In just a few weeks, I'll finally be done with college, which, naturally, has got me thinking about the past five years of my life (yes, I'm a super senior). Actually, make that the past nine, since high school and college are inextricably linked together. The beginning of my freshman year of high school just happened to coincide with the time my musical tastes began to broaden - I feel like 90% of the world could probably say that - and now, one of the longer eras of my life is coming to a close. With that in mind, I decided to think about some songs that have helped me get through these 9 years that i wish i could hear again for the first time.
The Replacements - "Here Comes A Regular"
At 14, I probably shouldn't have related to this song as much as I did, since it's about a bunch of pathetic drunks slowly wasting their lives away in the same bar every day, but somehow, the dreary tavern that Paul Westerberg was describing didn't seem too different my high school cafeteria. "Everybody wants to be special here," Westerberg sang. few lyrics describe the high school experience so succinctly. The fear of being average haunts you at that point. Whether you play football, aim for a 100 average every semester, or try to dress as flashy as possible, there's a good chance you're doing it because you desperately want to differentiate yourself from everyone else. That wasn't exactly what Westerberg was saying (he mined that territory more on "Sixteen Blue"), but it was what I took from it, and I'll never hear this song without being reminded of those first few months of high school.
Modest Mouse - "Lives"
In 2004, I was the scourge of many die-hard Modest Mouse fans because like many, many others, I discovered the band when they had a sudden mainstream hit with "Float On." The song seemed so refreshing compared to every piece of post-grunge sludge on the radio, but the old school fans never were fond of band-wagoners like me. Still, I eventually got into their earlier stuff, and no song shook me quite as much as "Lives" off 2000's The Moon And Antarctica. The idea that "everyone is afraid of their on lives" always stuck with me. it's a song about the parts of life we avoid - risk, confrontation, ambition. In order to maintain contentedness, we avoid aiming for the things that might make us truly happy, because failure scares us more than mediocrity. As an awkward 14-year-old, who was deathly afraid of talking to girls, that message really stuck with me.
Elvis Costello - "I Want You"
Of course, when I finally did start talking to girls, I dealt with (and still deal with), my fair share of rejection, and that's where Elvis Costello came in. He's a therapist for the lovelorn, and while some have claimed that his lyrics are misogynist, I tend to think anyone who's unlucky in love can relate to his message. He doesn't hate women, so much as he hates love and lust, the things that create rejection in the first place. This song was the most vitriolic screed he ever wrote on the subject, and as a 16-year-old who was no one's "type," this song hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course, now that I've gotten older and discovered feminism, I now think 16-year-old me was a prick with a huge sense of entitlement who thought every girl who smiled at him in the hallway was supposed to be his girlfriend. Still, no one likes to be rejected, even in retrospect, they might have deserved it. When Costello sings "I want to know he pleases he you more than I do....I might as well as be useless for all it means to you" with all the bile in his system being put to work, you can't help but feel something. Anyone who ever loved (or at least really really liked) someone who viewed them as a mere afterthought can understand what EC is talking about.
Nada Surf - "Always Love"
This list is looking a bit gloomy, isn't it? How about a message of hope? Of course, this song is still pretty sad in its own right, but offers a way out of the darkness. We've all reached points in our life where we run out of positivity, and anger and frustration get the better of it, and Nada Surf frontman Matthew Caws understands that. While he preaches a message of "always love," he acknowledges that he himself often fails to live up to that standard ("but I never learned enough to listen to the voice that told me....). The lesson is that while you may screw up, lose your temper, and do or say something you don't regret, you can still redeem yourself. the idea isn't to be perfect, but simply to try to be a better person every day. As someone who often lets stress over school and looking for a career take over the part of my brain that tries to be a good person, that message never stops being important.
Yes - "The Revealing Science Of God (Dance of the Dawn)"
I decided to end this list with something completely out of left field - a 20-minute-long song from an album that most sensible people can't stand. Tales From Topographic Oceans was one of the albums that introduced me to progressive rock, and while it might have been unwelcoming for some, I embraced this album's ambition right away. The opening track stood out to me as easily being the best. I fell in love with it's constant tempo changes and weird chants that I tried in vain to decipher the meaning of. This song still doesn't completely make sense to me, it's beautifully strange, and pretentious in the best way, showcasing a band that was willing to do anything just to be a bit weirder than everyone else.
