Top Five Songs

In our class we have been reading the book High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. In the book, the characters make lists of their top fives. For example, the book has lists of top five songs, albums, movies, American movies, and personal breakups.

This is a list of my top five favorite songs in chronological order.

1. These Arms of Mine -- Otis Redding.
2. Hickory Wind -- Graham Parsons
3. Sylvia Said -- John Cale
4. Teeth Like God's Shoeshine -- Modest Mouse
5. Two-Headed Boy part 2 -- Neutral Milk Hotel


I reserve the right to edit this list at any time.

I'm having my students write their list of top 5's including the following information:
name of song
artist
year
genre
memorable lyrics
memory association
blurb

1. These Arms of Mine -- Otis Redding.
artist -- Otis Redding
year -- not available
genre -- soul
memorable lyrics -- Just be my little woman. Just be my lover. I need somebody to treat me right. I need your warm, loving arms to hold me tight.
memory association -- I associate this song with my junior year of college. I used to play this song really loudly from my truck because it was ironic in a powerful way. My college was small and students really liked terrible rock and roll songs. I found their tastes bland. So I would blast Otis Redding from my truck in defiance of the terrible music I was surrounded by. Looking back, it wasn't the attitude that made me cool. No, the attitude was decidedly uncool and preposterous. If there is any saving grace to my actions, it was just that I was listening to Otis Redding.
blurb -- The music and lyrics of this song reach into me and move me; this is bolstered, not betrayed, by Otis' raspy, pleading voice.

2. Hickory Wind --
artist -- Graham Parsons
year -- 196?
genre -- country
memorable lyrics -- Now when I'm lonesome, I can always pretend that I'm getting the feel of hickory wind.
memory association -- I associate this song with sitting at a friends dining room table in North Carolina. I used to play music in a coffee shop there.
blurb -- Hickory Wind is a song that has always existed; the artist just pulled it out of the air. It is best sung as simply as possible. Overproduction takes away from its floating quality.

3. Sylvia Said
artist -- John Cale
year -- 197?
genre -- pop
memorable lyrics -- So I'll cope with you. Don't cope at all. Let's leave it all to the chef. And please send my regrets in case I forget to a PO Box nobody owns.
memory association -- I remember listening to this song at my friend's house in Dallas. The house was very dark and we were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. (Yes. I used to smoke. Don't do it. It's very bad for you.) His room was lit by a very dim light so every looked orange as if it were lit by candles. My mother called me at his house and told me about a friend of mine who died in Iraq. I know it sounds cliche, but I felt like his soul floated away with the music. Ironically, the music sounds very stilted and unimpressive to some listeners.
blurb -- The perfect song if you want to remember the ghost of hope when loss stops by for the night.

4. Teeth Like God's Shoeshine
artist --Modest Mouse
year -- 1997
genre -- independent (indie)
memorable lyrics -- you can be ashamed
or be so proud of what you've done
but not no one, not now, not ever or anyone
take 'em all for the sense of happiness
that comes from hurting deep down inside
Or you can walk th line and give a shit
I'm on the corner of this and this and this and this
and its all all wrong, and its all all gone
memory association -- The first time I heard this group, I didn't like them. Then one day I put on the album, went out to the parking lot of my apartment complex, sat in a lawn chair, and listened to it. It was in Arizona in the spring of 1999. I knew from that day and forever, that I would love this band. I have never lost that feeling. I have never stopped listening to this album.
blurb -- The song moves from hard to slow to fast to stopped to raging. It's like a normal day.

5. Two-Headed Boy part 2
artist --Neutral Milk Hotel
year -- 1998
genre -- indie
memorable lyrics -- Brother see we are one in the same. God is place where some holy spectacle lies. God is a place we will wait for the rest of our lives.
memory association -- Every time I hear this song, I think back to driving from Dallas to Little Rock Arkansas to visit my sister and bury my grandfather. I felt like the trees along the highway could remember me. I wondered how long the had been there. I wondered what it would be like to be an animal who lived near the tree. I wondered if they knew the kind of furious lives that passed them by in cars. I wondered if I knew the kind of furious lives that I passed in my car every day. Everyone has a soul, aching to be realized. Everyone has to bury someone.
blurb -- Will we ever realize if forever really exists?