[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 27: A Song I Wish I Could Play

I wish I could play the electric guitar. And the electric bass, like my brother. And the trumpet. And the drums. Also, I wish I could sing.

Anyway, there are a bunch of guitar rock god songs that make me want to or actually start playing uninhibited, vicious air guitar, or air bass. Pearl Jam’s “Dissident.” Prince’s “Purple Rain.” White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” The legendary bass line from Thelma Houston’s version of “Don’t Leave Me This Way.” Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” — and basically everything else they recorded. But there’s only one song that has nearly caused me to crash my guitar in my lunatic grooving to its guitar line as it plays over the radio. The Edge’s solo in U2’s “Even Better Than The Real Thing” makes my head feel like it’s going to explode. There are better songs, and greater solos (but not too many of either), but this one makes my fingers itch I want to play it so bad.

Also, the video is awesome.

|        

[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 26: A Song That I Can Play On An Instrument

When I was in elementary school, I played the recorder. Not well, but I played in the school recorder club. Occasionally, I find myself fingering the first few bars to “Hanukkah, O, Hanukkah.” Weird. (This version is adorbs.) In junior high, I started taking piano lessons. I liked it, and I wanted to be good, but I couldn’t be bothered to practice. I did make an attempt to play “Für Elise,” and I nailed it at home (not like this lady nails it, of course), but when my teacher had a mini recital, I bombed it. I was mortified, and like a good self-defeater, I never played again. But I can still play “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” W00t! Right?

Oh, and Paul McCartney and Wings did an awesome, if utterly bizarre, version of it, too. Who knew?

|   

[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 25: A Song That Makes Me Laugh

I have long argued that Britney Spears’s second album Oops!… I Did It Again is one of the great comedy albums of the last 30 years. My friend Eric bought it for me for my birthday when we were in Amsterdam together in 1999, and I giggled through my first listen of the CD. I thought it was so bad it was funny, and then I realized that there’s no way that songs like “Oops!… I Did It Again” and “Lucky” could be anything but deliberately comic, and the cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” has to be a joke. And the spoken word interludes? So absurd that they must be ironic. Like the one before “Lucky”:

(Phone rings once and answer machine picks up!)

Britney: Hey, what’s up?
This is Brit and I’m not in right now,
So do your thang.
Beeeeep.
Ha, ha, ha
I’m just kidding!

(Tone beeps)

Guy: (Scuffs)
Yo Brit, you’re a nerd!
You really need to change that message.
But I was thinking about that movie we saw the other night.
You know how she had all that fame and all that money,
but she still wasn’t happy?
Wouldn’t that make a cool song?

The answer is, of course, yes.

Bonus: My friend Curtis thought that the lyric was “She cries, cries, cries in her lonely car.” And not in her lonely heart. LOLz.

|   

[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 24: A Song I Want To Play At My Funeral

Late again. Whoops.

Joni Mitchell’s “River” is one of the most beautiful and moving songs ever written. I’m pretty sure that if it was played at my funeral, the folks who aren’t already crying will start. And I want a truckload of tears at my funeral.

Below, I’ve included the original album version and a live version she did with Herbie Hancock. (If you don’t have Hancock’s Joni Mitchell album, you’re missing out.)

|    

[30 Day Song Challenge] Day 23: A Song I Want To Play At My Wedding

Well, since Rob and I have been married for nearly six years, I have already had a wedding, so the song I wanted to play at my wedding was the song I actually did play at our wedding. My brother and his now wife made two mix CDs for our engagement, and among the awesome songs they compiled was Pat Benetar’s “We Belong.” When we were listening to the CDs driving back to New York from Boston with our friends Liz and Jason (who were going to be in the wedding), “We Belong” came on, we all sang along, giggled a bit, and I said, “This is so going to be our wedding song.” It’s also a rockin’ pop song, and full of over-the-top metaphors and emotions. It’s a totally tubular 80s classic.

|