A simple enough topic, but I'm curious what everyone's favorite songs are. Mine change frequently because I love them all pretty much equally. Only band I can honestly say that about.

But currently...

1. Heart Cooks Brain. I recently discovered Heart Cooks Brain. For some idiotic reason I'd been either skipping past it or not listening to it with all of my attention. At work the other day, I had it playing through the iPod, and due to the boring nature of my work, couldn't help but focus on every word/sound/etc. I was so captivated by the song that at several points I stopped working completely just to hear the words or zone out to the beat. I haven't heard this kind of poetry in music in ages. "We tore one down, and erected another there. The match of the century, absence versus thin air."

2. Dramamine. This is one of those songs that just wouldn't let go of my emotions. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but while listening to Modest Mouse, I have a hard time not getting emotional. I am otherwise usually pretty callous and disconnected from myself. Maybe it's that Modest Mouse makes me consider that fact. Or maybe I'm reading into it too much...

3. Custom Concern. Right after Christmas, 2004, I got fired from my job unexpectedly, and shortly afterwards my relationship took a nosedive (luckily we saved us from ourselves..) Because I worked at 12:30pm until 9pm, the line "I get up just about noon, my head sends a message for me to reach for my shoes and then walk. Gotta go to work, gotta go to work, gotta have a job." fit my life like a glove. The closing line of this song always moves me. "We're losing all touch, losing all touch, building a desert..." The sadness and hopelessness built into the structure of the guitar riffs is beautiful. In that depressing sort of way.

4. Styrofoam Boots. I just love this song. The guitar work is unique for Modest Mouse.

5. Grey Ice Water. I listened to this song a lot while reading the book "Into the Wild" about a guy named Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp) who left his life of security behind him, donated all of his money to charity, and didn't tell a single person where he was going. He ended up travelling the country, mainly on foot, with the ultimate goal of going to Alaska to prove that he could survive without any help from society. The story (a true one) is haunting. Though the song isn't related, he ended up dying in Alaska do to an accident no one could have prevented. On the Arctic blast.

6. Wild Pack of Family Dogs. The more I listen to this song, the more I am convinced it is one of the deepest songs Modest Mouse has created. Hopefully that doesn't sound pretentious. Or stupid. When I first heard it, I liked its simplicity and innocense, without searching for any significance in the lyrics. I still couldn't say what the song is entirely about. But it has a more profound impact on me these days. Anyone feel the same?

7. Gravity Rides Everything. "As fruit drops, flesh it sags. Everything will fall right into place." The first time I heard this song was on a cloudy day in the summer, driving home from work, taking the hour-longer-than-nessecary route by the lake. It put me at peace like only one other song... "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads. The line I quoted, in particular, has a tendency to clear up the mess of stress and worry in my head most times I hear it.

8. Lives, Your Life, whichever. This song is most likely my favorite, by far. It sounds corny, but the lyrics remind me more of myself than anything I've ever heard. I bounce around form hobby to hobby, never finishing anything. When I was a bit younger, I went through several half-assed fashions and genres of music, wanting to be something but never really wanting to go all the way. Ultimately... "If you could be anything you wanted to be, you'd be disappointed, am I right?" The latter half of the song sums up most of the memories of my childhood, the painful and the happiest of my entire life, into the overall feeling of fleeting life in "It's hard to remember that we're alive for the last time." Though of course, I know this, until I heard the song I hadn't considered it in such simple terms. I had an epiphany. One that really shook me. This is IT. One day, it's over. And every day we live is priceless. In contrast to the underachieving tone of the first half of the song, this is a magnificent, scary, beautiful, sad, encouraging statement. "My mom's god is a woman and my mom she is a witch. I like this" Though I imagine he's being metaphorical in this song, my mom is actually a witch, who at least at one point was a Goddess worshipping pagan. (Now she's just a witch, don't bother asking the difference, just work with me). "My hell comes from inside, comes from inside myself. Why fight this?" From the age of about 12 until my mid-late teens, I was a wreck of violent tendencies, rage, depression, and other altogether unpleasant stuff. My hell came from inside myself. Fighting it was futile. I had to let it go. I still have to remind myself that I create my own hell from time to time, before I start to live in it. This song is something I would write if I had the clarity to do so. The words feel like they're written right out of the pages of my life. I am very grateful for that, though it was unintentional.

Hrm... yeah, 8 is good enough. Sorry for the ranting. But I had to come clean with my Modest Mouse addiction. And honesty's the best medicine, right?

Alright. Your turn!