My Favorite Century — III
Let’s jump right into it, since I am picking up the pace in terms of music per post. If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, I am happy to dialogue with you about these whenever works best for you. If you want this straight to your inbox, and don’t want to wait for me to post about it on the socials, you can subscribe.
Song
Suite: Judy Blue Eyes
Artist
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Released
1969
Lyric
I've got an answer
I'm going to fly away
What have I got to lose?
One Word
Melodic
More Than One Word
I lived with a French family for a week in high school. It was a homestay during a two-week summer trip to France and Italy. The oldest son was studying for the Bac, and the youngest was sort of nerdy. Neither of them liked me because I waxed them both in clay court tennis on the first day of the stay. The dad had something to do with the French Orchestra and was never around, and the mom ensured I was up early every day by opening my door and playing loud music. However, unfortunately for her, there was nothing for me to do because the kids didn’t want to hang out, so I spent a lot of time in my room listening to the one CD I brought with me and reading about seven pages per day of a book picked up at the airport that I was rationing.
The CD I had was CSNY’s So Far. The album ends with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, a 7-minute saga with multiple chapters that seem like they’re about an unfortunate breakup, but it also has some endearing mentions of birds that do not seem to be about a breakup, but that’s sort of the nature of 7-minute songs with four chapters, ya know? I think the fact that the song is so multi-faceted kept me fascinated, listening to it repeatedly as I sat in a Parisian suburb wondering when the bus would pick me up.
A final note on the family: On the last day, it was raining. The dad drove me to meet the bus. He popped the trunk; I got out. I grabbed my suitcase. He closed the trunk. He drove away—Au revoir papa.
Song
Don’t Let Me Down
Artist
The Beatles
Released
1969
Lyric
I'm in love for the first time
Don't you know it's gonna last?
It's a love that lasts forever
It's a love that has no past
One Word
Optimistic
More Than One Word
My English teacher, Ms. Chambas, gave me a record player as a graduation gift. It was one of those "I'm cleaning out my classroom, do you want this" gifts, but I accepted it.
Vinyl was making a comeback!
After I secured a player, I went about mining my parent's collection for sweet records. Between the two of them, they had a lot of garbage, but also, a lot of the classics.
One of the first vinyls I remember playing on this record player was the Beatles Compilation album "1967-1970." Don't Let Me Down is a song that doesn't appear on any of the famous Beatles albums but only appears here, and I don't know why that is. I think the song had a bit of a moment when The Beatles released their 6-hour Apple documentary about that final recording. But for the most part, I think this song is terribly underrated in the catalog.
John wrote this great ballad about falling in love with Yoko for Let It Be bit it didn’t make the final cut. It's confessional, and he's out here screaming how happy he is to be with this person (but also low-key worried that the person will let him down.) He's experienced his share of love letdowns before, and while he thinks this love is unlike anything he's ever experienced, he's also aware that things... can go south. There are more famous Beatles songs, but I am not sure there are ones that I relate to nearly as much, and that's why it's in the 100.
Song
Rock & Roll
Artist
The Velvet Underground
Released
1969
Lyric
Then one fine mornin' she puts on a New York station
You know she don't believe what she heard at all
She started shakin' to that fine, fine music
You know her life was saved by rock 'n' roll
One Word
Rebellious
More Than One Word
Take your pick of Velvet Underground songs to throw on a list of favorites and you probably can't go wrong. For me, it's the simplicity of Rock & Roll and the story of Jenny's discovery of rock and roll and how it saved her life. In the liner notes for the song, Lou Reed dispensed the notion that there was someone named Jenny and instead told us, "Rock and Roll is about me."
With an energetic pace set by drums and gritty guitars, a relatable protagonist, and Reed's vocals, I can't help but wonder: What song saved my life?
Hold on tight because I bet you did not see this diversion coming.
I know taking a song as awesome as Rock & Roll and using it instead to talk about "Too Close" by Next may seem an odd choice, but bear with me as I try to stick the landing. As a ten-year-old, listening to Z104 play the top 40 hits of the day; I took for granted that songs on the radio were automatically songs you wanted to listen to with your parents.
I remember thinking the 1997 Marcy Playground song "Sex and Candy" was a no for me, mostly because I was In on candy but Out on sex. When that came on the radio, I turned it off.
But Too Close? That one was an absolute bop. The first two dozen times I listened to it (as it played every hour on the radio), I was jammin'. No questions asked. No boners identified. But then, similar to how the woman in the song is like, Step back, you're dancing kinda close/I feel a little poke coming through... it hit me. THE SONG IS ABOUT BONERS.
It was the song that opened my eyes to the fact that just because it was catchy and on the radio did not mean that it was something you could sing aloud in the house or car.
It may have been the song that taught me the concept of Time and Place. There's a time and a place to sing about boners. With your mom on the way to hockey practice is neither the time nor the place.
If you haven't listened to Too Close lately, it's about having a boner on the dance floor and getting called out for having a boner on the dance floor, and then instead of feeling shame for having a boner on the dance floor, just being like no kidding! It's your fault I have a boner.
Anyway, turning on the radio at five saved Lou Reed's life; Next's Too Close may have saved mine.
What song saved your life?
Song
Thong Song
Artist
Sisqo
Released
1999
Lyric
She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck
Thighs like what, what, what
Baby, move your butt, butt, butt
One Word
Thongs
More Than One Word
We had our teal-top iMac in our dining room for much of the late 90s. My brother and I would sit there playing Chuck Yeager flight simulator (him) or sending messages to Ashley C and Kellsie G on ICQ (me). We also downloaded a lot of music, based probably on what we saw on TRL. I don't know where else I would have heard about music?
There weren't blogs.
I remember downloading and listening to The Devil Went Down to Georgia, playing the fiddle part on a tennis racquet in my living room, and just being so pumped about this song.
Where did I hear it? No idea.
How did I know anything about music or culture? I didn't read about The Devil Went Down to Georgia in a book, and it's a safe bet I didn't learn about the Thong Song in a book either.
It's almost a guarantee I learned about thongs from Sisqo long before I ever saw one. Do you remember the scene in Old School where Will Ferrell's character confesses to a couple's therapist that he wonders about ladies' panties? "What if it's something cool I don't even know about?" I was like that in 1999. Thongs were abstract to me (WWE bombshell Sable's appearance in Playboy notwithstanding.)
And here was Sisqo ( today, the pride of Maple Grove, Minnesota) singing about wanting to see the thong! You and me both, Sisqo. You and me both.
Dumps like a truck? What did that even mean. I still need to find out.
I assume it means a butt cheek, but the way I use the word dump implies something that comes out of a butt if you know what I mean (poop), not the butt itself. But here's Sisqo making that word sexy as hell.
Truly, it's not an exaggeration to say that I tried to tell one of those ICQ girls that I bet she liked to dance at the hip hop spots, and she could cruise to the crews like connect the dots, not just urban, I bet she liked the pop, and that she was living la vida loca.
With an inspiring game like this, it is truly a wonder that I ever saw a thong. I did!
But lord knows it was not in 1999.
Song
My Body’s a Zombie For You
Artist
Dead Man’s Bones
Released
2009
Lyric
Oh I hold my soul
From the lands unknown
So I can play the strings of your death
My body's a zombie for you
One Word
Spooky
More Than One Word
It's hard to believe a song I only listen to for about six weeks a year makes the top 100, but here we are. And no, this is not a Christmas song, but it is seasonal if you agree that Halloween is a season and not just a day.
I graduated college in 2009. It was bleak. There was a recession. Job prospects were non-existent. Direction was mostly aimless. I lived on my cousin's couch for a bit before settling into a house with some guys a few blocks away. There was a brief stint working for Amnesty International, but I quit after two weeks because my friends were going to the beach, and I was making $6 an hour. I did take the t-shirt and add an S to it and really tried to make Samnesty International happen for a bit.
But then, one day, someone said: Hey Sam, have you ever heard of DMB? I was like "Fuck the Dave Matthew's Band, man. South African Jam Bands? No thanks!" And they were like, no not that DMB, I mean: Dead Man's Bones.
And from there. It's been nearly 15 years of love between a band — but really a man — and me. Here's the thing. Listen to this song; really, listen to this entire album.
Think about its themes, its use of a children's choir, its vivid imagery discussing death, zombies, skeletons, and other spooky shit. Then google who the lead singer is. You'll be stunned.
I can't wait, and I know you won't do those first steps. No one ever does.
It's Ryan Gosling.
Have you ever noticed that Gosling sings in like 80% of the roles he's in? It's because the man is an artist and a great singer. Why DMB has yet to release a second album confounds me. Keeps me up at night honestly. The internet can't pinpoint a moment when he and Eva Mendes started dating but some sources say it was as early as 2011. It's possible that Gos didn't have time to be a great actor, incredible songwriter, uber-celebrity, and terrific boyfriend/eventual father/future husband, so if he had to give something up, he chose to kill DMB. DMB died so that Gosling could La La Land and Ken.
Long Live DMB. Long Live Ryan Gosling.
Song
In Other Words
Artist
Ben Kweller
Released
2002
Lyric
It starts stopping
when it stops stopping.
One Word
Schlocky
More Than One Word
For my senior photos, I wanted to get my picture taken brushing my teeth like Ben Kweller does on the cover of his debut solo album Sha Sha. My mom reports she did not forbid me from doing this, but I have a hard time believing that I willingly opted out of this. Instead, though, I have a photo of me, bored out of my mind in the middle of the photo shoot, sprawled across a train tracks. Would a picture of me brushing my teeth have been better locker art than me laying across some train tracks for my friends and fans? Yes.
Alas, there is no time machine and no photo of me brushing my teeth.
So Kweller stands alone. Feel like it’s key for you to know that I saw Kweller on his 20th anniversary tour of this album and about halfway thru the show, I turned to my friend and said: McLovin from Superbad is playing bass. He didn’t believe me. But a few songs later, sure enough, Christopher Mintz-Plasse was announced as the bass player in Ben Kwellers touring band. Maybe it was the strike, maybe CMP is just a big BK guy, but either way, what a bass player!
How I came to be a Ben Kweller fan is hard to say. He certainly wasn't getting radio play near me and I don't think he cracked the TRL top 10. Maybe I stumbled on it; perhaps a girl told me she liked it. In looking at the Pitchfork review from 2002 (I was not reading Pitchfork in 2002), the critic called this song "schlocky schmaltz" but highlighted the stunning "epic's showstopping coda with some well-utilized steel guitar and banjo."
I wasn't entirely sure I knew what Shlock and Schmaltz were, but I sort of did. So I googled them for a simplified definition, "Schlock, at its finest, is where bad taste becomes great art. Schlock is music that subjugates all other values to brute emotional impact; it aims to overwhelm, to body-slam the senses, to deliver catharsis like a linebacker delivers a clothesline tackle." "Schmaltz — a label often given to music that is swamped by goopy sentimentality."
That all checks out, especially for this song. It's a lot.
My favorite Kweller lyric, not found in this song, comes from his song Family Tree.
"Everyone loves a situation."
I always took that to mean there's a bit of joy that everyone takes in a bit of drama. The rise of reality TV in the 21st century has borne this out more accurately than I could have predicted. Ben Kweller was probably the beginning of Emotional Sam (not Emo Sam, that's different).
I likely always had it in me. But there are artists you discover at the right time that allow you to embrace a part of yourself you didn't know how to harness or let show.
Emotional Sam is another way of saying that I based much of what I did on how Seth Cohen acted in S1 and S2 of The OC.
But more on that to come next time.
