List #62: Five Songs That Capture My Year

1. "Play for Today" - Belle and Sebastian

Key lyrics:
Life is a secret,
Death is a myth,
Love is a fraud,
It's misunderstood.
Work is a sentence,
Family's a drag,
This house is a trap.

Moment in time captured: March 2016

2. "I'm Ready to Move On / Wild Heart Reprise" - Bleachers, Susanna Hoffs

Key lyrics:
So put your shotgun back in the glove
C'mon and wait another year for the dream far away
To come home, to be brave
Snow is falling all the time
Snow is smiling all the time
I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready to move on

Moment in time captured: August 2016

3. "Head Underwater" - Jenny Lewis

Key lyrics:
I put my head underwater, baby,
I threw my clothes away in the trash
I stood barefoot on the blazing concrete,
I was waiting for the gut of thunder to crash

Moment in time captured: October 2016

4. "Impossible Year" - Panic! At the Disco

Key lyrics:
There's no good times
This impossible year
Just a beachfront of bad blood
And a coast that's unclear

Moment in time captured: December 2016

5. "God Draws Straight" - original cast recording of Here Lies Love*

Key lyrics:
As I turned on my walkman,
And all I could hear - every station was Marcos, he’s on every TV
In an appliance store window he fills every screen,
Then the TVs went blank and his face disappeared.

Moment in time captured: Maybe the future?




* For those not familiar with the show, this is the final song --- its lyrics are taken from the oral histories of participants in the People Power Revolution that forced an end to the Marcos regime in the Philippines