Songs that I can’t get enough of

There are songs you wake up with, singing in the back of your mind so strongly that it makes its way to your lips, waiting to be sung-a-long to. There are songs that you have to hear, again and again, hitting replay so many times that you think that backwards arrow will wear off. And, there are songs that you want to make everyone you know, and even those you don’t, listen to. Some call them earworms, though the image of a bug slithering into my ear unnerves me too much to ever embrace that term. No, for me, its always been “music drunk” that I refer to it as, and yes, there is usually more than one that I have going on in my musical mind.

My streaming outlets, mainly iTunes and Spotify, will give it all away as far as what songs I am currently musically drunk on, my aural obsessions tracked and accessible. I remember being both surprised, and not all that surprised, when I looked at my most played songs of the last year. There were, of course, the usual suspects, but there were also a few surprises in the bunch, too. It is not always predictable what song will cast me under a spell sometimes.

There are albums, too, but that will be saved for a different week’s “Friday Five”.

“And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it’s enough. I really do because they’ve made me happy. And I’m only one person.” ~ Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.” ~ Rob Sheffield, Love is a Mix Tape

“And mostly all I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don’t like them as much as I do.” ~ Nick Hornby

“Lux spent the ride dialing the radio for her favorite song. “It makes me crazy,” she said. “You know they’re playing it somewhere, but you have to find it.” ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

“The way I choose to show my feelings is through my songs.” ~ Marianne Faithfull

“The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music. You make that human connection with a song like ‘Let It Be’ or ‘Long and Winding Road’ or a song like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Roxanne,’ any of those songs. They sound like people making music.” ~ Dave Grohl

“I’ve seen you this way before,
life’s strained but true,
well, what are we waiting for?”

2. Fair Game :: Sia

“You got too close and I pushed and pushed hoping you’d bite,
so I could run, run and that I did but through the dust,
you saw those teeth marks,
they weren’t all yours you had been thrust into a history,
that had not worked for me,
into a history,
from which I could not flee.”

3. Ex’s and Oh’s (live) :: Elle King

“They always want to come,
but they never want to leave.”

4. Between the Bars (live) :: Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield

“People you’ve been before,
that you don’t want around anymore,
they push and shove,
and won’t bend to your will;
I’ll keep them still.”

5. Chrissie Hynde :: Butch Walker

“All I got right now is all I want,
Chrissie Hynde singing through a blown dash speaker about Ohio.
all she wants right now is to be the way it was,
the same as when you and me were one.”