A song that’s got me through a few rough times and is somewhat of a theme song of mine is Meatloaf’s Rock 'N Roll Dreams Come Through. Here’s one relevant bit from the chorus:
More recently, when I was laid off and my life had completely fallen apart, there was a Top 40 song whose lyrics ran
That’s pretty much how my life felt and I wasn’t sure my prayers were strong enough to sustain me.
There’s one other new song which has sustained me and, in a way, become a prayer when someone I know is having a crisis and I’m feeling a bit limited in what I can do. It’s Three Doors Down Calling All Angels, especially the bit which runs, “I won’t give up / If you don’t give up.”
High School (and freshmen year of college)- Smoking Popes “Born to Quit” and “Destination Failure”. The song Pretty Pathetic off Destination Failure actually to the letter describes my break up withg my high school girlfriend.
College- Tom Waits. I prefer the bluesy and boozey stuff over the recent bing bang boom stuff.
Currently- The Decemberists. They get me through me anything.
That poppy little album got me where I am in life today. I’m not the greatest I can be, but I’m in a happy place, and still working on it. I owe it all to Parklife.
Knowing about, and liking, They Might Be Giants when I was a kid, when no one else at my school knew who they were or would have liked them if they did, made me feel like I had something one-up on everyone else when everything else I thought about my life at the time would have made me feel kind of worthless.
Look, I was a kid. You know how kids are.
Then, a couple of years later, hearing “Ana Ng” for the first time made me realize how sorrow and goofiness can be put together. This helped my personality cohere at a critical stage in my development.