Now, before you top reading this because you think it might be about My Muse or other things related to The Ladies, don’t worry. I plan on not writing about that right now. So keep on reading. I promise it will be good.
The other day, like most days, I was having difficulty sleeping. It would be easy to blame the super loud jets that seem to take off every four hours or so, but I think it might have something to do with simple excitement about getting out of here. While playing around my 950th game of Minesweeper on expert, I was listening to some tunes as I usually do, plus watching some music videos and it occurred to me during one of the songs that I was listening to: as much as I enjoy the music of Mr. Ben Folds, not one of his songs would probably be included in my top ten favorite songs.
“How is this possible?” you ask. I’ll tell you. While Ben Folds is extremely awesome, it is very difficult for me to pick favorites amongst his songs. Sure, I could come up with a Top Ten list, but that ends up becoming a Top Twenty list before too long, and then I have to keep resorting things as I think about songs and a new album will come out and I have to adjust… you see the difficulty that I face.
So I thought maybe I would put together a list of songs not by Ben Folds (Five) and talk about them. Most of these songs will come out of the ’90s, since that was really the last time I listened to a lot of music that wasn’t Ben Folds. That being said, there might happen to be a more recent song, but we’ll see how this thing starts to shake out as we get going. Without further ado, and in some semblance of an order:
10) Candy by Mandy Moore – I had a crush on Mandy Moore. Still do in fact. And of all the pop songs that I could have listed here, she wins. No particular reason other than the fact that every time I hear this song, I imagine she is singing it to me and we will one day end up happily forever after. A man can dream…
9) Blind by Korn – This song is here primarily because it introduced me and my friends to Korn while I was in high school. I just like the song and how raw it is and I really wish Korn would have stayed along this path on subsequent albums, but I guess two years of pretty good allowed them to have years of kinda bad.
8 Â ) Jeramy by Pearl Jam – I like the imagery of this song, and the fact that it really tells a story. I don’t really like Pearl Jam all that much, but I do like this song.
7) Chick Magnet by MxPx – I used to say this was a theme song of mine in high school. Totally in the ironic kind of way, like the way you call a fat guy “Tiny” or an idiot “Genius.” I was definitely not a chick magnet, but it was fun to pretend. I always wanted to be the guy in the song that they are singing about, but I was never able to pull it off.
6) Hurt by Johnny Cash – I like Johnny Cash, and this is probably my favorite song that he “sings.” The pain in the lyrics and his delivery of them feels very real. The Nine Inch Nails version pales in comparison to the original.
5) What I Got by Sublime – I really wish Bradley Nowell hadn’t died. Sublime was pretty epic, and unfortunately they didn’t really make it until after his overdose. I still like this song and know all of the words, and probably always will.
4) Champagne Supernova by Oasis – Self-proclaimed as better than the Beatles, Oasis kinda failed to live up to that. However, this song, and the entire album it comes from, are still favorites of mine. I remember walking down to the Holiday by my parent’s house with this CD in my Discman and listening to Champagne Supernova as loud as it would go. I just dug the song then and still do.
3) Gone Away by the Offspring – I put this song on here because back in the day, i.e. 10th grade, this was my song choice for “Music as Poetry” for Ms. Heart’s English class. I wanted to use a different song (see Jeramy) but unfortunately we couldn’t use songs with swear words. However, this song is still one of my favorites, and the Offspring are still in my top ten of favorite bands, and I have seen them live the most (behind Ben Folds).
2) Frank Sinatra by Cake – I recently learned to re-appreciate the music of Cake, and this is probably my favorite song of theirs. Cake definitely had a unique sound, something that you don’t hear much, and I just appreciated their music because of it. I saw them live once, and would see them again, but I don’t know if they are still around as a band.
1) Aenima by Tool – This song is still my favorite song, probably has been since it came out. I don’t really know what it is about it that makes it so. Could be the creepy video, or just the lyrics speaking of the apocalypse, but it has yet to be replaced by anything that I have heard in the past 15 years or so. If you haven’t listened to this song before or in a while, clear around 6 minutes of your day and just listen to it. It truly is a great song.
The list is kind of in reverse order as you can see. I’m sure there are other songs that I am forgetting, but this is a good start. I reserve the right to update this list in the future, and I probably will. Or I’ll just forget about it and blog about how I need a woman or something.
Until next time…
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