Tagged!

Been tagged by green apron monkey (even though he hasn’t been a green apron monkey for nine or ten months). The tagging involves me listing six songs and six albums that mean something to me and why. So, in the order in which I type them, here goes.

Songs:

Light Up My Room---Barenaked Ladies---Stunt
There’s something about melancholy songs with weird imagery that I can’t get enough of and this is one of the best. I think a large part of why I like so much was my surprise at when I heard it. I had only heard the songs that were played on the radio, which I liked so I bought the album. The first two songs were constantly played on the radio, so I knew them well, and then this one came on. It sounded so different and the wistful sound just pulled me in. I had to play it again right away and when I was done listening to the album, this was the song I was hearing.

A Self Called Nowhere---They Might Be Giants---John Henry
Sort of in the same category as the one above, but musically different. The words are sung pretty softly and that’s the way the music starts, but it changes, gets harder, then goes back. It also talks about that obsessive nature that people (me) can get. So obsessed by one thing that we forget other things that may have been important and may be important.

Kiss Off---Violent Femmes---Violent Femmes
There are three reasons this song gets me: 1) The first Violent Femmes I ever heard. Acoustic punk, amazing. 2) The list of reasons. 3) The fact that their best song uses a phrase that I heard for ten minutes back in the fourth or fifth grade.

I’m Going To Go Back There Someday---The Great Gonzo (Dave Goelz)---The Muppet Movie Soundtrack
Not the remixed/revamped version from Muppets From Space, but the good, simple one from The Muppet Movie. Most people would probably pick Kermit singing Rainbow connection, and that would be a great choice, but fast forward to about fifteen/twenty minutes before the end, just before (I think) Kermit talks with himself and listen to the emotion. He says, “I’ve never been there but I know the way / I’m going to go back there someday.” I feel like that every day.

We Used to be Friends---The Dandy Warhols---Welcome to the Monkey House
It reminds me of the one who was my best friend (read this post for all the info on her). I miss the goofiness of being with her. Every time I’ve seen her in the last couple of years I feel like she wants to forget how fun it was to be the weird ones. She’s not like this with her brother, but I suppose that’s a different relationship altogether. I don’t know what happened, but we’re not the friends we used to be.

3 AM---Matchbox 20---Yourself of Someone Like You
Probably the most embarrassing song on this list, but it helped me to get through my first year of college. Jane, from the show Daria and to the character, once said, “You didn’t make any friends at that camp, did you.” That was my first year at school. I went there thinking that there would be lots more people like my friends. People who were willing to talk about anything (And I mean anything, we once talked, on a bus headed to Disneyland surrounded by our classmates, about turning breast milk into cheese and how it could be sold as an aphrodisiac. We weren’t the most popular, but we had the most fun.), but there weren’t any that I could find. People there, except for many in the Christian club for some odd reason, were just as concerned with their surface as most people in highschool were. This song described how I felt at the time and still makes my insides crinkle when I hear it.

Albums:

Flood---They Might Be Giants
My brother gave me a copy of the cassette when I was in eighth grade. I wanted it for the songs that were on Tiny Toons, but found something special. I’d listen to it everyday, on my cheap-o walkman, at least two times. My obsession started with the slippery lyrics and the strange staccato sounds, but the more I listened to it the more I thought I was hearing something new, something that was all for me. I kept it my secret until I discovered that they had made other albums, better albums, but this was the first I knew. Hell, I can still sing almost the entire album without any help.

Rubber Soul---The Beatles
I can’t remember when my Beatles obsession began, but the summer after my freshman year, it came to a head. When the family was gone, I’d play all the records he had (nearly all of them, I think) and sing along with them. One day, as I listened to this, I noticed that here was their transition point. This album was The Beatles moving away from the pop of With the Beatles into the stranger sounds of Magical Mystery Tour. It’s a strange balance of both sticking to the old and trying to find the new. I really like hearing the most popular band of the sixties searching for something new, maybe better, rather than sticking to the old stuff because it works.

Violent Femmes---Violent Femmes (Special Edition or whatever it’s called)
I owned the compilation album (Add It Up) that everyone seems to own first, but then got this one and was blown away by the magnitude of it. It has demos and live versions and all sorts of extra things that made it stand out. If I hadn’t bought this one, Add It Up would be on the list. Acoustic punk kicks ass, what else can I say?

Okay, that’s only three albums, but it’s all I can think of right now.