I’ve been tagged by emmalola! My task? To pick my six current
favorite songs, then pass it on to someone else to do the same.
So, this is sort of challenging because I have so MANY favorite songs, but for so many reasons. There are songs that are good to sing to alone in the car: Landslide, any Indigo Girls or Patty Griffin, and there are songs that remind me of specific memories that are either good or bad, and either way, they take me right back there. So this will be kind of random.
The first ones are all from a mix CD that Amy made for me, that I’ve listened to endlessly now that I have a CD player in my subaru, as a birthday gift from Dave.
1. 32 Flavors, Ani DiFranco. I just love this song. I AM 32 flavors and then some! My parents DID teach me about goodwill! So, yeah. Love it.
2. What’s Goin’ On, 4 Non-Blondes. This is a memory song. This tune is forever linked to leaving my first concert ever, Lollapalooza 93, in Providence, RI. Everytime I hear it, I am swept back to that darkened field/parking lot, wearing my birks and flannel, and seeing a tailgate of a minivan or something lifted and hearing that song. I had just ditched the two girls I rode the bus down with to leave with Amy and her boyrfriend, and her brother and his friends, and Jonas, who was my First True Love but was there with his whiny girlfriend, or was she with Pat then? Yeah, I think she was with Pat, and Pat was there, and in that group there were at least 3 men, boys, really, that I would go on to (or had already) have as what, lovers? One night stands? Longtime senders of collect calls from distant mediterranean ports of call? Anyway, we all crammed into one tent site, and got incredibly stoned from some Purple Haze that J had, I think, and the drive back to Maine had a steady rotation of one person sleeping in the open bed of Amy’s Ford Ranger because there was only really room for two in the cab. And that whole event was the first time I felt that independence of young adulthood, no parents to take care of me, just friends and music and drugs and boys. And this song was the prelude to the whole thing.
3. BYOB, System of a Down. This is a really heavy protest song, man. And I’m reminded of why it’s so powerful to me when I read Debbie’s journal of not knowing anyone who ever served in the military. "Why don’t presidents fight the war?/Why do they always send the poor?" Growing up in the poorest county in Maine, with the least educated population (the UMaine campus in Machias skews this data, even, and we’re still lowest) and highest unemployment, I know lots of people that went military. It was the only choice for kids who couldn’t afford an education, or couldn’t get a job in the mill, or didn’t have plans for an apprenticeship or tech college. If you wanted out, and wanted more, and wanted better, the military promised it. One of the kids I graduated with was a total class clown. He was in the band (as was I) and he was always the one at pit parties, or camp parties, doing impressions and making everyone laugh. I saw him 2 years ago? At the library where I worked. he came in to use the computers, and he was just — empty looking. He vacantly told me he’d been in Iraq, and was out on a medical discharge. I didn’t see any noticeable physical problems, so I’ve always assumed it was more PTSD than anything. i saw him again right before I sold my car. I had the oil changed, and when I pulled in and took my sunglasses off, there was Nick. He looked a little more lucid, but still, he wasn’t the same person. Neither am I, but this is different. He said he’d been working at the oil-change place for a while, and was hoping to get hired by TSA at the airport. "You’d think 10 years active military would count for something." And THAT’S who I think of when I hear this song. Nick, who was always so funny and so kind, but so poor that his option was the service. And when he was medically unable to continue, his best job option was changing oil. THAT fucking SUCKS. Because of where I grew up, and who I’ve known, I am so thankful that the military wasn’t my only option. So thankful. But I also know firsthand that it IS the poor that are fighting for more oil for the rich’s Hummers, oh wait, I mean ‘to free the Iraqi people."
4. Wild World, Cat Stevens. Always makes me cry a little bit, as it is totally linked to waiting for the SkyBus to take me to the Melbourne airport for my flight home, after a really intensely life-changing and life-affirming three weeks in Australia.
5. At Last, Etta James. Our wedding song. It sorta bugs that I’m hearing it so much in shit like cat food ads, lately, but still. That was our wedding song, and it was awesome.
6. Three is a Magic Number, Blind Melon (covering Schoolhouse Rock.) Amy and I have a pretty decent flow of psychic energy between us, because this song popped into my head a few days before my birthday this year, and meanwhile, she was searching the internet to download it for my CD. I had gotten Daed the Schoolhouse Rock covers CD YEARS ago, before he was even 2, when it came out, and this also (I think?) got radio play as well. I always loved Blind Melon, way back when, and Shannon Hoon’s voice, but the thing about this song is the repeated lyric "A man and a woman had a little baby/now there’s three in the family" that really moves me. Plus, I’m 30, and 3 is one of my lucky numbers, so it IS a magic number. And hearing that song now just gives me hope.
I don’t know who is left to tag! pinkrunningshoes? have you done it yet?