For my regular readers you know that my best friend and I have been counting down our top 100 songs of all time. We finished last week. My best friend proposed our top 25 albums of all time, which we will start sharing in June.
Here are my top 5 songs.
Number 5:
“Welcome to the Boomtown” by David & David.
A group that only produced one album. The album is a look at the gritty truth about life. “Welcome to the Boomtown” is pretty clear about how drugs affect a town. There are two main story lines, both look at people that should be successful but drugs and money take them down. It was a song I loved as soon as I heard it, way back in high school… and it is still on lots of my playlists.
Number 4:
“I Don’t Wanna” by The Call.
There is so much here about this song. This was an important song for me as I was trying to change everything and understand what my choice would lead to. I connected and still connect with the loneliness of feeling love. The song is complex and certain parts connect with life as I’ve grown. But at the heart is just the desire to be loved in the moment. Yet, life takes it away and you have to live without it.
Number 3:
“Alive and Kicking” by Simple Minds.
There are some levels to this song, one level is about how love makes you feel. But there is a sad aspect with it, what if it goes away? The chorus asks those questions. The question that gets me is ‘who’s going to save you?’ I love the build up to that question (second time), the music and the lyrics. Alive and Kicking is a cool idiom to express the energy Love gives you, but also takes from you. This song lifts my spirit every time I hear it.
Number 2:
“Up Where We Belong” by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.
I wanted this to be the song my wife and I danced to at our wedding reception. My sappy side is on full display in this song. But honestly, I believe in it… in Love, real love. I don’t know how or why but that belief kept me holding on in so many different ways throughout my years. It is why I didn’t have relationships like I saw my parents have. Why I fought to make my life better. Love can change everything.
Number 1:
“I Would Die 4 U” by Prince.
First it is a groovy song. You want to dance to it as soon as it starts. When I was young I thought it was a great love song, a little weird with the lyrics but the feeling of being in love so much you would die for them is universal and that’s why many people still see it as a love song. But it is more spiritual than that. This is a first person perspective from Jesus. People don’t know that. If you read the lyrics as you listen you will understand the perspective. Even with that, there is a line that gets to me personally, third verse when Prince rapid fires the “I-I-I’ really need is to know that you believe”. I guess I have always been searching for that… to know someone believes in me.
So, they say you can learn a lot about a person by the music they listen to… this is part of who I am through by my top 5 songs.
It is all Connected 