Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

I'm a romantic. I have no shame in saying this and there are few people who know me that would dispute it.

Love songs are the poetry of the romantic and a new one or two that just speaks to where we are in or out of our relationships seems to come out each year. Last year, that song for me was "Chasing Cars."

I'd only been remotely familiar with Snow Patrol before. I'd already heard "Chocolate" and "Run" from their first breakthrough album, Final Straw, and really liked the latter, but not enough to buy it or be concerned about the new one.

My last ex-girlfriend (note that I say last because a true romantic always believes his next love will be his/her last and only) was a big fan of the band. She was very excited about the new disc and put several of their songs on mixes for me. When Eyes Open arrived, she bought it and asked me to listen with her. I did, but still wasn't impressed, even by this song which she said was the greatest tune she'd heard in years.

The thing is, I wasn't feeling all that romantic about her (a rarity, but it was a strange time in my life), so it wasn't until after our breakup and a long summer to follow that I really took stock of this band and the tune that would be all over the airwaves. By year's end, when I compiled my annual "Best of" mix CD, "Chasing Cars" was number one. It's become something of a theme song for me and my current love interest has adopted it as one of "our" songs, too. It's a fairly simplistic, lovely song with an utterly perfect chorus:

If I lay here...if I just lay here,
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

9/365

Preaching the End of the World - Chris Cornell

As I mentioned in my earlier post on Audioslave, I'm a big fan of Chris Cornell's career. After the dissolution of Soundgarden (and really, the 90's grunge scene overall), Cornell released a solo album in '99...a chance to prove his musicianship outside of grinding guitars and all that screaming.


I'm not sure how successful the album was...he never did another on his own...but it's a great one. Filled with songs of remorse and love, Cornell's voice (vocally and expressively) is about as post-grunge as it gets.


It's hard to pick a favorite tune, but "Preaching the End of the World" always stood out for me.

I'm 24 and I've got everything to live for

But I know now that it wasn't meant to be

It's just the end of the world

You'll need a friend in the world
Cuz you can't hide

I'm seeking a friend for the end of the world

My favorite memory of this album is when it was played in its entirety before the Brotherly Love Tour (Oasis/Black Crowes/Spacehog) in Indianapolis. Lame concert and a very long night (that's a whole different story), but sitting on the lawn singing with Cornell was grand.

8/365

The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice

I'm not sure exactly where I heard this song first. Around roughly the same time it was popping up often on Launchcast, I caught the video late one night on VH1 and it was featured on the soundtrack of Closer, the dark film about twisted relationships starring Clive Owen, Natalie Portman, Jude Law and Julia Roberts.

It's an incredibly beautiful, but haunting, track of lost love...the kind that leaves both parties aching with want and need, uncertain why it ended, but aware that it will never return. Rice pines over and over...

I can't take my eyes off of you

Before the last refrain, the object of his passion chimes in to assure him that she doesn't hate him and that maybe she's not ready to let go either. In the end, though, Rice acknowledges, in the softest, quietest whisper...

I can't take my mind off of you...

'Til I find somebody new

The music throughout is a subtle blend of guitars and strings, swelling briefly when the woman sings, but most of this track is carried on Rice's voice. If you've never heard this song, I beg you to listen to it. I don't get tears in my eyes the way I used to, but it's still very powerful to me.

7/365

Stay - Shakespear's Sister

This is certainly a great song in it's own right from a forgotten band (whose full album is actually quite good), but my love for this song is all about the cheesy video with the great change in the middle.

6/365

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

I think most young men discover Pink Floyd in their late teens/early 20s. If not, they should. I don't know what it is about this band, but they just spoke to me so intensely in my angrier, disjointed years. They still do, but now I hear what they say from a different perspective. Now I appreciate the amazing talent and musicians that made up this group. No one really makes music like this anymore...epic and thematic.

Wish You Were Here is my favorite album from Floyd and features one of my favorite songs, the title track. The entire album is perfection, though. Bookended by two 12 minute-plus guitar opuses imploring misguided youth to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," the middle three tracks are a cautionary tale of rock superstardom, a familiar theme in Floyd's oeuvre. A young man with musical aspirations makes it big, becomes a part of the pop machine and is spit out the other side to look back on where it all took him. "Wish You Were Here" is the quiet contemplation on the other side, gently mocking the icon for selling out, if you will, but conceding in the end:

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl
Year after year...
Running over the same old ground,
What have we found?
The same old fears...

This track is still a mix CD favorite for me...despite the story it tells, it works well as an ode to missing friends and lovers.

5/365

Closing Time - Semisonic

Semisonic strikes me as one of those great forgotten bands, but everyone remembers this song, an ode to last calls at your local watering hole and the promises or perils that lie without as you shuffle off into the night.

Though the band would achieve much greater importance for me via other songs (that'll keep you in suspense!), this one is still a great tune, most notably for one line that I've always taken as a bit of a personal mantra.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

4/365

Sinkhole -- Drive By Truckers

I'm a pretty big fan of just going to random concerts from artists I'm unfamiliar with, so when an old friend asked me to attend a concert at indie venue The Southgate House to see a band called Drive By Truckers, I gave it a shrug and went.

The Truckers are proud Southern rockers who make strong references to their influences, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Neil Young and the entire state of Alabama. Their music is solid and enjoyable if you're in the right mood, but I highly recommend their concerts. They excel at the extended jam. Songs that top out at three and a half to four minutes on their CD can go ten-plus when they're on stage. After taking the stage around 9:00 that night, they were still going strong at 1:00 AM after some of my friends couldn't take it and we all left. They might well have continued until the last person left or passed out (probably that chubby red-haired guy).

I was most impressed by the skill of the cutish little blonde slinging a low bass guitar when "Sinkhole" fired up. The throbbing line the bass contributes throughout the song is what made it their most distinguishable tune that night and is still my favorite on their "Decoration Day" CD. As they drew this one out as well, I fell briefly in love with this gal and her guitar...the sign that you're truly enjoying a concert if there ever is one.

3/365