This post brought to you by proteinscollide and the letter R.

[constance]

Notes about this Ten-Songs-I-Adore meme:

(1) You have no idea -- no idea, I tell you -- how hard it is for me to post lists of music without apologizing for my taste in said music. What happened to the days when I was totally sure my taste in music was completely awesome in every way? I'd like to think it's just that I got old -- but maybe it's the general total breakdown of all self-confidence I have undergone since reaching my majority? Anyway. So your taste in music's better than mine. I can accept that. After a bit of a struggle.

(2) I also had an agonizingly hard time limiting myself to just ten songs. In fact, I narrowed it down to twenty and couldn't get any farther until I realized that some of the songs I loved were no longer on my hard drive (just on my iPod, or on my external hard drive), and so I was able to winnow (don't you love that word?) the list from there. Thank goodness (a) my sloppy archiving habits are here to mask my indecisiveness, and (b) I could only work with one letter of the alphabet.

(3) My criteria for choosing the list, in case you're interested, was this: which songs, when they pop up in my player, make me STOP EVERYTHING TO LISTEN AND IF I AM ALONE SING TUNELESSLY-YET-LOUDLY ALONG? These are they. A few of they. I will tell you a little something about my history with they, if you're curious.

(4) If you want a letter of your own, you have, of course, only to say so.



Ramble On - Led Zeppelin

Red Rabbits - The Shins

Red-Eyed and Blue - Wilco

Requiem - M. Ward

Retrieval of You - The Minus Five

Revelator - Gillian Welch

Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash

Rock and Roll - The Velvet Underground

Rip This Joint - The Rolling Stones

Roseblood - Mazzy Star



ETA: Neil Gaiman, what is up with your blog? Why does it occasionally and randomly vomit all over mine? Couldn't you do something about that?

Comments

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Get down with your hard-rockin' self! I have been in a real mood for kick-ass classic rock lately. The Led Zep and Rolling Stones numbers are great additions to that collection, and your version of the Velvet Underground song is a lot different than the one I've got.

Thank you so much for the little peek inside your head and the great music. I wish I had time to reciprocate, but I am terribly behind as it is, and I just keep replaying the five-minute intro to Sweet Jane lately as it is.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was nervous about exposing you to the stuff inside my head! Because I am usually so closed-off and enigmatic!

AHAHAHAHAHA no, not able to write it with a straight face. And hey, I should be thanking you, for listening so generously. :)

Also, I know you are incredibly busy right now -- but I'd love to hear your version of Rock and Roll if things slow down a bit. I'm not sure I've ever heard any version but this one; certainly this is the only version I own.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

I don't get where this shows that you don't have good taste. Looks like a rockin' good list to me. (The ones that I know, anyway. Though my eclecticism awes my family, it clearly hasn't rippled wide enough to encompass some of the stuff you cool kids listen to.)

Can I ask for a letter if I can't Yousendit things? So little of my music collection is accessible, even to me, what with it dorkishly gathering dust in vinyl form in the basement, but I'd like to play, if only for the challenge of it all. :)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't suppose I feel that I have bad taste -- I mean, I like this stuff, so it seems to naturally follow that in my own head, I have decent taste -- so much as that I suspect other people will think my taste is bad. This is the complicated form my self-loathing takes: I like myself okay, it's just that I don't think anyone else finds me very interesting/smart/whatever. (Except you guys, of course!)

You may definitely have a letter! I will give you L for Laurel, and look forward to seeing your eclectic list (I'm an eclectic too, can you tell? :D).

[friendly.livejournal.com]

I would like a history of all ten songs and you, and then I would like a letter to call my own. :-*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

You got it! :D




Ramble On - Led Zeppelin
A holdover from my early high school years, when the boys of my set listened to this stuff and desired nothing more to live the life described in Dazed and Confused. Whenever I hear a Led Zeppelin song, I am instantly fifteen again.

Red Rabbits - The Shins
The plinkiness of this makes me bounce with happiness, even though the lyrics are so pretentious as to be incomprehensible.

Red-Eyed and Blue - Wilco
Around the time I was leaving NO, I was listening to Wilco a lot (a lot, and as a result, I couldn't listen to them for a long time without being reminded of how miserable I was during that time of my life. But I discovered recently that the taint is gone, and so I am listening a lot again. This song's one of my favorites from Being There.

Requiem - M. Ward
I want someone to write a song like this about me when I die. No, I lie. I want someone to write this specific song about me when I die. I'm not sure how that's going to work (maybe something like Pierre Menard in that Jorge Luis Borges story), but that's what I want.

Retrieval of You - The Minus Five
I sort of like the fact that this song exists as much as I like the song itself. It's one of those ensemble bands, made up from bits and pieces of other bands, all of which I love crazily. Isn't it great when that happens?

Revelator - Gillian Welch
I can't really think of a living woman's voice I love more than Gillian Welch's. I find it completely mesmerizing, and the fact that she's smart enough to fit her arrangement and the music she writes and plays to her voice, it just completely sends me.

Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash is my spirit guide. You maybe know how he's Homer Simpson's spirit guide too, and that Homer sees hims as a coyote? I see him as a lion. In this song, he's a roary lion.

Rock and Roll - The Velvet Underground
This song changed my taste in music (and therefore my life). The music I loved before this song, and the music I fell in love with after I heard it, are totally different. I think Lou Reed would be pleased to hear this.

Rip This Joint - The Rolling Stones
This is one of my careen-around-the-room-dancing songs. It has no higher purpose, really, but sometimes a song doesn't need a higher purpose as long as it motherfucking rocks.

Roseblood - Mazzy Star
I love Hope Sandoval almost as much as I do Gillian Welch, and I also happen to be able to sing her really well. (I mean, as well as I can sing, at least.) This one's so hypnotically wistful.

:::

Your letter, my friendly, is P, unless you've already done that one.

[proteinscollide.livejournal.com]

Man, if your taste is not cool, then I don't know what is.

I really like this meme. I like seeing people share music that makes them stop, and I'd love to hear any stories you have attached to them. =)

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Here are my stories!

http://tofty.livejournal.com/100045.html?thread=998093#t998093

I like seeing what people post, too! I forgot to tell you that I was especially pleased by the Radiohead song, but that I actually snagged about half of them. :)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I am unable to take a letter, but I am taking your music (what I don't have). Since I approve of what I know in this list, I'm enticed by what I don't know - much more than other lists I've seen which are entirely alien to me!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Well, my taste is pretty eclectic, so I hope you won't be disappointed. :) I am really pleased to think my songs may be accompanying you on your trip! Not quite as good as being there in person, but you can't have everything, right?