This was the hardest one yet, and I’m surprised by that. I mean, I have done plenty in life to feel guilty about. But I think I’ve just discovered that my mind doesn’t associate songs with that emotion as well as it does others. Interesting the things we learn about ourselves.

Anyway, I think this is the best I can do.

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Mainly I wish I could play guitar, period. You know, because axe-slingers get more groupies than poets. And there are a lot of songs I wish I could play. I guess one stands out, though – my favorite Rush song from my favorite Rush CD. Ladies and gentlemen, “Spirit of Radio”!

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I don’t play an instrument anymore, but when I was a kid I took several years of piano and I was in the band in junior high and high school. For some reason, our band director, Mr. Mauney, loved Chicago’s “25 or 6 to 4,” so trust me when I tell you, we could rock that sucker.

This video is especially cool since it was all shot at Caribou Ranch up near Nederland, CO. Rocky Mountain High, Saturday Morning – have a nice one, yo.

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This is more like it. Sorta. The technical answer to the question is “everything that Electric Six has ever released.” Some of their songs are more hysterical than others, though.

Like this, which I barely know how to describe, other than to say this is why you need to keep nutbags like Dick Valentine away from history books.

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I’m going to be honest – today’s challenge got to me. When I was young death was an abstraction, and it wasn’t one I feared. I fear aging, but not dying, I said, and it was true. Still is, to some extent. I’d far rather kick over dead right now than to lose my ability to fend for myself, physically or mentally.

If you’d asked me, when I was 25, what song would I like played at my funeral, I’d probably have come up with something insufferably self-conscious and, depending on my mood that day, even cavalier. Throw me a party. Play “Dancing With Myself” and pogo like there’s no tomorrow. Because, you know, there isn’t. Not for me. Celebrate my life. Blah blah blah. Full story »

It seems so very unlikely that I’ll ever get married again, but if I do I hope she’ll understand why wedding songs are requiems, why the confession of love cannot help connoting loss, betrayal, rejection. Love is the denial of these tragedies and only the existence of pain can give happiness meaning.

I hope she’ll forgive me this image of the misunderstood clown clutching desperately at a moment of contact with a stranger because he knows it may be all there is in the world. Full story »

There are so many sad songs and so many things to be sad about, so I suppose there are a lot of correct answers to this one. For my part, few things are sadder than the moment when the music dies. And I have to tell you, I really miss Warren Zevon.

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This is almost unfair. When I’m happy I listen to all kinds of music. When I’m not happy, there are thousands of songs that can pick me up. Seriously – the relationship between music and happy is impossible to articulate where I’m concerned. I’ll drive myself crazy if I try to come up with the definitive answer.

So in the interest of, well, being happy, let’s go with this inspired bit of silliness, which may be the most unapologetically happy song ever written.

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Hmmm. What is my favorite album, anyway? A Night at the Opera? Reckoning? Zenyatta Mondatta? Million Star Hotel? Romeo at Julliard? Damn. This is tough. But I guess I’ll go with my knee-jerk response when I first saw the question and say The Unforgettable Fire. So, hope you’re enjoying your Saturday night (of course, if you are, then you’re probably not reading this until Sunday morning, huh?) In any case, how about this?

And we live by the side of the road
On the side of a hill
As the valley explodes
Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of its own Full story »

I could go a lot of different directions here, but I decided to be straight-up about my self-interest. I’d like to hear Fiction 8‘s “Hegemony” on the radio, partly because I just love the song, partly because I’m good friends with front man Mike Smith, and oh yeah, partly because I co-wrote it. (More on that process here and here.)

Cue me up, Mr. DJ.

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Okay, I’m afraid I have to punt on this one. Fact is, I never listen to music radio anymore. Never. There’s just no point. Once upon a time, if you wanted to get your ears on the latest, coolest tuneage, you turned on the radio. Now, if you want to get your ears on the latest, coolest tuneage, radio is the absolute last place you turn. So I never hear songs on the radio, except for whatever the sports talk shows play as they come out of commercial breaks.

The best I can do, then, is to remember back to a time when I did listen to radio. Full story »

This is the toughest task yet in the challenge. There are plenty of songs I used to love that I don’t listen to much anymore. There are songs that I tolerated once but my patience has now run out on. But all the way from love to hate – that’s hard because with me love is earned for good reason and something pretty dramatic has to happen to flip me that badly. I thought maybe the best answer was “any song by Bob Seger,” because I liked him before Rock 92, a goddamned Classic Rock station in Greensboro, decided to play him every 15 goddamned minutes for goddamned years. Now I never want to hear anything by Seger ever again, just because he’s been played to death. And Chevy buying “Like a Rock” for its truck campaigns didn’t help a bit, either.

But then it hit me – it isn’t so much about a song, per se, as it is a singer. But we have gone love to hate, 110%, where one Yusef Islam is concerned. Full story »

I’m afraid to think about this one, honestly. I know for a fact that I’m complex and contradictory as hell, and it would be asking a lot to come up with a thousand songs that manage to describe me. Further, I know from experience that others see me in ways I often can’t begin to recognize, which only adds to the confusion.

So instead, let me offer a song that describes me by speaking to my values, to a dominant component of my self-image and to what I treasure in those around me – which may ultimately be the best way of describing a person, when you think about it.

Here’s Rob Dickinson doing “Intelligent People” live: Full story »

I probably ought to invoke my 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. But nobody made me take on the challenge, did they? So today, instead of one song that’s a guilty pleasure, let’s just go for three strikes and you’re out.

If I had to pick just one, I’d start with this, which has to be about the dumbest and most appalling goddamned thing in the history of music. But boy, have I had fun on the dance floor to it or what? (Much to the chagrin of those who were with me, I should add.)

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I talk a lot about generational dynamics and have been known to criticize the collective shortcomings of the Boomers and Millennials. I’ve also allowed that my generation (X) has some failings of its own, and one of them is that our cynicism can get the best of us. In fact, sometimes it almost seems to define us. As much as I hate it, I think we’re going to go down in the history books as the Whatever Generation.

And I admit it – I have my own cynical streak, and sometimes it threatens to take over completely. Full story »

I take it that I’m unusual in at least one respect – most people I know seem to like it quiet when they go to bed, but I have always preferred to drift off to music. There are a number of CDs that I like, including things like Andreas Vollenweider’s Down to the Moon and Irish Heartbeat by Van Morrison and the Chieftains. I sometimes play Avalon by Roxy Music and The Lost Patrol’s Midnight Matinee is a good one, as well (to be honest, anything by TLP is soothing and dreamy enough to cue up at bedtime). I spent years flipping this one tape I had every night – on one side was a recording I’d pulled off of Music from the Hearts of Space and on the other I had Mike Oldfield’s Hergest Ridge. The sleepytime playlist has also included Enya, Enigma and Delirium (especially Sematic Spaces and Karma, but really, any of their older stuff works, too). Oh, and Vangelis. Bladerunner soundtrack. Duh. Full story »

Are you kidding me? I got so much rhythm coursing up and down my sexy body I can dance to the sound of a light breeze rustling through tall grass. So let’s let all y’all play. Here’s one of the greatest dance songs in history. If you can’t move to “Party Train” somebody better call 911, because you might be dead.

Kick it, Mr. DJ.

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Hell, I know all the words to lots of songs. So let’s pick something fun. Ah – this’ll do (I said excuse me):

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Verily, it was one of the best days of my entire college career. It was near the end of spring semester of my senior year. That evening my fraternity (Theta Chi, Gamma Omicron chapter) was having its annual Go to Hell Party, which was our big pre-finals blowout. As it happened, the finals of the campus intramural softball tournament were held the same day, and after all those years of futility the Big Red had made it to a championship game (versus a very good team from either the law or business school, can’t recall which). Full story »

Where were you the first time you heard Gorillaz?

I was on vacation in Florence. We were relaxing after a relentless day of sightseeing and trying to decide what to do for dinner. We had the TV on a music video station and up came this hip, trippy vid by a band I had never heard of. How cool it was.

Still is.

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