Day 29: My Life in 15 Songs

Sometime in the past year or so, Rolling Stone magazine began an interview series with artists called “My Life in 15 Songs,” in which they review their musical careers and highlight fifteen songs that were significant in some way. When I saw the article the first time, I thought it was going to be more like the artists listing any fifteen songs that had been important to them. It got me thinking it would be fun to try, so I started a list.

The only rule I made was that the song had to have some significant tie to my life that went beyond the song or artist itself; you won’t find any “I heard this the first time and checked out the band and then they became one of my all-time favorites” here, because that would be too easy. I don’t know if all the songs I’ve included would be the fifteen most definitive of my life or would even come close to making my list of favorites, but, as you’ll see, they’ve all attached themselves to specific and important moments. Some were related to formative experiences, some are tied to very specific memories, and some relate to things so deeply personal I’m a little surprised I’m even writing about them here. But, you know -- Day 29 of the month of daily blog posts. Ideas are running short.

Usually I’d preface a song list with “In no particular order,” but tonight I’ll try to be as chronological as I can:

“Dancing With Myself” by Billy Idol: In the time before cable television reached the rural emptiness where my family lived in the 1980s, the only time I could ever see MTV was when we visited my cousins Chris and Amy. Twin Cities radio was sadly generic back then, so some of the songs from the early MTV videos seemed like they came from outer space. When my family caught up and had cable installed, this was the first song I watched MTV specifically hoping to see. I loved the way the guitar sounded just a little too tightly wound, then buzzed into so much distortion as the song progressed that the whole thing sounded like it was in danger of coming apart.

“Every Little Kiss” by Bruce Hornsby: Bruce Hornsby’s album “The Way it Is” was one of the first CDs I bought. If I ever mention to one of the younger people on the staff at school that I own CDs older than they are, this is one of them. As cut off as I felt from my friends while growing up in the middle of nowhere, and as much as I thought I wanted to put my hometown behind me, this song helped me find an appreciation for it. The vaguely country-tinged pop sound of the album reminded me of a slower and usually simpler rural life as I got further into college. The whole album, and this song in particular, was probably one of my very first nostalgia triggers. When this came out I could still kind of almost play the piano, and I’d bought the sheet music for “Every Little Kiss” just to try and learn the evocative piano solo in the first thirty seconds. It was well above my ability even at my peak, but I was proudly able to piece most of it together.

“Where the Streets Have No Name” by U2: I remember the big deal that was made about “The Joshua Tree” coming out in early 1987, and how everybody at college suddenly claimed to be a huge fan of U2, even if the band had been little more than a glorified “college rock” band before that, with the exception of one or two recognizable hits. The two guys who lived in the east corner room on my floor in my freshman dorm had this album almost right away, and local radio was playing this song as an album track long before it was a single, so we all recognized it. The song opens with this resonating chord progression that sounds like a melody created by the engines of an interstellar spacecraft. The guys in the corner room would play this song over and over just for that opening part. Since they had the loudest speakers on the floor by far, the sound could make your teeth vibrate from the other end of the building. This didn’t sit well with the metalheads and hippies on our floor, but the rest of us, who were so tired of listening to their music being played too loud, loved it.

“She’s the One” by Bruce Springsteen: Specifically, the performance of this song from the Tunnel of Love Express Tour at the Met Center in Bloomington, MN in May of 1988. When the E Street Band launched into this about mid-show, supported by a full horn section, it came together in a moment that stood as the single greatest musical moment of my life for a long, long time.

“Edge of a Broken Heart” by Bon Jovi: This was one of my first “holy grail” songs, the ones I would only hear on the radio and never had any luck finding in music stores. It only appeared on the soundtrack to the movie “The Disorderlies,” staring the 80s rap group The Fat Boys. Never saw the movie, but the song was getting a lot of airplay in the peak of Bon Jovi’s popularity. It’s a good pop-rock & fairly generic Bon Jovi sound, but it had hooks I couldn’t get out of my head. So many years later the song was included on a Bon Jovi greatest hits boxed set, and since the iTunes store would let me download individual tracks, I finally tracked it down. It sounded just like I’d remembered even if I hadn’t heard it in over two decades.

“Driving the Last Spike” by Genesis: This song became important to me in two different ways and at two different times for the same purpose. It’s a ten-minute epic that tells the story of the hardships suffered by the men who worked on constructing England’s railway system. I didn’t relate to that directly, but I connected to the struggles while I was out looking for my first teaching job. The job market back then was a waking nightmare for teachers, so there was a lot of frustration involved in that search. I learned to lean on this song as a source of perseverance.

There was also a weekend around that same time when one of my cousins had a graduation open house, so the whole extended family made the road trip and congregated for it. The first night there turned out to be one of those exceptional times that I think can only happen when you’re young enough: My cousin Jeff and I were set up with sleeping bags in the family room for the night and were just catching up before going to sleep, when Jeff’s sister Kelly walked in and joined us. The three of us wound up talking until about five in the morning. That night, and the rest of the weekend that followed, gave me a big push of confidence as I kept on driving around the state looking for a teaching job. I’d remember what an extraordinary family I came from and how many remarkable people I had in my corner supporting me. I kept reflecting on this each time I heard the song when one particular line came up: “They’ll never see the likes of us again.”

“Manhattan Project” by Rush: This is a song about the creation and use of the first atomic bomb. It’s a great song, but again, I assigned a separate personal meaning to it that became more important than the intended context. When my sister Jenny was pregnant with her first son, she overshot her due date and was understandably frustrated. One night, after we had all gotten together at her house for dinner and everyone who lived further away had gone home, I went out walking with Jenny, her husband, and their dog, to try and get things moving along. It was a beautiful spring evening, and this song kept playing on repeat in my head. I didn’t understand why at first, but after my oldest nephew Ben was born, I finally figured out it was because of one line that unknowingly had become some kind of a personal mantra for me during those events: “All the powers that be / and the course of history / would be changed forever more.”

“Primal Scream” by Motley Crue: No story here -- this is just my all-time #1 song to listen to while working out. It deserves a spot on the list just for that.

“Champagne Supernova” by Oasis: I have a decent-sized list of songs with bittersweet tones to them that always seem to work into my usual music rotation close to the end of the school year, the kinds of songs you might expect would fit over the closing credits of a movie after the story had ended and the characters sadly had to go their separate ways. I don’t always have the same misty feelings about the last day of school like I used to (because I’m just cranky and old and jaded and unpleasant now) but sometimes cracks will form and I can feel how much I will miss my kids and the place the had in my life for so long, particularly when I taught 5th grade and those kids would be moving on to different schools and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing most of them again. “Champagne Supernova” is one of the heavy hitters on that list of songs, and really only for the musical feel it has. The lyrics are so brilliantly nonsensical they allow you to easily to attach your own interpretation.

“We All Need Some Light: by Transatlantic: This is very possibly my favorite song, in that I can’t think of another one off the top of my head that would be able match it for that title. It’s a beautiful song, both so powerful and understated it could almost be mistaken for a prayer.

“Surrounded / Mother” by Dream Theater (& Pink Floyd): This song eventually tied “She’s the One” as the best musical moment of my life. I heard Dream Theater play “Surrounded” on their Chaos in Motion Tour, with an extended guitar solo that left my jaw hanging open. When a live album was released after the tour, I bought it just to have this song, and the version of “Surrounded” on that has probably become my all-time favorite solo. It’s tough to describe, because it’s played in such a quiet and slow part of the song but is as fast as anything else you could imagine, and somehow it all comes together perfectly. At the end, John Petrucci incorporates a recognizable passage from the David Gilmour’s solo in Pink Floyd’s song “Mother,” which on its own was also in the running to make this list. “Mother” was one of the emotional turning points from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” which was an album I listened to over and over and over for months while I was trying to piece together how I felt about my aforementioned cousin Kelly being deployed to Iraq in 1991.

“Soldiers of Misfortune” by Filter: I’m sure I’ve mentioned writing playlists on ‘Summer Vacation’ before. A lot of writers use them to capture certain tones or feelings while they work. This song, as much as any other, had a very important role in my writing Following Infinity. I had to reinvent the context once again to apply it to what I needed, but it suited that purpose very well.

“You’ll Be Bright (Invocation Part 1)” by Cloud Cult: The first song I heard in my car on the way home from the vet’s office after taking in my dog Spencer for the last time. I can’t hear this song anymore without remembering how that felt, and it has me choking up almost every time.

“A Letter to Georgia” by The Airborne Toxic Event: A very simple and beautiful love song, but absolutely heartbreaking. The type of song that makes you think about and remember people who were once in your life but aren’t anymore, and how the pain of not being able to have them with you fades over time but never truly disappears.


“Drops of Jupiter” by Train: One morning in the months after my sister Erin died, I had a dream that I was at her funeral. It wasn’t her actual funeral but a dream version of it, the kind that made sense in the dream but wouldn’t have anywhere else. I was looking at her body in its casket and saw the casket slightly shift. Afraid it was off balance and about to fall, I hurried over to stabilize it, but before I could get there my sister sat up. She was a child now, a child that didn’t look anything like her childhood self, but I knew it was her all the same.

She smiled widely at me as I hurried over and I was slightly taken aback. “I’m dreaming right now, aren’t I?” I said to her, and she nodded, still smiling. As soon as I realized that I knew the dream was likely moments from falling apart. “Well, you look happy,” I said. She didn’t say anything in reply but just laughed. I tried to think of what I would say to her or ask her while I had the chance, but couldn’t put it together in time before I abruptly woke up.

I sat up in bed so quickly I startled Spencer, heart racing, immediately alert, on my feet, wondering over and over, “Was that just some weird dream or did that really happen?” It was easily as vivid of a dream as I’d ever had; years later I can still remember so many details, down to how the pale yellow paint on the walls in that room had been old and just beginning to chip.

Now that I was out of bed and the sun was out, Spencer figured it was time for a walk, and began dancing around my feet. I robotically led him downstairs, put him in his harness and leash, and let him guide me down the block. As we walked, “Drops of Jupiter” started playing in my head. It reminded me a lot about Erin, since there are several lines in it that seem to wondering about what somebody the singer had lost was doing now that they had moved on. It stayed in my head until we were home and I went back upstairs to shower. Once in my bedroom I turned the radio on, and of course “Drops of Jupiter” was playing. My body broke into goosebumps that were almost painfully tight.

Since then, the song has come on at several other opportune moments, usually when I’ve been worried about something and needed reassurance or encouragement that things were going to work out. I don’t listen to the radio much anymore so that takes away from the chances I might randomly hear it, but I still remember the last time it happened: I was driving to pick up some take-out I’d ordered, for a little celebration dinner after first learning I had a full manuscript request from the woman who would become my agent less than a month later. True story, all of it. Promise.

And that brings us to fifteen songs. Definitely a longer post, but an important one to me. Thanks for sticking with it if you got this far.