A Dozen or So Songs About Me

I'm so vain I think I every single song is about me.

Dave wants us to "make a music mix that is a reflection of your informative years." I have no idea what he means by informative years, so I'm going to give you a list of a dozen or so songs (Dave's suggested amount) that I like, each by a different band. The order makes sense to me, but it probably won't make sense to you.

• Faith No More - Falling to Pieces
  Faith No More's The Real Thing was the first album I ever bought with my own money. I would listen to the album over and over, singing along to the lyrics in the liner notes. Once I memorized all the words to "Falling to Pieces", I would sing them nonstop.

• Skid Row - 18 and Life
  Skid Row? Yeah, Skid Row. I liked Skid Row. Still do a little bit, I guess.

• Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
  The video for this song came out right about the time my friends and I discovered MTV. We stayed up late at night during sleepovers so that we could catch the video. Appetite for Destruction is still a great album nearly twenty years after its original release.

• Red Hot Chili Peppers - I Could Have Lied
  Blood Sugar Sex Magik was our favorite album throughout middle school and at the beginning of high school. "Our" being me and my friends. I remember learning how to play the intro to this song on guitar, and I felt so cool.

• Pearl Jam - Daughter
  I need to include one song from the mid 90s grunge explosion. I listened to Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten a lot when they first came out. But this song is on Vs. This is my list, so I get to make the rules. By the way, Scott Stapp has made Pearl Jam unlistenable. How? Well, every time I hear Eddie Vedder's voice, I think of Stapp and get sick. Thank you Scott. I can't listen to Nirvana anymore either, but I can get an indirect fix from Sonic Youth and the Pixies.

• Smashing Pumpkins - Frail and Bedazzled
  I listened to Pisces Iscariot a lot. I liked it better than Siamese Dream, but they were both soundtracks to high school. I had a hard time to pick a song off of one of these albums as my favorite.

• Radiohead - Just
  The Bends was my favorite album during that transition period from high school to college. This is one song off of that album.

• Beck - Pay No Mind (Snoozer)
  Holy shit, Beck blew the lid off of the trashcan. Mellow Gold's got some weird stuff on it. This is song two on the album.

• The Clash - White Man In Hammersmith Palais
  This song captures the fusion of reggae and 1977 punk that was The Clash. We'd all turn rebellion into money if we could.

• Rancid - Cash, Culture and Violence
  Life Won't Wait has been my favorite album for over five years. This is one song from that album, but I could have chosen a few others for this list.

• The Violent Femmes - Kiss Off
  Good shit, yo. Good shit. And it's not about Jesus, like some of their later stuff.

• Propagandhi/The Weakerthans - Anchorless
  The Weakerthans have the best lyrics of any emo-country-pop-folk-punk band. They are also the only bad in that genre, but their lyrics are still amazing. This song represents the transition from the political punk of Propagandhi to the Canadian folk-pop of the Weakerthans.

• Fugazi - Waiting Room
  If you don't know Fugazi, well, I don't know what to tell you. They definitely stand for their values, I can tell you that. And, by values, I don't mean conservative Christian "values".

These were the first 13 songs (a dozen or so) that came to mind. There are many others important songs that aren't on the list. Maybe I'll do a favorite albums list or favorite bands list in the future. Or maybe not.