This list of 100 Songs I Love could easily be 75% Paul Simon. If I wanted to, I could list my favorites and moon over them like a lovestruck teenage girl over a sparkly Mormon vampire, describing in graphic detail where I was the first time I heard a particular song, who was with me, what we wearing doing, what I wish we had been doing, and how sore my testicles were after we finished doing what we were doing and not what I wished we were doing (My high school girlfriend and I listened to a lot of Simon & Garfunkel when we made out).
Like I said, I could do that--easily--but I won't. Instead I'll focus on one--for now--and attempt to put into words why I like it so much. So, here we go: "America."
Uh, hmmmmmmm. Well...no...hang on. I love the song "America" because...no, that's dumb. Um. Er. Dammit. Oh, I know...no, that's what I thought was dumb before. Shit. Think! Think!
You know what, I love "America" for the same reason I love most Paul Simon songs: the lyrics. And I don't mean all the lyrics, I mean one solitary line that when heard triggers my eyes to well up with what a doctor once told me were "tears." The music is genius, of course, as are the harmonies with Art Garfunkel, but it's those two lines toward the end of the song that make "America" one of most beautifully gut-wrenching songs in the Paul Simon canon:
"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping./"I'm empty and aching and I don't why..."
It's those little moments in Simon's songs that make him one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Various Paul Simon lyrics that destroy me every time I hear them: She comes back to tell me she's gone/as if I didn't know that/as if I didn't know my own bed/as if I never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead ("Graceland"); Don't talk of love/Well, I've heard the word before/It's sleeping in my memory ("I Am A Rock"); August, die she must/The autumn wind blows chilly and cold/September I'll remember/A love once new has now grown old ("April Come She Will")
7. "SOS" (ABBA)
Hey, man, what's your beef with ABBA, huh? Why are you always calling their music "lame" and "gay" and "not fit for dogs let alone human beings?" What's your problem? We're you among the 250 babies born each year without a soul (Check the medical journals before you call me a kook!), because that is literally the only reason I can think of that would explain your extreme hatred for the greatest Swedish pop group in the history of Swedish pop.
Perhaps you were in a horrible automobile accident and the part of you brain that enjoys goodness and decency was somehow damaged. If this is the case, allow me to express my heartfelt condolences, but also, fuck you! ABBA is great! You're just being a dick, you dick!
That high school girlfriend I mentioned earlier--the one who provided me a whole summer of "blue balls"--made me a lot of mix tapes and in two instances I hurt her feelings upon critique. The second time was when she included a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Tori Amos on a otherwise enjoyable compilation of songs.
"What is this shit?" I asked, a douchy grin on my face.
"I thought you'd like!" she cried angrily before collapsing into a ball of tears and snot. Yes, that is the effect I had on women. Once.
The first time: my reaction to her inclusion of the ABBA hit "Dancing Queen."
"What is this shit?" I snorted like the snarky aging hipster some accuse of being today.
"It's "Dancing Queen" by ABBA," she explained, her eyes sparkly with fresh tears.
"It's gay is what is," I laughed, ejecting the cassette and tossing it out the driver's side window.
It wasn't until years later, when I gave them a fighting chance, that I discovered my unwavering love for ABBA, the Swedish Kings and Queens of Pop. I still hate "Dancing Queen" with a passion most people reserve for individuals who perpetrate vile crimes upon helpless children, and I was not impressed by Mama Mia when I saw it in Charlotte with my wife and parents, but all things considered, ABBA is OK in my book.
"SOS," a peppy number about the breakdown of a romantic relationship, is a beautifully crafted pop song and one of my favorite ABBA songs. I defy you not to fall in love with it after watching this performance on American Bandstand from 1975. I think the cat t-shirt dresses catapult the song to more incredible heights then a simple recording could ever hope to do.
8. "Pilot Can at the Queer of God" (The Flaming Lips)
It's strange: I grew up attending church and was a beloved member of the youth group, but I never really had anything in common with anybody else at all. There was Brent, of course, my best friend and fellow Bush fan, and Karen, but she listened to a bunch of shit from the '70's that I refused to give a chance until much later in life. All three of us enjoyed REM. I don't know what anyone else listened to because they never talked about music, like, ever. This was an unthinkable blasphemy as far as I was concerned--going a day without discussing the latest Smashing Pumpkins release or waxing poetic on how ska was the best form of music in the history of mankind (I was still very young, very susceptible to horn sections) was a day ill spent. These people--these "friends"-- seemed to be content listening to their youth choir practice cassettes followed by a basket of fried cheese at the local Applebee's. Make no mistake, I enjoyed the company of my fellow youth groupers, I just couldn't figure out how or why they enjoyed mine.
For those of you who are not aware, Protestant youth groups regularly organize extremely chaste after-church parties known as "afterglows." These afterglows are often held at the home of a youth group member and involve light hors d'oeuvres and various organized games and activities. I remember one afterglow in which I was the only person permitted to spend time with the host-teenager's pet ferrets. I don't know why I was given this honor, as I basically hate ferrets, but I was locked in a room with two of them nonetheless. It made me feel kind of special, I guess.
My family had a ping-pong table (and an in-ground swimming pool, but I'm no show-off) and at one particular afterglow an impromptu tournament broke out. "This ping-pong tourney needs some tunes," I thought, so I pressed "#3" on my 5-Disc CD Changer and filled the room with The Flaming Lips' Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, a recent acquisition that I had been deriving a great deal of pleasure from. "Turn It On" played through without a peep from anyone. "They're probably too glued to the sweet table tennis action to react," I thought. "I should, as the Lips say, 'turn it on and all the way up.'" I turned up the volume for song #2, one of my very favorites on an album full of instant classics, "Pilot Can at the Queer of God."
A girl I had a crush on at the time, screwed up her face as if she had just watched me drive a nail into a kitten's skull in front of her and remarked, "Oh, Matty (she called me Matty a lot, but that's a different story), this is NOT music."
I was crushed. I think I may have said something sarcastic, as was my style at the time, and turned the volume down, but I could have just as easily switched off the stereo and stomped out of the room pouting. I was always being accused of extreme moodiness when I was a teenager. And everyone in that youth group, without exception, at one time or another, thought I hated his or her guts. Was I really that much of a dick? Answer: Oh, yes.
I hate to break it do you, girl I had a crush on who shall not be named here, but "Pilot Can at the Queer of God" IS music, in fact, it's pretty kick-ass. Crunchy, melodic, and insane, "Pilot" remains one of my very favorite Flaming Lips' tracks.
Note on the 'Matty Girl': You may be wondering why I had a crush on someone who clearly had no appreciation for great music. Well, I should also inform you that I took this girl on a date to see Fargo, which I had already skipped school to see one afternoon and loved. She hated it. Yes, I liked a girl who hated The Flaming Lips and Fargo and who I never once felt up or received even a peck on the cheek from. There's no excuse, but I'd like to present one anyway:
One afternoon, I invited her and two other female friends over to swim in that fancy backyard swimming pool I mentioned earlier. She was quite voluptuous and I remember enjoying very much how she looked in a bathing suit. So...there you go.
