Friday, September 15, 2006
I kind of got out of the habit of posting here, because my parents found my other blog. But really there's no harm in it. I doubt they would even care about my various meanderings RE: Ben Folds anyway, so have probably not read it. So unless I am like, "THIS SONG IS SO GOOD FOR FUCKING DEAD BABIES TO" it probably can't hurt me.
Anyway, I used to do "mix tape OCD" because I have this thing where when I think of a group of songs I want to be together, I would go and do it, even though on cassette it didn't work that great, and all the time I would record over them or something because I didn't end up liking them like I thought I would.
So anyway....... now that I have a decent computer, I now have PLAYLIST ocd which is even more fun. Anyway, this first playlist, I call "Free to Be Me," because all the songs are about not giving a shit what other people think or conversely, the bad things that happen when you do care too much, and various facets of the idea, "just be yourself." Anyway, one funny thing I have found is that some bands really like the idea (Incubus has 3 songs on Make Yourself alone by that, Ben Folds also has three on the list, the Cribs had several songs I considered).
Anyway, let me know if there are any I should have that I have left out! I want Free to be Me as complete and awesometastic as possible!
1) Ben Folds Five - Best Imitation of Myself
"Last night I was east with them/And west within/Trying to be for you what you wanna see"
2) Saves the Day - Through Being Cool For the first 1,000 times I listened to this song, I thought it meant he was through trying to be cool/trendy. But I actually think now that he is through being cool actually means he through keeping his cool/temper. But since I have listened to it with the first interpretation so much, I couldn't resist putting it on here.
"Why can't you just marvel in the hopes that make up this reality?/Your world is what you made it/And I don't want a part of it."
3) Simon - Lifehouse absolutely gorgeous song, by the way. I feel bad that the pseudo-Creedish vocals make no one take this great band seriously.
"You lost yourself in your search to find something else to hide behind"
4) Butterfly Boucher - Different
"born with ten toes/or even born with nine/where there is love then who I am is fine"
5) Audioslave - Be Yourself this song is actually more depressing than happy or uplifting like most of the others, it is more like, you can't escape being yourself, whether you like it or not. It literally is all that you can do.
"To be yourself is all that you can do"
6) Say Anything - Admit It!!!
-"you adhere to a set of standards and tastes that appear to be determined by an unseen panel of hipster judges"
-"I'm proud of my life/and the things that I have done/proud of myself/and the loner I've become"
7) Incubus - Drive
"So if I decide to waiver my chance to be one of the hive will I choose water over wine and hold my own and drive?"
8) Cake - Sheep Go to Heaven
"Sheep go to heaven/goats go to hell"
9) Ben Folds Five - Jane
"jane be jane/and if sometimes that might drive them away/let them stay there,
you don't need them anyway"
10) Jimmy Eat World - Believe in What You Want
"Do you believe in what you want?"
11) Incubus - Privelege Hoo, boy, if you've ever read any Sartre, this song is his entire concept in a small, 4 minute nutshell. If I can condense it even further: "Extistentialism is awesome because it says you could achieve anything, anything in the entire world, the possibilities are endless and you could have anything you wanted, if you play it right." "existentialism sucks because it says there is no one to hold you back, ALL your failures are entirely on you and no one else. The burden of making these decisions for yourself is enormous and depressing."
-"Isn't it strange that a gift could be an enemy?/Isn't it weird that a privilege could feel like a chore?"
-"The day you were born, you were born free./That is your privilege."
12) Saves the Day - This Is Not an Exit This is kind of like the Audioslave song, in that it is all, "hey, what's done is done you are you and you can't change it," but in a happy way. It's like, "hey, we know you did your best, and that is all anyone can do. Stop worrying about it."
"The despair can ravage you if you turn your head around to look down the path
that's led you here, cause what can you change? You're a vessel now floating down the waterways. You can take your rudder and aim your ship, just don't bother with the things left in your wake."
13) Semisonic - FNT
"I'm surprised that you've never been told before/That you're lovely and you're perfect/And that somebody wants you/I'm surprised that you've never been told before/
That you're priceless and you're precious/Even when you are not new "
14) Jimmy Eat World - Your New Aesthetic I always took this to mean pressuring media, or even on a smaller scale, your friends, to fight the homogenity and shallowness in popular culture.
"Make them open the request line and let selection kill the old. Turn off your radio."
15) Incubus - Pardon Me
"Pardon me while I burst into flames/ I've had enough of the world and it's people's mindless games"
16) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Soul to Squeeze
"Where I go I just don't know/I got to, got to, gotta take it slow/When I find my piece of mind/I'm gonna keep it for the end of time"
17) Ben Folds - There's Always Someone Cooler Than You
"I might just get up and dance or buy some acid wash pants/When you don't care then you've got nothing to loose"
18) The Offspring - Smash
"I'm not a trendy asshole/I do what I want, do what I feel like./I'm not a trendy asshole/I don't give a fuck if it's good enough for you/Cause I am alive."
19) Switchfoot - Company Car
"I'm half baked/I'm fake/But see I've got hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk and 200 bucks/I pass go, but oh, life's taken it's toll/Have I won Monopoly, to forfeit my soul?"
20) Incubus - Make Yourself
"If you let them fuck you/there will be no foreplay. Rest assured, they'll screw you complete/till your ass is blue and gray."
21) Idlewild - El Capitan I only recently realized this song was actually about suicide. But I guess that's still free-thinking.
"I'll choose my own way to use my life up"
22) Stroke 9 - Kick Some Ass
"I used to be a nerd/grew up in the suburbs/nothing there ever went wrong/I made it up in this song/I talk about the hood/I say stuff like "it's all good"/tell people I'm down with all the cool kids downtown/when I've never even been there"
23) Cribs - Martell
"How hard can it be to get a slap on the back from a room full of morons? So you hate my sunglasses? Well your precious Leeds is dead, just so long as you know "
