During my first class as a PhD student, I wrote a collage essay. As a part of it, I built a list of songs, one for every year of my life, that was meant to play as it was read.
I was thinking on my drive last evening about “Take me Home” (which I posted about), and it got me to thinking about how I should re-do that list given the fact that I’m older now and the idea of using the number 40 hits both the old “top 40 songs” genre AND fits with numbers and age here on my blog.
So here’s the new list with a short explanation of each. I put four rules on myself, one for each decade: 1) the songs do not have a value or chronological order– it’s just 40 songs that give you the “Phill” vibe, 2) no repeat artists, though in some cases a side project or solo by a band member might appear, 3) each song must fit the list of “soundtrack to Phill” on one of three categories: lyrically (meaning the lyrics themselves have memoir-style meaning), tonally (meaning the feeling the song creates, the mood, though maybe not the actual lyrics) or symbolically (because of where the song is from or a moment it represents) and 4) as tempting as it is to include “in” jokes with friends, the logic of why a song is included needs to be something I can express in one sentence (the sentences appearing here).
So again, in no particular order… the soundtrack to Phill as he approaches 41, tracks 1-10:
- “Take Me Home” by Phil Collins. Read my post from yesterday to find out why.
- “Talk to Me” by Run the Jewels. I love RTJ, very much a political favorite right now, but the lyric “Do you think baby Jesus killed Hitler just so I’d whisper” is on the tattoo shortlist.
- “Man on the Moon” by REM. Not my favorite REM track, but I was listening to it when I made the decision to not leave home for a boarding school opportunity at 16.
- “Sober” by Tool. Moody and haunting, it was also the very first thing Julie shared with me over social media after we’d discussed it after a class. Since Tool isn’t on Spotify, there are two covers of this instead. One is by Stain’d. I’m sorry.
- “Can’t Change Me” by Chris Cornell. Again, not my favorite work by Cornell, but the first time I heard it I was coping with a breakup where the woman had wanted me to fundamentally change my views on certain things so the emotion rings true.
- “Waiting for the War” by The Morning Benders. It’s my local-political stance toward academia in song form.
- “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine. Though a lyric from “Freedom” is also on that tattoo short list of mine (your anger is a gift), KitN is my go-to energy song when I’m angry and need to vent.
- “Got me Wrong” by Alice in Chains. Always loved AIC, but this track in particular is a “heart on the sleeve” moment when Layne growl/croaks out “that don’t last forever/something’s gotta turn out right.”
- “Oxford Comma” by Vampire Weekend. This one, I’m really not sure why, but just feels “Phill” to me.
- “Island in the Sun” by Weezer. I used to refer to this song as my “happy place.”