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30 Day Song Challenge – Week 4 & 5 Recap

Let’s just pretend it’s still April, shall we?

Day 20: You and your parent(s) like
“Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Pt.1)” by The Flaming Lips

I’ve always been into the rock music that my dad and mom grew up with and enjoyed, like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and The Clash and The Ramones. When I was in high school though our interests in music continued to be shared, but this time it worked both ways–I was still into “classic rock”, but my parents for the most part took interest in the music my brother and I were getting into during that time, including The Flaming Lips concept album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. On various trips we would sing this featured song in the car all together. Now that I think about it, this is a really nice memory.

Day 21: Would be the theme to your dream vacation
“Mr. Blue Sky” by Electric Light Orchestra

When I think of my “dream vacation”, I think of our honeymoon. It involved sleeping in, playing our days by ear, and driving on gloriously hilly and scenic Pennsylvania country roads from one bizarre destination to the next. The weather was generally beautiful the whole time (or maybe that’s how I’ve chosen to remember it!) and there was a lot of laughing and listening to the radio in the car. This is such a great driving song. It honestly makes me want to start perusing road trip itineraries on Pinterest, and wherever else these sorts of things can be found.

Day 22: Was popular when you were working one of your earliest jobs
“This is Not a Test” by She & Him

Right after college I moved to Pittsburgh, where I had been hired to work in a public access television station, and my alarm in the morning was set to the local independent music station, WYEP (http://wyep.org/). This song was played often on the station along with Ray LaMontagne’s “Trouble”, Brett Dennen’s “Make You Crazy”, and Duffy’s “Mercy”. Time capsule!

Day 23: Is by an artist you’ve just learned about
“Good Magicians” by Sidney Gish

I’ve recently become a fan of the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour and I was listening to some back-episodes and stumbled upon their SXSW episode, which led me to Sidney Gish and some other delightful artists (like the Illuminati Hotties). Anyway, Sidney Gish’s No Dogs Allowed album is incredibly fun and wonderful, so check it out. NOW.

Day 24: Is featured in one of your favorite movies/shows
“Midnight Train to Georgia” by Gladys Knight and the Pips

There is an episode in season two of 30 Rock where Kenneth the Page, a good religious boy, gets addicted to caffeine and blames the evil influence of New York City, and as a result wants to move back to his hometown in Georgia. You know what, it’s better if we just watch some of it. This is the best clip I was able to find on the internet, so apologies to everyone.

Day 25: Is by an artist/band that you want to hang out with
“White and Nerdy” by “Weird Al” Yankovic

I am a Weird Al super fan. Know this about me, and everything else will basically fall into place.

Ideally I would want to chat with Al over donuts and coffee/tea. However, based on various interviews I’ve seen and even in my own experiences meeting him, he’s not terribly loquacious with rando’s like me, so maybe we can just go to Six Flags and ride some roller-coasters and eat cotton candy. You have NO IDEA how down for that I’d be.

Day 26: You like the cover better than the original
“Hurt” by Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nails’ song “Hurt” is so haunting and beautiful and sad. I try not to listen to it too often because it has a way of creeping into my heart and bumming me out. The pounding piano at the end gets to me too. Sigh.

Day 27: Reminds you of a crush you once had
“Alive” by P.O.D.

Hahah! Oh man. This song is pretty much a catch-all for all the crushes I had while I was in high school. I ran in primarily Christian youth-group centric circles, and the guys I was drawn to all seemed to love hard rock and were unabashedly into Christian groups like P.O.D. We were all about this song. “Alive” definitely served as the attractiveness litmus test I implemented when I was 14-15 years old.

Day 28: Makes you feel like a bad-ass
“The Man” by The Killers

I know this song is tongue-in-cheek, but I love singing it with confidence, especially because I don’t usually EVER feel like I’m “the man”. It’s actually helped me a good deal to sing this song with conviction before a socially-scary situation or while I’m working out. Makes me feel awesome, but also a little silly at the same time.

Day 29: You want to wake up to in the morning
“You’re the Best” by Joe Esposito

In a similar vein to the “bad-ass” question, this song pumps me up, but it’s also got that cheery, cheesy 80’s sound to it that I would never mind waking up to.

Day 30: Is an all-time favorite
“Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes

I had SO many songs to choose from for this question, but I do think this one works best. I sing along with it super loudly when they play it on the radio. I get really into it any time a cover band plays it at a bar. I love the guitar. I love the vocals. It’s all so weird and I can’t get enough.

and finally…

Day 31: You recommended to a friend in the last month
“Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus

I can’t believe that this is the song that’s driving this project to a close. The universe works in strange ways sometimes.

Like a lot of America, this song has both captured my heart and endlessly flooded my eardrums, and when I first heard it I played it over and over so many times. I found it to be both confusing and lovable. Then I asked pretty much everyone I knew if they had heard it, and if they hadn’t, then I made sure to send them a link to the audio. HOWEVER, looks like I now can send them a link to an amazing video instead. I refuse to apologize for liking this so much.

And the 30 Day Song Challenge experiment has come to a close! Thank you for joining me on this wacky journey. What questions did you like answering the most?

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30 Day Song Challenge – Week 2 Recap

Hello, too many days late! Last Thursday through yesterday-ish, I had what I hope was the only bad cold/sinus infection I’ll experience in 2019. So here I am with the Week 2 Song Challenge Recap, with the Week 3 Recap not far behind at all. Let’s not waste any time!

Day 6: Transports you to another place and time
“Drift Away” by Dobie Gray

The place: Midland Dairy in Kearny, New Jersey
The time: throughout the school year, circa 1999-2004

On most days during lunch period, I would visit this great deli/convenience store near school to get a bottle of Coke (in a glass bottle, because I was a class act), some kind of celebrity-centric magazine (to balance out the classiness), and a Snickers ice cream bar (no explanation necessary). I swear that every time I walked into the store, “Drift Away” was playing. I often visited Midland Dairy with my friend Chris during this time, so hearing “Drift Away” reminds me of him too, which is great because Chris is great.

Day 7: Would be the soundtrack to your training montage
“Magic” by B.o.B (feat. Rivers Cuomo)

Let me be perfectly clear: I am a complete sucker for upbeat, gleeful songs ESPECIALLY if they have a whiff of cheese. I love the inherent silliness in music like this, and if the song has any sort of confidence-building message, even if it’s more tongue-in-cheek, you know I am going to add that to my exercise or my “let’s rock this presentation” playlist. And since I’m a little nerdy and odd, the fact that Rivers Cuomo is the one actually singing the words “I’ve got the magic in me” makes it a bit of an anthem for the awkward person who wants to be convinced that they, too, indeed have the magic in them. It’s sincere in a bit of a desperate way, and I adore it.

Day 8: Is really good live (based on your experience)
“Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2

Typically I prefer smaller venues to arenas when consuming live music–small places require a more stripped-down and music-focused act instead of a multi-media performance, and I confess I like the dinginess and casualness of a bar show versus a concert that’s in the triple digits for one ticket (not to mention it takes like an hour to get out of the parking lot at the end of an arena show, ugh).

The only time I’ve seen U2 is also the only time I’ve been to a huge venue show and afterwards felt like “yeah, I’d like to do that again”. Arena shows are great places for flashier entertainers with costume changes and other bells and whistles and marvels in concert special effects and dancers and other such business. When I saw U2, there was a long stage and a massive screen, but otherwise it was just the band dressing in the same style they’ve been dressing in for decades, and yet they do not get swallowed up in the vastness of the place where they’re performing. Bono is this small dude who somehow manages to be larger than life, leaning on sheer charisma instead of props or other add-on’s. It’s incredible. I was captivated by him, and I literally cried while I sang along with everyone else: “Free at last, they took your life, they could not take your pride!”

Also, I chose to feature this specific video because the footage was shot the day before I saw U2 in the same venue.

Day 9: You can’t help but dance to
“Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars)

This song is too cool for me and I can’t handle how much I want to dance to it. This is the song that got me out on the dance floor during a work party recently, and I’m embarrassed just thinking about how goofy I must’ve looked. But I remember not caring at the time because there was literally nothing I could do about it.

Day 10: You can sing really really well
“When I’m Sixty-Four” by The Beatles

This song is sweet and the melody has a limited range that’s neither too high or too low for me–a goldilocks of a song! I’m not a great or strong singer, but sometimes I can hold a tune. I can hold a tune with this song and so I belt it out when it graces me with its presence on the radio (YES I already told you I listen to the radio!). Not that this is really a song you “belt out” but you know what I mean.

Day 11: You resonate with most right now
“Crossed Wires” by Superchunk


One of the many upsides of my current job is that I do a lot of independent, quiet work which allows me to listen to music throughout my day. Recently I was listening to a playlist on Google Music and the first lines in this song stopped me in my tracks:

I went out and felt the sun on my face
Then a tug on my leg and now I’m
Back in the cave
There’s a moment of peace
That I just can’t re-create

I immediately was like YUP, I get it, and this song gets me.

The imagery here is a boiled down version of what my daily struggle with anxiety looks like. Often I’ll get a glimpse of something hopeful and joyful (e.g. a start of a day, a good feeling, an idea, anything really), and then something else, internally or externally, will almost immediately counter and overcome the feelings of hope and joy, replacing them with despair.

Of course I don’t want to feel despairing, so it’s a constant battle of hope versus hopelessness that takes place in the innermost recesses of my mind. And since it’s rooted so deeply, it comes out in ways that are tough to explain. It takes different forms, including experiencing complicated and contradicting emotions, acting moody and flaky, isolating myself from people altogether, etc. BUT, in the midst of this, even though everything is chaos, there are moments when I do feel the sun on my face, and that brief peace is a gift when I otherwise constantly live in fear that something in my life is going to burst into flames.

If that was too much of a downer for you, I’m not going to apologize, so just watch the music video to feel better (or watch it again if you watched it already).

Day 12: Was #1 the week you were born
“Invisible Touch” by Genesis

Remember when I said the following: “I am a complete sucker for upbeat, gleeful songs ESPECIALLY if they have a whiff of cheese”? Well, perhaps it’s because I was born with a predisposition to loving this type of music! This song! This music video! It’s everything. I couldn’t be prouder of being born during this moment in popular music, ha! Truly though.

Coming soon: Days 13-19 of the 30-Day Song Challenge!

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30 Day Song Challenge – Week 1 Recap

Some of my record recollection! (In case you weren’t aware of how serious I am about music, ha!)

Five days down, twenty-five to go! Even though I created the questions for my song-a-day questionnaire, I’m already finding some of them to be a bit difficult to answer. Hence the challenge part of this experiment, I guess!

The intent of my question-setup was to encourage myself to think carefully through an eclectic assortment of music. However, I’m finding that when I’m a bit under pressure, my brain automatically defaults to what I’ve currently been listening to, and it’s a challenge (word of the day!) to break out of that mode. And through this challenge, I do want to showcase the fun music I enjoy, but not sacrifice honesty for some kind of insincere aesthetic. Does that make sense? If not, it’s cool. I’ve got 25 more days to figure it out. 😉


Alright, here we go! Days 1-5 of my Song-a-Day Challenge!
Name a song that……..

Day 1: Once you hear it, it will be stuck in your head for an entire day
“Red Red Wine” by UB40

I don’t get the hiccups often. The day that I do get the hiccups though, I have them all day. Sure, there is a point in the process when the diaphragm relaxes and the hiccuping ceases, but inevitably an hour later, the hiccuping will start up again. This is how those few days of the year go; on that day, I am aware of the struggle, but I’m confident that it will end when I fall asleep, and the next day it’ll be like nothing ever happened. That’s the best analogy I can come up to help get across what it’s like for me on the days when our radio station (yes radio station, look it up) plays Red Red Wine. Or when Red Red Wine is played in a commercial or TV show. The main difference is I hear Red Red Wine more often than I get the hiccups, but the feeling is still pretty similar.

Day 2: Was the gateway to a lot of the music you currently enjoy
Tie between…
“Last Nite” by The Strokes
“Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants

Yes, only Day 2 and already a tie. I get why you’re angry, but hear me out. To choose only one of these songs would basically be like saying half of me is more important than the other half of me. It would be like having two children but only celebrating one of them. It would be like saying “yeah I’ve got two eyes but that seems excessive” whilst scooping one of my gratuitous eyes out of my skull. So you see the quandary I was in. It was best to bend the unwritten yet understood rules.

I won’t let it happen again.

Day 3: Reminds you of one of your closest friends in life:
“Mushaboom” by Feist

This song was released in 2004, and 2004 was the year I started college. Looking back, I realized that I subconsciously gave myself permission to take social risks during my freshman year, to try to “find my own”, since as a teenager I had always felt a little awkward and never quite “fit it”. Out of that relationship quest I gained a very important and formative friendship that always (then and now) seems to strike a healthy balance of fun and seriousness, with a side of interesting music. She played me this song during one of our first times hanging out in the student union on campus, and to this day, hearing Mushaboom always reminds me of being 18 and being optimistic and hopeful about life and friendships.

Day 4: Isn’t overtly religious, but feels inspirational in a spiritual sense
“Everlasting Arms” by Vampire Weekend

If I could just choose the entire Modern Vampires in the City album, I would–but as we’ve already established, I’ve already broken one rule this post. Here’s the thing.. I think I’m using the word “inspirational” more in terms of inspiring me to dwell on spiritual things, versus “inspirational” in the “uplifting” sense. I don’t think this song or this album is uplifting at all, but it’s grappling with religious tradition and beliefs in a way that is vulnerable and honest. I doubt Ezra Koenig would care for the comparison (I don’t think he reads this blog, so I’m in the clear), but when he writes about God, he truly in my opinion is a modern psalmist, in a very Davidic sense. This song captures the tension of fear/doubt with crying for help and safety in the midst of it. It’s all very beautiful and hits the core of me.

Day 5: You enjoy that’s in a different language
“Dragostea Din Tei” by O-Zone

I wish had a better answer for this, one that showed how aware I am of the contributions to music that other countries have to offer. Instead, you’re stuck with this blast from the not too distant past that borders on novelty due to its internet fame. Again though, this song brings me back to really happy-go-lucky college freshman days when YouTube was basically just the Numa Numa video, when my monstrosity of a cell phone was to be used only for long-distance calls to my family, and when The Facebook wasn’t so infuriating and evil.

Side note, “Dragostea Din Tei” is SUPER fun in Just Dance! Seriously.

What do you think, sirs? Check back in next Friday for Days 6-12!

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month challenge: April 2019

Tomorrow is April, folks! Not sure how we got here already, but I’m excited for a fresh new season and the onslaught of Cadbury creme eggs. Aided once again by my Ink + Volt planner, I’ve thought through and settled on a fun way to ease back into month-long challenges in general.

My go-to method of learning about people I don’t know very well is to explore the relatively safe space and colorful world of popular culture with them, asking all kinds of borderline-annoying questions about TV/music/movies/etc. So this challenge features the music portion of this lil habit of mine, and it turns the tables by making myself answer the prompts I so often enjoy using to interrogate prospective lifelong friends.

First, I need to fill out the part of my planner that acts as my oath and covenant for the month:

Second, I need to share my questionnaire! May I present to you, my month-long Song-a-Day challenge prompts….

BEHOLD:

(I know it’s for 31 days, so I’ll probably just answer the last 2 questions on the 30th)

As I mentioned in the planner, I’ll be reporting on my progress at the end of each week with links to my songs–who knows, maybe we can get a decent playlist created as a result of this too!

Feel free to play along at home, and share your answers in the comments. Have fun–and wish me luck!