Movies of Myself

Day 30 - Your Favorite Song At This Time Last Year

What a difference a year makes. What was I doing on this day last year? Getting read for a baby shower. Making lots of favors and decorations:

And now that baby is about to turn one!

It's entirely wonderful and panic-inducing at the same time.

My favorite song from this time last year was one which I listen to regularly still. It's a curious and cynical song about modern love and survival. It has a most glorious rhythm and it is just so fucking cool. It will make you think and dance at the same time; a singular and marvelous feat.

A Mind I Knew - Suckers

Day 29 - A Song From Your Childhood

When I was little my favorite after-school pastime was to sit with my back against the wall and listen to records on my Fisher-Price record player. My two favorite albums were Smurfing Sing Song and Disco Duck Dance Party, and out of both my most beloved song was Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" from the Dance Party. I adored that track and must have listened to it a million times. I distinctly remember my best friend and I making up a choreographed dance to the song right around the time of second or third grade. 

Strangely, I completely forgot about "Love Will Keep Us Together" for an entire decade after that and was delightfully startled to hear it in a restaurant in Berkeley. I ran out immediately to find it and for some absurd reason they had a CD single of it for sale. I still think it's a pretty darn cute song!

Love Will Keep Us Together - Captain & Tenille

Some fun facts about the duo garnered from their Wikipedia page:

• The Captain's real name is Daryl Dragon

• Toni Tenille was a backing vocalist for Elton John, The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd

• Love this: "In July 1976, Captain & Tennille were invited by First Lady Betty Ford to perform in the East Room of the White House in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II and President Gerald Ford during the Bicentennial celebration."

Day - 28 A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty

via Paste

We shouldn't talk about this one too much, but just a warning: it is as sad as Ryan Adams gets and that is so incredibly sad. It's a relentless grief and, even worse, it is a delicate hurt, one that touches every inch of your skin and every breath and thought. I almost want to say that I'm sorry for making you listen to this, it's that deep, but the music is so lovely that it will reach out and save you.

For you I'd do anything.
Tear myself in two just to hear you breathe.

Calculate the changes that in time turn to nothing,
and then multiply yourself by my pain.

Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part - Ryan Adams

Day 27 - A Song You Wish You Could Play

via xtrapop on flickr

When I say that I want to play this song, I mean that I wish I could sing along to it the way that Patrick Watson does. It is a stunning performance, utterly transformative. Do you ever get those moments where you feel like you're watching your life from the outside and you can suddenly see everything for it's true worth? All the mistakes you've been making are thrown into stark relief and all the blessings that surround you glow bright and even brighter.

"To Build a Home" is like that: one long existential moment, a love song for life in all aspects of the word. It's also one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. I want to learn every note and play it for myself in a quiet room. 

To Build A Home - The Cinematic Orchestra

Day 26 - A Song That You Can Play On An Instrument

I'll be the first to admit that I am no musician. I can read a little music because I half-heartedly attended some piano lessons over the years but there are very few songs I can play from memory. They all happen to be simple practice-type traditional tunes that you would teach to a child, so I've decided to spare you and pick out "Happy Birthday" for this day's song rather than a demented version of "Oh, Susannah" or the like. 

Of course, this "Happy Birthday" is a little bit different than your typical rendition and it'll make any birthday just about the best one ever. 

Happy Birthday - The Beatles

Day 25 - A Song That Makes You Laugh

Now, I love Usher more than many things (alright, more than most things) but there was a time when he was trying so earnestly to transition from Smooth Usher to Club Usher that he kind of lost me for a bit. Eventually, I saw the delightful genius behind it all and began to embrace Usher in all of his forms. This song symbolizes the Great Usher Migration to me and it's so over the top at times that I can't help but laugh:

Love In This Club - Usher

The other reason this song makes me laugh is the video that the Rockafire Explosion puppets made for it. I can't listen to "Love In This Club" without immediately thinking of the video because it is so insanely brilliant, bizarre and hilarious:

Day 24 - A Song That You Want Played At Your Funeral

via Doves and Serpents

“We need in love to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily–we do not need to learn it.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

I don't have a very strong opinion on what gets played at my funeral. I know that I want to be cremated and I think that I want my ashes scattered to the winds. But funerals are for the living, not the dead and the living must choose whatever they need to come to terms with the great departure. 

However, if this song (this stunningly gorgeous, achingly melancholy, and momentous song) were played at my funeral, the drifting spirit of me would not be unhappy over it. This is my favorite song from one of my top five favorite albums of all time. It's a life-changer, especially when you consider the true story of Duk Koo Kim.

Duk Koo Kim - Sun Kil Moon

Woken up from a dream last night,
somewhere lost in war. 
I couldn't feel my feet or hands. 
I didn't feel right anymore.

I knew there I'd die alone 
with no one to reach to,
but an angel came down 
and brought me back to you. 

I'd rather leave this world forever, baby 
than let life go the way it's going...

You never know what day could pick you, baby.
Out of the air, out of nowhere.

Day 23 - A Song That You Want to Play at Your Wedding

via flickr

Considering the number of weddings I've been involved with in one way or another (planning, attending, bridesmaiding and countless invitations) I haven't really given much thought to my own theoretical wedding. I know I'd like for there to be cotton candy and popcorn. I know I want there to be lots of dancing and photos. 

The only real planning I've ever done for said wedding concerns the music. I have almost every moment of it set to songs that would be just perfect. My wedding soundtrack changes as songs fall in and out of favor, but these two never waver:

Olsen Olsen - Sigur Rós If you want to know what angels sound like, it's when the big chorus chimes in near the end of this gorgeous, uplifting, wondrous song.

Northern Sky - NIck Drake

I never felt magic crazy as this.
I never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea.
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree.
But now you're here. Brighten my northern sky.

Day 22 - A Song That You Listen To When You're Sad

via fyeahtattoos.com

Dave Matthews solo album Some Devil is full of lonely moments and the lingering feeling that the past will haunt you forever. It's a great record and "Stay or Leave" is my favorite song from it. It's one of the best breakup songs ever and definitely a tearjerker. There's no way I can do it justice in a blog post. Without a doubt it is the heartbreaking lyrics to this song that make it such a good one to indulge in when you're sad.

Wake up naked drinking coffee.
making plans to change the world
while the world is changing us.
It was good, good love.
You used to laugh under the covers.
Maybe not so often now,
but the way I used to laugh with you
was loud and hard.

Stay or leave.
I want you not to go
but you should.
It was good as good goes.
Stay or leave.
I want you not to go
but you did.

It's all about the contrasts. Matthews masterfully presents the most beautiful slices of memory out of of a relationship and it makes you plead along with him: why do things ever have to change? The sweetness of the verses followed by the plaintive sorrow of the chorus - it's beautiful and it kills me.

Stay or Leave - Dave Matthews

Remember we used to dance
and everyone wanted to be
you and me.
I want to be too.
What day is this
besides the day you left me?
What day is this
besides the day you went?

Day 21 - A Song That You Listen To When You're Happy

Things that make me incredibly happy:

via harryfuckingpotter.tumblr.com

• Harry Potter
• when you're the last car through the yellow light
• hot air balloons
• Patrick
• candy stores
• the fact that my best friends' baby has her own personalized Hello Kitty address labels

via karishma.me

• happy puppies
• Pokemon jokes
• wildflowers
• my sister
• cake and ice cream

• happy puppies who like Harry Potter
• picnic lunches
• lace dresses
• Erasure

Erasure makes me happy and I automatically run to it when I'm already feeling groovy. It's a perfect symbiotic circle of delight. Although their lyrics often belie the insanely catchy sugar sweetness of their music, you just can't help but be carried away by the infectiousness of it all. I'm pretty sure their songs are made of happiness.

A Little Respect - Erasure

Day 20 - A Song That You Listen To When You're Angry

Scenario: Something shitty has happened. It has rent a big, long, jaggedy tear into the fabric of your motherloving world. Things have gone wrong. You have been wronged and that is just not cool.

Solution: Get in the car (or on your bike, or at least a fast-moving subway car), turn this song on, crank it up high - absolutely as loud as you can stand it without shattering your windows, and feel the driving rhythm of it move through you as you figure out how to set everything right again. Repeat if necessary, many times. You're welcome.

Hysteria - Muse

Day 19 - A Song From Your Favorite Album

via photoradar

This is Karekare Beach. It is located about an hour outside of Auckland and it is the place I want to go to most in the whole world. Many of the beach scenes from the film The Piano were shot there and it is here on these sands that Crowded House recorded much of their masterpiece Together Alone. If it is possible to feel connected to a place you have never been to, then I am tied to this beach.

My life is thoroughly entwined with this album. I feel like it has been in my blood from the very first time I heard it. Crowded House have taken the mythos of life and colored it with fever dreams and everyday cares, and the rhythm of the South Pacific washes over it all. These songs have the Earth and the sky in them; they have the roots of trees and starlight that was born a billion years ago. Together Alone speaks equally about the smallest wistful longings and the biggest dreams we barely dare to dream. It is a mature pop album with amazing melodies and musicality, and as a whole it is beyond the weight of time. It is a life changer.

Distant Sun - Crowded House

Day 17 - A Song You Hear Often on the Radio & Day 18 - A Song You Wish You Heard on the Radio

When we were driving from Pasadena to San Diego a few weeks, I heard this song on the radio about fifteen times. Each way:

Party Rock Anthem Feat. Lauren Bennett & Goon Rock - LMFAO

It got to the point where I just embraced the delirious over-the-top glory of it and now I'm a little bit obsessed with it. It's a total summer jam (although the new Katey Perry single is threatening to replace it.)

This song I've never heard on the radio once, unless a Blogothèque Takeway Show can be counted as "the radio". 

Red Cave - Yeasayer

I've longed to hear it come on as a big, blessed surprise on the car speakers, though. The song builds from humble beginnings until it is a choir's resonant shout, a grand and triumphant celebration of life that envelops you in its elation like the enclosed and wraparound soundscape of a moving car. "Red Cave" is a holy experience, plain and simple. 

But I'm not holding my breath. Regular radio is so disappointing, for the most part, and when I'm at home I've often turned to Pandora or KCRW's web component when I'm not listening to my own iTunes. For the past few weeks, though, I've been using a fun new site:

Turntable.fm consists of rooms devoted to the experience of listening to music. You can look through lists of music titled by genre and come and go as you please. If you join a busy room, your avatar hangs out on the dance floor waiting to see what comes on next. If you mark a song as "awesome" your little person even starts dancing. Cute!

The real fun kicks in when you can DJ in a room. If you can find a spot up at the DJ table, you take turns playing songs with your fellow users up there. You can start rooms with your friends too, and hang out together playing music. Turntable has created a very compelling social experience. I've had such a blast turntabling with Patrick and also meeting and chatting with new music-lovers. Unlike most of the other social sites that have popped up, Turntable successfully brings people together and gets them to reach out and just be friendly. Add some pretty damn good music into the mix and you've got a winner. I'd definitely recommend checking it out if you're ever just working at your computer for a while! Maybe I'll see you over there :)

Day 16 - A Song That You Used to Love But Now Hate

via colormekatie on flickr

Look, I forgive and forget. That's just my way. Sometimes I am haunted. Once in a while I wish I could turn my back on the world. But I can't and won't hold hatred in my heart and I certainly don't take it out on the music. 

I can't say that there are any songs which I once adored that I now actually hate. Once I fall for you, you'll have a piece of me for always. Yes, I'm talking to you, O.M.D. And yes, to you, too, Goo Goo Dolls. And I am most definitely talking to you, Boyz II Men (haha, I just realized how amazing the spelling of that is.) Just because your songs no longer elevate me to the joyous heights they once did doesn't mean that I HATE them.

There are songs, however, that remind you of a time when you were not at your best. When they come on it kindles a flesh memory; you can't help but feel sheepish and contrite, maybe even a little bit ashamed despite the fact that everything's already said and done and cold in the ground. Good gods, I was a blazing idiot back then, you have to say. This song does that to me:

Your Ex-Lover is Dead - Stars

It's funny that it's this particular song that leaves me so rueful. This song understands that feeling damn it. Hell, it's the one that taught me about this feeling in the first place. "Live through this," it promised, "and you won't look back." So I got myself out of that mess and I brushed my shoulders off. I changed.

There was a time when this song meant everything to me and, although I don't love it anymore, I want to thank "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" for what it taught me once upon a time and I want to give it a final message: 

There's one thing I have to say so I'll be brave.
You were what I wanted,
I gave what I gave.
I'm not sorry I met you.
I'm not sorry it's over.
I'm not sorry there's nothing to save.

Day 15 - A Song That Describes You

I Feel It All - Feist

No one likes to take a test.
Sometimes you know more is less.
Put your weight against the door.
Kick drum on the basement floor.

Stranded in a fog of words.
Loved him like a winter bird.
On my head the water pours,
gulf stream through the open door.

Fly away,
fly away to what you want to make.

I feel it all, I feel it all.
I feel it all, I feel it all,
The wings are wide, the wings are wide,
Wild card inside, wild card inside.

Day 14 - A Song That No One Would Expect You To Love

Who would've thought that this would prove to be my most challenging pick? I guess when it comes to music I am simply predictable. I like to think I listen to and enjoy a wide variety of music, but what I love and what I loathe are pretty cut and dry.

So for this day I wanted to post one of my favorite songs which I've never talked about with anyone before. It has to be this particular live version, because for Johnny Cash to sing about being stuck in Folsom Prison to a roomful of inmates at the scene, and to have the emotion of the song resonate through them all, is absolutely remarkable. The song is great and the story is even better.  

Folsom Prison Blues (Live) - Johnny Cash

When I hear that whistle blowing,
I hang my head and cry.

Day 13 - A Song That Is a Guilty Pleasure

Some of my favorite guilty pleasures:

a plethora of snacks,

 
lazing around in bed,

and sometimes eating snacks in bed. Usually cake, or maybe cheese, though I've also been known to nom Honey Bunches of Oats there too.

Also, this song:

Dangerous feat. Akon [Explicit] - Kardinal Offishal

From across the room 
I can see it that can't stop myself from lookin'
and noticin' you, noticin, me.
Watch out I seen her type before.

Hahahaha. For some reason, my strongest memory associated with this song is the night before my friends Jen and Ryan got married. The wedding couple and assorted friends and family were scattered about the Half Moon Bay coastal area, gallivanting the night away. At one point a bunch of us decided to head back to the hotel, stuffing ourselves into a minivan which mysetriously had half of its seats removed. I was lucky enough to ride shotgun, but I distinctly remember this song coming on the radio and turning around to see a mess of folks half squatting / half dancing and singing at the top of their lungs:

Girl, I can notice but to 
NOTICE YOU.
NOTICIN' ME!

It was awesome.

Day 12 - A Song From a Band You Hate

Okay, Jewel isn't a band. In fact, Jewel is barely a musician. I loathe her music so much that I am almost willing to say that I'm a better songwriter than she is, and I've never even come close to writing a song in my life. 

She has never released a song that hasn't been insufferably, infuriatingly annoying to me, to the point where I refuse to upload one of her songs even for this project. No song of Jewel's will be permitted on my computer. Ever. I've linked instead to this insipid video for her "club" "hit" "Intuition" which is somehow even more horrendous than her typical bleeding-heart soul poet drivel. But please don't watch it. Seriously, don't do that to yourself.

The worst part is that I can actually kind of see how Jewel's voice could be sweet and kind of cute. It makes it even more galling that "Hands" and "Foolish Games" are what she's done with that voice. Go kick rocks, Jewel.

Day 11 - A Song From Your Favorite Band

Do you guys remember music store listening stations? The little wall stands with the enormous earphones attached where you could sample all sorts of new and recommended music? Listening stations used to be my favorite thing in the world. Before digital files on the computer became the norm it was the most reliable way to sample an album before committing yourself to the purchase of a whole album, although it was tough to muster the patience and to stand there for more than a snippet of the record.

I discovered a lot of great musicians this way. In fact, that's how I stumbled upon my favorite band. In the summer of 2000 I was newly relocated back to the Los Angeles area, and I felt lost at sea. I didn't miss the Bay Area yet, but I had changed a lot during my college years and the Valley didn't feel like home anymore. That summer was a blur of restless, hot, indecisive days. Waiting for something to happen. Wondering what that something would be. 

One of those days found me at the Virgin Megastore at Ontario Mills, browsing their surprisingly awesome comic book selection and looking for something new to listen to. I stopped at a listening station which was simply titled "Emo". Most of the selections were drivel, but the second cd from the top had a super cool cover design and I was drawn to it instantly. It was Death Cab For Cutie's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes. The giant headphones went on. I hit play. I fell in love.

It's been eleven years since the magical summer day when this band entered my life and spun it off its musical axis. For most of these years a week has not passed when I didn't listen to a Death Cab album. They've been there through the thick and the thin, through everything. Lately, when a Death Cab for Cutie song comes on I've wanted to say to them, "we've come a long way, baby". It feels like ages ago but I still remember it like it was yesterday. I guess that's what true love is like.

Lowell, MA - Death Cab For Cutie

Day 10 - A Song That Makes You Fall Asleep

So soft, so soothing. I can't tell you how much I owe to Iron & Wine's first two albums. During my worst years of insomnia I came to rely on them on an almost nightly basis. Sometimes I didn't even hope for sleep. Just calm would be enough. More often than not, these songs would bring one and then the other. The songs have a touch of melancholy and a touch of blessing, both good things to surrender to in the dark.

Bird Stealing Bread - iron & Wine

Day 9 - A Song You Can Dance To

Girl, shoot. I love to get down, so I can dance to just about any song. But nothing gets bodies moving like Girl Talk. He has the sublime talent of picking out the catchiest ten seconds out of every song and then blending them seamlessly together. I can't tell you how often I'll be walking around singing "ugly girls, be quiet quiet, pretty girls, clap clap like this" ALL day long just because I happen to have a Girl Talk album on in the car.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Girl Talk show at the Fillmore and, next to performance nights when I was in high school Dance Company, I've never danced so strong and so long in my life. It was wowmazing, and I highly recommend the experience if Greg Gillis comes to your town. The man is a genius, so it's hard to pick a favorite song from his body of work, but this is mine:

Bounce That - Girl Talk

Day 8 - A Song That You Know All The Words To

Come now. How many songs do I know all the words to? A thousand? Two thousand? More? I'm sure all of us know a zillion songs by heart. What a curious subject. 

The songs that I picked for this day have lyrics that never fail to move me; absolute poetry set to music. Both are from the 2008 elbow LP The Seldom Seen Kid and both are love songs that only Guy Garvey could write. They're songs with words that I thank the gods I have learned to sing wholeheartedly.

"Starlings" is the album opener, and what an opener it is. Through seven years and three previous records, elbow had never began an album with a true love song before. I knew this was something special. 

Starlings - elbow

So yes, I guess I'm asking you
to back a horse that's good for glue
and nothing else.
But find a man that's truer than,
find a man that needs you more, than I.

Sit with me a while
and let me listen to you talk about 
your dreams and your obsessions,
I'll be quiet and confessional.
The violets explode inside me
when I meet your eyes,
Then I'm spinning and I'm diving 
like a cloud of starlings.

The song is almost painfully open and honest, straight to the heart. It is somehow huge and epic and absolutely delicate at the same time. Just like love in real life. It's stunning and beautiful. It's just right. 

Just two tracks later comes "Mirrorball", perhaps my favorite modern love song. It so perfectly captures that exact moment when you realize you're in love that I can hardly stand it. The pure magic of it; that walking on air feeling. The sound of the song really does remind you of a mirrorball turning, shooting stars falling in all around you. And yet, "Mirrorball" isn't the least bit cheesy or gauche. It's entirely sincere, humble and sweet. 

Mirrorball - elbow

We took the town to town last night.
We kissed like we invented it.
And now I know what every step is for,
to lead me to your door.

Know that while you sleep
everything has changed.

You made the moon our mirrorball,
the streets an empty stage.
The city's sirens, violins.
Everything has changed.

Day 07 - A Song That Reminds You of a Certain Event

You guys, I can't even explain how awesome it was to go to a school dance when I was in junior high. If you took away the catty drama, the pining after cute boys, the trying to avoid gross boys and the relentless suspicion that your outfit was not cool, it was actually a pretty fun time.

Because think about the songs that were popular when I was in middle school: "Ice Ice Baby", "U Can't Touch This", "Pump Up The Jam", "O.P.P.", "The Humpty Dance".  "Poison" by Bell Biv Devoe. "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips. It was seriously amazing.

Of course, we didn't only listen to unforgettable dance hits. My school was also split up into separate factions that were devoted to either hair bands (you couldn't go two freaking steps without hearing "Janie's Got a Gun") or New Wave. I was decidedly committed to the latter group and we held two albums sacred: Depeche Mode's Violator and The Cure's Disintegration. 

Although it wasn't my favorite Cure album (Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me RULES), the memory of stepping awkwardly back and forth under a disco ball and balloon bouquets has endured and this song takes me straight back every time. 

Pictures Of You - The Cure

Day 6 - A Song That Reminds You of Somewhere

If you had told me when I was growing up that I would love the beach some day I would've laughed. The beaches of my childhood were hot and crowded, tiring and confusing. I didn't like swimming, I didn't care much for sunbathing and the whole thing was just an ordeal that wasn't worth the trouble. 

But then I moved to Northern California and discovered a whole new kind of beach. Cool, dramatic, windswept beaches. Shrouded in fog one moment, unrelentingly bright in the next. Most of these beaches were quiet, lending themselves to the contemplative, healing hours I needed. 

For almost two entire years I would drive often to beaches along the Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, just to think. I would walk along the sand and feel as if the rest of the world was far, far away. A dream. A myth. 

Often on these trips I would listen to Josh Ritter's album Animal Years. It is his masterpiece. Each song is wonderful, but taken altogther the record is beyond powerful. It's one of those rare Great American Albums, a must-listen. 

This is my beach album; it IS this place. Animal Years is not sunny, light-hearted pop, but it tells a story beyond time, just like the faded wildflowers and the tall waves breaking over stone.

Wolves - Josh Ritter

Monster Ballads - Josh Ritter

Day 5 - A Song That Reminds You of Someone

Dark Come Soon - Tegan and Sara

Dark, you can't come soon enough for me.
Saved from one more day of misery.

This is a song about me just a few short years ago, when I was lower than low. This is a song about me before I got my shit together. I thought I'd stumbled into pretty much the deepest valley in my life before this point but boy was I wrong. There were low places I couldn't even imagine until I was lost in them, walking in circles through mazes of my own making. 

So what? I lied. I lie to me, too.

"Dark Come Soon" is the song you listen to lying on the ground unsure of when and why you'll every get up again, or what on Earth you'd do if you did. And so I listened to it again and again, playing this whole gut-wrenching masterpiece of an album endlessly because I understood it (and it understood me), until I realized that it held not just the deepest sympathy but also undeniable hope.

This song helped me see that there would be a time beyond this when I would look back and talk about how hard it was, and how it's the hard things make you so damn strong, that make you so much better that you can almost be grateful for them.

Everything I love, get back from me now.
Everyone I love, I need you now.

Day 4 - A Song That Makes You Sad

 

Breezy - Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

If you move the Spectral Decoder carefully over the front page of the liner notes for Bright Eyes' 2007 release Cassadaga, you will find a tribute to Breezy, Conor Oberst's friend Sabrina Duim. She was a fantascally gifted Standford student and a harpist who had recorded and toured with Bright Eyes. Duim passed away at her home in Palo Alto in January '07 due to unforseen complications with medications she was taking. She was 22 years old. 

For a period of time after her death, Conor Oberst would close out every show on his tour with this song that he'd written in remembrance of Sabrina. I don't know how he did it, singing this song each night. Even after dozens of listens I've never made it through this song once without literally dissolving into tears. I've never heard a song that captured the emotion of mourning like this, the longing for the little things that are gone forever, the empty feeling of their loss blended with the warm memory of who they were. 

I wanted to quote some of the song's lyrics but every line is so heartbreaking I couldn't pick between them. It might be best if you read them as a whole. Just make sure you have your Kleenex ready.

 

Day 3 - A Song That Makes You Happy

 

Sleepyhead - Passion Pit

One one level, this is just a simple, straightforward love song. Written as a Valentine's present for singer Michael Angelakos' then-girlfriend, "Sleepyhead" is sweet little ditty about young love, staying in bed all day and enjoying another person's company. 

On another level, the song is summer encapsulated. That feeling of carefree, spirited adventure combined with warm, lazy, seemingly-endless days and the confidence that everything will turn out right. Do you remember how when you were little every summer was going to be the best summer ever? Everything bad would magically transform itself during the few brief months we had off from school and we'd make a million memories with our friends and have the time of our life doing it. "Everything is going to the beat". That's what "Sleepyhead" is all about. Every second of it sings out with that summer feeling. We just have to let life take care of itself while we take good care of each other. 

Day 2 - My Least Favorite Song

Okay, don't get me wrong. I do not hate Pearl Jam. For a brief time in high school they were actually my favorite band. Eddie Vedder seems cool and I've enjoyed their music over the years. But this song is just so incredibly, unbearably whiney I can hardly stand it. A few months back it played constantly on the satellite radio station we have at work and I was filled with loathing for the world every time I heard the first two notes. It's supposedly a love song, but the only thing I love about it is when someone turns it off.

Just Breathe - Pearl Jam

And for good measure, here's one of my most hated songs from my long-time most hated band, The Offspring. This guy's voice blares over the loudspeakers in hell, I'm sure of it. 

Come Out and Play - The Offspring

Day 1 - My Favorite Song

Temptation - New Order

This is it. My favorite song. I always say I was born ten years too late. I would've made a spectacular New Wave teenager, I think. As it was, I started listening to New Order as soon as could reasonably be expected and I loved them well into my actual high school and college days. This song, this glorious, world-moving swirl of a song, cemented itself in my heart after it appeared on theTrainspotting soundtrack.

To me it is a curiously apt commentary on our endless search for happiness and how, in the end, all we have is ourselves to answer to. Lead singer Bernard Sumner once said that "Temptation" is about long lost love.

Up, down, turn around.
Please don't let me hit the ground.
Tonight I think I'll walk alone,
I'll find my soul as I go home.

In a manner both subtle and forgiving, Sumner sings about holding on and letting go, and how we don't always know which of those choices is best. He sings in a voice suffused with ardor and urgency, the best he'll ever sound in any New Order song. Far beyond any feeling of love lost or found, this song is about how circuitous and expansive time is, and how dynamic love can be through time's far reaches.

Recently I had a strange revelatory moment during which I understood that all the love I'd ever felt in the past had never really left me. It was something I carried with me all the time, part and parcel. Grade-school crushes, first loves and heartbreaks. I could almost physically see these experiences in the air around me. I can't recall most of these past feelings in detail, they're aren't a vital part of my current life at all. But there was goodness in them, they made me better, bit by bit, and now I make everything I can out of the present. 

Oh, it's the last time.
Oh, it's the last time
Oh, it's the last time.

Every day I get chances that never come again. Every day, no matter how great of a day it is, there's a last time. So come running, find what you need, stockpile your love and build it bright around you.