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jefF's Soundtrack
This is the "soundtrack" to my life. I’ll explain.
What is here isn’t necessarily a list of my favorite songs. There are many of
my favorite songs that aren’t listed here. What this is, is a list of the
songs that best define me and describe who I am. Music is important to me, not
only does it define and reinforce who I am, but can shape it as well. These
songs are the ones I feel would be most appropriate to appear on the soundtrack
in the highly unlikely fantasy world event of a movie being made about my life.
The ground rules to create the life soundtrack. 16 songs base. This is the
average number of tracks for a (long) CD. I’ve also added 1 track for every
three years over the age of 16 (rounded down). I figure as one ages there is
more personal meaning to an added number of songs (and a lot of times not even
then. My list of additional tracks that didn’t make the cut is almost as long
as the soundtrack itself).
The order is not arbitrary, it’s specific. Artist –
Title. Then my favorite quote / passage from each song, though in all cases the
tune as a whole is why it’s here.
-jefF
Click the links on the list to take you to the song summary on this page. Click
those links for full lyrics if you care.
01 Soul Asylum – Can’t Even Tell
02 Matchbox 20 – Real World
03 Dave Matthews Band – Ants Marching
04 Soul Asylum – Misery
05 Pink Floyd – The Happiest Days of Our Lives / Another Brick
In The Wall (Part 2)
06 Metallica – The God That Failed, XTC / Sarah McLachlin –
Dear God
07 Supertramp – The Logical Song
08 Duran Duran – My Own Way
09 Crowded House – The World Where You Live
10 Aliotta, Haynes, & Jeremiah – Lake Shore Drive
11 Electric Light Orchestra – Calling America
12 Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule the World
13 Ace of Base – The Sign
14 Bruce Hornsby – Mandolin Rain
15 Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown
16 Bob Segar – Against the Wind
17 Moody Blues – The Voice
18 Aerosmith – Amazing
19 Jimmy Buffet - Boat Drinks
20 Urge Overkill – Positive Bleeding
21 Yes – Lift Me Up
01 Soul
Asylum – Can’t Even Tell
"No one knows nothing about me
I'm guessing I'll just keep 'em guessing
No one sees what I see
This is my blessing"
This song is my outlook on life. No lyric that has ever been written
represents my attitude better. It’s horribly simplistic and much more basic
than anyone who knows me would believe. But it sums me up the best.
02 Matchbox
20 – Real World
"I'd store it in boxes with little yellow tags
on everyone
And you can come and see them when I'm...done"
Trying to decide about what we want to do in life, how
important we’d like to be, and how we would handle it if we were. What would
the world be like if we were something / somewhere else.
03 Dave
Matthews Band – Ants Marching
"Take these chances, place them in a box until a quieter time
Lights down, you up and die…
And all the little ants are marching, red and black antennas waving
They all do it the same
They all do it the same way"
Ants Marching (originally called "No New
Directions") plays a metaphor of how humans resemble ants in the way we
work and go about doing things in life. As ants have their monotonous routines,
we as humans do as well. – from some web site I lost the URL to and can’t
find now.
Inspires me to try and live life and occasionally take a chance on
something I might not otherwise consider. I don’t want to be an ant, or a
sheep, or cattle. A lot of times I’m too much like one for my own comfort
already.
04 Soul
Asylum – Misery
"We could build a factory and make misery
We'll create the cure; we made the disease"
The world is happy being miserable. It was said in the Matrix that a happy
world where everything goes right is not believable to humans. This is for the
trials and tribulations that we all go through and put each other through every
day. A life of "Misery."
05 Pink
Floyd – The Happiest Days of Our Lives / Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)
"When we grew up and went to school there were certain teachers
who would hurt the children anyway they could.
By pouring their derision upon anything they did,
exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kids."
The Wall is an album that speaks to me on so many levels. This song has become
kind of an anarchist anthem for those who buck the system, but this song has a
much deeper meeting to me personally. As one who went to a parochial school and
having it be the worst and most difficult time of my life, this song IS my
childhood, and my reflection on it as a result.
06 Metallica
– The God That Failed, XTC / Sarah McLachlin – Dear God
"Deceit… deceive… decide just what you believe." - TGTF
"If there’s one thing I don’t believe in… it’s you... Dear
God." –DG
Okay, I cheated here, but these songs could almost be one (would be nice to
remake them as one all of you musicians and bands out there). These two songs
represent the closest thing to my losing faith in any religion and a god that
would let man do the things to each other and to this planet that we do.
07 Supertramp
– The Logical Song
"Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am."
Everyone would like to know the purpose of their existence. Everyone thinks
about it. The Logical Song perfectly describes how we don’t care about such
things to begin with, discover and think about our purpose in life, mans
existence and place in the universe, and the ultimate question of Why?
08 Duran
Duran – My Own Way
"I'm on 45 between Sixth and Broadway
7 up between Sixth and Broadway"
Summarizes the time I spent in New York - an important time in my life that
helped to define the person I am today. Rio became my favorite all time album
during that time (and still is to this day, Metallica’s Black Album is
second). The whole album has a personal meaning to me (and there are several
songs I like better as far as favorites go), but this song represents NYC the
best, so it’s here. To explain the quote, I lived on the 7th floor of a
building on Union Square West (which all, by a massive coincidence, happens to
be between 6th and Broadway).
09 Crowded
House – The World Where You Live
"Tell me, I don't know where you go
Do you climb into space
To the world where you live"
The first song on their first album and their best. Sadly overshadowed by
the more popular (yet still fantastic) Don’t Dream it’s Over. A song that
represents to me the out of body type experience I feel when I meditate and
think of the universe that is bigger than all of us.
10 Aliotta,
Haynes, & Jeremiah – Lake Shore Drive
"And it’s Four o’clock In the morning and all of the people have
gone away
Just you and your mind and Lake Shore Drive
Tomorrow is another day."
A very Chicago song (if you don’t live in Chicago, it probably means little to
you I’m sure). Believe it or not, this song is the best representation of my
involvement of Rocky Horror. With the 400 / Village North being my theater for
most of my Rocky Horror history, the most convenient way for me to get there was
Taking 290 to Lake Shore Drive and going north. After about a year and a half of
going this song came on the radio during my drive home from Rocky one Saturday.
Since then, it’s been forever linked to that.
11 Electric
Light Orchestra – Calling America
"But I'm just talking to a satellite
Twenty thousand miles up in the sky each night
Yeah, we're living in
In a modern world."
I’m too addicted to the internet and e-mail. So far there hasn’t been a
(good) song written about this. Though this song is about long distance phone
relationships and such, it is close enough to my e-mail / long distance life of
relationships to mean something to me.
12 Tears For
Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule the World
"Help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts
forever…
I can’t stand this indecision, married with a lack of vision…"
This song didn’t grab me too much when it was released. Though I liked it I
never truly got the deep meaning of the song until years later. Tears for Fears
is one of the top five bands as far as meaningful lyrics go in IMHO.
13 Ace
of Base – The Sign
"Is enough, enough… Life is demanding, without understanding."
Probably the track that’s most surprising to anyone who knows me personally. I
don’t take it as literal as the lyric is on the surface level. It doesn’t
apply to just personal relationships I’ve had with others, but casual ones as
well. I have learned to see the sign a lot easier now that I know how to
recognize it, but I still spend way to long in some situations for whatever
reason.
14 Bruce
Hornsby – Mandolin Rain
"I'll do my time
Keeping you off my mind but there's moments
That I find, I'm not feeling too strong."
This is the ultimate song about a love lost, and the feeling one gets when it’s
over. I don’t get into relationships very easily, hence when one ends or
progresses on to a level where I know I will never be as close again to someone
who was important in my life this song helps me through it.
15 Gordon
Lightfoot – Sundown
"Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feelin' better when I'm feelin' no pain…
Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again."
This song is supposed to be about infidelity. It represents sex and love and lust and the jealousy and self
anguish that can come with it. As much as I believe one can love more than one
person at a time and that humans truly aren’t meant to be with one person for
the rest of our lives, I still can feel jealous and selfish about someone I
love. Wanting them all to myself all the time. The two lines quoted here don’t
represent the rest of the song well, but I think by themselves mean more.
16 Bob
Segar – Against the Wind
"Caught Like a wildfire out of control,
until there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove…
I guess I lost my way, there were oh so many roads.
I was living to run and running to live.
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed."
A song that shows the side of me that the world is least likely to see. The
surface level, public view doesn’t see the reckless horrible decision side of
me. I made a lot of stupid decisions when I was younger and I’m paying for it
to this day. A reckless life does have consequences later.
I still haven’t lived the last verse of this song fully yet.
17 Moody
Blues – The Voice
"And how many words have I got to say
And how many times will it be this way
With your arms around the future
And your back up against the past"
Life is a series of problems and how we face them and
deal with it is really who we are. The Voice is about trusting our feelings and judgment. This is the most personally inspirational song to me.
18 Aerosmith
– Amazing
"It’s amazing, with the blink of an eye you finally see the
light."
About every year I will have a major epiphany about my life or some major
portion of it. My favorite Aerosmith song and probably the best thing they’ve
ever written IMHO. The video ain’t too bad either though it has little to do
with the songs meaning.
19 Jimmy
Buffet - Boat Drinks
"I know I should be leaving this climate.
I got a verse but can't rhyme it.
I gotta go where it's warm."
Probably the Buffet song that represents me the closest. My dislike for cold and
winter has reached almost epidemic proportions and this song says it better than
I ever could. If I had a gun, I would shoot my freezer.
20 Urge
Overkill – Positive Bleeding
"I'm in my life, with no control of my
destiny."
A 90’s song with a definite 70’s feel to it.
Reflects the way I feel a lot of the time. Not really too much in control of my
overall situation, but still in control of my own life, which ultimately is the
most important thing.
21 Yes
– Lift Me Up
"Have you decided on my fortune?"
The current song that represents me the best, though it’s been in my life for
years it hasn’t "spoken" to me until recently. It defines well the
crossroads of my life right now.
The songs that missed my pre requisite for cut off. They are
in the order they would’ve made it onto the list.
Metallica – Eye of the Beholder
"Do you take what I take?
Endurance is the word
Moving back instead of forward seems to me absurd
Do you choose what I choose?
More alternatives
Energy derives from both the plus and negative"
I am extremely anti censorship / for freedom. No song
expresses this better lyrically. We are so controlling by nature. People really
need to get a life of their own and stop prying into mine.
Santana – I’m Winning
"And when I played my hand I looked like a joker
Turn around fate must have woke her
Cause lady luck she was waiting outside the door"
Because so far in my life I haven’t yet been hit with any great personal
tragedy. When a door is closed, a window is opened. This is for all of the times
that it looked bad for me and people that have helped me in my life.
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
"So, so you think you can tell Heaven from
Hell"
The title of the song is nondescript to its lyrical meaning. Things are
never what they seem no matter how much we think we know or understand, there is
always more.
Peter Gabriel – Solsbury Hill
"I did not believe the information
Just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
Son, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home"
Personal discovery and revealing of ones self can be an exhilarating
experience.
All Star – Smash Mouth
"Somebody once asked, could I spare some
change for gas I need to get myself away from this place.
I said, yep what a concept, I could use a little fuel myself and we could all
use a little change."
Sometimes you just need a change of scenery to improve your attitude.
Howard Jones – No One Is To Blame
"Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes
go down the drain"
There’s a lot in life we just can’t do or have.
Journey – Feeling That Way / Anytime
"A new road's waiting, you touched my life"
Everyone should have a special someone in their life to come home to.
Steely Dan – Hey 19
"No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all"
Being in charge of a Rocky cast and having had many loves significantly younger
than I am (age means little to me, I will date someone ten or more years older
or younger than me), this song speaks to me. My father used to play Steely Dan a lot when
I was a child.
Dobie Gray - Drift Away
"Thanks for the joy that you've given me
I want you to know I believe in the song"
Music is important to me (duh). This song is the best tribute that anyone
has ever written for what musical heroes mean to them (and hence to me).
Jackson Browne – The Pretender
"Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender…
And we'll fill in the missing colors
In each other's paint-by-number dreams"
One of the best life songs that I think has ever been written. It’s quite
a well done song that shows that you can live a normal average life and still be
happy if you chose to be.
Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves
"I'm walking on sunshine, woh, oh
And it's time to feel good"
Probably the "happiest song" on my list.
Elton John – Levon
"And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus
Leaving Levon far behind
Take a balloon and go sailing
While Levon, Levon slowly dies"
About defiance of our fate and who we are supposed to
be.
Pat Benetar – We Belong
"Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better"
Believe in who or what you want to.
Paul Simon – Slip Slidin Away
"She said a good day
Ain't got no rain
She said a bad day's when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been"
Because sometimes there are stories of personal tragedy.
Everclear – Everything to Everyone
"I think you are blind to the fact that the
hand you hold is the hand that holds you down"
More to the many others in my life who haven’t seen
the mistakes the make in their life. I don’t preach here as I still make many
of the same stupid mistakes repeatedly in my life, but isn’t that what it all
is anyway?
Talking Heads – Stay Up Late
"Don't cha' love. The little baby.
Don't you want to make him. Stay up late."
A fun little song and makes me remember my very young childhood years.
Manfred Mann – Blinded By The Light
"Momma always told me not to look
in the eye's on the sun
But momma that's where the fun is"
The most abstract song that speaks to me. Sometimes I feel that my life is this
song.
FULL LYRICS
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