I can't really write about my top ten favorite songs RIGHT NOW as it seems to be in a constant flux forever and ever.
But I will write about ten songs that are attached to some kind of really specific memory.
Photo by Philippe de Sablet.
But I will write about ten songs that are attached to some kind of really specific memory.
Photo by Philippe de Sablet.
1. Skinny Puppy | Worlocked
This was it for me. I first heard this at the very end of my years in high school and I was hooked. I stopped playing guitar. I stopped being involved in guitar oriented bands. I invested my money in synthesizers and drum machines. The single version of this song is so much better than the Rabies album version. It has that amazing outro with Orgre's vocoded voice. This was the band that got me into making electronic music.
2. Babyland | Test Pilot
I had just graduated high school and I was doing a synth based project with my friend Josh called Masque Opera. Babyland were also a Los Angeles based synth duo that we extremely looked up to. The song Test Pilot is from their album Outlive Your Enemies. The song pushes forward this idea of just pushing forward despite still being at the bottom. My friend Josh and I went to go see Babyland live for the first time and brought a demo of our band Masque Opera to the show. I'm still friends with them. I was sad to see them break up. They have always been supportive of what I was doing musically, asked me to play the first Former Ghosts ever with them, and their music is amazing.
3. Talking Heads | This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
I was always just a kind of casual Talking Heads fan. I mean I would hear their songs and I would like them but it never really hit me and I never really got it until I heard this song. The first time I heard this song was when I was completely in love with someone and they told me that this song had a new meaning to them since we had met each other. I don't think a more perfect love song about the feeling of falling in love has ever, ever, ever, been written. This song still brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it today.
4. Kate Bush | Running Up That Hill
I was a fan of Kate Bush before but now whenever I hear this song it brings up a really specific memory. I am friends with someone who is involed in singing and dance and performance art. One time we had both been drinking in their living room and this person asked if I had wanted to see this dance that they had done for this song. I said sure. But then they got shy and changed their mind. And I said ok, I'm going to go to the bathroom and then when I come back, you can just be in the middle of doing the dance as if I'm not here. I came back and stood in the doorway watching quite possibly one of the most beautiful, painful, and honest things I'd ever seen to this song. At one point the person stopped in the middle of the song and said this song is so sad and then continued dancing.
5. The Smiths | Stretch Out And Wait
I was insanely in love with someone and we went to this Smiths/Morrissey dance night where they play pretty much exclusively the Smiths and Morrissey all night. We got there pretty early and the place was kind of empty so they were warming up the night with some slow songs. We got up and walked out to the middle of the dance floor and slow danced to this song with our eyes locked on each other. We stayed in that spot the whole night.
6. Michael Jackson | Bad
When my little brother and I were growing up we were really into Michael Jackson. There is a family home video somewhere of me and my brother dancing around and singing this song in our pajams with sun glasses on. And everytime I hear this song I think about that video and crack a smile.
7. Sibylle Baier | Forget About
On a U.S. tour I saw my friend Jeff in Iowa. I told him we needed a mix CD, something new to listen to in the car. This song came on driving at night with nothing but flat land on all sides of me. It was so haunting and beautiful. A beautiful song about someone getting you through past pain with their love.
8. The Smiths | I Know It's Over
There isn't a better song in the entire world. This song will always remind me of laying on the floor in an old apartment with no furniture slightly drunk playing this track over and over and over again. No song better describes the feeling of heart break by equating it to being buried alive.
9. Jolie Blon (Cajun traditional/classic song)
This song always reminds me of my mom. My mom was cajun and from Louisiana. This was one of her favorite cajun songs. Just a cajun classic. Whenever I hear this I'm reminded of her.
10. Tom Petty | Free Falling
This song always reminds me of my dad. It reminds me of being on family road trips as a little kid and him always blasting his Tom Petty CD. On a recent U.S. tour with Jamie, I was surprised and stoked to find that he had Tomy Petty Greatest Hits on his iPod. I don't know how many times I played it on that tour, but it was a lot. And every time it reminded me of my dad and those family road trips.
