These are my heart songs

Bonus points for recognizing the lyric reference in the title.

Ginger had a nice prompt the other day, about your top 10 life songs. This is HARD. HARD HARD HARD because music was my lifeline through adolescence, and I associate certain songs, sometimes entire albums, and in one case, the entirety of one band’s music prior to 2001 with time periods, feelings or people. So. 10 songs. We’ll see.

1. Friday Night Lights Themesong and Devil Town by Tony Lucca – Ok, so after having Jonas, I started watching this show. And the theme song gives me a serious case of the feels, and will immediately transport me back to how I felt about those kids in the show, and it can sometimes make me cry. I felt alone. And scared. And I definitely had the baby blues while Jonas was a newborn. “Devil Town” is the song at the very end of the first season. And who. Feelings.

2. One Week by The Barenaked Ladies. My best friend through childhood and I were introduced to BNL by a friend (who then became my first actual boyfriend, whose name was Chris, but isn’t who I married. Anyway.) and we were instantly obsessed. My first taste of BNL was Maybe You Should Drive. I digress. When Stunt was released, my BFF and I were all over it, and I can remember us dancing through my house singing One Week as loud as we possibly could. Takes me to a totally different time.

3. Sorta Fairytale by Tori Amos – When Scarlet’s Walk came out, it was fall. I was busy with working, and with school, and I know I’ve written about this before, but that fall, and the music I listened to that season reminds me of full time school and full time work and balancing a relationship with Chris and figuring out who I wanted to be and what that meant in terms of that relationship. Something about that fall and that music really helped me define things, so they’re forever part of hose feelings.

4. The Waitress by Tori Amos – (you’re noticing a trend, perhaps?) The very first time I heard that song, it was as if an entire new world opened up. It was high school. That song is the perfect high school girl song. See also: I was a waitress at the time. It felt like we were MFEO.

5. Spark by Tori Amos – So, after I miscarried, I tried to avoid this song, and most of Choirgirl and Boys for Pele because there are a lot of references to how she felt after she had her miscarriages. There’s a lyric. “She’s convinced she can hold back a glacier. But she couldn’t keep baby alive.” and. Ok. No explanation needed. I came back to Tori music during that time because I knew it would help.

6. Wish by NIN – Chris and I have seen NIN live 9 times now. It’s like a thing that we used to do – we used to spend all of our extra money on concerts. So. I’ve seen this live many times now, and there’s something about this song live that just resets my emotional state. You should look up a live performance of this song. Seriously.

7. The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy – This is the first song on the first Chillout Sessions by Ministry of Sound. That album got me through freshman year old college – learning independence, realizing I actually knew nothing, and dealing with a crazy insane roommate situation, studying for the first time ever. The first few bars of that song will instantly transport me back to that time in my life – feeling like I was lost and didn’t belong anywhere.

8. On a good day  by Oceanlab. This song will destroy me. It was one that helped me through my miscarriage.

9. Beautiful Day by U2 – It was the song that Chris and I walked back down the aisle to after we were wed. It gives me the stupid smiley feels every single time.

10. Set on You by George Harrison – I remember this song from my youth. It reminds of happy times when I was younger, hanging out with my parents. I was obsessed with this song then, and I still love it.