Because I'm a hopelessly derivative person and have seen other people post on their blogs or columns the "what's in your Ipod" question, I figured that the alphabetical arrangement was as interesting way as any to talk about the music of the moment.
I have twenty-six songs beginning with the letter "A" in my music library. I will try to bullet my (current) three favorites for each letter:
All Out of Love--Air Supply
All Revved Up (With No Place to Go)--Meatloaf
All Right--Amy Grant
All Right Now--[Live]--Queen & Paul Rogers
All the Way to Kingdom Come--Rich Mullins
All You Zombies--The Hooters
Allentown--Billy Joel
Ally Ally Oxen Free--The Kingston Trio
Alone--Heart
Along Comes a Woman--Chicago
Amazon--The Nylons
America--Simon & Garfunkel
And She Was--Talking Heads
And So It Goes--Billy Joel
And We Danced--The Hooters
Angie--The Rolling Stones
*Another Day--Sting
Another One Bites the Dust--Queen
*Anthem--Leonard Cohen
Any Way You Want It--Journey
Anybody Seen My Baby--The Rolling Stones
*Apeman--The Kinks
*Are You Out There?--Dar Williams
Ask the Lonely--Journey
Atlantic City--Bruce Springsteen
Autumn Almanac--The Kinks
#3 Tie ("Apeman"/"Another Day")
I sometime use the Sting song in class to talk about if certain styles or genres lend themselves to certain content/subject matter. I'm always struck in a cognitive dissonance sort of way by the irresistible dance beat of "Another Day" in conjunction with its almost suicidally depressing lyrics. But maybe that's the point. The Kinks' song has a goofy cheerfulness to it that belies its message.
#2 "Anthem"
When I heard a cover of this while watching the DVD Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, I turned to Cindy and Todd and said, "I hope every artist who has ever written a crappy, derivative CCM song is forced to listen to "Anthem" some day and at least has the decency to feel ashamed."
#1 "Are You Out There?"
I really like Dar Williams's lyrics. Her songs remind me of Paul Simon's lyrics at times, but with a bit more probing spiritual quality. (Yet not openly underscored like CCM.) I didn't like the album this was off of as much as My Better Self, but the song is terrific at expressing the sense of connectedness one longs for at a certain point in life while hinting (perhaps) that that longing is itself a symbol of another, deeper one.
2 comments:
Ken,
Wow. I remember the 80's. And yet I dare not sneer, because I own a lot of these songs either on CD's or--you may have heard of it--vinyl. "America" is one of my favorite S&G songs, and "Nebraska" is one of my favorite Springsteen albums.
May I recommend, however, that you expurgate "Air Supply" from your post before others less charitable than I mock you with great mockery?
And "The Hooters." You should lose "The Hooters." I'll let Amy Grant slide because of her CCM cred before she sold her soul to the pop music machine (at least that's how some of my Baylor friends felt about it).
Peter, the Ipod really does change the way one listens to music in that the shuffle play brings into rotation stuff you have but (maybe without even realizing it) haven't listened to for a while. While Air Supply is not my favorite, the one I find myself skipping each time it comes on my Ipod is Chicago. I really don't see what's wrong with the Hooters (other than they only ever apparently had three songs and two of them begin with the letter "A").
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