My Favorite Century — Part II
Before I get into the musical write-ups today, I have a few housekeeping items to address based on responses, questions, and feedback on Part I.
Is this in order? Are these your favorite 100 songs in order?
No. I am pretty certain that the art of List-Making on the new internet is driven solely by the fact that someone will put something crazy in the top 10, then get everyone talking about how crazy it is to have that in the top 10, and then drive traffic to the list by way of promoting the fact that they put something crazy in their top ten. For me, my crazy top ten entry would obviously be “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt.
The feedback on that would be wild. I would become a blogging legend.
So no, this is not top 100, it’s my favorite 100.
Where is the playlist? Can you drop the playlist?
Aside from one selection, the entire playlist is accessible on Spotify, found at the end of this post, and all subsequent posts.
Are you releasing these two at a time every Friday? Sam, that will take 50 weeks. That puts us into the middle of December.
I did two for the first one that way because I had an extended intro about the conceit of this project. But now, my struggle is finding a good way to group songs together. Do I pick a few and throw them together? Should they speak to one another? Same year? Same genre? Same artist? What’s the link? Still a work in progress.
Enough questions; let’s get to the music.
Song
Take Five
Artist
Dave Brubek Trio
Released
1959
Lyric
N/A
One Word
Unconventional
More Than One Word
Recently, I rewatched La La Land. The first time I saw it, I spent a lot of time thinking about Ryan Gosling’s character (Seb) and his passion for saving jazz.
On the rewatch, though, I spent more time looking at Emma Watson. More and more, I am convinced she is the best actor we have in Hollywood at the moment.
That said, back to Gosling for a minute. What would Seb have thought about Take Five? It’s not classic jazz (Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, etc.), but from my read on jazz, jazz defies convention. Oftentimes, jazz is taking convention and turning it on its head. So pure jazz is sort of an oxymoron, isn’t it?
Because when you’re doing the conventional thing, you’re not experimenting anymore? When this came out in 1959, I suspect it was identified as different, and that’s part of what made it cool, but it’s not traditional, so that may have also made it a pariah within jazz circles. You’ll be shocked to know that I am not in any jazz circles, so if you are, please tell me how this song is seen now as a jazz classic and the number-one-selling jazz album of all time.
All that to say, when I listen to this song, I am inspired to do cool, unconventional shit, even if I mostly am listening to it while driving my Kia Carnival around and playing an erratic set of air drums that in no way, shape, or form are keeping 5/4 time. Featuring a stellar alto-sax solo, a driving rhythm (the aforementioned 5/4 time and the titular Take Five), and Brubek on the keys, this song is a masterpiece and a joy to listen to.
Song
Us
Artist
FKJ
Released
2022
Lyric
A little bit of tension sometimes doesn't hurt
One Word
Virtuosic
More Than One Word
Transitioning to a work-from-home life after many years of a work-from-school life meant a change in the sights and sounds I was used to. In a school, even during a prep period, it's hard to find silence. In Qatar, I taught in a cavernous-sized room with thick concrete walls, but the 7th-grade math class next door always seemed loud. Kids yelling, teacher yelling, it was rarely quiet. Before that school, I worked at a boarding school, and the boarding quarters (dorms) were flush with the din of kids screaming at each other, kicking balls in the hallway, slamming doors, or playing WoW at full volume.
Working with kids is working with noise. So much so that my wife sometimes enjoys the drive home from work in absolute silence.
Work From Home is the opposite of School.
Eerie silence.
Sound only created by the noise I produce, or the ones I select.
So then in a world where you get to make your own noise, but the clacking of your aggressive keyboard pounding can be a bit grating (if not comforting), what would you listen to? My friend Jim introduced me in 2023 as I sought writing inspiration, so FKJ quickly became one of my "I need noise" stylings. This song showcases everything I like about the guy, and frankly, the performance video is truly incredible. Listening to it, you can pick up on some of the beautiful musical details, but when you watch it, you realize that for every sound you hear, he has created it himself. It doesn't have many words, but the vibes are immaculate in that it's a toe-tapper and head-bopper and makes me want to emulate drums, saxophone, piano, and fun little ticks and clicks with every part of my body. It's a sensory experience listening to FKJ, and I am so happy to have found him.
Song
Breathe
Artist
Faith Hill
Released
1999
Lyric
Caught up in the touch
Slow and steady rush
Baby, isn't that the way that love's supposed to be?
I can feel you breathe
Just breathe
One Word
Restorative
More Than One Word
During my study abroad in Egypt, my friends and I took an overnight bus from Cairo to Aqaba, Jordan. In Aqaba we hired a driver, with a smaller bus, to take us from Aqaba to Petra so we could see where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail. It was on that ride, on my iPod with the spinning wheel, that I remembered just how much I loved the song Breathe by Faith Hill.
Why? Who is to say. The song, the landscape, the people. The song demanded to be listened to.
So there I was on the King's Highway listening to and re-listening to Faith being so god damn happy about someone else breathing.
As a side note, I recently fell asleep next to Eliot and that dude def. snores. I suspect that the joy Faith Hill got out of Tim McGraw breathing that inspired this song, I get about Eliot snoring. It sends me. Gives me life. Elates me. Anyway, this song comes on my headphones and there I am listening and smiling and this girl called Kelly who I maybe never spoke to again after our time abroad asked me what was making me so happy. I gave her one of the headphones and the two of us just spent 5 minutes in bliss listening to this song and singing aloud probbly to the annoyance of everyone else on the bus.
Perfect song Faith.
When we got to Petra, I learned that the famous building we think of as “Petra” was only one part (the treasury) of the entire complex. This place is huge. If you go, bring your walking shoes. And your iPod.
Song
Something Like That
Artist
Tim McGraw
Released
1999
Lyric
I had a barbecue stain on my white t-shirt
She was killing me in that miniskirt
One Word
Effervescent
More Than One Word
It's safe to assume that 12-year-old me did not know this song when it came out. I bristled at the idea of hearing country music. I was strictly a top 40 or oldies kid. While many country stations were near me, I avoided them at all costs. But I wonder now if 12-year-old me would recognize this song in its purity and be able to identify it as one that makes me smile.
Tim McGraw is famous for many things (I think we sleep on the fact that Taylor Swift rose to prominence with her Ode to the man that made its way onto country radio before she crossed the Rubicon into pop stardom). Still, for me, his high-water mark will always be rhyming shirt with skirt as he experiences love at first sight that sticks with him for years, all the way down to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras.
It's relatable. It's fun. It's boyish in its simplicity. And if I were the type to do karaoke, I would sing this song with so much joy it would bring the house down. (Assuming the house had people who knew about country music circa 1999.)
Tim and Faith, married since 1996, each released an absolute classic in 1999 that cracked my favorite 100. It is really something; it felt like there was no way to write about one without the other.
