Drowning Man

Long time no blog. Sometimes life intervenes. There's a long list of songs this time, but a normal set of featured tunes, so there shouldn't be too much more of my words to wade through than usual.

Featured tunes: "Drowning Man" by U2, "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles, and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears.

Drowning Man - "Hold on, hold on tightly / Rise up, rise up / With wings like eagles / You run, you run, you run and not grow weary." This is one of my very favorite songs and has been ever since I bought U2's "War" in 1983. It's haunting, powerful, and encouraging. I know I'm not alone holding it in such high esteem - my great friend, college roommate, and brother-in-law, Kurt, had the lyrics hanging up in his room in college. (Not sure if I was supposed to notice or know that.) I always felt the song's power. I thought it was about a man being pulled up by a woman's love - somehow not noticing that it says "His love will last forever." One of the first times I went to our family's current church (they had gone to other churches without me before; I wasn't interested) - I instantly took a liking to a brief song that went "God will raise you up on eagles' wings...". I knew it echoed "Drowning Man" and decided to do a little research. Reading Isaiah 40:31 for the first time hit me like a ton of bricks - "but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary." All the times I'd sung along, I'd been reciting the Old Testament! What a revelation. Many Christians, often including myself, decry the current state of moral decay in the world. I think we overlook many things that bear witness to us, by failing to listen. I'm sure I'll recount others in the future in this blogspace - I really try to pay attention. The ones I notice will, no doubt, be heavily outweighed by those I don't. I'm a constant work in progress - but I'm God's handiwork, and that makes me good. Just like you.

Eleanor Rigby - "Look at all the lonely people." A couple of posts back (Broken, Beat & Scarred), I promised a list of the saddest songs on my iPod:
6. (Tie) Mothers of the Disappeared, Running to Stand Still, and One Tree Hill, all from U2's "Joshua Tree"
5. Don't Get So Down On Yourself - Chris Isaak
4. I Hung My Head - Johnny Cash (written by and orginally performed by Sting)
3. Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.
2. Bulletproof Weeks - Matt Nathanson
1. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - "I can't stand this indecision / Married with a lack of vision / Everybody wants to rule the world." I can't hear this song without thinking about college - the song was huge as I started my sophomore year. I surely don't want to rule the world. I have enough to keep up with just being a normal guy. The album (for those of you too young to remember, that's the big black vinyl thing we had before CDs) "Songs From the Big Chair", which produced this song and several other hits, was monumental. It achieved far more success than anything Tears for Fears had done previously or anything they would do in the future. There were quite a few bands that had that happen in the same timeframe - INXS with "Kick" (although they had several really good releases), "Once Upon a Time" by Simple Minds, Def Leppard's "Pyromania", even Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" and REO Speedwagon's "Hi Infidelity".

• Drag Me Down - Tonic
• Draggin' the Line - Tommy James & The Shondells
• Drain You - Nirvana
• Dream of Mirrors - Iron Maiden
• Dreaming With a Broken Heart - John Mayer
• Dreamline - Rush
• Dreams - Fleetwood Mac
• Dreams Be Dreams - Jack Johnson
• Drifter - Iron Maiden
• Drifting Away - Fastball
• Drink the Water - Jack Johnson
• Drive - The Cars
• Drive - Incubus : "Sometimes, I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear / And I can't help but ask myself how much I'll let the fear take the wheel and steer. / It's driven me before, and it seems to have a vague, haunting mass appeal."
  
• Drive - R.E.M.
• Drive My Car - The Beatles
• Drive On - Johnny Cash
• Driven - Rush
• Driven to Tears - The Police
• Driver 8 - R.E.M. : "And the train conductor says, 'Take a break Driver 8. Driver 8, take a break. We've been on this shift too long.'"
  
• Drown - Smashing Pumpkins
• Drown In My Own Tears - The Smithereens
• Drowning Man - U2
• Dry - Kutless
• Duck and Run - 3 Doors Down
• The Duellists - Iron Maiden
• Dumb - Nirvana
• Dumb Love - Stone Temple Pilots
• E-Bow The Letter - R.E.M.
• Earth to Bella, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 - Incubus
• Easy - Fuel
• Easy Skanking - Bob Marley
• Eater - Fastball
• Echo - Incubus
• Echo - Vertical Horizon
• The Economy of Mercy - Switchfoot
• Edge of My Seat - Switchfoot

Back-to-back from Switchfoot

• Eight Days a Week - The Beatles
• El Scorcho - Weezer
• Eleanor - Jet
  
• Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
• Election Day - Lyle Lovett
• Electric Barberella - Duran Duran
• Electrolite - R.E.M.
• Elevation - U2
• Elvis Presley and America - U2

U2 B2B (back-to-back)

• Emily - Fastball
• Emotion Detector - Rush
• Emotional - Fastball
• Empty Spaces - Fuel
• The End - The Beatles
• The End of the Line - Metallica
• End Over End - Foo Fighters
• Endgame - R.E.M.
• Endless Supply - The Pernice Brothers
• Enemy - Jack Johnson
• The Enemy Within, Pt. 1 of "Fear" - Rush
• Enough Space - Foo Fighters : Possibly the greatest SCREAM song ever. Dave Grohl just lets loose - I couldn't talk for days after the concert scream-along.
  
• Enter Sandman - Metallica : Best heavy metal song ever?
  
• Entre Nous - Rush : "Just between us, I think it's time for us to recognize the differences we sometimes fear to show / Just between us, I think it's time for us to realize, the spaces in between leave room for you and I to grow."
  
• Epilogue (Resolution) - Triumph
• Epiphany - Staind
• Erase/Replace - Foo Fighters
• Erosion - Switchfoot
• Eve of Destruction - The Turtles
• Even Better Than the Real Thing - U2
• Even the Losers - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Everlong - Foo Fighters
• Every Breath You Take - The Police
• Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic - The Police

Double-shot of The Police

• Every Time I Think of You - The Babys
• Everybody Hurts - R.E.M.
• Everybody Knows a Little Bit of Something - King's X
• Everybody Wants to Rule the World - Tears for Fears
• Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier
• Everybody Wins - Celia Whitler
• Everyday Glory - Rush
• Everything's Not Lost - Coldplay
• Everything You Want - Vertical Horizon
• Everything Zen - Bush : "I don't believe that Elvis is dead"
  
• Everytime I See Your Face - Live
• The Evil That Men Do - Iron Maiden
• Exhausted - Foo Fighters
• Exhuming McCarthy - R.E.M.
• Exit - U2
• Exodus - Bob Marley : "Open your eyes and look within / Are you satisfied with the life you're living?"
  
• Expecting - The White Stripes
• Exploder - Audioslave
• Eyes Wide Open - Goo Goo Dolls
• Eyes Without a Face - Billy Idol

Summary:
Whew! Finished the D's and got through all the E's
Listened to 90 songs, skipped 7 (all live versions)
5 Dream, 6 Drive, Echo Echo, 2 Eleanors (Jet imitating The Beatles again), 5 Ends, 2 Enemy, 13 Every, 2 Eyes

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Now playing: U2 - Drowning Man
via FoxyTunes

Don't Tread On Me

Happy Memorial Day!
Featured songs in this post include: "Dig" by Incubus, "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" by Chicago, and "Don't Tread On Me" by Metallica.

Don't Tread On Me - This is an appropriate song to feature on Memorial Day. Aside from being the unofficial start of Summer, today is a day to remember all of those who have put themselves in harm's way, even sacrificed their lives, for our freedom. It's a debt we can never repay. War is a horrible thing to be avoided; but, warriors should be revered, honored, and glorified. It takes remarkable courage to lay your life down in service of others. So, while you enjoy your barbecue today, say a prayer and give thanks for the brave men and women in the service, and those who came before them.

These are the best songs on my iPod related to servicemen and women - it's dominated by Iron Maiden. Over the course of the band's career, they have continually returned to this theme. I've left more of their songs off the list than I've included, actually.
10) These Colours Don't Run - Iron Maiden
9) Don't Tread On Me - Metallica
8) Battle Cry - Triumph ("I think the loneliest man in the world is a soldier.")
7) Citizen Soldier - 3 Doors Down
6) Aces High - Iron Maiden (The Battle of Britain)
5) Paschendale - Iron Maiden (The horrors of WWI trench warfare)
4) The Trooper - Iron Maiden (The story of one infantryman participating in the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War)
3) The Longest Day - Iron Maiden (DDay)
2) One - Metallica (About a man completely destroyed, but not killed, by a landmine)
1) Hammerhead - The Offspring (Homage to a Marine)


Dig - As promised in my last entry, I have to feature this song. I love how the song describes a growing couple - keeping each other in check, knowing that they'll always be there for each other. I've quoted it to my wife a few times. She continues to think I'm an idiot who should come up with his own words. Which isn't entirely unjustified.
"When weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.
If I turn into another,
Dig me up from under what is covering the better part of me.
Sing this song.
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone."

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? - This is my favorite Chicago song. It's an entreaty to slow down and enjoy the good things, instead of getting caught in modern life. And this was written before the PC and cell phones chained many of us to our work. Other songs in this post have a similar theme, such as "DOA" by Foo Fighters and "Different World" by, you guessed it, Iron Maiden. In the bridge, there is a spoken part that makes the song's point quite clear: "People runnin' everywhere/Don't know the way to go/Don't know where I am/Can't see past the next step/Don't have to think past the last mile/Have no time to look around/Just run around, run around and think why."

• Die Like This - Fuel
• Die With Your Boots On - Iron Maiden : "If you're gonna die, die with your boots on." Discusses Nostradamus and predestination.
  
• Difference (In the Garden of St. Anne's-On-the-Hill) - King's X
• Different Strings - Rush : "Different eyes see different things/Different hearts beat on different strings/But there are times, for you and me, when all such things agree."
  
• Different World - Iron Maiden : "I would like you to know/When you see the simple things/To appreciate this life/It's not too late to learn."
• Dig - Incubus
• Dig a Pony - The Beatles
• Digital Man - Rush : More conflict about technological progress.
  
• Diminished - R.E.M. : Creepy song about a guy who killed someone - is he guilty or insane?
  
• Dirty Second Hands - Switchfoot
• Disappear - Army of Anyone
• Disappear - INXS
• Disappear - R.E.M. : "I looked for you everywhere/Tell me why you're here/I came to disappear."
• Disarm - Smashing Pumpkins
• Disconnected - Goo Goo Dolls
• Diseased - Seether
• Disenchanted Lullaby - Foo Fighters
• The Distance - Live : "Oh, are we locked into these bodies?/Let's hold out for something sweeter/Spread your wings and fly."
• Distant Early Warning - Rush : "The world weighs on my shoulders, but what am I to do?/You sometimes drive me crazy, but I worry about you."
  
• Disturbance at the Heron House - R.E.M. : One of my favorite R.E.M. tunes. I've listened to it hundreds of times and still have absolutely no idea what it's about.
  
• Dizzy Miss Lizzy - The Beatles
• Do It Again - Queens of the Stone Age
• Do the Evolution - Pearl Jam
• Do This Anymore - Nickelback
• Do You Know - Tonic
• Do You Remember - Jack Johnson
• Do You Right - 311
• DOA - Foo Fighters : Life is fleeting, so make the most of it. "Take a good hard look for the very last time/The very last one in a very long line/Only took a second to say goodbye."
• Doctor Robert - The Beatles
• Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? - Chicago
  
• Dog Years - Rush : OK, you get the picture that I'm a huge Rush fan. I can't get on board with lyrics that are this laughably bad, though - even if the music is good. "In a dog's life/A year is more like seven/And all too soon a canine/Will be chasing cars in doggie heaven"
• Doll - Foo Fighters
• The Dolphin's Cry - Live
• Don't - Elvis Presley
• Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley

Two in a row from the King.

• Don't Be There - Switchfoot
• Don't Believe - Chalk FarM
• Don't Believe It (It's Easier Said Than Done) - King's X : King's X is a criminally underappreciated band.
  
• Don't Break Me Down - The Donnas (yes, The Donnas)
• Don't Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

Super back-to-back Petty songs.

• Don't Fade - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Don't Get Around Much Anymore - Harry Connick, Jr.
• Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel : I can listen to this song again and again and again.
  
• Don't Give Up On Me - Fastball : "I need a little leeway and an angel to watch over me."
  
• (Don't Go Back To) Rockville - R.E.M. : "At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me."
• Don't Know Why - Norah Jones
• Don't Let Me Down - The Beatles
• Don't Make Me Dream About You - Chris Isaak
• Don't Mean Much - Chalk FarM
• Don't Panic - Coldplay : "We live in a beatiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do!"
  
• Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police
• Don't Stay Home - 311
• Don't Stop - Fleetwood Mac : "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow/Don't stop, it'll soon be here/It'll be better than before/Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone"
  
• Don't Stop Dancing - Creed
• Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
• Don't Take Your Guns to Town - Johnny Cash : More like a short story than a song - a very sad short story.
  
• Don't Tell Me You Love Me - Night Ranger
• Don't Touch My Hat - Lyle Lovett : Lyle Lovett is hilarious. "If it's her you want/I don't care about that/You can have my girl/But don't touch my hat."
  
• Don't Tread On Me - Metallica
• Don't Worry 'bout Me - Frank Sinatra
• Don't You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds : One of my favorite 80's songs. I can't hear it without picturing "The Breakfast Club."
  
• Double Agent - Rush : "My angels and my demons at war/Which one will lose/Depends on what I choose/Or maybe which voice I ignore." The "Double Agent" is our internal struggle between wrong and right.
  
• Down - Fuel
• Down - Kutless
• Down - Stone Temple Pilots
• Down - 311

Ranking the 4 songs called Down:
1) 311, 2) Kutless, 3) Stone Temple Pilots, 4) Fuel

• Down Inside of You - Fuel
• Down Poison - 3 Doors Down
• Down There By the Train - Johnny Cash
• The Down Town - Days of the New
• Downtown - Petula Clark
  

Summary:
Listened to 72 songs, skipped 2 (Live version of "Dirty Second Hands" and live acoustic version of "Don't Give Up On Me")
6 Do, but 29 Don't - That seems about right - we're told much more often what NOT to do than what TO do.
3 Disappear, 9 Downs (including 4 simply titled "Down")

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Now playing: Metallica - Don't Tread on Me
via FoxyTunes

Daughters

Featured tunes in this post: "Daughters" by John Mayer, "The Day the Ravens Left the Tower" by The Alarm, "Diamonds and Coal" by Incubus.

Daughters - My wife and I have 3 daughters. I can't imagine life without them. I'm not really sure what I lived for before they came along. Actually, I think my life up to that point was just preparation for becoming their Daddy.

Our oldest, Nicole, has been out of the house for about a year now (give or take - she'll be disappointed I didn't mark the exact date in my brain's history log), but she lives in an apartment close by. We get to see her a couple times a week for a few hours. I hope she knows how special that time is to us, even though it's usually just spent catching up on TV viewing.

Raychel (named after my Dad, hence the non-standard spelling) is the middle child. She just finished her sophomore year of college and is transferring to SMU for the fall. She wants to find an apartment closer to campus. She kicked ass and took names at community college.

In a few days, we're taking our youngest, Lauren, to Freshman Orientation at Oklahoma State - a joint venture for kids and parents. Soon enough we'll be making the trip again so she can start her college career on her own. I'll act tough and make fun of Linda's crying, if I can manage it. Or I might break down myself.

We'll be empty nesters. We had several weeks to test this out last summer when the younger girls took church trips. No worries there - we had a great time together. It's not possible to say how much we love our girls and how proud we are of them all. We'll be empty nesters, with overflowing hearts. Maybe it will make me a better son - at least calling my parents on a regular basis. I'm starting to see how much that means to a parent.

The Day the Ravens Left the Tower - I was going to write about animal songs - those that name an animal in the title - when I noticed how many songs there are with birds in the title. Here are the songs on my iPod that fit the bill (what a punster!): "And Your Bird Can Sing" (The Beatles), "Bird On a Wire" (Johnny Cash), "Blackbird" (Alter Bridge), "Canary In a Coalmine" (The Police), "Comfort Eagle" (Cake), "A Crow Left of the Murder" (Incubus), "The Day the Ravens Left the Tower" (The Alarm), "Disturbance at the Heron House" (R.E.M.), "King of Birds" (R.E.M.), "Kiwi" (Maroon 5) [although this seems to be about the fruit], "Nightingale" (Norah Jones), "Parakeet" (R.E.M.), "Penguins" (Lyle Lovett), "Rooster" (Alice In Chains), "Songbird" (Fleetwood Mac), "Swan Swan H" (R.E.M.), "Three Little Birds" (Bob Marley), "Vultures" (John Mayer), "Where Eagles Dare" (Iron Maiden), and "Whisper to a Scream (Birds Fly)" (Icicle Works). That's 20 songs. R.E.M. leads the way with 4 of them.

Diamonds and Coal - "If it's good to instigate, we're a fast horse bet on us/I'm not calling you an animal/I think we just fight too much". "Love isn't perfect/Even diamonds start as coal/Come on, in spite of this we're doing just fine/Even diamonds start as coal/Give us time to shine/Even diamonds start as coal/We're incomplete and infantine/Even diamonds start as coal". My favorite lyricist going these days is Brandon Boyd of Incubus. He displays an imaginative vocabulary, discusses a wide range of topics, and doesn't mind letting his phrases fall out of phase with the music - allowing them to stretch into the following progression or end in the middle of a measure. It makes you pay attention. It's unique and thought-provoking. In the next post, I'll be featuring another Incubus tune, one of my favorite songs of the current decade, "Dig". Future posts will no doubt feature other Incubus songs - "Smile Lines", "Nice to Know You", "Wish You Were Here", "Megalomaniac" - great poetry, and when combined with instruments it makes stunning music.

• Crush - Gavin DeGraw
• Crush With Eyeliner - R.E.M.
• Cry In the Sun - Better Than Ezra
• Crying Shame - Jack Johnson
• Crystal Ball - Keane
• Crystal Ball - Styx : "I used to like to walk the straight and narrow line/I used to think that everything was fine/Sometimes I'd sit and gaze for days through sleepless dreams/All alone and trapped in time"
  
• Crystal Blue Persuasion - Tommy James & The Shondells
• Cupid - Jack Johnson
• Cure - Metallica
• Cut to the Chase - Rush
• Cute as a Bug - Lyle Lovett
• Cuyahoga - R.E.M. : "Let's put our heads together and start a new country up/Our father's father's father tried, erased the parts he didn't like/Let's try to fill it in, bank the quarry river, swim/We knee-skinned it you and me, we knee-skinned that river red"
  
• Cyanide - Metallica
• Cygnus X-1 - Rush
• Daddy Sang Bass - Johnny Cash
• Daisy Duke - Rooney
• The Dam at Otter Creek - Live
• Dam Would Break - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Damaged Goods - Fastball
• Dance Naked - John Mellencamp : That's an ugly visual!
  
• Dance of Death - Iron Maiden
• Dance With You - Live
• Dancing With Myself - Billy Idol
• Dangerous Type - The Cars
• Danny Boy - Johnny Cash : One of the few songs from Cash's American Recordings that I just don't like much.
  
• Dare You to Move - Switchfoot : "Welcome to the fallout/Welcome to resistance/The tension is here/Between who you are and who you could be/Between how it is and how it should be"
  
• Dark Street - Fastball : I don't see how anyone could not love this song.
  
• Darkness - The Police
• Daughters - John Mayer
• Dawn Chorus - The Alarm
• A Day In the Life - The Beatles : It's a great song, even so, it's grossly overrated. It's rarely left out of lists of the greatest songs of all time.
  
• Day Job - Gin Blossoms
• The Day That Never Comes - Metallica : About a battered woman - very evocative. "Love is a four letter word and never spoken here/Love is a four letter word here in this prison/I'll suffer this no longer/I'll put an end to this I swear/This I swear!/The sun will shine/This I swear!"
  
• The Day the Ravens Left the Tower - The Alarm
• Day Tripper - The Beatles
• Daylight - Coldplay
• Daylight Fading - Counting Crows
• Days Go By (acoustic) - Dirty Vegas : The electric version was a pretty big hit - very techno/electonica. This acoustic version shows what a great song they actually wrote, unhidden by the repetitive noise.
  
• Days of the Week - Stone Temple Pilots
• Days With You - Fuel
• Daysleeper - R.E.M. : Good song, but way too similar to "It's the End of the World...", which is far superior.
  
• De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da - The Police : "Poets, priests, and politicians have words to thank for their positions."
  
• Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground - The White Stripes
• Dead Wrong - The Fray
• The Debt Collectors - Ben Lee
• December - Collective Soul
• Deeper and Deeper - The Fixx
• The Deepest Blues are Black - Foo Fighters
• Deja Vu - Iron Maiden
• Delia's Gone - Johnny Cash : Delightfully dark tune. The guy couldn't stand his woman any more, so he shot her.
  
• Demolition Man - The Police
• Deny - Default : "The hand that feeds you, needs you/Oh God, I'd die to try to finally please you". From the excellent CD "The Fallout".
  
• Departure - R.E.M.
• Desire - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Desire - U2
• Desperado - Johnny Cash : Not as good as The Eagles' version.
  
• Detroit Waves - Matt Nathanson
• Diamonds and Coal - Incubus
• Diddley Daddy - Chris Isaak : A bluesy tribute to Bo Diddley.
  

Summary:
Listened to 59 songs, skipped 1 (live version of Cygnus X-1)
2 Crushes, 3 Crystals, 2 Dams, 4 Dances, 11 Days, 2 Dead

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Now playing: John Mayer - Daughters
via FoxyTunes

Come Original

Featured music in this post: "Come Original" by 311, "Come Sail Away" by Styx, "Cronulla Breakdown" by The Pernice Brothers.

Come Original - Not that this has anything to do with 311, but my wife, daughter, and I got to see a show called "Montage" by Cirque Imagination the other night. (Thanks to my buddy Roy.) Apparently the cast are former members of Cirque de Soleil. It was incredibly entertaining, and original. It's really hard to believe that people can be that strong and flexible. Act after act performed short pieces - climbing up and down poles, dancing, juggling, contorting, and performing all sorts of acrobatics. It was amazing stuff that you shouldn't miss if you have the opportunity.

Come Sail Away - Styx was the first rock band I really got into. Well, Styx or Kiss, and since I don't have any Kiss on my iPod, let's say it was Styx. When I was in 6th grade, we lived in a small town called Ironton in the "tri-state" area of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The largest city in the area was Huntington, WV, with about 40,000 residents. Radio choices were severely limited, so we mostly listened to a Top 40 station. At that time (late 70s) that meant we heard a lot of Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, and all the disco hits. (Pretty insipid stuff, actually.) I had a good friend, Chris Parsons, who I played football and basketball with and generally hung out with a lot. For one thing, his family had an in-ground pool - pretty much unheard of in that part of Ohio. Anyway, he had "Grand Illusion" by Styx. When I heard it, it was like nothing else I'd listened to before - soaring keyboards, power chords, multiple lead singers. I badgered my parents into getting me the album. I found out that they had a newer release, "Pieces of Eight", so I had to get that one, too. For a few years, I got a Styx album for Christmas or my birthday - "Crystal Ball", "Cornerstone", "Paradise Theater". Styx is an interesting band. It seems like they were always having a struggle between Dennis DeYoung's desires to make operatic, almost-Broadway musical type spectacles, James Young's power guitar rock, and Tommy Shaw's melodic, introspective pop rock. When DeYoung won that battle, resulting in consecutive concept albums, "Paradise Theater" (very much on the Broadway-end of the spectrum) and "Kilroy Was Here", the tour for which included staging, costumes, and characterization that would fit in any opera house, the band pretty much lost its appeal with me. In fact, when they headlined the Texas Jam (an awesome annual rock festival) they were pretty much booed off the stage. I've been listening to their stuff from the 70s quite a bit lately - it holds up really well.

Cronulla Breakdown - "We try so hard to make the worst of a bad situation" : OK, it's pretty likely you haven't heard of The Pernice Brothers, which is a shame. They're an excellent band. I was introduced to them by another childhood friend from Ironton, Brad Markins. Anyway, Joe Pernice has a unique ability to combine poppy, ethereal, piano-based music with some very dark lyrics, producing listenable but thought-provoking music that delivers over and over again. Must be time for a list - my favorite artists that are unheard of or at least less popular than they should be:
10. King's X
9. Idlewild
8. Cave-In
7. Eisley
6. Matt Nathanson
5. Paloalto
4. Dave Barnes
3. Ben Lee
2. The Pernice Brothers
1. Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers

• Come Alive - Foo Fighters
• Come Around Again - Jet
• Come As You Are - Nirvana : "Take your time/Hurry up" - Reminds me of the contradictory lines in "Oh, Susanna".
  
• Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
• Come Back - Foo Fighters
• Come Back to Bed - John Mayer
• Come Clean - Eisley
• Come Down - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Come Home - OneRepublic
• Come On Come On - Jet
• Come On Get Higher - Matt Nathanson
• Come Original - 311
• Come Sail Away - Styx
• Come to Life - Alter Bridge
• Come Together - The Beatles
• Come Undone - Duran Duran
• Come Ye - India.Arie
• Comedown - Bush
• A Comet Appears - The Shins
• Comfort Eagle - Cake : "We are building a religion/We are making a brand/We're the only ones to turn to when you're castles turn to sand" - Speaking of original, Cake is probably the most original band I listen to regularly. (If there are actually degrees of originality.)
  
• Comfortable - John Mayer
• Coming Home - Alter Bridge
• Commissioning a Symphony in C - Cake : See what I mean. Who else would write a song called this?
  
• Communication - INXS
• Company Car - Switchfoot
• Concede - Sister Hazel : "Concede and believe me, I won't give up, I won't give out on you"
  
• Concrete Girl - Switchfoot
• Constellations - Jack Johnson
• Cookie Jar - Jack Johnson

Back-to-back by Jack Johnson.

• Cool Blue Reason - Cake
• Cool Down - Triumph : This really sounds like it could be a Led Zeppelin song. From Triumph's underrated "Thunder Seven", which holds up really well 20+ years later.
  
• Corduroy - Pearl Jam : "Can't buy what I want because it's free"
  
• Could You Be Loved - Bob Marley
• Countdown - Rush
• Country Feedback - R.E.M.
• Cowboys from Hell - Pantera : "We're taking over this town" - Masters of metal from Dallas.
  
• Coyote - Better Than Ezra
• Cradle of Love - Billy Idol
• Crazy - Patsy Cline
• Crazy Life - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
• Crazyboutya - Dave Barnes
• Creatures (For a While) - 311
• Creeps Like Me - Lyle Lovett
• Cronulla Breakdown - The Pernice Brothers
• A Crow Left of the Murder - Incubus : "Unlearn me" (love that); "From here on it's instinctual/Even straight roads meander/Every piece contains a map of it all"
  
• Crowing - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Crumblin' Down - John Mellencamp
• Crumbs from Your Table - U2
  

Summary:
Listened to 49 songs (well, 48 since my copy of Come Undone apparently is scratched - it skipped all over the place on my iPod), skipped 2 (Live versions of Come As You Are and Country Feedback)
18 songs start with the word "Come", 2 Cool, 4 Crazy, 2 Crows (neither of them counting)
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Now playing: 311 - Come Original
via FoxyTunes

Closer to the Heart

Featured songs in this post include "Closer to the Heart" by Rush, "Cochise" by Audioslave, and "Colour My World" by Chicago.

Closer to the Heart - In spite of its brevity, no Rush song better exhibits the poetry of drummer Neil Peart. ("The Larger Bowl" from Snakes and Arrows is a close second.) I love how he splices together the 2 vocations in each verse:
The blacksmith and the artist
Reflect it in their art
Forge their creativity
Closer to the heart

Philosophers and ploughmen
Each must know his part
To sow a new mentality
Closer to the heart

Cochise - "Go on and save yourself/Take it out on me": Tom Morello, lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave (during the former band's extended hiatus), can really play guitar. He was featured in a "making of" video for the Guitar Hero videogame series. I should really like his playing. I don't. He has a really annoying signature - he plays a bunch of noise (sometimes cool-sounding noise, but noise nonetheless) at the beginning and/or end of nearly every song and in most of his solos. He does this for both Rage and Audioslave. Combine that with the yell-rap style of Rage lead "singer" Zack de la Rocha, and I find that band unlistenable. In contrast, Chris Cornell, lead singer for Audioslave and, before that, Soundgarden, has an unmistakable and remarkable voice. In my opinion, he made Audioslave. BTW - I don't know what this song has to do with Cochise.

Colour My World - Favorite slow dance songs:
5. Let's Stay Together - Al Green
4. What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
3. Colour My World - Chicago
2. Maybe I'm Amazed - Paul McCartney & Wings
1. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton

• Check It Out - John Mellencamp
• Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running) - Foo Fighters : Making fun of emo bands.
  
• Chem 6A - Switchfoot
• Chemical Party - Gavin DeGraw
• Chemistry - Rush : "Oh but how do we make contact with one another? Electricity? Biology? Seems to me it's chemistry." I was taking high school chemistry when this came out. I sure liked the song better than the class.
  
• Cherry Bomb - John Mellencamp
• Chicago - Frank Sinatra : My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in Chicago. We absolutely loved it. We stayed in a bed & breakfast on Michigan Avenue, less than 5 minutes from downtown. I agree with Sinatra - it's my kind of town. At least in the summer.
  
• Children In Bloom - Counting Crows
• Children of the Damned - Iron Maiden : Apparently a concert favorite. I can't stand it & usually skip it. One of things I've made a concerted effort to do with this blog is to make sure I listen to every song completely. It's helped me develop an appreciation for some songs that I didn't have before. Not this one, though.
  
• Chocolate - Snow Patrol : Mmm, chocolate. Me like chocolate. I don't think the song has anything to do with chocolate ("this is the final straw" forming the chorus) - but I'm not certain, since I'm usually eating M&M's by the end and can't hear over the crunching.
  
• Chorus and the Ring - R.E.M.
• Christmas Morning - Lyle Lovett
• Church - Lyle Lovett

Back-to-back songs by the long, tall Texan.

• Church On Tuesday - Stone Temple Pilots
• Cinderella Man - Rush
• Circles - Incubus
• Circles - Switchfoot
• Circus Envy - R.E.M.
• Citizen Soldier - 3 Doors Down
• City Love - John Mayer
• City of Blinding Light - U2
• The Clairvoyant - Iron Maiden
• Clarity - John Mayer
• Cling - Days of the New
• Clocks - Coldplay : One of the best songs of this decade.
  
• Close I've Come - Ben Lee
• Closer - Sorta : "We should be closer than we are." Locally successful band in the Dallas area. This song was written by bassist Danny Balis, who is also producer of the extremely popular and long-running radio show, The Hardline, on Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket. It's my favorite Sorta song.
  
• Closer to the Heart - Rush
• Closing Time - Lyle Lovett
• Cochise - Audioslave
• Cocoon - Jack Johnson
• Cold Cold Heart - Norah Jones
• Cold Day in the Sun - Foo Fighters : The only Foo Fighters song (on a full-length release) Dave Grohl doesn't sing - drummer Taylor Hawkins comes out from behind his kit to sing it and does a great job.
  
• Cold Fire - Rush
• Cold Hard Bitch - Jet

4 consecutive songs that start with "Cold". This is my favorite pattern like this so far. Every one of them is excellent, but they're very different.

• Collection of Goods - Collective Soul
• The Color of Right - Rush
• Colour My World - Chicago
• Coma - Stone Temple Pilots
• Combinations - Eisley : Excellent CD.
  

Summary:
Listened to 40 songs, skipped 3 (live versions of "Cinderella Man", "Closer to the Heart", "Cold Day in the Sun")
3 Chem, 2 Children, 2 Church, 2 Circles (plus a Ring), 2 City (1 Citizen), 4 Cold

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Now playing: Rush - Closer to the Heart
via FoxyTunes

Can't Stand Losing You

Featured songs in this post: "Can't Stand Losing You" by The Police and "Caroline" by Concrete Blonde. I apologize in advance for the length.

Can't Stand Losing You - "I guess you'd call it suicide, but I'm too full to swallow my pride". It became shockingly routine, a normal state of affairs. I'd arrive for my first class and the chatter would start, passing unfailingly from one small group to the next. God knows there were plenty of those groups - part of the problem, perhaps. You'd think, "Please, not again." Some days the news trucks would beat us there, with their satellites, holding a cameraman/reporter team or two. On those days, you knew for sure. You were left only to ask, "Who?"

Over a period of just a few months in 1983, 9 teens in Plano, Texas killed themselves. Nine teens. Eight times we had to hear about kids our age, sometimes kids we knew, and suicide. Eight times because two of them, a couple, had died together "Romeo & Juliet" or "Don't Fear the Reaper" style, by running a car in the garage of a house under construction. I knew her - Bridget Jacobs. We had a tight-knit group of German students at Plano Senior High - 6 of us in German III, including Bridget. Given the small number of students, we shared our teacher (a wonderful teacher, Frau Stewart) and classroom with the German II students. Even then, there were less than 20 kids in the room, an unusual situation when you've got over 1200 kids in your graduating class.

One of those kids was Bill Ramsey. His death early in 1983 started our season of dread. He was the flag-man in a drag race. His best friend, Bruce Carrio, one of the racers, lost control of his vehicle, struck Bill and killed him. Distraught with the guilt, Bruce killed himself 4 days later. You can rationalize that. Put yourself in Bruce's shoes and maybe you could see how that would be the result.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. The news stories that followed, and it made national news, all seemed to focus on the spoiled rich kids. Plano was, and is, an affluent Dallas suburb. There were plenty of rich kids there - spoiled and otherwise. That wasn't the case with Bridget, Bill, or Bruce. They were just high school kids. Like me. Like most everyone I knew. I guess for an outsider that was an obvious point to make, or at least a way to make sense of it. We certainly couldn't make sense of it.

The attention seemed to cause the trend to gain momentum. Suicide is a terrible way to attract attention. Maybe it's the only way some of those kids could get it. I don't know. 25 years later, I still don't understand. I know those all-too-familiar feelings of dread left some indelible marks on many of us - 25 years hasn't dulled that. It was a horrible thing to live through - but at least I can say I lived through it. Ten (counting Bill) didn't.

Caroline - My wife, Linda, and I love this song. We were going to name our youngest daughter Caroline. It would have given us a mathematical progression in our family's first names - 4 letters, 5, 6, 7, and 8. I suppose that would have been cool. Like those families where everyone's name starts with the same letter. Unless, of course, you think that's silly. When Lauren was born on Christmas day, we decided having Carol in her name would be too cutesy. The other day, Lauren told Linda she would have liked for us to name her Caroline. Oh well. We probably over-thought it. I've certainly been accused of that before.

• A Cabin in the Woods - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Cajun Song - Gin Blossoms
• California Girls - The Beach Boys
• Call On Me - Chicago
• Calling - Taproot
• Camera - R.E.M.
• The Camera Eye - Rush : From what I gather, many Rush fans consider this to be the weakest of their extended-length songs. I've always really liked it. It's a bit mellower than the others.
  
• Can't Believe - Staind
• Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles
• Can't Get There From Here - R.E.M. : I think this song sounds less like an R.E.M. song than any other they've done. If that makes any sense.
  
• Can't Grow Tired of Your Love - Dave Barnes
• Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley : A wonderful love song. It was in the movie "Blue Hawaii". As a kid, I loved all the Elvis movies. I haven't watched one in years. I suspect they don't stand the test of time too well.
  
• Can't Stand Losing You - The Police
• Can't Stop - Maroon 5
• Can Do - Journey
• Can I Play With Madness - Iron Maiden
• Can I Steal a Little Love - Frank Sinatra
• Canary In a Coalmine - The Police
• Car Crash - Matt Nathanson
  
• Caroline - Concrete Blonde
  
• Carry On the Flame - Triumph
• Carry That Weight - The Beatles
• Cars - Gary Numan : Remember this on Saturday Night Live? So freaky & cool.
  
• Carve Away the Stone - Rush
• Casual Affair - Tonic "It's a casual affair, when everybody loves you" : About the fleeting and shallow nature of celebrity.
  
• Catapult - Counting Crows
• Catapult - R.E.M.
• Catch My Disease (That's the Way I Like It) - Ben Lee : Sounds sleazy, but I don't think it's intended that way.
  
• Catch My Fall - Billy Idol
• Cathy's Clown - The Everly Brothers
• Caught Somewhere In Time - Iron Maiden
• Cecilia - Simon & Garfunkel
• Cedars of Lebanon - U2
• Celtic Aggression - Tonic : "So we came across the water/From the shores of the isle of green/Speaking separate tongues in the death of culture" - They include some Gaelic (I think) lyrics "Bhi machree, ohin trasna na farraige", which translates as "A long time ago, my heart came from across the sea".
  
• Century - Live "This puke stinks like beer and everybody's here/Come on, come on, come on/Let's lay waste to this century". Kinda gross. I guess it was Live's tribute to the 1900s.
  
• Cerilene - Sister Hazel
• The Chain - Fleetwood Mac : One of my all-time favorite songs. I can listen to it over and over.
  
• Chance (Dub) - R.E.M.
• Change - Staind
• Chariot - Gavin DeGraw
• Charlie, The Methadone Man - Fastball
• Charlotte the Harlot - Iron Maiden : The tale of a London prostitute, continued in a couple more songs on later releases.
  
• Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol : This song was ubiquitous, causing some backlash against it and the band a bit. I think that's unwarranted. This CD, "Eyes Open" is one of my favorite of the past few years. Sure, this song is kind of a schmaltzy ballad, but don't let that keep you from checking out the CD.
  
• Chattanooga Choo Choo - Glenn Miller and His Orchestra
  

Summary:
Kicked off the C's.
Listened to 44 songs, skipped 1 (live version of R.E.M.'s "Catapult")
7 Can't, but 3 Can
6 with people's names in the title, all but one are female names (kind of what you'd expect)
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Now playing: The Police - Can't Stand Losing You
via FoxyTunes

Broken, Beat & Scarred

Long time no blog. Sorry about that. I've been busy the past few weekends - working on a Habitat for Humanity build, attending our youngest daughter's final Color Guard competition, preparing for and participating in the annual fantasy baseball draft.

Featured music in this post: "Breathe" by U2, "Broken, Beat & Scarred" by Metallica, "Bullets" by Creed, and "Buried Alive" by Alter Bridge.

Breathe - An excellent song from U2's new CD, "No Line on the Horizon". When I started this project, I said I wasn't going to add any new music to my iPod. But this is U2. Aside from that, "Breathe" is the first song alphabetically and it was added just in time to slip into this post. Besides, I made the rules, so I can use whatever loophole I want. (Isn't that how things work? It sure seems that way, seeing as how the easiest way to get named to a cabinet post is to screw your taxes up and owe the government tens of thousands of dollars. Dangit - I told myself I would avoid politics.)

Broken, Beat & Scarred - "What don't kill you, make you more strong", "Breaking your teeth on a hard life a-coming (show your scars)/Cutting your feet on the hard earth running (show your scars)/Breaking your life, broken, beat & scarred/We die hard". This is my favorite tune from Metallica's latest CD, "Death Magnetic". I think it's Metallica's best CD, along with the black album. The CD deals with addiction, abuse, and death. That hardly seems like the breeding ground for a song that is relentlessly positive and encouraging - and, yet, that's exactly what "Broken, Beat & Scarred" is. No matter what gets thrown at you, you come out stronger and ready to face more. When I listen to this song (which is very often), especially on this Easter Sunday, I can't help but picture Jesus, whipped mercilessly, having drug His cross up to Calvary, crucified, side pierced, leg bones shattered, and still saving me.

Bullets and Buried Alive - It's appropriate to find these 2 songs back-to-back. Bullets was on Creed's last CD, "Weathered". It's a great example of what went wrong with Creed. Before the release of Weathered, lead singer Scott Stapp told every media outlet he could get to listen that this was Creed's Sgt. Pepper - the CD that would cement their place in rock history. Creed's label and the rest of the band (those who remained, as Stapp had chased off bassist Brian Johnson earlier) allowed the group to dive headlong into Stapp's egomania and associated paranoia. Weathered frequently eschews Creed's former uplifting lyrics and transcendant sound to rail about perceived criticism and a drifting, noisy mess. (Not all of it, mind you, there's still some good stuff there.) So, after Creed had been smashed to bits by Stapp, the remaining members, Mark Tremonti (a tremendous guitarist) and drummer Scott "Flip" Phillips, reunited with Johnson and added singer/guitarist Myles Kennedy to form Alter Bridge. Alter Bridge is what Creed stopped being: a rock band. They make good rock music - some of it built around a message (like Blackbird, discussed in the last AlphaPod post) - but really just music. No paranoia, no indulgence of the front-man. Apparently, the band was asked by label executives to drop Kennedy and re-form Creed. Gladly, they stood their ground, backed Kennedy, and said no. I hope they continue to do so and keep putting out solid music.

• Breath of Water - Cave In
• Breathe - U2
• Breathe In - Paloalto
• Breed - Nirvana
• Bridge Over Troubled Water - Johnny Cash
• Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon & Garfunkel

This is the first set of multiple versions of a single song on my iPod. I prefer Cash's rugged and rough version.

• Brighter Than a Thousand Suns - Iron Maiden
• Bring'em Back Alive - Audioslave
• Bring It On Back - Jet
• Bring the People Together - Live
• Bringing It On Home - Triumph
• Broken - Jack Johnson
• Broken Road - 12 Stones
• Broken Toy - Keane
• Broken, Beat & Scarred - Metallica
• The Bronze Medal - Idlewild
• Brothers Unaware - Live
• Bryte Side - Pernice Brothers
• Bubble Toes - Jack Johnson : Now THIS is Jack Johnson.
  
• Buddy Holly - Weezer
• Bugs - Pearl Jam : Total crap.
  
• Built For the Future - The Fixx
• Bullet the Blue Sky - U2
• Bulletproof Weeks - Matt Nathanson : "What happened to bulletproof weeks in your arms?/What happened to sweet radio songs?/What happened to thinking that the world was flat?/What happened to that?" - Heartbreaking song of lost love. It will make an appearance later on a list of the saddest songs.
  
• Bullets - Creed
• Buried Alive - Alter Bridge
• Burn Away - Foo Fighters
• Burn Out Bright - Switchfoot
• Burnin' Up - Goo Goo Dolls
• The Burning Down - King's X
• Burning Love - Elvis Presley
• Burrito - Seether
• But Not For Me - Harry Connick, Jr.
• But, Honestly - Foo Fighters
• Buttercup - Sorta
• By-Tor & the Snow Dog - Rush
• By My Side - INXS
• By My Side - 3 Doors Down
• By Your Side - Default
• Bye Bye Love - The Cars

Summary:
Wrapped up the Bs.
Listened to 40 songs, skipped 2 (live versions of "Breed" and "Bullet the Blue Sky")
4 start with "Bring", 4 with "Broken", 5 with "Burn",

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Now playing: Elvis Presley - Burning Love
via FoxyTunes

Brave New World

Featured songs in this post - "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)" by Concrete Blonde, "Boat On the River" by Styx, "Brave New World" by Iron Maiden, "Bravest Face" by Rush, and "Breakfast At Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something.

Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - "Oh, you were a vampire and I may never see the light". Concrete Blonde does (do?) a great job of setting a creepy mood in this song. It almost has to be based on "Interview With the Vampire" by Anne Rice - it's about a woman and a vampire and it's set in New Orleans. A quick search online reveals a surprising number of songs with "vampire" in their titles. I only have 2, this one and "Vampires" by Fastball (one of my all-time favorite songs), which isn't about vampires.

Boat On the River - "And all roads lead to tranquility base/Where the frown on my face disappears". This is certainly not your typical rock song. Styx uses a mandolin and accordion to create a European or even Hebrew sound. That brings me to a list:

My favorite rock songs that use a mandolin:
5. "The Battle of Evermore" by Led Zeppelin
4. "Maggie Mae" by Rod Stewart
3. "Monty Got a Raw Deal" by R.E.M.
2. "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.
1. "Boat On the River" by Styx

Brave New World - Actually, this isn't one of my favorite Maiden songs, but the CD is really good. However, it's a good lead-in for another list (because people love lists):

Most literate rock bands:
5. U2
4. Rush
3. Metallica - "For Whom the Bell Tolls"; "One" is based on Dalton Trumbo's novel "Johnny Got His Gun".
2. The Police - "Just like the old man in that book by Nabokov", "Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis".
1. Iron Maiden - Based an entire CD, "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son", on an Orson Scott Card trilogy. Other songs include "Murders in the Rue Morgue", "Flight of Icarus", "To Tame a Land" (based on Frank Herbert's "Dune"), "Phantom of the Opera", and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".

Bravest Face - I'm going to quote the lyrics, because I like them so much. It's a really good song. In a way both depressing and uplifting - the world ain't perfect, so go make the best of it you can.

"In the softest voice there's an acid tongue
In the oldest eyes there's a soul so young
In the shakiest will there's a cord of steel
On the smoothest ride there's a squeaky wheel
In the sweetest child there's a vicious streak
In the strongest man there's a child so weak
In the whole wide world there's no magic place
So you might as well rise, put on your bravest face"

Breakfast At Tiffany's - "I said 'What about Breakfast At Tiffany's?'/She said 'I think I remember the film/And as I recall I think we both kinda liked it'/And I said 'Well, that's the one thing we got" - Deep Blue Something was a Dallas-area band that looked like they were on the brink of national stardom. I'm not sure if this song was a hit outside of this area, but it was huge here - garnering more local airplay in its year of release than any other song, not any other local song, any song period. Unfortunately, legal hassles delayed and finally cancelled the band's second CD release, and after years of trying they finally gave up. That's too bad, because this is a truly great song, and they had a ton of potential.

• Black Again - Stone Temple Pilots
• Black Math - The White Stripes (I have no idea what he's talking about, but it rocks)
• Black Wave - The Shins
• Blackbird - Alter Bridge : "Let the wind carry you home/Blackbird fly away/May you never be broken again" - About a guy on their road crew who died after battling cancer.
  
• Bleed - Collective Soul
• Bleeding Me - Metallica
• Blew - Nirvana
• Blinded by the Stars - Pernice Brothers : "Give a name to this terrifying change"
  
• Blinding Light Show/Moonchild - Triumph : "And the blind shall lead the sighted/As we lose the candle glow/And no one knows tomorrow/In the blinding light show"
• Blood - Jibe
• Blood & Roses - The Smithereens : "I need your love but it comes out wrong/I tried to live but I don't belong/I close my eyes and I see blood and roses"
  
• Blood Brothers - Iron Maiden
• Blood On the Ground - Incubus : "I bite my tongue every time you come around/Cause blood in my mouth beats blood on the ground"
• Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - Concrete Blonde
• Blue-Sky Research/What's Left - Taproot
• Blue Collar Man - Styx
• Blue Jean - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Blue Period - The Smithereens
• Blue Side - Rooney
  
• Blue Spanish Sky - Chris Isaak : "I only wish I could make you cry, like I do"
  
• Blues Before & After - The Smithereens
• Boat On a River - Styx
• Bodies - Drowning Pool : "Let the bodies hit the floor"
  
• Body - Bush
• The Body Electric - Rush : As a computer geek, I love these lyrics - "1001001 SOS/1001001 In distress"
  
• Body Language - Queen
• Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Back to back songs by Queen

• Bold As Love - John Mayer
• Bomb - Switchfoot
• Bombs Away - The Police
• Bones - Paloalto
• Boomerang - Fastball
• The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
• A Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash
• Boy On a String - Jars of Clay
• Brain of J. - Pearl Jam : "The whole world will be different soon/The whole world will be relieved"
  
• A Brand New Me - Dusty Springfield
• Brand New Start - Alter Bridge
• Brandy (You're a Fine Girl) - Looking Glass
  
• Bravado - Rush : "We will pay the price/But we will not count the cost"
  
• Brave New World - Iron Maiden
• Bravest Face - Rush
• Breadmaker - Brother Cane : "Breadmaker, who sent you?/Can't take your presence anymore/Breadmaker, who made you?/Won't be your savior anymore"
  
• Break Me Down - Alter Bridge
• Breakdown - Jack Johnson
• Breakdown - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
• Breakfast At Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something
  
• Breaking My Fall - Jeremy Camp
  
• Breakout - Foo Fighters
• The Breakup Song - The Greg Kihn Band

Summary:
Listened to 50 songs. Skipped 1 (Live version of "Bravado")
2 ampersands, 2 slashes, 1 period
4 Black, 7 Blue
2 Bleed, 5 Blood
7 Break

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Now playing: Iron Maiden - Brave New World
via FoxyTunes

Best of You

Featured tunes in this post: "Best of You" by Foo Fighters and "Between the Wheels" by Rush.

Best of You - "Has someone taken your faith/It's real, the pain you feel/Your trust/You must confess/Is someone getting the best of you?"

I've always admired people who can excel at more than one thing. My fantasy dinner party guests would be Leonardo daVinci (inventor, juggler, artist), Isaac Newton (physicist, inventor of calculus), Thomas Jefferson (farmer, politician, university founder), and Alan Turing (mathematician, definer of the modern computer, cryptographer - led the British team who cracked the German Enigma code in WWII).

I guess that explains my man-crush on Dave Grohl. He first became known as the drummer for Nirvana. In that role, he proved to be one of the best hard rock drummers ever, laying the foundation for the band's sound. Further proof of his drumming ability: he played drums for Queens of the Stone Age on their best CD, Songs For the Deaf, and he recently played drums for Paul McCartney on the Grammy's.

After his run with Nirvana, he formed Foo Fighters. On the "band's" excellent debut CD, he wrote every song, sang every track, and played every instrument. That's truly a solo tour de force. He put together the band, after the CD was released, in order to play live. Since that time, Dave has been the front-man of the band, playing guitar and singing lead on all but one song (drummer Taylor Hawkins sings "Cold Day In the Sun"), and Foo Fighters have put out 5 more studio CDs, and a live acoustic CD. They've won a Grammy, and had one of their songs, "Best of You", played by Prince during his Super Bowl halftime performance.

I can't think of any other musician who has done something quite like that - moving from drummer to guitarist/lead singer. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page both started with the Yardbirds and moved onto bigger bands (Cream and Led Zeppelin), and, of course, Clapton has had a long and distinguished solo career. But neither of them changed instruments mid-career. Sting was the front-man and bassist of The Police. He went on to a very successful solo career, playing a lot of guitar, along with the bass. But that's not as big a change as going from drums to guitar.

Between the Wheels - "We can go from boom to bust/From dreams to a bowl of dust/We can fall from rockets' red glare/Down to 'Brother can you spare...'/Another war, another waste land and another lost generation"

As I remember them, and maybe I just wasn't as aware as I could have been, the 1980's were a darn good decade. The economy was in pretty good shape for the most part. We weren't involved in any wars - you can't really count Grenada as a war. That makes it strange that Rush's "Grace Under Pressure", released in 1984, took such a dim view of the world. Maybe 1984 wasn't as removed from Vietnam as it seems now that it must have been. Or maybe it was the ever-present threat of the Cold War. However, the CD seems more apropos to our current time. In particular, the lyrics quoted above seem ominously descriptive of the current situation in America - facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression and fighting wars in two far-flung foreign countries.

• Because - The Beatles
• Because of Me - Seether
• Because of You - Nickelback
• Been a Son - Nirvana
• Before Tomorrow Comes - Alter Bridge
• Begin - Ben Lee
• Begin - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Begin the Begin - R.E.M. : "Birdie in the hand for life's rich demand/The insurgency began and we missed it."
• Beginnings - Chicago
• Behind My Camel - The Police
• Behind the Wall of Sleep - The Smithereens : "Well she held a bass guitar and she was playing in a band/And she stood just like Bill Wyman/Now I am her biggest fan"
• Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! - The Beatles : What a weird song.
  
• Belief - Gavin DeGraw
• Belief - John Mayer
• Believe - The Bravery
• Believe It or Not - Nickelback
• Belle - Jack Johnson
• Belong - R.E.M.
• Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning) - Vertical Horizon
• Best of You - Foo Fighters
• Better Life - 3 Doors Down
• Better Man - Pearl Jam
• A Better Place - Army of Anyone
• Better Than It Was - Fastball
• Better That We Break - Maroon 5
• Better Together - Jack Johnson
• Better When You're Not There - Vertical Horizon
• Between Sun and Moon - Rush
• Between the Wheels - Rush

Back to back songs by the same artist, and, for the first time, it's not The Beatles.

• Beverly Hills - Weezer : Delicious irony and sarcasm in this tune, with a bunch of rich musicians poking fun at the rich, spoiled people in Beverly Hills.
  
• Beware! Criminal - Incubus
• Beyond the Gray Sky - 311
• Beyond the Sea - Duncan Sheik
• Bi-Polar Bear - Stone Temple Pilots
  
• Bicycle Race - Queen
• Big Dog - Lyle Lovett
• Big Easy - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Big Empty - Stone Temple Pilots : "Time to take her home/Her dizzy head is conscience-laden". Those are some of my favorite lyrics ever.
  
• A Big Hunk O' Love - Elvis Presley
• Big Me - Foo Fighters
• The Big Money - Rush
  
• Big Time - Peter Gabriel
• The Big Wheel - Rush
• Bigger Than My Body - John Mayer
• Bigot Sunshine - Tonic
• Binky the Doormat - R.E.M.
• Bird On a Wire - Johnny Cash
• Birthday - Taproot
• Bits and Pieces - The Dave Clark Five
• Bitter - 12 Stones
• Bitter Tears - INXS
• Bittersweet - Fuel
• Bittersweet Me - R.E.M.
  

Summary:
Listened to 53 songs
Skipped 2 (Live acoustic versions of "Best of You" and "Big Me")
1 instrumental ("Behind My Camel")
3 start with Because, 4 with Begin, 7 Betters, but only 2 Bests, 10 Bigs (if you count Bigot), 4 Bitter

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - Best of You
via FoxyTunes

Beauty of Gray

On to the Bs...

• Baby Don't Cry - INXS
• Baby In Two - Pernice Brothers
• Baby, What a Big Surprise - Chicago
• Back at Your Door - Maroon 5
• Back Door - Fastball
• Back In Baby's Arms - Patsy Cline
• Back In the Village - Iron Maiden
• Back On Line - INXS
• Back On My Feet Again - The Babys
• Back to You - John Mayer
• Bad - U2 : "If I could through myself/Set your spirit free/I'd lead your heart away/See you break, break away"
  
• Bad Blood - Neil Sedaka
• Bad Day - Fuel
• Bad Day - R.E.M.
• A Bad Dream - Keane : "I wake up, it's a bad dream/No one on my side/I was fighting, but I just feel too tired to be fighting/Guess I'm not the fighting kind"
  
• Bad Seeds - Brother Cane
• Badge - Cream
• Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today) - Love and Rockets : There's a nice remake of this in the movie "Marley & Me"
  
• The Ballad of Bjorn Borg - Pernice Brothers
• The Ballad of Ira Hayes - Johnny Cash : Another revered elder statesman of American entertainment, Clint Eastwood, made a good film related to this "Flags of Our Fathers"
  
• The Ballad of John and Yoko - The Beatles
• Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners - Foo Fighters
• Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson : "It's just so easy, when the whole world fits inside of your arms/Don't really need to pay attention to the alarm/Wake up slow"
  
• Bang and Blame - R.E.M.
• Barbara Ann - The Beach Boys
• Bastille Day - Rush : "And we're marching to Bastille Day/La guillotine will claim her bloody prize"
  
• Battery - Metallica
• Battle Cry - Triumph : "So many, many miles from home/Oh Lord have mercy on my soul/I think the loneliest man in the world is a soldier"
  
• Be Like That - 3 Doors Down
• Be Mine - R.E.M.
• Be Still, My Soul - Wintley Phipps
• Beachball - R.E.M.
• The Beast In Me - Johnny Cash : This song is a perfect example of the greatness of Cash's "American" recordings. At his advanced age, his voice weak and wavering, yet able to evoke such feeling, the songs are truly powerful. You can just feel that he's resigned to the fact that his days are near an end, that he wants to deliver a message, and that he's ready to be with his wife and his Maker in eternity.
  
• Beat a Drum - R.E.M.
• Beautiful - Creed : "Beautiful is empty/Beautiful is free/Beautiful loves no one/Beautiful stripped me"
  
• Beautiful Day - U2
• Beautiful Disaster - 311 : "I try to be not like that but some people really suck"
  
• Beautiful Girl - INXS
• The Beautiful Letdown - Switchfoot : "I will carry your cross and your song/But I don't belong here/I'm gonna set sight and set sail for the kingdom come"
  
• Beautiful Son - Cave In
• Beauty & Sadness - The Smithereens
• Beauty of Gray - Live : "The perception that divides you from him is a lie/For some reason you never ask why/This is not a black and white world/You can't afford to believe in your side/This is not a black and white world/To be alive, I say the colors must swirl/And I believe that maybe today we will all get to appreciate the beauty of gray"

Three events this week swirled together to demonstrate just how far we still have to go in race relations in this country. To briefly summarize them, for those not keeping up (or in the author's vain thought that someone might read this well after the stories have faded):

First, President Obama signed the Economic Stimulus Plan, a couple of months on the heels of the first "bailout" plan, no doubt in advance of Stimulus 3 and whatever else is to come.

Second, a Connecticut woman was brutally attacked and maimed by a chimpanzee owned by her (I don't want to judge anyone, here) complete lunatic of a neighbor. The neighbor had owned the chimp for several years and treated it as if it were her child - dressing it in diapers, feeding it steak and lobster, and serving it wine. Tragically, the chimp had to be killed to end it's attack.

Third, the New York Post ran an editorial cartoon that tried to combine these 2 events - it depicted 2 police officers standing over a chimp they had just shot and killed, one of them saying "they'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The Post "apologized" after the ensuing outcry. Now, unlike most people I've heard discuss this, I believe The Post and the cartoonist when they say they were simply saying that a chimp could have written the stimulus bill. However, it wouldn't take a moment's thought on their part to realize that many people would think they were disparaging the president (comparing him to a chimp), and that it would piss them off.

When are we ever going to get past this? Idealists thought the Civil Rights movement in the 60s ended it. Optimists thought that the L.A. riots of the 70s were the last breaths of racism. 30+ years later, it's hard to see that any advance has actually been made, in spite of an African-American man being elected president. Some white people continue to act and talk like other ethnic groups are sub-human, or at least sub-white. Some black people are excessively sensitive to continuing slights, both real and imagined. I really wish we could all get to the place the band Live describes in "The Beauty of Gray" - where the world is not black and white but a beautiful amalgamation of the two. We are all children of God and, thus, each other's brothers and sisters.

Summary:
Listened to 40 songs. Skipped 1 (Demo version of "Beat a Drum").
5 songs by R.E.M.
2 songs called "Bad Day" - thankfully neither of them by Daniel Powter
6 starting with "Beautiful", 7 starting with "Back", 6 starting with "Bad"
Second instrumental (Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners)
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Now playing: Live - The Beauty Of Gray
via FoxyTunes

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