crazier than shirttails

Bold indicates what I think is particularly good / interesting writing on a song.

125: “In The New Year” by The Walkmen
124: “The Start of Something” by Voxtrot
123: “Lose Yourself” by Eminem
122: “Sing Songs Along” by Tilly and the Wall
121: “This Is The Dream of Win and Regine” by Final Fantasy
120: “Greater Omaha” by Desaparecidos
119: “The Littlest Birds” by The Be Good Tanyas
118: “A Lack Of Color” by Death Cab For Cutie
117: “Sugarfoot” by Black Joe Lewis
116: “Inmates” by The Good Life
115: “Sad Sad City” by Ghostland Observatory
114: “Cars Can’t Escape” by Wilco
113: “Moment Of Clarity” by Jay-Z & Danger Mouse
112: “Bluebird” by The Rosebuds
111: “Welfare Bread” by King Khan and the Shrines
110: “Gone” by Kanye West
109: “Unless It’s Kicks” by Okkervil River
108: “Someday” by The Strokes
107: “Kiss” by Scout Niblett with Will Oldham
106: “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse
105: “The Calender Hung Itself” by Bright Eyes
104: “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron and Wine
103: “Casimir Pulaski Day” by Sufjan Stevens
102: “Get By” by Talib Kweli
101: “Anything You Want” by Spoon
100: “Elvis Presley Blues” by Gillian Welch
99: “Mountain Laurel” by Shearwater
98: “I’ll Be Yr Bird” by M. Ward
97: “Rock Your Body” by Justin Timberlake
96: “Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene
095: “Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots” by The Flaming Lips
094: “Patience” by Micah P. Hinson
093: “Marry Me” by St. Vincent
092: “One Mic” by Nas
091: “Guess I’m Doing Fine” by Beck
090: “Tennessee” by The Silver Jews
089: “Crazy In Love” by Beyonce
088: “Is A Woman” by Lambchop
087: “Tengo Un Trato” by La Mala Rodriguez
086: “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley
085: “Bottle Glass” by Grand Champeen
084: “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes
083: “My Favorite Chords” by The Weakerthans
082: “Remember The Mountain Bed” by Wilco
081: “Rain” by Patty Griffin
080: “100 Years” by Dr. Dog
079: “Flashes and Cables” by Centro-Matic
078: “Love To A Monster” by Okkervil River
077: “Time To Pretend” by MGMT
076: “The Cold Swedish Winter” by Jens Lekman
075: “Number One” by John Legend
074: “So Many Ways” by Mates of State
073: “Paparazzi” by Lady Gaga
072: “The Queen of England” by The Mendoza Line
071: “City Of Electric Light” by Chad VanGaalen
070: “What’s Golden” by Jurassic 5
069: “By Your Side” by CocoRosie
068: “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z
067: “Your Blues” by Destroyer
066: “100 Days” by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
065: “Full Grown Man” by Phosphorescent
064: “I Don’t Blame You” by Cat Power
063: “Love & Jet Engines” by The Tiny Tin Hearts
062: “Something To Do With My Hands” by Her Space Holiday
061: “Coin Operated Boy”  by The Dresden Dolls
060: “The Blower’s Daughter” by Damien Rice
059: “I Better Be Quiet Now” by Elliott Smith
058: “You Are A Runner” by Wolf Parade
057: “Guns and Cigarettes” by Atmosphere
056: “Greetings In Braille” by The Elected
055: “Remember Me As A Time Of Day” by Explosions In The Sky
054: “If You Find Yourself Caught In Love” by Belle & Sebastian
053: “Constructive Summer” by The Hold Steady
052: “Mushaboom” by Feist
051: “The Sound of Settling” by DCFC
050: “Monument” by Mirah
049: “The War Criminal Rises and Speaks” by Okkervil River
048: “The Art Teacher” by Rufus Wainwright
047: “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” by Jay-Z
046: “Season Of The Shark” by Yo La Tengo
045: “Anybody Wanna Take Me Home” by Ryan Adams
044: “Next Exit” by Interpol
043: “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
042: “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley
041: “Let’s Get Out Of This Country” by Camera Obscura
040: “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” by The Arcade Fire
039:  ”Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson
038: “Good Woman” by Cat Power
037: “Timorous Me” by Ted Leo
036: “Jackeyed” by Micah P. Hinson
035: “Winter” by The Dodos
034: “When U Love Somebody” by The Fruit Bats
033: “Heimeldsgate…” by Of Montreal
032: “Sun Giant ” by Fleet Foxes
031: “For Real” by Okkervil River
030: “Slow Show” by The National
029: “Golddigger” by Kanye West
028: “Plea From A Cat Named Virtue” by The Weakerthans
027: “Red Right Ankle” by The Decemberists
026: “Here Comes The Sun Again” by M. Ward
025: “The Funeral” by Band of Horses
024: “Hotel Yorba” by The White Stripes
023: “Passing Afternoon” by Iron & Wine
022: “Come Pick Me Up” by Ryan Adams
021: “This Year” by The Mountain Goats
020: “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” by Beyonce
019: “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver
018: “With Arms Outstretched” by Rilo Kiley
017: “Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)” by Grandaddy
016: “Lovers Spit” by BSS
015: “Motion Picture Soundtrack” by Radiohead
014: “The Rat” by The Walkmen
013: “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service
012: “Ashes of American Flags” by Wilco
011: “Just Be Simple” by Songs:Ohia
010: “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens
009: “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes
008: “Red” by Okkervil River
007: “Hey Ya” by Outkast
006: “While You Were Sleeping” by Elvis Perkins
005: “The Bleeding Heart Show” by The New Pornographers
004: “Paper Planes” by M.I.A.
003: “Wake Up” by The Arcade Fire
002: “New Slang” by The Shins
001: “Do You Realize??” by The Flaming Lips

“Do You Realize??” by The Flaming Lips

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

First of all, read Ted Jillson on this song and his son Nathan.

Here we are at number one. And why?

Musically, there are bleeps and blips, keyboard sounds that make an attempt to be “soaring,” some kind of background noise that sounds like a frog jumping around in a video game, wind blowing, cymbals, some spare and simple guitar work, and Wayne Coyne’s voice underneath massive effects. The lyrics are achingly sincere, but not at all clever or literary. Wayne just states some simple truths: You have the most beautiful face. Everyone on earth someday will die. Happiness makes you cry.

I can’t account for what it is, exactly, that makes all of this work together. It shouldn’t, really, and trying to articulate why it does — more than works, but pretty much holds my heart together like glue whenever I need it most — seems like an insult to something so mysteriously perfect.

So all I can really say is: I love this song. I always will. It keeps me strong.

“New Slang” by The Shins

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

The prettiest I’ve ever felt was upon hearing these words about this song, from someone I love(d):

I won’t ever be able to hear this song without thinking of you. Even when I’m really old.

P.S. I loved this song well before Natalie told you it was going to change your life, thankyouverymuch.

“Wake Up” by The Arcade Fire

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

This song gives me goosebumps. The first time I saw this band live goes on a very short list of experiences (a few times by the ocean, a couple while falling in love, one on horseback) in my life that I’d venture to call ‘spiritual,’ despite my atheism. Being in a room full of people who all seemed to be feeling the same thing, who were all reverently witnessing a group of people make something that seemed truly new and beautiful. I was awestruck. “Funeral” is my favorite album of the ’00s, and I could have told you that would be the case within days of first hearing it.

I love the Where The Wild Things Are trailer that uses this song — even more than I loved the WTWTA movie — because that story and this song are brothers in intent and spirit. The pain and beauty of growing up and seeing the world a different way every time you blink, the rush of experiences that lift you up and push you down every single day. That stage of childhood when you start figuring out how big, mean, great, and terrifying the real world is. The highs and lows are never replicated in adult life, and couldn’t be, ‘cause who could stand it? But it’s thrilling and chilling and captured perfectly in Maurice Sendak’s monsters and Wim’s soaring voice.

“Paper Planes” by M.I.A.

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

Musically, this is the theme song of the decade. The first few seconds make me smile every time. There’s something thrilling about the production of this song: the beat is incredibly simple, and yet there are tons of odd, interesting sounds intersecting with it. It makes for a song that is both an ‘instant classic’ (an annoyingly oxymoronic phrase but hard to avoid in this particular case) and also completely new, fresh, and unlike anything I’d heard before.

And then there’s the gun shots.

I think it’s safe to assume that people will still be listening to this song in fifty years, and that I’ll be proud to say I was listening to it way back when. I remember when Kala dropped, I knew immediately that this was going to be the hit. The biggest hit M.I.A. would ever have — that is, until her next album comes out and the world changes a little bit yet again.

“The Bleeding Heart Show” by The New Pornographers

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

Someday I’ll make a movie, and there will be a really good scene right in the middle, and this song will play. There will kissing, and running out into the streets because it’s snowing and it never snows, and dancing with your hair down and waving all around everywhere, and hand holding, and big smiles with gap teeth, and kittens and puppies, and more kissing, and eating strawberries, and sunrise. There will be clapping and bumping into each other, big shiny buildings and enormous trees, stripping down to your skivvies and jumping into the creek. There will be drinking water when you’re really thirsty, and yanking someone’s hair, and getting paint all over your clothes. There will be jumping up and down, lots and lots of jumping up and down. All smashed together in 4 and a half perfect, celebratory, joyous minutes. Well, that’s how this song makes me feel already, so maybe I don’t have to make the movie.

“While You Were Sleeping” by Elvis Perkins

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

Dylanesque. I hate that word, but it works in this case. This song, which made it to #6 even though it had no cultural impact whatsoever, even though I’ve never seen Elvis Perkins live, even though there’s no amazing discography surrounding it or particular good memories associated with it. This song, which is six and a half minutes long, with no chorus or dance beat or particularly beautiful voice or interesting production. But what does it have? It has a truly poetic quality. Not easy, simple pretty words, but complex, meaningful allegories. It is haunting. It is smart. It is strange. It bounces around in my brain constantly. It deserves multiple listenings. Hundreds, if you’re me. It requires and demands your attention.

“Hey Ya” by Outkast

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

“Y’all don’t want me here, you just wanna dance.”

Easily, obviously, the best dancin’ tune of the 00s. Wait, no, maybe the best dancin’ tune ever. We used to have these dance parties at Shantelle’s house at 2am after last call at Sidebar. This song usually got played at least half a dozen times in our handful of hours of dancing. It’d be like “Hey Ya,” a few other songs, “Hey Ya,” a few other songs, repeat. If it didn’t get played more or less on the hour, someone would speak up “play Hey Ya! I wanna dance!” And I would, and we would. Every single time. Without fail. I can’t hear it without wanting to get out of my chair.

I think it’s funny, but also sensible, that this song has been played at almost every wedding reception that I’ve been to since it came out. It is, after all, about how love is a farce that will never really work out. But all most people want at their reception is for people to dance, and this song will make that happen every single time.

“Red” by Okkervil River

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

A song for everyone who is “full of fictions and fucking addictions,” reminding them that there is hope for connection, reunion, and sincerity. That the world is not as bleak as it seems. That there are people out there that understand and relate (well, Will Sheff, if no one else), and that the people you miss are missing you too. This song has sustained me through many difficult times. It’s the song version of a hug from one of my best friends or a cup of soup when you’re sick. I couldn’t live without it.

“First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

1. The first time I heard this song was, I believe, the first time it was ever played live. We were in San Francisco and Conor said he had just written a new song. The room was completely, miraculously silent throughout the whole thing. I’ve rarely, if ever, been as moved by a performance of a song I’d never heard before, and it seemed like everyone else felt the same way.

2. This video, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, is one of my favorite music videos ever. That may reveal me to be a big old cheeseball, which I totally am. No apologies.

3. “I’d rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery.”

4. “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman,” “At Last,” “Thirteen,” “Something.” That’s the category I put this song in. It’s a simple love song that makes my heart feel big and tender.

5. I’ve been listening to this song for five years now and every single time I hear it I am impressed again, by how sweet and and pretty it is. This song lacks irony. It isn’t clever, mean, sarcastic, dark, or complicated. It is — to pick an adjective among many others that come to mind — sincere. That’s what I love most about it.

6. I thought all along that I related to this song, but now I have realized that I had no idea. Now I do. Now I get it. I am in it. I feel like I’m hearing it for the first time, all over again. This is the first day of my life.

“Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

This song has a certain power and pull that is impossible to articulate. Maybe it is the beautiful, swelling instrumentation. Or the repetition of “all things go,” three words that put together equal so much more than the sum of their parts (like “I love you”). Or the sincere, effacing “I’ve made a lot of mistakes.” Or the soothing assembly of Sufjan’s sweet voice and the choir singing behind him… I really don’t really know what it is. I do know that if I ever made a church, my kind of church, we would worship outside, and this song would be our “Amazing Grace.”

“Just Be Simple” by Songs:Ohia

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

This song busts my heart. It’s full of sentiments that I’ve felt — that I think most people have — but am afraid to say. And Jason Molina does it with this beautiful southern drawl, and the haunting slide guitar. The sound reminds me of willow trees, whiskey, front porch swings, and fireflies. The words are not so pleasant, reminding me of being lonely, stuck, and ashamed. But beautifully, brutally honest.

Everything you hated me for
Honey, there was so much more
I just didn’t get busted.

“Ashes of American Flags” by Wilco

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

All my lies are always wishes is such a ridiculously potent line that I don’t even know if I want to say anything else about this song. But let me try… It’s my favorite song from an album that changed my life. It’s got more lines, too, if that’s your thing (like it is mine). Lines like I shake like a toothache when I hear myself sing, which are beautiful not just cause of what they mean but because of how the syllables sound together. Toothache, self sing. Man.

For me, it’s impossible to articulate what makes Jeff Tweedy’s songwriting so special. Those who don’t like Wilco find his words vague and meaningless, and in a way I understand why. Because I can’t tell you what the meaning is, I just feel it in my bones. I feel that way about Dylan, too. You either get it or you don’t. It’s not a judgment, but… if you don’t, I do kind of pity you. Mostly cause seeing this band live when Tweedy is on and you love every song, and seeing him drawl out these incredible words and seeing these boys play together… phew. That’s on the list of the experiences that will flash before my eyes when I lay dyin’.

“Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service

Read the introduction for details on my criteria.

And if you’re reading me in tumblr’s dashboard, be sure to visit the blog directly for video.

A perfect love song. This band made computer sounds seem soft and warm, intimate, sweet. I’d never heard anything like it before, and haven’t since. I can’t imagine that this song (really, the entire “Give Up” album) will ever not sound new. I realize there are plenty of changes and ‘progression’ to come in music, but the divine intersection of Gibbard’s voice and Tamborello’s gift with sound seems miraculous, and never to be replicated.