Day 30- Your Favorite Song At This Time Last Year

Like I said on Day 1, I don't have an "official" favorite song, and I also don't really keep track of what my favorite songs are/have been.  I even looked back at my iTunes, my track lists, my Pandora, my old blog posts, all kinds of crap to see if I could find anything.  Turns out... nope.  Can't remember.

HOWEVER...

During the first week of March 2010, you might remember that I took a trip to Vegas with The Hubs and some other buddies.  That was just a little over a year ago from now, and I remember what my favorite song was during that trip.  Why?  Because I made a big deal of voting for it at the Hard Rock Cafe.

The Hard Rock on the strip has touchscreens in every booth where the guests can vote on the song they want to hear next.  I saw "Sick Muse" by Metric on the list, and I really, REALLY wanted to hear it.  So... I went to every empty booth and voted for it.  Every one.  Did I mention we were probably the only people in the place at the time?  No?  Well, we were, and I made sure to vote a bunch.  Then, when my song FINALLY came on, I danced around like a girl who was happy to hear her favorite song.

I miss Vegas.  I could go for some Metric, some In-And-Out Burger, and a triple cherry cola.


AND that's 30.  I really loved doing this.  I just may do it again sometime.

Day 29- A Song From Your Childhood

I cannot believe I'm almost done.  This has been way too much fun.

As soon as I saw today's challenge, I immediately knew the song I would pick.  I was lucky enough to grow up with two great parents that introduced myself and my brother to lots of great music, great movies, and great pop culture.  The Muppets were a definite staple, and this was one of my favorites.  Whenever I hear it, I always think of home, think of my parents, think of the wonderful circumstances I had around me.  What a lovely song.

Day 28- A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty

I am such a procrastinator.  I am often my own worst enemy.  I stand in my own way so much, though I'm not sure if it's intentional or just laziness.  So many things I want to do, so many roads I want to take, and yet... I don't.  There's always an excuse, there's always a distraction, and it's so frustrating that I am so aware of it and yet I do nothing to change it. 

Every time I hear this song and think about the words, I think to myself, "SO TRUE.  Let's do this!"  And then... nothing. 

So, hear this Self: There's only us.  There's only this.  Forget regret or life is yours to miss.  No other road.  No other way.  No day but today.

Day 27- A Song You Wish You Could Play

Well, holy crap, another hard one.  That's what she said?  Oh goodness.

ANYWAY, I wish I could play a thousand instruments, but mostly, I wish I was really, really good at both the piano and the guitar.  Like, really good.  I'd been going back and forth between two different songs in this category, one for piano and (you guessed it) one for guitar.  Both are impressive.  Both are songs I wish I could play.  However, I'm such a fan of this song (and this LIVE performance) that I had to go with Mr. Buckingham.

Man, I hope I rock like this when I'm his age.  For REALZ.


(for those curious, this is the runner-up.  but just the piano part.)

Day 26- A Song That You Can Play On An Instrument

I know that 90% of the people I was in marching band with in high school can play this song on something- either the piano or the marimba or something.  I swear I heard this song EVERY MORNING for at least a solid YEAR.  I don't think I will ever, ever, EVER forget how to play this.

I mean, not like it's super complicated or something.  But still... EVERY MORNING.
(Side note: this homemade video is kinda hilarious)

Day 25- A Song That Makes You Laugh

I have missed many days due to crazy busy-ness of life and such, so I'm going to pick up my last six days.  Rather than inundate you with lots of entries, let's just take this one day at a time, shall we?

I had to go Weird Al with this.  Long, long time Weird Al fan, almost life-long.  I know it's silly and cheesy and punny, but his songs make me honestly laugh out loud.  He puts on a durn fine show too.

My favorite is possibly his most ridiculous song ever, an original called "Albuquerque."  It's 11 minutes long.  Hubs hates it with the fire of a thousand suns.  He only lets me listen through to my favorite part, which is near the beginning when Al croons a lovely, "wakka-wakka-doodoo-YEAH."  So... that's at least one example of how ridiculously great this song is.

Fun fact: once, in NYC, while leaving a They Might Be Giants show, I heard a fellow concert-goer & stranger say, "Nah, we're out of bear claws!"  I laughed LOUDLY.  Stranger turned to me, and we slapped a vigorous high five.  Moral of that story?  Nerds love Weird Al and They Might Be Giants.

Day 24- A Song That You Want To Play At Your Funeral

This one has been the hardest one so far, most definitely.  I'm definitely thinking about it too much, oh most definitely.  I don't want to pick something sad and mopey, but I don't want it to be too tongue-in-cheek.  And I want it to represent me without being fake or silly or...

See what I mean?

SO... I decided to go with some classical.  Something beautiful.  A song I love, that makes me happy, that will make others smile.  It's so pretty.  It makes me want to steal a ton of money and walk away one by one.

Day 23- A Song That You Want To Play At Your Wedding

A few of the songs I have used on this list were played at my wedding, as I said in their entries.  The DJ we had was pretty awesome, who looked up and downloaded any songs we requested to have played, including the Rivers song and some Daft Punk too.  For the most part, he had a great selection of tunes that I knew I'd like.  Plenty of 80's jams and other cheesy things that make dancing at a wedding fun. 

However, there was one song that I did not request, but my DJ decided to play it anyway.  Though it wasn't officially on the "play list," it was definitely needed.  See, I got married in January, because I'm one of those weird people who likes winter (and I'd sweated my butt off at enough weddings before that).  To make my January Wedding perfectly wintry, it snowed!  Therefore... it was such a nice day for a WHITE WEDDING.  Nobody talks to Billy Idol that way!

Day 22- A Song That You Listen To When You're Sad

I get teased a lot for liking what The Hubs calls "Sad Bastard Music."  I have plenty of choices to listen to when I'm sad- The Cure, Damien Rice, Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley.  Oh, plenty.  However, there's always one song that I can listen to over and over again when I'm feeling blue, and that's The Smiths' short lovely tune "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want."  No matter what the reason for the sadness is, this song works for me.  Something about Morrissey's voice just... moves me, makes me feel what he's feeling, and it just works.  What's even better is that, it's so short, so as soon as the song ends, it makes me sad and need to listen to the song again.

It's a vicious cycle.

Day 21- A Song That You Listen To When You're Happy

And with this, I'm all caught up to today.

When I am happy, I like to keep being happy (unlike when I am angry).  I like to listen to my favorite songs or my favorite artists or my favorite albums or basically anything that I can sing along to and dance around to and in general express my happiness in full form.  All of those things happen whenever I hear this song.  I cannot be tamed.  I just love it.  Maybe it's the nerdy girl in me that loves the story of how she wins the dude, how he picked her instead of the "other girl," but I love it.  I also love Paramore so much, and singing along with Hayley in general makes me happy.  It just feels SO GOOD.

Day 20- A Song That You Listen To When You're Angry

I've been spending a long time trying to think of something good, something angry, something that will fit with the rest of the songs I've picked.  However, despite what you may have heard about me, I don't like to be angry for a long time.  When I am angry, I usually try to do something to get me out of the anger.  Usually, I listen to a happy-sounding song that has angry words.  You know what's good for that?  Reel Big Fish.

I've also been trying to keep the cursing to a bare minimum on the blog.  But, in picking the perfect angry song (especially the perfect RBF angry song), it's darn near impossible to find one without at least one f-bomb.  I went with this gem that I used to sing LOUDLY and ANGRILY on bad days in high school.  Especially one line in particular...
(I love this video, and I love that Dan is dressed like a bee, and I basically love Scott Klopfenstein FOREVER)

Day 19- A Song From Your Favorite Album

Eek!  With my super stressful weekend, I totes forgot to post my song challenge songs!  So, you lucky readers get THREE POSTS today!  Woooooooo.

So, Friday was supposed to be a song from my favorite album.  I have many favorite albums (duh) like Whatever and Ever Amen, the White Album, and Feed the Animals.  This is from one of my new favorites, Florence + the Machine.  I picked this track in particular, and this VIDEO in particular, to showcase just how amazing Ms. Florence is.  In this day of autotuning, pitch correction, and overproduction, Florence Welch rocks her own unique style and her fanTAStic voice at every opportunity.  So fresh, so lovely.  Go out and buy Lungs RIGHT NOW.

Day 18- A Song That You Wish You Heard On The Radio

In earlier posts, I talked about how Incubus becoming popular pretty much ruined them for me (there were other mitigating factors, like how my music taste changed, but I'd rather blame them).  Picking a song that I wish I heard on the radio is hard for me, because I wish I heard songs on the radio by bands that no one's heard of, and then people would hear them, and then they'd get too popular, and I'd be sad.

So... now that I've said all that... this is what I pick.  Because I like this song, and I wish I heard it on the radio, and that's the truth.  And, if Motion City Soundtrack got popular... well, it sure wouldn't surprise me.  Because they are GREAT.

Day 17- A Song That You Hear Often On The Radio

We are lucky to have two great alternative stations in Charlottesville (as well as lots of other random fun stations).  However, sometimes they should listen to each other a little more.  Recently, I've heard this song played on one station, and immediately heard it when I turned to the other.  One fateful day, I heard it playing AT THE SAME TIME on both stations.  Granted, I ain't complaining because at least this song is good.  However, it always reminds me of Mr. Banana Grabber (trademark pending).

I've made a huge mistake.

Day 16- A Song That You Used To Love But Now "Hate"

If I used to love a song, I rarely grow to hate it.  Ever.  Even silly pop songs I used to love as a kid, I still like them now, even if they are overplayed and I've heard them a million times.  So... this is the closest I've come to turning my back on a song, and a band for that matter.

I used to LOVE Incubus.  LOVE THEM.  In high school, I could constantly be found jamming out to my S.C.I.E.N.C.E. cassette (yes, CASSETTE) in my busted ole Celica.  Especially if it was Summer Romance (Anti-Gravity Love Song).  Man, that song is so sexy... Anyway, my freshman year at JMU, Incubus released a new album, Make Yourself, and I loved it too.  I used to have both albums in my car so I could rock out on my way home from work that summer.  That and 'N Sync's No Strings Attached were my soundtrack during the summer of 2000.  Wow, that's kind of embarrassing to admit.  ANYWAY, I really loved this song when I first heard it.  After it became their single, and basically their BREAKOUT single, I got tired of hearing about it.  I also got tired of hearing about how great this band was from everyone.  I mean... duh.  I already knew.  THREE YEARS AGO.  Catch up, people.  (Man, I'm so meeeeean.)

Day 15- A Song That Describes You

This is one of my "theme songs."  I know I'm not a mess at the core, but... I do wonder if people will want to deal with my messes.  Thus... will you love me if I'm a mess?

Fun tidbit: this song is by Steve Burns, aka Steve from Blue's Clues.  I LOVE Steve.  LOVE.  I was so sad when he "left for college" and his cousin Joe showed up.  I found this album by a total fluke, and it's actually pretty freakin' great.

Day 14- A Song That No One Would Expect You To Love

Yet again, another toughie.  I have a fairly bizarre and wide-ranging taste in music, so it really doesn't surprise people when I like songs that are "unlike" me.  However, I do have a sort-of typical style of music- acoustic guitars, pianos, female singers, usually of the indie rock persuasion.  That's why I went with this little ditty.  I'm not usually a fan of top 40 anything, mostly because a lot of it isn't any good.  Sometimes, though, I'll get an earworm that I can-NOT shake.  Which is how I came to love this song.

I've been very vocal about my love of a cappella music and my jinga-jing past.  During the first season of The Sing-Off, Nota did a version of this song, and it was used in EVERY COMMERCIAL.  By the time the show aired, I couldn't wait to hear them perform, and they KILLED it.  I knew they were going to win right then, and I was very pleased when they did!  And got to perform this song WITH Jay Sean!  This is totally off my usual style, and it even has LIL JOHN featured on it.  Yet, I love it.  If this song is on while I'm driving, I'm probably doing a super-terrible-embarrassing car dance.

Day 13- A Song That Is A Guilty Pleasure

Back in the summer of 1999, right after I graduated from high school, I went on a trip to Spain & France.  It was nothing short of incredible, and I've been dying to go back pretty much since the moment I left.  However, on the plane home, British Airways was showing a documentary on ABBA, a sort of Where-Are-They-Now piece.  In conjunction with this documentary, one of the radio stations played all ABBA songs.  When I touched down on American soil, I hugged my parents and asked if we could stop by the record store so I could purchase ABBA Gold.  I spent my freshman year of college introducing my friends to ABBA songs that weren't "Dancing Queen," and we had a blast singing the harmonies and over-pronouncing our R's.  This was all before Mamma Mia! hit Broadway and before we learned that Pierce Brosnan is a mediocre singer.

Still, these years later, I lurve my ABBA.  It's great driving music, when the weather's just getting nice, and you can roll your windows down and really nerd it up.  This one, Super Trouper, is my cheesy favorite.  The video really perpetuates my guilty pleasure love of it.

Day 12- A Song From A Band You Hate

It started when I worked at a call center back in '03.  We sold concert tickets and merchandise.  The worst fans I ever talked to, the worst people were OAR fans.  They were SO RUDE and terrible, and they all acted like I stole their preordered CDs.  Just... awful.  It made me capital H-HATE this band.  Ugh.

Day 11- A Song From Your Favorite Band

Well... crap.  I already said I wouldn't use any more Jimmy Eat World songs... but they are my favorite band.  So, I decided to go with my OTHER favorite "band," New Kids On The Block.  I do love me some NKOTB.  I hope to see them this summer on their NKOTBSB tour :)
Step ONE: we can have lotsa fun!