100 Favorite Songs: 11-15

Listy list face.

11. “Miami 2017 (See the Lights Go Out On Broadway)” by Billy Joel (1976)

I've rarely been a good sleeper, so I tend to listen to music in bed to distract me into relaxing my brain. "Miami 2017" was a guaranteed relaxer my sophomore year of high school. I'd usually space out somewhere in the upbeat middle and realize I was tired enough to sleep at the beautiful piano outro, causing me to turn off my CD player, take off my headphones, and fall asleep.


Not to say this song is soporific. It's lovely.

12. "Blood" by The Middle East (2009)

This is the newest song on this list, but I think my love of it will endure. It was one of those songs I instantly loved. The music is sad and hopeful and gives life the lyrical portrait of a family.


Love this video, too.

13. "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants (1990)

It's just so catchy, and once you learn all the bizarre lyrics, you can't not sing along.


The one song My 99.5 FM overplayed that I liked.

14. “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen (1979)

I think I've featured this song multiple times on this blog, but can you ever get sick of this song? Ever?


Also, this song is part of the best scene in Shaun of the Dead.

15. “Swallow” by The Wailin’ Jennys (2006)

Canadian bluegrass. Awesome. I'm mostly in love with brief Wailin' Jennys member Annabell Chvostek's voice in this song. I love a lady with rich low voice.

Also known as one of the few songs I can play on guitar.

100 Favorite Songs: 6-10

Numbers 6 through 10 of my unintentionally randomized list of favorite songs.

1. "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 (1969)

As much as listening to prepubescent voices sing love songs is weird, lil' Michael Jackson did it well. This is one of my favorite vocal performances ever, and set to classically catchy Motown music to boot. Here's a fantastic performance:


Too bad it's way too high to sing along to.


2. "Karma Police" by Radiohead (1997)

Haunting, lovely, bizarre, transcend at "For a minute there..." Love love.


Even live it captures the same ethereal feeling.

3. "Sax and Violins" by Talking Heads (1991)

Talking Heads' songs are usually pretty hit-or-miss for me, but I love "Sax and Violins." The chorus absolutely soars (I may or may not bust out in tribal dance every time I hear this song), and the lyrics are playful with intraline rhyming. And it somehow manages to sound timeless and early 90s at the same time.


Toucan?


4. "What If" by Coldplay (2005)

I have this uncontrollable desire to hate Coldplay, but I just can't when Coldplay comes out with songs like "What If." Not one of their released singles, it's part of their extremely listenable album X&Y. It combines a gorgeous verse melody with powerful chorus. I don't even hate the falsetto in this song, and that's saying a lot.


The voice of my old piano teacher Judy is telling me that Chris Martin is sitting too high up and that his forearms should be parallel to the stage.

5. "Once" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglová (2007)

As underwhelmed as I am with most of the movie Once, I'm entrance by the title track from it. A lot of that has to do with the fact that Glen Hansard's yell-singing makes sense in this context (I love it, but for every song?), but also because I can't resist good brush drumming in conjunction with well sung harmonies.

Better audio here:

Cannonball Read #10: The Only Alien on the Planet

In the last few years, The Only Alien On the Planet by Kristen D. Randle has become one of those chicken soup, curl up in bed, and listen to the rain sort of books. It's comforting and ends with a life-affirming message. Also, as a quick read, it means I can catch up a little bit on this Cannonball Read.

The story begins with Ginny's family moving east on the adventurous whim of her parents. She's a new student for her senior year of high school, and she feels pretty down about having no friends and her older brother/BFF Paul leaving for college. But Ginny quickly becomes friends with her neighbor and classmate, Caulder, who introduces her to "The Alien" in the class, Smitty Tibbs. Most everyone in town has gotten used to Smitty, but Ginny becomes fascinated by him. He doesn't speak and he doesn't interact with anybody. He's not stupid--he's actually quite the genius--but he just doesn't talk.

So Caulder, who's been looking out for Smitty for years, recruits Ginny to help him pull Smitty out of his shell. First, they have him help Ginny with her math homework by having him write out step-by-step instructions. They then invite Smitty to go with them to the local film society where they screen old classics. All of this is much to the chagrin of Smitty's mother, who seems confused that anyone would try to befriend her clearly disabled son. But eventually, the two of them, although mostly Ginny, are able to break through the barriers that Smitty has kept up for so long.

If this sounds a little made for TV, it's a little like that. But the characters are written so fully, and the relationships are so organically grown, it rises above what could have been a saccharine plot. Ginny as a character just makes sense to me. Her doubts about herself, her fears at adjusting to a new life, and her relationship to her family seem natural. I'm mostly making this point because I read this book shortly before reading the first Twilight book which also features a "new girl becomes intrigued by weird but pretty guy everyone ignores and begins a tenuous relationship with" plot, but with a dislikable protagonist who is only defined by a list of dislikes. Unfortunately, I think I imprinted my love of The Only Alien on the Planet to Twilight which fooled me into thinking it wasn't that bad of the read. But I can't reread more than a couple chapters of Twilight, even though I could reread The Only Alien on the Planet hundreds of times.

Granted, the latter half of Kristen D. Randle's novel may be oversimplified, but it's genuine, never predictable, and you go with it because the characters are so interesting. For me, it's a page turner and a fully inhabitable book.

Penelope (2008)

For whatever reason, I'm always keeping tabs on movies/tv shows/books that I will recommend future daughters/nieces/little girl BFFs. I'm keeping an eye for my fellow sisters, I guess. Anyway, I perused the young adult section of the library today and remembered that there are slim pickin's for anyone looking for something not obsessing about image or boys or wallowing in self pity (take a look at the series described as "Desperate Housewives for teens." Gag). Anyway, I'll just take whatever dreck future little girl in my life is watching/reading and burn it, and then make her watch Penelope.

Penelope is fairytale of sorts about a girl cursed with a pig nose thanks to an old family curse. Forced into hiding by an oppressive media, she meets possible suitors (fellow bluebloods) that can break her curse through a two-way mirror. Unfortunately, once she shows her face, men tend to run out of the second story window. One of her especially repulsed suitors (Cranford's Simon Woods) manages to leave before signing a gag agreement and tries to tell the media about the pig-monster that he saw. His only sympathy comes from a reporter (Peter Dinklage) who lost his eye in pursuit of this story years before. They hire Max (James McAvoy), a down on his luck gambling blue-blood with shaggy hair, to help break the story with pictures. Max becomes one of the suitors and while he's waiting to see Penelope's face, develops a friendship with her. But of course he's outed as helping reporters, and cast out of the house despite his affection for her.

So Penelope decides that she's had enough of being rejected and watching guys run out of her house and decides to go out to the real world with a scarf around her face and her mom's credit card. She soon meets leather wearing delivery girl Annie (Reese Witherspoon) who quickly befriends her, despite the scarf. Penelope learns to be on her own without her parents, and eventually takes the scarf off and learns to like herself--even with her nose.

Some things I like most about Penelope:

1. Penelope learns to love herself and become her own person first and foremost. The romance isn't front and center of the movie. For example, the reveal that Max is working for reporters isn't the biggest drama in the movie and happens fairly early on in the movie. If anything, the romance is just icing on the cake. Delicious, delicious icing on the cake.

A cute game of chess across the window where Max tries to convince Penelope to go out of the house with him.

2. Reese Witherspoon as Penelope's real world friend is adorable. I haven't seen Witherspoon in anything recently that I've enjoyed, so it was refreshing to see her play a low-key supporting role. And I enjoyed that the friendship seems genuine and sweet, like girl friendships should be.

Manic pixie dream girl?

3. It's stylized without being too twee. The set design and costuming are quirky, but not bizarre or wholly unrealistic. And the characters are a little stereotypical, but are refreshingly subdued. Even Catherine O'Hara's overbearing mother role keeps from getting too shrill.

Even the payphone is a little offbeat.

4. Christina Ricci is now officially my actress of choice for interesting girl-friendly movies. I may have been mildly obsessed with Casper, Golddiggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain, and That Darn Cat at certain times in my life. Penelope may or may not join that list now.

100 Favorite Songs: 1-5

So, I like the idea of doing a top 100 list, but some things just don't seem feasible. Like top 100 albums? Dude, Napster came on the scene during my formative middle school years defeating any chance that I'd buy complete albums of most musical artistes (sorry). And top 100 movies just seems like a lot of work to figure out what movies I have seen let alone rank them. But I figured out a lazy list of top 100: my top 100 songs .

Disclaimer: The songs picked have to have been good enough to be obsessed with at some point, but not so much that I'm sick of it now. Also, I didn't put jazz standards in since so many people cover those songs. In fact, the list is primarily rock and pop songs with just a dash of country and R&B. And I don't really listen to enough rap or techno or heavy metal to list any of those songs as favorites--sorry fans of those genres. Mostly, this is just to say that this list is completely arbitrary and an excuse to talk about songs I like.

So, in the order I thought of them, my top 100 songs, 5 at a time:

1. "Caught Up in You" by .38 Special (1982)

This hit from the extremely average looking .38 Special (when they still had punctuation) is an example of the perfect rock song. Perfect short intro, perfect verse length, perfect chorus with catchy enough melody to cover mistaken words, a perfect guitar solo (harmonizing guitar!), but most of all, a perfect bridge. This song may feature my favorite bridge from any song ever (at 2:13 and 2:53). I love the way they break it down with the unison rhythm of the instruments. I just love it too much!


Although the awkward flirting going on in this video dampens the song's effect a bit.

2. "I Want it That Way" by The Backstreet Boys (1999)

In the boy band war of the late 90s, I was staunchly a BSB fan (better music and better singers, duh). Their iconic song "I Want it That Way" is my favorite of their songs, and stands as a perfect example of how successful incomprehensible lyrics set to a catchy melody can be (the alternate version of the lyrics just sounds weird). Plus, it featured the voices of every one of the boys at some point in the song, including my beloved Kevin at the bridge of the song (of course).


'99 was also the summer I watched a ton of TRL. Worth it.

3. "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt (1991)

Best song if you're in the mood for a good cry. 'nuff said.


I have nothing to add.

4. "When the Levee Breaks" by Led Zeppelin (1971)

Led Zep at their grittiest. The drums are monstrous, the vocals are strong, the harmonica and slide guitar bring the sound out west while the guitar is a steady onslaught of awesome. It never feels like a 7 minute no matter how many times I hear it.


Great song to work custodial to, FYI.

5. "Baba O'Riley" by The Who (1971)

Also proving that long doesn't mean boring is the Who. There's such a perfect build to the song that gets more and more urgent as the song goes on, finally ending on a fast folk rhythm. And they use synthesizer so well that it sounds organic in the song. Seriously, a violin/synth duet? Brilliant.


Their live version with a harmonica is pretty great, too.

There's a reason these were the first 5 I thought of when making this list. From here on out the choices get increasingly more random. Until next time.

Things read out loud are instantly funnier

For your enjoyment, here's the fifth installment of my favorite thing to come out of the Twilight phenomenon: Alex Reads Twilight.

British accents help, don't they? Also, the fact that he gets down to the heart of awful so concisely.

In case you want to watch it from the beginning (you know you do), here's part 1.