What songs are perfect descriptions of your attitudes toward a subject?
Well, it depends on the situation, I guess. At any time during a day, I can range all the way from the Carpenters’ “Top of the World” to Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty”.
“A Man I’ll Never Be” and “Peace of Mind” by Boston.
“Dust in the Wind” by Kansas.
“Imagine” by John Lennon.
“Gimme the Car” - Violent Femmes
Right this moment, my attitude is well described in Meredith Brooks’s Bitch.
“Positively Fourth Street” once…sadly…
“The Pretender” - Jackson Browne
“The Price You Pay” - Bruce Springsteen
“Math Sux” - Jimmy Buffett
“Still in the Game” by Steve Winwood
“Misunderstanding” by Genesis
“Space-Dye Vest” by Dream Theater
“Time” - Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd
Perfectly describes my current situation and feelings, especially the lyrics:
Gilmour’s guitar work slays me every time.
Modest Mouse - “World at Large” or Camper Van Beethoven - “Ambiguity Song”
I am getting ready to head off to school next year, and every major thing in my life right now I have not yet made up my mind on yet. They are both amazing “what the hell am I doing with my life” songs, especially for the up and comers.
“Went to the porch to have a thought,
Got to the door and again I couldn’t stop
You don’t know where and you don’t know when,
But you still got your words and you got your friends
Walk along to another day,
Work a little harder, work another way”
Modest Mouse just describes everything perfectly it seems.
And then the Ambiguity Song has a lot of words, but it mostly repeats one line: “Everything seems to be up in the air at this time.” Indeed it does.
I Won’t Grow Up from Peter Pan
Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen
I Go to Extremes by Billy Joel
Most days:
“Lovely Day” - Bill Withers
“Ground” - Assemblage 23
“Sing Your Life” - Morrissey
“Liberation” and “Red Letter Day” - Pet Shop Boys
In darker times:
“Light” or “You Haven’t Earned It” - Assemblage 23
“Brute” - KMFDM
Many times over the last three years:
“Give Me Some Truth” - John Lennon
“Unsatisfied” by The Replacements
“New World Man” by Rush (not Limbaugh) describes what I think America should be quite well.
“Prince Hal’s Dirge,” Loudon Wainwright. It’s the Anthem of a Young Humanities Major, I think.
Noah’s Dove by Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs. It mirrored a part of my life so accurately and so astonishingly that it just floored me!
Sure, a great many people have been cheated on and lied to about it, but it sure as hell happened to me and thus this first lyric sharply caught my attention.
Also like many other people, I had been burned badly in love and had opted out of relationships as a result for years. But after the proverbial 40 days and 40 nights, like Noah I very tentatively dispatched my feelings again. Over time, it very much seemed that my new partner of several years was far above and beyond any kind of betrayal, yet I was eventually crushed again when I learned:
The song goes on with the refrain:
I eventually learned that my beloved was not just cheating, he was heavily frequenting the gay bathhouses all around town and seriously risking his (and my) life in the process! He clearly thought he had more lives. He rarely took adequate safety measures and, of course, caught HIV and later contracted AIDS. No one can know just how many other men he passed HIV to, but fortunately, I was not one of them.
This is all incredibly personal and I can’t believe I’m going to post it, but given the OP, I just had to bring this out. No other song has reflected such an enormous emotional facet of my life like this has!
“What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye written during the Vietnam era and appropriate today.
For my happy side, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, by Cyndi Lauper.
Right now I have a crush someone, so Matthew Sweet’s Sick of Myself describes my feelings.
*You dont know how you move me
Deconstruct me
And consume me
I’m all used up
I’m out of luck
I am starstruck
By something in your eyes that is keeping my hope alive
But I’m sick of myself when I look at you
Something is beautiful and true
In a world thats ugly and a lie
Its hard to even want to try
And I’m beginning to think baby you don’t know*
Also The Middle by Jimmy Eat World is a reminder to me that when things aren’t going well, I’m in the middle of a situation and I can’t see how they’re going to end.
Two specific sets of lyrics describe my relationship with music better than I ever could. Not surprisingly, both are by Harry Chapin.
From “Mr Tanner,” which I’ve considered to be my personal theme song since the first time I heard it:
Music was his life, it was not his livelihood
And it made him feel so happy, and it made him feel so good
And he sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul
He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole
And from “Let Time Go Lightly”:
Music has been my oldest friend, my fiercest foe
It can take me so high, it can make me so low