks for it.

1.  Band of Horses, “Mirage Rock”

Over the course of the last few years, Band of Horses have come to the forefront of my music-listening life (although I hesitate to crown them my “favorite band”, as other bands might be more at the forefront if they’d been on the same album release and tour schedule as Band of Horses).  The band’s sound, the lyrical content and the overall subject matter of the songs, and even all the albums’ packaging (every album so far has come with a packet of photographs that don’t say anything on them and are just assumed to be a visual accompaniment to the music) steers me to this band.  This year’s “Mirage Rock” only ramped up this enjoyment all the more.  Songs like “Slow Cruel Hands of Time” seem to not only be about my own feelings, but practically a plot-specific memoir of my life.  For the last six months, “Mirage Rock” has been a steady and constant companion, the true soundtrack to my life, and as such, it gets this year’s number one spot!

Runner-up songs:
Imagine Dragons, “Radioactive”
Bruce Springsteen, “We Take Care of Our Own”
Gary Clark Jr., “When My Train Pulls In”
GROUPLOVE, “Itchin’ on a Photograph”
Silversun Pickups, “Skin Graph”
Grizzly Bear, “Yet Again”
Kaiser Chiefs, “Little Shocks”
Mogwai, “San Pedro”
Hey Rosetta!, “New Year Song”

Everything’s Gonna Be Undone

You may or may not know that one of the unstated goals I had when moving to New Jersey and hence ending the “living-alone-very-far-away-from-everyone-I-know” experiment, was to try to be less of an asshole.  Living so solitary, as I did for two years in Erie, hastened an already alarming trend within me that caused me to be cynical, unkind, and judgmental.  And nowhere was this more evident than when I went to concerts.

I was alone, and everyone around me wasn’t.  Generally speaking, the type of people who go to concerts are nice, gregarious, outgoing folks who want to make friends.  I hated them, I ignored them, I went as far as to be mean to them.  I hated strangers, but I hated strangers at concerts the most.

So it was with great pleasure and not just a little surprise that I realized, as Band of Horses was about to start playing tonight, that I had made friends at this concert; I was first in line (that’s right, first), and I never gave a second thought to striking up good-natured temporary kinships with my front-of-the-line-mates.  I ended up on the railing next to two of them (a married couple from Wisconsin who are following the band) and we talked Band of Horses while we waited for the show to start.  They saved my spot for me when I needed to pee—one of the more complicated and worrisome aspects of attending General Admission concerts by yourself.  When the show was over we hung out together to try to get setlists (we didn’t) and it was just very pleasant.  I ran into some other line-mates after the show as we stood in line at the merchandise booth and we talked like we were old pals. It felt nice not to be an asshole.

Here is a picture of the line (from my vantage point at the very front!!) just before doors opened:

Band of Horses speak to my soul, whatever the fuck that means.  This band continues to evolve into a force in my life hitherto unfelt.  Tonight was my fourth time seeing them (still haven’t seen my Band of Horses white whale) and my emotional reaction keeps evolving (meaning I come close to crying like a baby a whole lot).  Ben Bridwell’s lyrics, coupled with the band’s live show–which is 100% exactly the kind of live show I want from a band–hit me in some secret place that even I can’t locate.

Here is tonight’s setlist:

01 Monsters >
02 Neighbors reprise
03 Compliments
04 Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
05 Laredo
06 The Great Salt Lake
07 Islands On the Coast
08 Northwest Apartment
09 Is There A Ghost?
10 Slow Cruel Hands of Time
11 Older
12 Electric Music
13 Dilly
14 Window Blues
15 Everything’s Gonna be Undone
16 Weed Party
17 Knock Knock
18 Ode to LRC
19 The Funeral

encore break

20 No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I Do (Ben & Tyler only)
21 A Song for You (Gram Parsons cover)
22 The General Specific

My 22nd Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Ashes in the Fall” by Rage Against the Machine

Rage Against the Machine are surely one of the smartest, most socially-aware bands that has ever existed. Their songbook is brimming with examples of subject matter and lyrics that would make Woody Guthrie proud, coupled with a gnarled, modern, harsh rock sound that turns the gentle acoustic strumming of the original folk artists on its head.  It is angry music for angry words.

Zack de la Rocha, the vocalist and lyricist, has very high amibitions for every song he writes, which often results in brilliance, but just as often gets too academic or wordsy for his own good.  In my opinion, “Ashes in the Fall”, from the band’s final album The Battle of Los Angeles, is the absolute height of de la Rocha’s power as a lyricist, and a rowsing endorsement of the band’s musical prowess.

The beginning of the song is a rambling, free-associative rant about the viscious cycles that perpetuate our “haves” and “have-nots” society.  de la Rocha doesn’t explain more than he has to.  He creates images, tells half-stories, trusting careful listeners to go back over these things and picture them, contemplate them, figure them out.  This is not “easy” music.  The song opens “A mass of hands press/ on the market window/ Ghosts of progress/ dressed in slow death”…the owners of these hands are “glaring through the promise/ upon the food that rots slowly in the aisle”.  What exactly is he talking about?  What does this supermarket have to do with anything?  Careful repeat listens reveal simple meanings.

In something that passes for a chorus, de la Rocha seems to evoke a kinship with the folk or protest songwriters of old, “This is the new sound/ just like the old sound./ Just like the noose wound/ over new ground.”  Interesting because, of course, the actual sound is very different but the tenor seems the same.  And the “noose wound/ over new ground”?  We might be a different country now than we were then, says de la Rocha, but they’re still lynching us.

But the real marvel comes at the end (please, I implore you, if you haven’t heard this song before, listen until the end), when de la Rocha lays the point of the song out for us, and the point is this:if you keep us poor and out of work, you can put us in jail and control us, which of course comes down to the folks in power using fear to control us.  Here is how de la Rocha lays that argument out:

Ain’t it funny how the factory doors close
round the time that the school doors close?
Round the time that the doors of the jail cells
open up to
greet you like the reaper?
Ain’t its funny how the factory doors close
round the time that the school doors close?
Round the time that a
hundred thousand jail cells
open up to greet you like the reaper?

And then (after saying a few times “This is no oasis!”, which is a sweet one-off line in itself) he hits us with this hum-dinger:  quietly, he repeats a few times “Just like ashes in the fall.”  This is certainly one of the great metaphors in rock lyric history.  Like the rest of the song, it is not easy.  It requires some processing.  What would it mean if you saw ashes drifting past you in the fall, or if you had some hot ashes in your backyard next to a pile of leaves? How does this image system inform the meaning of Rage’s song?

I used to get disappointed that, musically, Rage trails off after their big build-up during the “reaper” lyrics and gets quiet for the “Ashes” lyrics.  But they don’t just want to give us a music release. But they’re not just making music for our pleasure; they want us to hear and ponder this metaphor.

Here is the song, with the lyrics embedded in the video.

My 23rd Favorite Song of All-Time

…and my 23rd favorite song of all-time is:

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” as sung by Judy Garland and written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane

I don’t just love this song around Christmas time.  I love it all year, and yes, I listen to it at many points throughout the year.  This is some fucking song!  Let me tell you all about it.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” started its life as just another song in a musical film called “Meet Me in St. Louis”, from 1944.  The movie is not a Christmas movie, there just happens to be a scene around Christmas time where Judy Garland–the film’s star–sings this song in a heartbreaking scene while staring out a window.  The song wouldn’t become a holiday staple until many years after the film’s release.

It is an incredibly sad song.  Most people don’t realize it.  You may never really stop to think about the lyrics, and on top of that, the lyrics that are positive are almost certainly meant ironically.  The tone of the song is practically unmistakable in its sadness.

So why do I like a song so much that I think is so sad?  Well, on one level, it is just an immense appreciation for the songcraft going on.  But on another level, the song speaks to me and affects me for reasons, and at a depth, that I’m almost afraid to explore.  I think it appeals to portions of my personality that are unattractive, or at the very least, not the most loving-cuddly parts of me.

The song is honest in its appraisal of the holidays.  Listen, I love Christmas and everything surrounding it, but the cynical core of me tends to waver toward the weary conclusions of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.  I seriously cannot count how many times this song has made my cry.

Other versions of the song—notably a true stinker by Sinatra that is pretty much more famous now than the original—change a few key lyrics to make things more positive, but at the expense of losing all emotional punch and creating a little bit of holiday hodgepodge nonsense, most notably changing the line “until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow” to “hang a shining star upon the highest bough”…it may seem small to many, but I am far from alone in thinking this is a beastly, juvenile butcher job that serves only to appeal to the happy masses.

(starting right from the start, calling the holiday a “merry little Christmas” belittles its importance.  In light of small cues like this throughout, standard holiday treacle like “next year, all our troubles will be out of sight” has to be seen as a joke, a kind of satire of our culture’s over-senimentalization of the holidays…yes, this was already something that was happening in 1944. However, the song is not all piss and vinegar; it yearns for these ideas to be true, and is drenched in—thanks to Garland’s perfect delivery— a deep love for “faithful friends who were dear to us.”…but notice even there, the songwriters used the past tense…the friends were dear to us; here we can’t help but confront the inevitable breaking-down and fracturing of life)

Read the (original) lyrics below and then watch Judy Garland sing it in the video I’ve included, from “Meet Me in St. Louis”.  Don’t just think about the lyrics, but about Garland’s delivery and the tone of the music.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light.
Next year,
all our troubles will be out of sight.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Make the Yuletide gay.
Next year,
all our troubles will be miles away.

Once again as in olden days,
happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who were dear to us
will be near to us once more.

Someday soon, we all will be together
if the fates allow.
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

My 24th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to see all previous entries in this list.

…and my 24th favorite song of all time is:

“Be Safe” by The Cribs

The Cribs are a weird band, which you might have guessed, since their name is The Cribs.  They are virtually unheard of in the US, but they are one of the more popular bands in England (where they are from) because, as usual, England has a higher tolerance for outside-the-box kind of stuff.  Granted, a large portion of their music is very straight-forward indie rock, but they often veer into Avant Garde.  The song that got me into them is a piece of pure pop perfection called “We Were Aborted”.  Go figure.

Their best song, and a song that affects me highly every time I listen to it, is “Be Safe”.  It is unlike anything you have ever heard.  It is a long poem (a terrific poem) being read not by a member of the band, but by legendary rock innovator Lee Ranaldo of the band Sonic Youth, who is a kind of mentor to the members of The Cribs.  Underneath this poem is some sonic-boom style grunge rock, and some moaning, dirge-like choruses sung by all the members of The Cribs.  This song can come very close to literally changing your life.

There was not a satisfactory rendition of this song for streaming online, so I made one specifically for this blog entry.  Please watch it below.  The lyrics stream along with the song in the video.  Trust me folks, this was not easy to make, so do this blogger a favor and watch it.  I don’t ask for much.  If  it doesn’t blow your mind, I’ll refund your money.

My 26th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Brian and Robert” by Phish

This is probably not on many people’s list of favorite Phish songs.  It’s just a tiny little song that you can’t dance to, but for some reason, it’s always really spoke to me.  It, lyrically, seems to subtly nudge the listener, saying, “Hey!  Don’t be so sad!  Snap out of it!” while, musically, the song is actually really sad.  Seems to me like the kind of contradiction that life is made out of.

My 27th Favorite Song of All-Time

My 27th favorite song of all-time is:

“Growing Old is Getting Old” by Silversun Pickups

Who can’t identify with this badass song by California rockers Silversun Pickups?  Stick with it, there’s an awesome, intense change about halfway through:

My 29th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes

Plenty of people hate Fleet Foxes; to many, they are the very definition of a “hipster” band.  I just happen to like hipster bands, so it kind of works out for me.  And “White Winter Hymnal” is pretty much the quintessential Fleet Foxes song.  And it’s haunting and simple and catchy and emotionally evocative.  Who could ask for more?  Read the simple but amazing lyrics below the video.

I was following the pack
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied ’round their throats
To keep their little heads
From fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
And turn the white snow red as strawberries
In the summertime…

My 30th Favorite Song of All-Time

First, let’s recap what we’ve got so far on this list:

100.  “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something
99.  “Jack & Diane” by John Mellencamp
98.  “Hotel California” by The Eagles
97.  “American Pie” by Don McLean
96.  “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” by Michael Jackson
95.  “Nuthin’ but a G Thang” by Dr. Dre
94.  “Bushwick Blues” by Delta Spirit
93.  “For the Workforce, Drowning” by Thursday
92.  “Fish Heads” by Barnes and Barnes
91.  “Shimmer” by Fuel
90.  “Rubber Biscuit” by the Blues Brothers
89.  “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals
88.  “Asleep at the Wheel” by Working For a Nuclear-Free City
87.  “There’s an Arc” by Hey Rosetta!
86.  “Steam Engine” by My Morning Jacket
85.  “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest
84.  “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane
83.  “Fits” by Stone Gossard
82.  “Spring Flight to the Land of Fire” by The Cape May
81. “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service
80.  “Sober” by Tool
79.  “Dream is Collapsing” by Hans Zimmer
78.  “Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?” by The Beatles
77.  “In This Light and on This Evening” by Editors
76.  “Lemonworld” by The National
75.  “Twin Peaks Theme” by Angelo Badalamente
74.  “A Comet Appears” by The Sins
73.  “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists
72.  “Pepper” by Butthole Surfers
71.  “Life Wasted” by Pearl Jam
70.  “Jetstream” by Doves
69.  “Trieste” by Gifts From Enola
68.  “Oh My God” by Kaiser Chiefs
67.  “Last Exit” by Pearl Jam
66.  “Innocence” by The Airborne Toxic Event
65.  “There, There” by Radiohead
64.  “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band
63.  “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen
62.  “The Best of What’s Around” by Dave Matthews Band
61.  “Old Man” by Neil Young
60.  “Cumbersome” by Seven Mary Three
59.  “Sledgehammer” by Peter Gabriel
58.  “Machine Head” by Bush
57.  “Peaches” by Presidents of the United States of America
56.  “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones
55.  “Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden
54.  “The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie
53.  “Call Me Al” by Paul Simon
52.  “Real Muthaphuckin’ Gs” by Eazy E
51..  “Evening Kitchen” by Band of Horses
50.  “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand” by Primitive Radio Gods
49.  “Top Drawer” by Man Man
48.  “Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull
47.  “We Used to Vacation” by Cold War Kids
46.  “Easy Money” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
45.  “Two-fifty” by Chris Walla
44.  “I’ve Got a Feeling” by The Beatles
43.  “Another Pilot” by Hey Rosetta!
42.  “Revelate” by The Frames
41.  “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann
40.  “Sample in a Jar” by Phish
39.  “Education” by Pearl Jam
38.  “Sometimes I Rhyme Slow” by Nice & Smooth
37.  “I Shall Be Released” by The Band
36.  “When I Fall” by Barenaked Ladies
35.  “East Hastings” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
34.  “Terrible Love” by The National
33.  “Jolene” by Dolly Parton
32.  “Sometime Around Midnight” by The Airborne Toxic Event
31.  “This Train Revised” by Indigo Girls

…and my 30th favorite song of all-time is:

“Mad World” by Gary Jules

This song (originally written but played much less awesomely by Tears For Fears) is, no doubt, extraordinarily sad.  But one can’t deny that it is terribly infectious and can continue to haunt you long after it’s over.  I don’t know anything else about Gary Jules, but I know this song knocks my socks off.

My 32nd Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Sometime Around Midnight” by The Airborne Toxic Event

Lyricist Mikel Jollett does a lot of amazing things here.  The song is a tiny story about a man who sees an ex-girlfriends of his out at a bar, and it kinda makes him lose his shit.  A very simple story that I am sure we all can relate to.  Jollett manages to make the story very intense and very emotional.  But it’s also a study in language craft.  He has precious time and few words to tell his story, so he sets the scene not by telling us we’re at a bar, but simply by saying something is “under the bar lights”.  He never feels the need to even once tell us this man has dated this woman: his story and his characters’ reactions reveal as much or more than needless exposition could have told.  And for the love of god, she is “holding her tonic like a cross.”

And the music!  Toxic Event employs a full time violinist/ keyboardist (crushworthy female Anna Bulbrook) which adds a depth of sound and emotion that typical four-piece rock bands can’t achieve.  And lead guitarist Steven Chen especially shines on this song’s burning climax.

The version I’ve embedded here is them playing the song on Letterman, backed by their frequent collaborators, the Calder Quartet.

My 34th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to read about this list, or click here to see all previous entries.

…and my 34th favorite song of all-time is:

“Terrible Love” by The National

The National have appeared previously on the list, at number 76 with “Lemonworld”.  I don’t know what else to say about the band in general (who have really morphed over the past year into one of my absolute favorite band; top 5 for sure), but I was recently looking at the CD case for their album  High Violet, and there are some “blurbs” from music critics on it that I thought summed up my thoughts about them quite well.  So I will type some of them here:

“High Violet is the sound of a band taking a mandate to be a meaningful rock band seriously.”

“That’s The National’s insidious brilliance: no other band makes dark and stormy seem like ideal weather.”

“High Violet locates the sweet spot between majesty and mopery, catharsis and wallowing, soaring grace.”

“A seductive collection of subtly surging anti-anthems.”

High Violet was one of the first CDs I bought after moving to Erie.  I had never heard a National song but had read a ton about them.  I saw High Violet prominently displayed in Best Buy and decided to go for it.  The first track on the album is “Terrible Love” and I was immediately hooked.  You may remember I used it as a driving factor in this classic blog entry.  The song (and the whole album), although they really are terribly sad songs, really elicit some of the more pleasant feelings in me that I can imagine.  The version I’ve included here is the live version that I’ve probably watched on YouTube a hundred times.  Seriously, you’ve got to watch this whole video.  Especially in the live setting, this song builds from a slow, contemplative dirge into a fearsome, blistering freight train.

 

My 35th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“East Hastings” by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Godspeed is the premiere post rock band.  For those of us who are into the genre, they stand as kind of mystical legends, who give almost no interviews, tour very little (although I’ve seen them, once), don’t release their CDs to mainstream outlets, etc etc.  Even having seen them live and in person, I can’t picture what a single member of the band looks like.

An entire mini-industry of imitators has essentially sprung up because of Godspeed (nobody claims Godspeed originated post rock, but they absolutely defined it), but nobody comes even remotely close to doing it like they do it.  Nobody takes their time to build up a long, slow, steady head of steam the way Godspeed does, nobody selects only the most perfect samples or recordings from the real world.  Nobody else is so entirely fucking serious without seeming ridiculous.

“East Hastings” is probably the song most people hear first from Godspeed, because it most exemplifies what Godspeed does so well: a long, quiet early section with a recording the band made of someone out in the “real world” talking, followed by an even longer steady build-up section that builds to a mini-crescendo, followed by a quick pause, and then a murderous burst of final intensity, and then a very long, quiet outro.  Not all Godspeed is this tidy and mind-wracking, but you’ve just got to hear this.  It required a degree of patience, but the patience is what makes the payoff so amazing.

Yes, it’s 17 minutes.  You have time.

 

 

Lists

Chances are, you care about none or almost none of my top ten lists presented here.  But you have to live with the fact that this post exists anyway.

It’s no secret that I love making top 10, top 5, or even top 100 lists of the things I love.  Not only do I love making them, but I find having them in the public sphere (ie, my blog) handy from time-to-time, as I’m discussing my favorites of something with someone and I can say, hold on, I actually have my list made, let me link you to it.

Over the past few years, I’ve made a few big lists (bands, books, directors, etc), but I find that some of these change so fast, use of the list in any sort of real-time discussion becomes moot.  So I am here updating them, although a few of them remain relatively the same as their original lists, others have changed drastically.

I am including a list of my top ten favorite movies for the first time since I made a very controversial top-100-movie list 6 or 7 years ago on my MySpace blog (most of which has disappeared for no reason).  This movie list will no doubt cause quite a stir with Kyle; it would also doubtless cause a stir with many of my other movie-centric friends, if in fact any of them still read my blog, the bastards.

All lists are in order, and are a list of my favorites, not what I consider “the best”.

My top ten favorite poets

10.  Randall Jarrell
9.   Jane Kenyon
8.  William Carlos Williams
7.   Sylvia Plath
6.  Billy Collins
5.  Denise Levertov
4.  E.E. Cummings
3.  Robert Creeley
2.  John Updike
1.  Philip Larkin

My top 5 favorite hockey teams

5.  San Jose Sharks
4.  Phoenix Coyotes
3.  Buffalo Sabres
2.  Columbus Blue Jackets
1.  Philadelphia Flyers

My 10 favorite (non-documentary) film directors

10.  Lars von Trier
9.  Sidney Lumet
8.  Terrence Malick
7.  Christopher Nolan
6.  Darren Aronofsky
5.  Danny Boyle
4.  Stanley Kubrick
3.  Werner Herzog
2.  Paul Thomas Anderson
1.  Alfred Hitchcock

My 5 favorite sodas

5.  Coke Zero
4.  Mr. Pibb
3.  RC Cola
2.  Tab
1.  Dr. Pepper

My top five football teams

5.  Detroit Lions
4.  Seattle Seahawks
3.  Buffalo Bills
2.  Cleveland Browns
1.  Philadelphia Eagles

My four favorite seaons

4.  Winter
3.  Autumn
2.  Spring
1.  Summer

My top ten radio shows

10.  Tell Me More (NPR)
9.  Science Friday (NPR)
8.  Mike and Mike in the Morning (ESPN Radio)
7.  On the Media (NPR)
6.  MLB Roundtrip (MLB Radio)
5.  A Praire Home Companion (NPR)
4.  Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!  (NPR)
3.  Talk of the Nation (NPR)
2.  On Point (NPR)
1.  Car Talk (NPR)

My top ten bands

10.  The Beatles
9.  Pearl Jam
8.  Godspeed You! Black Emperor
7.  Seven Mary Three
6.  Death Cab For Cutie
5.  Explosions in the Sky
4.  My Morning Jacket
3.  Band of Horses
2.  The National
1.  Hey Rosetta!

My top ten favorite TV shows

10.  Firefly
9.   Mythbusters
8.  Breaking Bad
7.  Seinfeld
6.  Picket Fences
5.  Carnivale
4.  24
3.  Mad Men
2.  LOST
1.  Northern Exposure

My top 5 baseball teams

5.  Baltimore Orioles
4.  New York Mets
3.  Kansas City Royals
2.  Cleveland Indians
1.  Philadelphia Phillies

My top ten favorite movies

10.  12 Angry Men
9.   Rope
8.  Citizen Kane
7.  Fitzcarraldo
6.  Children of Men
5.  Night of the Hunter
4.  Magnolia
3.  Where the Wild Things Are
2.  I’m Still Here
1.  The Tree of Life

My five favorite novelists

5.  Orson Scott Card
4.  Mark Twain
3.  Dave Eggers
2.  John Kennedy Toole
1.  Kurt Vonnegut

My top 5 (pre-my-birth) presidents

5.  John Adams
4.  Abraham Lincoln
3.  James K. Polk
2.  George Washington
1.  Franklin D. Roosevelt

My ten favorite books

10.  “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” by Dave Eggers
9.  “Maps in a Mirror” by Orson Scott Card
8.  “Slaughterhouse-5” by Kurt Vonnegut
7.  “Dubliners” by James Joyce
6.  “Letters From the Earth” by Mark Twain
5.  “Cat’s Cradle” by Kurt Vonnegut
4.  “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway
3.  “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding
2.  “A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole
1.  “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck

My ten favorite friends of all-time

Ha!  You thought I was gonna do this one???

My ten favorite albums

10.  “Plans” by Death Cab for Cutie
9.   “Infinite Arms” by Band of Horses
8.   “Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever” by Explosion in the Sky
7.   “Seeds” by Hey Rosetta!
6.  “The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw” by Pelican
5.   “Secret Samadhi” by LIVE
4.   “Abbey Road” by The Beatles
3.   “RockCrown” by Seven Mary Three
2.   “High Violet” by The National
1.  “Into Your Lungs (and Around in Your Heart and On Through Your Blood)” by Hey Rosetta!

Top women I’ve slept with

1.  Seriously, read this

My 37th Favorite Song of All-Time

“I Shall Be Released” by The Band

While “I Shall Be Released” was originally a Bob Dylan song (and has been recorded and played by countless other artists), for me, the only version worth it’s weight in gold is The Band’s version (they were also Dylan’s backing band when he wrote and recorded the original version).  There’s not much to be said about it that isn’t said by the song itself.  Give a listen:

 

 

My 38th Favorite Song of All-Time

…and my 38th favorite song of all-time is:

“Sometimes I Rhyme Slow” by Nice & Smooth

Just a great, infectious song from my youth which, every time I hear it or even think about it, gets stuck in my head for days.  I can rap this song.  The whole thing.

(also, it may or may not use a core sample from another song that may or may not be appearing even higher on this list)

My 39th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Education” by Pearl Jam

A b-side that didn’t see the light of day until Pearl Jam released an album of b-sides and rarities, “Education” has a funkiness and swagger that is atypical of the band.  Lyrically, it is straight-forward while also containing vast, simplistic wisdom and insight into human nature.  While Eddie Vedder is a tremendous lyricist, “Education” doesn’t approach the subject matter in his usual style.  In many ways, “Education” is wholly unique in the Pearl Jam canon.  I highly encourage you to check out the lyrics after the video.

I’m questioning my education.
Is my education all I am now?
While you’re deciding, I’ve been finding,
Looking around in the here and now.

If I’d been taught from the beginning,
Would my fears now be winning?

I’m questioning my own equation.
Is my own equation relevant somehow?
The flags will wave and the news is breaking.
See the man who can’t pick out his own tie?

If I’d been taught from the beginning
Would my fears now be winning?
A wide world, figured out the answers.
I’ll be in my own, dancing out.

I’m questioning my education.
Rewind it, what does it show?
Could be, the truth, it becomes you.
I’m a seed wondering why it grows.

“It’s not the dream that makes you weak/ It’s not the night that makes you sleep.”

The concert last night was AMAZING.  Partly because it featured two bands that I’m pretty much at the apex of liking right now, and it’s been a long time since my concert-going career was so in tune with what I’m currently digging (which is why you may have noticed a significantly higher rate of commentary about this concert on social media than I normally indulge in), and partly because I really have slowed my concert going frequency in the past year, so now when I do go to a concert, the experience is starting to have some of that oomph that it had in the beginning, oh-so-many years ago.

The Band of Horses show destroyed me emotionally, while the My Morning Jacket show ripped my face off, in the good way.  I won’t bother you with specifics, but it was wholly satisfying.  Although, one specific: I finally got a “Steam Engine” from My Morning Jacket, after seeing them 7 times now.  “Steam Engine” is my white whale with this band.  I’ve just thought up that term for this purpose, but it’s perfect.  I seem to have a “white whale”” with just about every band I see frequently.  My sister and I shared one with LIVE (it was “White, Discussion”) and we finally got it on their farewell tour.  With Pearl Jam it was “Hard to Imagine”, which at one point seemed unthinkable I’d ever hear…and by the end of the 2008 tour, I was actually annoyed when they kept opening with it!  haha.  Anyway.  Aside from those two, I think I have yet to see any of my other “white whales”.  Oh, and of course, I got “Steam Engine” last night, and I definitely fucking cried.

Of my opener/ closer predictions, I got one out of four correct (“The Funeral” to close BoH’s set)…which was by far the easiest guess, but was no gimme!  I got one from each band’s wishlist that I had made.  Not too shabby.

The inside of the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, before the crowd arrived. I had a seat in the balcony.

Band of Horses during “Infinite Arms”.

Band of Horses setlist

1.  For Annabelle
2.  NW Apartment
3.  Knock Knock
4.  No One’s Gonna Love You More Than I Do
5.  Detlef Schrempf
6.  Infinite Arms
7.  The Great Salt Lake
8.  Cigarettes, Wedding Bands
9.  Older
10. Ode to LRC
11.  The First Song
12.  Laredo
13.  The General Specific
14.  Is There a Ghost?
15.  The Funeral

My Morning Jacket during “It Makes No Difference”

My Morning Jacket setlist
1. X-Mas Curtain   <—this is an incredibly abnormal opener
2. First Light
3. Outta My System
4. Holdin’ On To Black Metal
5. Tyrone (Erykah Badu cover)
6. Mahgeetah
7. Into The Woods
8. Evelyn Is Not Real
9. Gideon
10. Rocket Man  (Elton John cover)
11. The Bear
12. Strangulation
13. It Beats 4 U
14. Steam Engine
15. Victory Dance
16. Circuital
17. Touch Me I’m Going To Scream pt. 2
18. Touch Me I’m Going To Scream pt. 1
19. Highly Suspicious
20. Wordless Chorus
21. Run Thru
22. Smokin’ From Shootin’

Encore One:
1. Wonderful (The Way I Feel)  [with Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses]
2. I’m Amazed
3. It Makes No Difference  (The Band cover)

Encore 2:

1. Off The Record
2. One Big Holiday

In case you’re even mildly interested, I recorded MMJ coming onto stage and the first few minutes of “Xmas Curtain” (which has some incredibly interesting lyrics)…for me, one of the most interesting things to see from shows I wasn’t at is how the bands start the performance…the entrance music, the first few chords, the audience response…and MMJ never disappoint in this regard. (notice the red and green lights for “Xmas Curtain”, which, as far as I can tell, may or may not be about having sex with a prostitute on Christmas).   This also gives you a good idea of how far away I was :(

My 43rd Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Another Pilot” by Hey Rosetta!

The lead track on the debut album by my unquestionable favorite band, “Another Pilot” created another mantra for me to write on the outside of contemplative letters to friends, or in the margins of my notebooks:  “Start the engines, I’m dying in the long line.”  Read the lyrics, posted below the video, and wait through the whole song, it’s got different stages that need to be experienced:

Crows pitch on the lawn, screeching a song. The inmates wake up and they’re pulled to the bars to pine their regrets and their rusting corvettes and the tragedy they once had a part in. They said “You ruined our lives.  You pissed on our prize.” It’s still pulling your knuckles to your palm.

(fucking conscience, you’re siding with the wrong side)

You know the devil’s not deep–no, no, he’s brushing your cheek, and hearing him breathe you remember a song:

just another angel through the clouds and into the ground just another pilot through the clouds and into the ground just another child through the chrome sets out on his own

Birds shit on your car, you’re scraping it off. Do they know who you are? Don’t they know who you are?! They sing “You ruined our lives  You pissed on our pride.” Still pulling your knuckles to your tie. You carry on, hunched over your job.

(start the engines i’m dying in the long line)

But you wanna get off and run away from it all…

You plan your escape, at the end of the day, you plan your escape you take what you saved, and you get on a plane, yeah you take what you saved and you start fading away, as you’re turning the page, you start fading away

(just another angel through the clouds and into the ground just another pilot flying down just another devil out of the dirt and back into the earth)

(fucking conscience, you’re siding with the wrong side start the engines, i’m dying in the long line)

My 44th Favorite Song of All-Time

…and my 44th favorite song of all-time is:

“I’ve Got a Feeling” by The Beatles

Just a good old-fashioned badass Beatles song:

My 46th Favorite Song of All-Time

…and my 46th favorite song of all-time is:

“Easy Money” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

I’ll leave it up to you to decipher exactly what “Easy Money” is trying to say about money, and exactly what story Nick Cave is telling in the sparse but heart-wrenching lyrics, and whether or not he is being genuine or facetious by the closing refrain pray for the wife and pray for the kids, and pray for the kids and pray for the house, but one thing is for sure:  you’ve got to watch it.   This live performance I’ve included here is one that has always moved me so much, when I couldn’t find it on YouTube, I found a way to put it on there myself, just so I could include in in this entry.  So the YouTube video below was put on the internet by me!  So you’ve got to watch it!

My 48th Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to see all previous entries on the list.

…and my 48th favorite song of all-time is:

“Locomotive Breath” by Jethro Tull

I first heard this song while I was waiting in line at a mom-and-pop convenience store in my tiny hometown of Newville, PA.  It was sometime in the mid-90s, so I had just got into rock, but this means it was also pre-Google, etc, so I had a devil of a time finding out what the song was.  All I had to go on was a few of the lyrics that I had been able to decipher.  I asked around quite a bit, and actually went nearly a year before I finally found out what the song was.  And then, again because this was pre-internet (for any real purpose, of course it existed, but barely) I had to actually go out and buy a CD just to hear the song again.  But I bought a Jethro Tull live album, and frankly, I have never found a live verison of “Locomotive Breath” that even comes close to having the raw power of the studio version.  In fact, it turns out, I’m not a huge Jethro Tull fan.  I dig “Aqualung” and Thick as a Brick, but aside from that, I’m meh.  But “Locomotive Breath”…well, have a listen:

 

My 51st Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to see all previous entries in this list.

And my 51st favorite song of all-time is:

“Evening Kitchen” by Band of Horses

Certainly the only song that I’ve ever heard that is tender and beautiful while discussing how a lover (or former lover, hard to tell) has disappointed and angered them over a period of time, mainly just through being a difficult, hugely flawed person.  Not a song about cheating or breaking their heart, but just about being late all the time and being a general pain in the ass.  Sometimes it’s OK to not be singing about heartbreak and turmoil, but some of the more mundane but very real challenges we all undergo throughout life and relationships.  Plus, it’s just a damn gorgeous song.  Underneath the studio version, I have included a live version from an already-famous impromptu show they did in New York’s Grand Central Station in 2010:

 

My 52nd Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Real Muthaphuckin’ Gs” by Eazy E

Eazy was far and away my favorite rapper back in my rap-liking days.  His unique voice and flow style coupled with his unashamed misogynistic love of sex (I was a teenager), plus the fact that he was short and still a badass, made him a shoo-in for a poster on my bedroom wall.  And while “Real Muthaphuckin’ Gs” is far from his best song, it stands as my favorite for two reasons: it was at the top of my playlist during the rocky turmoil during the beginning of my first serious relationship (the period this song was on the playlist was mostly a bad period, with a whole lot of angst on my part, but I find all a memory needs to be pleasant after such a long period of time is a certain level of accuity), and the fact that this is an unabashed retaliation song, a straight-up “diss” song, on Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog in the big “war” between those two rap factions.    In my estimation, it is the best diss song out there, as it doesn’t attempt to be subtle or cutesy, but comes right at it’s subjects.  It is bold and daring, and creative in it’s rhymes.  In addition, the feeling of animosity toward it’s subjects is truly felt and palpable, unlike on Dre’s initial volley, “Fuck Wit’ Dre Day” where Dr. Dre, while dissing Eazy E, sounds like he might be reading a parts list off a manifest.

Two other rappers are featured in “Real Muthaphuckin’ Gs”: BG Knocc Out and Gangsta Dresta.

My 53rd Favorite Song of All-Time

Click here to read about this list, or click here to see all previous entries on the list.

…and my 53rd favorite song of all-time is:

“Call Me Al” by Paul Simon

I have no specific memory of my father and I enjoying this song together, but in my mind, this song was one of the first instances of my being aware that my father and I shared the same sense of humor.  The video, featuring Chevy Chase famously lip syncing and doing all kinds of crazy stuff, I know tickled both my father and I, and the lyrics, seemingly nonsensical, certainly hit both of us in our funny bone sweet-spot.  I’ve continued to love it more and more as I get older, especially as I realize the verses seem to contain serious material, seemingly unconnected to the nonsense chorus…always leaving me to wonder how much is nonsense, and how much is the work of a genius, working far over our heads.

My 54th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“The New Year” by Death Cab for Cutie

(note: I wrote this entry about 4 or 5 months ago.  Isn’t it interesting how it ties in so perfectly with my life right now??)

I not only love this song because it’s an amazing song, but for the time in my life that it evokes in my memories.  First, about the song:

It has pretty much established most of my thoughts about “new years”, as we call it in this culture, and things like resolutions…all the kinds of shit I bitch about starting around December 28th.  Like most of what Ben Gibbard writes, every word is absolutely perfect, the meaning is intensely conveyed and no word is ornamental or extra.  The pulsing, undulating chords of the music reflect the solemnity of the lyrics, and the desperate yearning of the final repitition…”there’d be no distance that could hold us back” reeks of the honestly of a man who knows the past is unreachable.

I bought the album this song is on (Transatlantisicm) a few weeks before I got hired in my current job as a manager for a restaurant company.  This was a major step up for me.  This was also shortly after I’d bought my first-ever brand-new car.  This was a banner time in my life, a life which had only recently come back from the very brink.  Musically, I was just starting to branch out into “indie” music, an area of music I knew I wanted to be a part of but hadn’t yet figured out my entry point.

So anyway, I bought this Death Cab for Cutie album right before my company sent me to Pittsburgh for two weeks for training classes.  They put us up in a hotel that was about a ten minute drive from the corporate office, so every morning, bright and early, in this brand new car and in this amazing brand new life, I would find myself driving through early-morning Pittsburgh as this album played.  “The New Year” is the first track on the CD, so I heard it often (and often had it on repeat).  It was a truly magical time, and this song takes me back there.  Also, fuck resolutions.

So this is the new year,
and i don’t feel any different.
The clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.

So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
They’re self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on.
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once,
lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogues bleed into one.
I wish the world was flat like the old days
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways.
There’d be no distance that could hold us back.

My 55th Favorite Song of All-Time

is:

“Fell on Black Days” by Soundgarden

I’m actually not a very big Soundgarden fan, nor do I find “Fell on Black Days” to be especially gratifying as a song.  But on one specific occasion in my life, it may have kept me from just plain old losing my mind.

The story itself is far from interesting.  It was about 3/4 of the way through my alcoholic drinking, and things had just started to really fall apart around me.  I essentially had no place to live, my body was shutting down, and I was fading out of contact with a lot of my loved ones.  Then on this particular day, I was leaving my mom’s apartment in Dillsburg to go to work in Carlisle (about a 15-20 minute drive) and my car wouldn’t start.  This just seemed pretty horrible at the time.  I wasn’t yet fully aware of the fact that my dependence on alcohol was ruining my life, but this day aided in the dawning of the realization.

I called work and told them of my issue, and the main boss said he would come get me and even arrange for a ride home.  This is slightly before the age of everyone having cell phones and GPSs, so we had to do the let-me-tell-you-while-you-write-it-down directions, and it wasn’t an easy trip.

I stood outside on the sidewalk by the road for 20-25 minutes waiting for him.  I was very close to slipping into a serious depression about my life in general, when this song somehow popped into my head.  I didn’t know any of the lyrics except the chorus, but somehow it seemed a comfort as I kept replaying it in my mind.  Sure, the song itself is depressing, but it felt nice to know that other people had, well, fell on black days.  Throughout the rest of my trying times (in the parlance of my blog, before the fire), the song was always in the back of my head, telling me I wasn’t alone.  And the phrasing, fell on black days, seems to imply there is something less bad after them.