Awakening

• Atlanta - Stone Temple Pilots : "She comforts me when the candles blow out/The cake has grown mold but the memories are sweet "
  
• Atlantic - Keane : "I need a place that's hidden in the deep/Where lonely angels sing you to your sleep/Though all the world is broken"
  

Two songs by bands with lead singers that have fought drug problems. Unfortunately, I probably could've made that point a few times before and will have numerous opportunities going forward. Scott Weiland of STP may not have been in rehab recently, but he's a regular at some center or another. Keane had to cancel a couple legs of it's 2006 world tour due to Tom Chaplin's stint in rehab. With a seemingly endless stream of stories like this, it makes you wonder if drug and alcohol problems are part-and-parcel with being famous or being an artist. Lucky for me, I'm neither.

• Auctioneer (Another Engine) - R.E.M.
• Aurora - Foo Fighters : "I just kinda died for you/You just kinda stared at me"
  
• Australia - The Shins : "I felt like I could just fly/But nothing happened every time I tried"
  
• Authority Song - John Mellencamp : "Dying to me don't sound like all that much fun"
  
• Awakening - Switchfoot : "I want to wake up kicking and screaming/I want to live like I know what I'm leaving/I want to know that my heart's still beating".

The awakening in this song is about breaking free from the modern corporate world - "Last week saw me living for nothing but deadlines." It's a nice thought, leaving that behind. Of course, it's something that's hard to do while trying to feed your family or pay off your college debt. It makes vacation fun to look forward to, anyway.

• Aye Davanita - Pearl Jam : "Awooh/Awooha/Aye Davanita". Yep, those are all the lyrics. Somewhat reminiscent of "Aluminum" by The White Stripes. In stark contrast, though, is the fact that this song can still be identified as music and is actually quite nice to listen to. It's very hypnotic. I think that's what Pearl Jam was going for, placing it between two songs - "Better Man" and "Immortality" - that are thick with meaning and require some concentration to get the point. "Aye Davanita" provides a welcome chance to relax. I did extensive research (OK - I went to Wikipedia, googled it, and checked a couple Pearl Jam fan sites) to try to discover the meaning of the title, or at least the language. I couldn't find anything. It sounds vaguely Eastern, but it's a mystery to me.
  

Summary:
Finished up the letter A with 8 songs. None skipped.

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Now playing: Switchfoot - Awakening
via FoxyTunes

Another Love Song

• Another Horsedreamer's Blues - Counting Crows
• Another Life - Iron Maiden
• Another Love Song - Queens of the Stone Age

Since it's Valentine's Day, I'd better list my favorite love songs, or at least my favorite that are on my iPod:

1. Let It Rain - Eric Clapton
2. Take My Breath Away - Berlin (this was our wedding song & it still gives me goosebumps)
3. Something - The Beatles
4. Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis
5. In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
6. Dig - Incubus
7. Entre Nous - Rush
8. Love Song - 311 (somehow I don't own any music by The Cure, even this)
   
9. Just You 'n Me - Chicago
10. Sweetest Goodbye - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers

• Another One Bites the Dust - Queen
• Another Rainy Day in New York City - Chicago : "So suddenly serene/The air is fresh and clean/Another rainy day in New York city"
  
• Another Round - Foo Fighters : "Room full of photographs/Box full of letters/Come on and make it last/Nothing else matters right now"
  
• Anthem - Rush : "Well, I know they've always told you selfishness was wrong/
  Yet it was for me, not you, I came to write this song"

Rush lyricist Neil Peart has often shown an affinity for Ayn Rand. These lyrics echo one of Rand's works on Objectivism - "The Virtue of Selfishness".

• Anthem For the Underdog - 12 Stones
• Anthem of Our Discovery - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Any Time at All - The Beatles : "If the sun has faded away, I'll try to make it shine"
  
• Anytime - Journey : "I'm standing here with my arms a mile wide, I'm hoping and praying for you"
  
• The Apologist - R.E.M.
• Apologize - OneRepublic
• Apple Candy - Ben Lee
• April Suits - Taproot
• Aqueous Transmission - Incubus : "I’m in this boat alone/Floating down a river named emotion"
  
• Arco Arena - Cake
• Are You Gonna Be My Girl - Jet

Excellent, energetic song. It's probably best known for being featured in one of the first iPod commercials.

• Are You In? - Incubus
• Are You Lonesome Tonight - Elvis Presley
• Are You Ready For the Fallout? - Fastball : "Do you spit at the face staring back in the mirror?/Do you have any self respect?"
  
• Are You Ready? - Creed
• Armor and Sword - Rush : "Sometimes the damage is too great or the will is too weak/What should have been our armor becomes a sharp and burning sword"
  

This song doesn't really have a chorus, so to speak, but there is an oft-repeated line: "No one gets to their heaven without a fight." This was certainly true of Jacob in the Old Testament - U2, writes of him "Jacob wrestled the angel, and the angel was overcome." After this wrestling match, the angel gave Jacob the new name of Israel, meaning "he struggles with God". The apostle Paul was originally Saul of Tarsus. He made a living of persecuting Christians, until God struck him blind as he walked to Damascus. Obviously he had a fight before getting to heaven. Many modern Christians fight battles everyday - battles within themselves about being worthy, battles with a secular world pulling them away from God, battles with other faiths.

• Arms of a Stranger - 12 Stones
• Army Ants - Stone Temple Pilots
• Around the Bend - Pearl Jam
• Art In Me - Jars of Clay
• As Long As It Matters - Gin Blossoms
• At Last - Etta James
• At My Most Beautiful - R.E.M. : "I save your messages just to hear your voice...You always say your name, like I wouldn't know it's you".

What I've found is that I have less time to blog than I do to listen. My last post was way too long. I'm trying to shorten them up. I'm not sure how I'll resolve this. I guess the first thing I'll try is to keep listening and just comment on fewer songs. At the current pace, it's going to take me about 2 years to complete this project. That should be more than enough time to say what I want to.

Summary:
Listened to 31 songs. Skipped 2 ("Another Round" live and an alternate version of "Apologize".)
All 5 songs that start with "Are", also start "Are You".

The Analog Kid

• All the Things She Said – Simple Minds : "Little darling close your eyes/There'll be no compromising"
  

• All the Time – Jeremy Camp : "I'll never understand it until i live with you in eternity"
  

• All the Way – Frank Sinatra

• All the Way – Triumph : "Power and glory and fortune and fame/There is a price you must pay"
  

• All the Way to Reno (You’re Gonna Be a Star) – R.E.M. : "Now sweeter/You're so sugar sweet/You may as well have 'kick me'/Fastened on your sleeve"
  

• All Things In Life – Toad the Wet Sprocket

• All Those Yesterdays – Pearl Jam : "Oh, don't you think you've got enough?"
  

• All We Are – Matt Nathanson : "All we are we are/And every day is a start of something beautiful, something real". What a great outlook. Reminiscent of U2's "Beautiful Day". This song's a real pick-me-up.
  

• All We Are – OneRepublic

• All You Have to Do – Jet

It sounds to me like Jet tries really hard to sound like The Beatles, even though they look more like The Ramones.

• All You Need Is Love – The Beatles

Speaking of The Beatles…
Artists Who Sound Like The Beatles (in reverse order of similarity):
Ringo Starr (only on the list because he was a Beatle)
John Lennon
Fastball
The Traveling Wilburys
Paul McCartney (Of all the Beatles, he maintained the same sort of sound, especially with "Band On the Run", "Hands Across the Water", and "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey")
Hard Night’s Day (Dallas-based Beatles tribute band. I used to work with a guy who was in the band - a conveniently left-handed bassist with a mod haircut.)
ELO
George Harrison
Jet
Smithereens (Their original work often sounded like an 80s update of The Beatles. Recently, they've taken to remaking full Beatles albums.)

• Allied Forces – Triumph : "Denim armies moving/Consolidate the might/Wargames, maneuvers/Rehearsals in the night/Allied forces". What if all the armies in the world were replaced by rock bands?
  

• Allison Road – Gin Blossoms

• Alone + Easy Target – Foo Fighters

• Alpha Beta Parking Lot – Cake

• Altamont – Fastball

• Aluminum – The White Stripes : “Ahh. Ahh.”

Yep, those are all the lyrics. Who let them put this out? The White Stripes intersperse brilliance with complete crap on their releases. Over time, the ratio of the two has consistently declined: On “White Blood Cells”, it was 75% brilliant and 25% drivel; on “Elephant” it was more like 60%-40% awesome to awful; for “Get Behind Me Satan” it dropped to 20%-80% good to godawful. Not being impressed with the trend, I haven’t bought anything else of theirs. My theory is that Jack gets so worn out with Meg’s lack of drumming ability and her insistence on singing in her best imitation of Yoko Ono that he just gives up and tries to get the whole process over with as quickly as possible. That would also explain his work with Loretta Lynn and the formation of The Raconteurs.

• Always Running Home – Paloalto

• Amateur Lovers – Switchfoot

• Amazing Grace – Wintley Phipps

I used to think it was just my wife, but if you look around at church, many people cry every time they hear this song. God’s love is great and overwhelming.

• Amber – 311 : "Whoa, amber is the color of your energy/Whoa, shades of gold displayed naturally". What a great song! These guys are usually down & dirty, but this song has such an ethereal feeling.
  

• American Dream – Switchfoot : "When success is equated with excess/The ambition for excess wrecks us". Anti-materialism anthem.
  

• American Girl – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

• American Girls – Triumph

• Ammunition – Switchfoot

• Amnesia – Toad the Wet Sprocket : "Here, I need your help/Deliver me from myself/Take me where I'm wanted/Or make me someone else"
  

• Amsterdam – Coldplay

• Amy’s Song – Switchfoot : "Amy's gone and time rolls on/How far? How fast? How long?"

• The Analog Kid – Rush : "The boy lies in the grass with one blade stuck between his teeth...The fawn-eyed girl with sun-browned legs dances on the edge of his dream". Doesn't that do a great job of evoking images of a warm summer day when you were young?
  

A minor theme running through Rush’s catalog is the comparison of the cold, impersonal, and tech elements of the modern world with the personal and human characteristics of the past. Some of that is spot on, some is a bit of good old days syndrome. On this album (Signals) they had “The Analog Kid” to contrast with “Digital Man” and “New World Man”. They had “Subdivisions” and “Countdown” to contrast with “Losing It”. This goes back to “2112”, an Ayn Rand-esque glimpse into what the modern world could devolve into. Other examples of humanity: “Closer to the Heart”, “Natural Science”, “Witch Hunt” (OK that goes against the theme a bit), “Animate”, and “Armor and Sword”. Other songs about the modern world or technology: “Cygnus X-1”, “Tom Sawyer”, “Limelight”, “Vital Signs”, and “The Body Electric”.

• Anchor – Cave In : "Whatever makes you tired your rest is sure to fail/Cause every place you lay yourself's a bed of nails/Whatever you exhale, I breathe it in the air/You offer me a seat in your electric chair". I saw them open for Foo Fighters and they were excellent. They used to be hardcore metal, but softened their sound.
  

• And Can It Be? – Wintley Phipps

• And Fools Shine On – Brother Cane

• And I Love Her – The Beatles : Idealized song of love.

• And Your Bird Can Sing – The Beatles

This is the second time we’ve hit back-to-back songs from the same artist, and the second time that the artist has been The Beatles.

• Aneurysm – Nirvana : "Love you so much it makes me sick...Beat me out of me...She keeps a puppet string to my heart". Quite a contrast to “And I Love Her” this is the exact opposite of an idealized love.

• Angel – Jack Johnson

• Angel of Harlem – U2

• Angels of the Silences – Counting Crows

• Animal – R.E.M.

• Animate – Rush : "Compensate me/Animate me/Complicate me/Elevate me"
  

• Anna Begins – Counting Crows : "And every time she sneezes, I believe it's love/And oh Lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing". Even though it's about having an affair (I think), it's an excellent song. The lyrics are quite profound, actually.
  

• Anna Molly – Incubus : "I picture your face in the back of my eyes/A fire in the attic, a proof of the prize/Anna Molly (or anomaly)"
  

• Another Girl – The Beatles

• Another Hole in the Head – Nickelback : "I need you probably as bad as I need another hole in the head/I need you car keys in your hand, I believe that you would leave me for dead"
  

Summary:
44 songs listened to. 4 skipped ("American Dream" acoustic, "The Analog Kid" live, "Animate" live, "Anna Molly" acoustic).

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Now playing: Rush - The Analog Kid
via FoxyTunes