100 Songs. 100 Words. Third 10.

Elliott Smith – XO

One, two, three, the drumbeat counts. The chords cry out. The crowd breathes in. Ashtrays full and glasses empty. Buzzing neon, buzzing hearts. (In your story, this is true.) It’s a waltz, without a dance. It’s a prayer, without a god. The singer stands there, bathed in blue. Knuckles white and eyelids black. (In your dreams, he never dies.) The singer starts to whisper now. You cup your ears to understand: “I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow.” Songs, singers, love itself. (Infinity plus one.) Drumbeat, chords, the crowd fade out, counting down to zero.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch – Wicked Little Town

Hedwig gets it: We’re all alone. Male or female, gay or straight, transgendered or even fictional, we’re strange, confused, and incomplete, searching for our missing halves. We run away from little towns. We follow strangers’ promises. In cities, in the world, we find and lose: our halves, ourselves, our voices. We seldom dare expose our scars, to risk, to chance, to sunshine. Clothed, bewigged, made-up, we hide. Our words, our songs, are silenced. But Hedwig wants and needs and loves. She hopes and fears and chases. She dares to sing, to find her voice, to fill the sky with wishes.

Rufus Wainwright – 14th Street

Pop Quiz

4) This song is best classified as…

a) Tin Pan Alley pop/rock/opera.
b) a show tune for which you imagine the show.
c) a timeless standard no one’s heard.
d) a trick question. It’s unclassifiable.

5) The piano is…

a) rollicking.
b) ribald.
c) lost in a reverie.
d) shooting at your two left feet, commanding you to dance.

6) His voice, here and always, is…

a) dulcet.
b) decadent.
c) devil’s food cake.
d) purposefully left blank by the instructor. Just listen.

7) Tear this test into confetti and toss it. A ticker-tape parade for champion heartbreak.

Garth Brooks – The Dance

Pop Quiz

Essay Question

8) With its sentimental lyrics (the refrain, “I could’ve missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance,” could easily fit in a card or on a bumper sticker), treacly piano (the outro is a goddamn never-ending story), and overall vibe of cornpone complacency (life sure sucks, but it’s also kinda wonderful, and gosh almighty that piano is purdy!), you’ve often dismissed this song as schlock (probably because it totally is). Why do you know all the words then, huh? Why do you let it breach your defenses? Can’t you just admit it works?

Don McLean – American Pie

A long, long time ago
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile…

Music class. Car rides. Band practice. Prom. The days the music lived forever. And not so long ago, just this week, the history of rock ‘n’ roll, those syllables, that melody, this song that belongs to America, to anyone, hurtling through my ear canal and tumbling out my mouth. It still makes me smile, from headphone to headphone. Yes, it touches me deep inside. Yes, I believe in rock ‘n’ roll. Yes, I’m unoriginal, but aren’t we all? Haven’t I caught you singing?

The Beach Boys – God Only Knows

I wish I could sing this, and mean this, for someone, free of doubt and dissonance: How do I love thee? God only knows. The message is simple, sincere, and disarming, never sentimental, sappy, or dumb. It’s heartfelt, honest, and head over heels. It doesn’t need gimmicks (like I do) to grab you, mostly because of how gentle it is. The melody soars, the sleigh bells ring out, but the soft, plaintive voice is the star of the show. It’s naked and beautiful, true love embodied. I wish I had someone to harmonize with. God only knows where she is.

Jon Brion – Here We Go

For years, I’ve explained my aloneness away. For years, I’ve made excuses: I’m shy, I’m busy, I’m picky, I’m happy… I’m not bitter. I’m not lonely. I’m not lying. I’m not sad. When does quirky become eccentric? When does solitude become isolation? How can an artist get me completely, even though we’ve never met, when no one I’ve met in years has tried, or maybe I haven’t let them in? Alone or lonely, I play this song, a lullaby, a lozenge: “You gotta hope that there’s someone for you, as strange as you are.” My throat and heart unclench themselves…

Aimee Mann – Guys Like Me

…And then I play another song, and damn near choke on hopelessness. “Guys like me,” this woman sings, this woman who speaks both to and about me, are “numb,” “chilly,” and “absentee.” We can’t be trusted, we’ll let you down, we’ll be our own worst enemies. Somehow this woman understands. She feels and sings so deeply, so truly, the things I’m scared to even think, let alone write or share or give, she comforts me completely. Solitude? Solace? Strangeness? Strength? The spaces between are shrinking, screaming. I open my throat and find the strength to sing my lonely heart out.

Liz Phair – Why Can’t I?

The jilted bloggers nailed it: Indie princess sells her soul. Old woman rips off Avril Lavigne. That’s why, when the chorus hit, I recognized it instantly. The song felt mildly subversive, but sticky, a kiss-off song delivered with an open-mouthed kiss. A spoonful of power chords made the vitriol go down. What the bloggers didn’t know is how much it would hammer me, one woman saying what another would not (or maybe I was hearing what I couldn’t before): It’s over, really over, since she’s seeing someone else. (“The best part of breaking up!”) Jilted, I couldn’t breathe or speak.

2Pac and Dr. Dre – California Love

Pop Quiz

True/False

9) In high school, I denounced this song (and the entire rap genre) for its excessive violence, rampant misogyny, and unrepentant privileging of rhythm over melody, sampling over live instrumentation, and killing other people over killing oneself.

10) I didn’t know what “misogyny” meant, much less how to say it.

11) Meanwhile, I cited the lyrics of nonviolence advocate Axl Rose and feminist scholar David Lee Roth as poetry.

12) Jesus, I was fucking dumb.

13) Tupac wrote more meaningful songs, but this is the one that rattles my windows.

14) Inglewood always up to no good.

11-20: The White Album to Siamese Dream

11. Beatles - The White Album

Pop Quiz

True/False

1) “Helter Skelter” is heavier than metal.

2) This is the album where Paul became my favorite.

3) One time, at a Yankees game, I saw Paul on the JumboTron! Both of us were watching the very same game!! Both of us were sitting in the same freakin’ stadium!!! This was by far the highlight of the game.

4) I’m a better person for having heard The Beatles.

Essays

5) Why do I cover “Rocky Raccoon”?

6) Why do I tolerate “Revolution 9"?

7) Great double album, or greatest double album?

8) Review your favorite Beatles memory.

12. Pearl Jam - Ten

Eddie Vedder probably hates me. I totally respect the last grunge band standing. I totally agree the president sucks. My Pearl Jam tapes are totally worn out. But I haven’t cared about Pearl Jam in a decade. I miss the riffs they used to write. I miss the reverb on Vedder’s voice. I miss the fervor I felt for four albums – one or two more than most former fans – even though they’ve put out x albums since. (Seriously, Eddie, I don’t even know.) I must miss high school, and even junior high, considering how often I still play its soundtrack.

13. Beck - Sea Change

Sometimes, this album rocks me to sleep. Sure, I play it other times, too: whenever I want to feel understood, whenever I want to commiserate with someone, and during long drives with all these other albums. But this is my favorite insomnia music. I play it when other treatments have failed: late-night talk shows, melatonin, milk. I fear I’m making the music sound boring, when actually, to me, it couldn’t sound more beautiful. Quiet, gentle, melodic, sad, it hushes and soothes and colors my dreams. A concept album, or maybe a lullaby, it breaks my heart instead of a bough.

14. Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen

The Shit

Ben Folds is a geek like me,
Writing’ white boy poetry,
Listenin’ to Dr. Dre,
Droppin’ dope shit every day.

Clearly, Ben Folds is a better
Singer, writer, and whatever.
Still, I do suspect that Ben
Writes some bad shit now and then.

Ballads, bangers, clever, classic,
Better than the park Jurassic.
Crackin’ wise, but soundin’ smart?
That’s the shit that breaks my heart.

Now I’m older than I was.
Still, I listen, just because.
Even though I don’t have kids,
Love the cartoon shit he did.

Sorry, Ben, for bein’ shitty.
Next time, I’ll say somethin’ pretty.

15. Elliott Smith - XO

Elliott, thanks, man. What can I say? Nothing you haven’t heard before, probably. Nothing to return the favor of your life. Your playing, your singing, sounded like a friend. Your music made me feel less alone. The sadness – the truth – in your songs helped me cope. “Cope with what?” you ask, maybe angry. “Clinical depression? A heroin habit? Increasingly prophetic suicidal thoughts?” Yes, you’re right; I don’t understand. Yes, I know; my sympathy is futile. Yes, this letter is overwrought. Still, I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more. Sorry my fandom wasn’t enough. Thanks, again, for giving me your music.

16. Rufus Wainwright - Want One

Why isn’t this guy massively famous? Fine, he lisps, and his lyrics are flaming, but this guy’s songs deserve to be standards. Broadway stars should belt them out. Toddlers should sing them at preschool assemblies. Literature geeks should study their metaphors. Poor Elton John should weep into his rhinestones. This guy rewrites the history of pop – Tin Pan Alley, rock ‘n’ roll, sensitive singer/songwriter sap – swinging for the fences and never ever missing, taking a bat to popular cliches. See what I did there? He’d never do that. Instead, he’d make up something new, something to envy forever and ever.

17. Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Catchier than the common cold! Is it clear yet The Beatles are my all-time favorite band? Number Seventeen – my all-time favorite number – is The Beatles’ third appearance on my all-time favorites list. When I was seventeen, before I wussied out, they might’ve scored even higher than this, higher than women (sorry, Tori!) and artists outside of the grunge-rock canon (Beatle-esque guys like Elliott and Ben). Of course, my boys Aerosmith would’ve been here, too. And lots of Van Halen – and even Van Hagar. But my love of The Beatles has grown as I’ve aged. My listening frequency has never diminished.

18. Aimee Mann - Lost in Space

Thanks to Magnolia, I knew she was amazing, hearing her songs in the mouths of those characters. Still, I was stunned by her storytelling here, hearing her voice and picturing scenes, even without an accompanying film. That’s why she’s one of my all-time favorite writers, not just of songs, but of anything with words. That’s why I wish I could be Aimee Mann, telling the stories that no one else can, singing the songs that no one else will, finding the comfort in being alone. Isn’t it obvious why these songs strike me? No one’s around to answer my question.

19. Blur - The Great Escape

Sometimes, I’m stricken with a touch of Anglophilia, mostly due to albums like this. Chic, cheeky, rapier witty – if all of England sounds like this, I totally need to go.

When I lived in Australia, this album was my soundtrack. One of several bootlegs I bought at a flea market, this tape was my choice for contemplative bus rides, gazing out the window and seeing the world. I hope to play it on all my future travels.

Also, I imagine “The Universal” everywhere. Possibly, for real, the best song ever.

–Best Beatles Albums: No. 4
–Best Oasis Albums: No. 1

20. Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

I’m jotting this down before the big comeback, before the second coming of the alt-rock Messiah – Billy Corgan, the B-side Jesus – making an angry and beautiful racket, shredding his throat and scorching the earth, beating Axl Rose in the race to risk my fandom, making new music that might not sound like this: the loudest and prettiest dirges and tantrums, youthful anthems that somehow still matter, even more now than ever before, rocking today, in Geek U.S.A., quietly disarmed – a bummer when you hummer – with high school band mates playing different songs. Soon, I’ll discover if we can rise again.