Back again to my Soundtrack to Phill. Again, the rules: 40 songs, no repeat artists (though side projects and solo work from bands is acceptable). Songs must fit onto the list because of one or more of these criteria: 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)
I left you at 20. Here we go:
21. “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots. One of the few songs I’ve actually performed.
22. “Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel. I love Peter Gabriel, but I have a very odd relationship with this track. I can’t really explain it.
23. “Walk” by Pantera. It was the first song on my first hardcore “walking” mix, back when I was pre-habbing my knee. Re-Spect-Walk-AREYOUTALKINGTOME?
24. “Superman’s Dead” by Our Lady Peace. OLP actually performs my favorite wrestling theme of all time (“Whatever”), but this song wins out because of how the death of Superman in the comics aligned with my first readings of Nietzsche thanks to an ex and a great deal of life learning.
25. “Alive” by Pearl Jam. The sentiment reminds me so much of my mother’s family. That one line that is meant to be an exchange “is something wrong/she said/of course there is/you’re still alive/she said/do I deserve to be/is that the question/and if so/if so/who answers?”
26. “Wildflowers” by Tom Petty. There’s an entry on the blog earlier about this. I’ll look for it later and link it here.
27. “The Distance” by Cake. There was this summer in central Ohio where I learned all manner of things about academic politics and video editing. This song played ALL THE TIME.
28. “Dance with You” by Live. I had this weird post-apocalyptic dream once where I was dancing to this with Julie in a burned out parking lot that used to be Michigan State University. It’s always felt like the “Phill at the end of a romantic movie” song.
29. “By the Time I get to Arizona” by Public Enemy. One day, late in my high school career, I sat in the hallway all day (it was MLK day and my school wouldn’t recognize it) listening to this song on repeat on my discman (yes, old people rule!).
30. “The War on Drugs” by Barenaked Ladies. I could have picked any of a hundred or so of their songs, but this is the one that makes me cry when I sing along. There’s one line that I crack on every time “near where I live/there’s a viaduct/where people jump when they’re out of luck/raining down on the cars and trucks below/they put a net there to catch their fall/like it’ll stop anyone at all/what they don’t know is when nature calls, you go/and the very fear that makes you want to die/is the very same as what keeps you alive/it’s way more trouble than some suicide is worth.”
Ten more tomorrow, then I’ll share the spotify list. So far I only had to make two subs (couldn’t find “Dave” and Tool won’t sell their catalog, so there’s a Stain’d version of “Sober” that makes me want to sort of vomit).