Musical Holocron

Per the assignment on "Top 5 Friday" called Songs to the Ex, here is a glimpse of my relationship breakdown moments.

See the playlist or make your own at Songs to the POWER of eX | Project Playlist.

Man, I'm gonna enjoy participating in this collaborative project. However, one of the things that I feel it really needs is to have an expanded explanation from each contributor on why they chose each song or what each one means to them. Since my opinion is so important (*snif*), I'll start if off right now.

Led Zeppelin makes the top spot simply because they were one of the first bands that I embraced when I was introduced to classic rock. Here, the jilted lover is reading the riot act to and about his love, who apparently is being dressed up as the town slut. That bitch!

I've written about Rob Thomas before and not just here. Basically, my wife adores him, we saw him in concert and she bought his debut CD. "Dear Joan" is a song with no radio play, but I've listened to it repeatedly. It starts with him writing a goodbye letter to his woman in the style of Dear Jon (hence the name?). By the end of it, he's off-handedly mulling over strangling her in her sleep. Yeah.

My very first girlfriend in the tenth grade gave me a copy of a mix tape at or near the time that we broke up. I thought she'd made it for me, but it turns out that another boy had made it for her and she was just letting me copy it. Love Hate Love by Alice in Chains was in this collection and it goes one step further by having the protagonist wanting to "peel the skin from" her face. Of historical interest regarding this one and only mix tape is the fact that it may have been my first exposure to grunge music. Someday (soon?) I'll post the whole song list.

"Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" by Chris Isaak is a classic angry blues song that I got on some CD that came with a subscription to Details Magazine. It was paired right next to Alanis' "You Oughtta Know" juxtaposed with other unmemorable crap. Chris is walking her walk away, missing her and liking it at the same time.

Jewel's "You Were Meant for Me" was deceptively released in one version that played on the radio and MTV and another that was found on the CD (which sucked). The woman who would years later be my wife and I spontaneously danced for the very first time in my basement to this song of heartache and heartbreak. We were in a long-distance relationship and were having a bad stretch at that point. This song has always been "our song" for me ever since, but it's ironic in the sense that it's a song of loneliness.

And there you have it! Note: I admit that I don't really know the proper interpretation for the lyrics of all of these songs. I don't care. This is what these songs mean to me and I don't have time to research whether I'm right or not. Meh!

Update (2008-06-18): I'm adding more songs to the above playlist, but the first five are the priorities.

Labels: ♫, music, music/artists, music/artists/alice-in-chains, music/artists/chris-isaak, music/artists/jewel, music/artists/led-zeppelin, music/artists/rob-thomas, Top 5 Friday, via:playlist.com

# posted by ArcoJedi : 22:26