Ten Songs for Ten Years
Lordy Lordy! Look who's turning 4040!
Very soon (tomorrow) I’ll be leaving my 30’s behind and entering the fourth decade of my life. I still remember turning thirty like it was yesterday (it certainly feels like it was just yesterday). It’s astonishing how fast ten years goes by. It’s even more astonishing to think about all the things that have happened in those ten years, including (but not limited to):
Getting married to the love of my life (
, whom I love most ardently).Becoming a dad (10/10, would recommend).
Leaving the only home I’ve ever known (Virginia) and striking out for parts unknown (coastal South Carolina).
However, I’m not here to wax poetic on the vagaries of aging, or (the significance of) the passage of time.
Anyone who’s been paying even mild attention knows how much I love music. However, as the quality of music over the years has degraded (it absolutely has…don’t let anyone gaslight you into believing otherwise), my enthusiasm for new music has similarly degraded (somewhat). That being said, I have discovered my fair share of excellent bands and tunes in between the trials and tribulations of modern life.
So, to celebrate this milestone of my existence, I thought I’d share with you, my faithful readers, ten of my favorite songs from the past ten years. This is not a definitive list, and they are in no particular order: I’m just throwing ‘em out there as they come to mind.
Moaning Lisa Smile - Wolf Alice (2015)
Favorite lyrics:
She needs a lover to escape her father and mother
She hopes for some other way out of the hole
She's over achieving, chasing her dreams
And coming down slowly, yeah, it's out of control
Sticky - The Maine (2021)
Favorite lyrics:
And I hear your name
In every single line
Of every single song I've ever heard
And I still feel the same
Loving Someone - The 1975 (2015)
Favorite lyrics:
Charlatan telepathy exploiting insecurity and praying on the purity
Of grief and its simplicity but I know that maybe I'm too skeptical
Even Guy Debord needed spectacles, you see
I'm the Greek economy of cashing intellectual cheques
And now I'm trying to progress, but instead of selling sex
Urantia - Deftones (2020)
Favorite lyrics:
I swear I'm losing it
With all these erased recordings, I'm rearranging parts
Shifts - Katatonia (2016)
Favorite lyrics:
Cast in a trench of fire
I can see the sky is a ceiling
And when my heart dies down
I am long gone
On the field of summer's green
Away from fall and famine
Your Body is a Weapon - The Wombats (2015)
Favorite lyrics:
And I wonder what you wear tonight
The shiny black dress with the slit at the thigh
Is this such fantasy that I should think
Someone like you could love a creep like me
Flagship - Jason Isbell (2015)
Favorite lyrics:
You gotta try and keep yourself naive
In spite of all the evidence believed
And volunteer to lose touch with the world
And focus on one solitary girl
Happy Song - Bring Me The Horizon (2015)
Favorite lyrics:
The world has coalesced
Into one giant mess of hate and unrest
So let's sing along a little goddamn louder
To a happy song and pretend it's all okay
Hourglass - A Perfect Circle (2018)
Favorite lyrics:
Aristocrat breaks down to
Timocrat breaks down to
Oligarch breaks down to
Republocrat breaks down to
No hope left in the hourglass
Dead Weight - Pvris (2020)
Favorite lyrics:
Look what you started
You're turning me heartless
I'm trying my hardest
If I'm being honest
Welp, that’s it, I guess.
Like I said before, this is by no means a definitive list, and I’m sure there will be other songs that I think of in the days to come. At any rate, I hope everyone reading this enjoys at least a few of these songs as much as I have over the last ten years. If you discover something new here that you’re just absolutely obsessed with, I’d love to hear about it.
I sincerely hope to see everyone back here in another ten years.
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Thank you!
Happy b-day, man. All the best.