Identify the 43 albums I couldn't do without

Chris Isaak, “Forever Blue”

I bought this album the first week after I graduated from high school in 1995. A cassette tape, to be exact, from Wherehouse Music. I took the bus there to downtown Oxnard on a weekday morning because I had no car. And no job. It was that weird summer between high school and college when your “real life” is about to begin and you have no idea what it will become or how to get there. At least that’s how I felt. I had a lot of time to sit down and think and do lots of writing in my journal. I was listening to this long since defunct radio station out of LA that played a format that was called “adult album alternative”. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but I liked it because they played songs with more words or at least deeper words than what I heard on other radio stations. This is when I first heard of Chris Isaak. I won’t say that his songs are particularly deep, but I thought they were at the time because they seemed to capture my mood that I was feeling then that I didn’t quite hear in the other stuff I was listening to. Most Chris Isaak songs deal with having regret, not being loved but wanting it, and having unrequited feelings. It’s good music for when you’re not ready to move on and you need to get out certain feelings, emotions, thoughts, etc., or put another way, when you want to wallow in your misery…

My favorite track from the album is Somebody’s Crying. This was the first Chris Isaak song I heard. Here are the lyrics:

I know somebody and they cry for you.
They lie awake at night and dream of you.
I bet you never even know they do, but somebody’s crying.
I know somebody and they called your name.
A million times and still you never came.
They go on loving you just the same, I know that somebody’s trying.

So please, return the love you took from me.
Or please, let me know if it can’t be me, I know when,
Somebody’s lying, I know when somebody’s lying.

I know that somebody’s lying, I know that somebody’s lying.
Give me a sign and let me know we’re through.
If you don’t love me like I love you.
But if you cry at night the way I do I’ll know that somebody’s lying.
So please, return the love you took from me.
Or please, let me know if it can’t be me.
I know when somebody’s lying, I know when somebody’s lying.
Oh I, oh I…...

Mary-Chapin Carpenter, “Come On, Come On”

This was one of my favorite albums when I was in high school. It came out in 1992, which I can’t believe was 18 years ago. I feel like I must be getting old since although I still find lots of new stuff I like I always want to go back to what my favorites were when I was younger. I was thinking about why I like this album, and it just struck me that it’s because in many of the songs she sings about unashamedly taking what she wants out of life, whether it be love (like in the song “Passionate Kisses”) or following her own path (like in the song “I Take My Chances”). When I was in high school I had no clue what I wanted out of life and I was the opposite of bold, but I wanted to have the same self-confidence that she conveyed in her songs.

My favorite track from the album is The Hard Way. Here are the lyrics:

Show a little inspiration, show a little spark
Show that things that drew me to you an’ stole my heart
And tell me somethin’ I don’t know instead of everything I do
And look at me as if I mean somethin’ to you

Our hearts are beating while we sleep, but while we’re wide awake
You know the world won’t stop and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart and what your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard way

Show a little passion, baby, show a little style
And show the knack for knowing when and the gift for knowing how
And have a little trust in us when fear obscures the path
You know we got this far, darling, not by luck, but by never turnin’ back

Some will call on destiny, but I just call on faith
That the world won’t stop and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, to what your heart might say
Everything you got, you got the hard way

Caught up in our little lives, there’s not a lot left over
I see what’s missin’ in your eyes, you’re searchin’ for that field of clover

So show a little inspiration, show a little spark
Show the world a little light when you show it your heart
We’ve got two lives, one we’re given and the other one we make
And the world won’t stop, and actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, and your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard way

Natalie Merchant, “Tigerlily”

I first listened to this album during the autumn after I finished high school. I was going to community college at the time, and I was really uncertain about my life and the future. I used to read a lot of literature at that time as a way of escape, and I also liked listening to music that had lots of words that seemed to mean something. That’s when I started getting into “folk” music. The music of Natalie Merchant was kind of a bridge being a bit more accessible than other folk artists (which is essentially what she is). There’s this song on the album called “Where I Go”, where she sings of this peaceful place by the river where she would go to get lost and unwind. It reminded me of this place of my own where I used to go to get away and contemplate life on the beach in Ventura where the river emptied into to the ocean.

My favorite track from the album is Wonder, which is also the most popular I think. I like it because it’s blatantly self-confident, almost absurdly so. Here are some of the lyrics:

I believe
fate smiled and destiny
laughed as she came to my cradle
“know this child will be able”
laughed as she came to my mother
“know this child will not suffer”
laughed as my body she lifted
“know this child will be gifted
with love, with patience
and with faith
she’ll make her way”

Ryan Adams, “Gold”

This was my first exposure to Ryan Adams in the fall of 2001 that ultimately started my obsession. The song playing on the radio then was New York, New York. The video was filmed just four days before 9/11 with the Twin Towers in the background. It’s kind of a shame the song came out when it did because this song was viewed as an “anthem” to 9/11 and didn’t get lasting radio airplay. The song is not really about New York so much as it’s about coming to terms with the end of a relationship. The city is used more as a metaphor for a certain stage of life that is over but can be looked back at with fondness even through the pain. It’s actually very poetic. There are some beautiful ballads here and some songs that kind of rock. This is the most “commercial” of the Ryan Adams albums although it didn’t become a huge commercial success. I’m not sure what “huge commercial success” would have done to the quality of his music anyway.

My favorite track from the album is Somehow Someday (definitely click the link, it makes me wish I could see him perform live). It’s about missing a relationship. Here are the lyrics:

I want to tell you something
That I should’ve long ago
I wish that you and I had those kids
Maybe bought us that home
I wish that we were still in your room
In your bed and you were holding me
‘Cause there ain’t no way I’ll ever stop from lovin’ you now
There ain’t no way I’ll ever stop from lovin’ you now
No, there ain’t no way and I’m gonna try and show you somehow
Somehow, someday

I dreamt that you and I were still young
Laughing like little kids
I’ll never know just how bad it hurt
Or what I did
I wish that we were stumbling fast
Down on Irving and 6th
I wish we were still making plans
But now, there’s nothing to fix
But there ain’t no way I’ll ever stop from lovin’ you now

Counting Crows, “August and Everything After”

This was one of my favorite albums the summer after I graduated from high school. It actually came out a year or so earlier but I didn’t discover it till then. I think the songs on this album captured the mood I was in at that time pretty well. I wasn’t excited like how I thought I would be, but instead I had anxiety about the uncertainty of what was going to happen next. In some ways I felt kind of trapped, like I didn’t see how the future would fall into place and I doubted I was making the right decisions. The first track on the album is called “Round Here”, which I don’t know what the meaning was intended to be but conveys a sense of being trapped or in jail. In another track called “Anna Begins”, he (the lead Adam Duritz) sings about not being sure he’s ready to embark on a serious relationship. I wasn’t really dealing with that at the time but related in general to the feeling of “not being ready”. In yet another track called “Perfect Blue Buildings” he sings, “I wanna get me a little oblivion… and try to keep myself away from myself and me”, which I thought for myself sometimes because I thought I was only going to ruin my life. I’ve grown up and moved beyond a lot of these type of emotions, but the songs on this album still form part of the “soundtrack of my life” that I still enjoy listening to…

My favorite track from the album is the most popular one, Mr. Jones. Sometimes I do actually like stuff that is popular. LOL… I had never seen the video before now, the first time was when I was searching for a link to post here… Anyway, I liked this song because when I first heard it I related to the idea of wanting to be popular and successful but it only being a possibly far-fetched dream that might not be realized. Here are some of the lyrics:

I wanna be a lion.
Eh, everybody wanna pass as cats.
We all wanna be big, big stars, yeah but, we got different reasons for that.
Believe in me ‘cause I don’t believe in anything,
And I wanna be someone to believe, to believe, to believe.
Yeah.

Ryan Adams, “Rock N Roll”

Although this is not my “number 1” album, this is the album that I actually listen to the most. I do most of my music listening while sitting in my car stuck in LA traffic, and this album has lots of upbeat (or at least uptempo) songs that are fun to listen to while driving. I find that listening to something a little bit hard and loud helps me to release the tension that builds up over the course of the day or to help get me pumped up to take on the day, whatever the case may be. A coworker recently told me that she listened to classical music while she commuted and suggested I should try it because it might make me feel more calm. Well, I tried it, and I thought I was going to crash because I was starting to doze off. I’m sorry, classical music fans… It’s not that I don’t appreciate the beauty in the music because I do, it’s just that music without words bores me to death after more than a few minutes.

Anyway, my favorite track from this album is So Alive. I do feel more “alive” after listening to this song. Here are my favorite lines from the lyrics:

If this is how I feel
Then nothing now is true
And nothing now can ever be taken away from you
Sinking in the past
The things that shouldn’t last
Just put to bed and stand beside me
Stand beside me

Always on your side
I’m on your side
And so alive it isn’t real

Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, “Cold Roses”

This was literally the only album I listened to for months at a time during 2005 when it came out before the beginning of the summer. A couple of years later I gave this album to a friend to listen to, and he said that he couldn’t really get into it because he found it to be too “plaintive”. I had to look up what that meant because I had never used the word “plaintive” before, which basically means “melancholy”. Although he couldn’t really get into the album, he said he understood why I was into it because at that time he saw me as being conflicted or troubled and the songs on this album express those type of emotions. That’s definitely true about the album, and regarding my state of mind, there may have been some truth to that as well.

Anyway, I think this 18 song album is by far the most mature of the Ryan Adams albums. I’m told that the sound is very much like the Grateful Dead, and I guess it might be though I’m not so familiar with that band and can’t really say for myself. The sound is both gritty and delicate and combined with some beautiful poetry expressing thoughts I would never have known how to articulate myself. When I listen to the lyrics of a Ryan Adams song, I feel like someone has read my mind…

It’s hard for me to choose a favorite track from this album (and it changes), but at this moment I would choose Sweet Illusions. Here are my favorite part of the lyrics:

You never knew me but I did my best
I’m just lonely inside I guess
You gave me everything you really tried
Thanks….

If we were nothing and we’re only the past
Then I’m just living in a dream I guess
A long black dream that takes me down the river to you

Where it’s almost over
And we’re almost gone

And I can feel the Sweet Illusion coming
Sweet Confusion, honey
Sweet Illusion coming down

And I ain’t got nothing but love for you now

Kathleen Edwards, “Asking for Flowers”

What I like about Kathleen Edwards is that there is an “upfront” attitude with the way she expresses things in her songs. In many of the songs on this particular album, for instance, she’s pointing out things things that aren’t quite right (like not getting the right fulfillment out of a relationship or even observing things wrong with society society) and then saying something like “hey, this is dumb, we need to fix this”. There’s this emotional rawness in her directness sometimes like in this one track called “Sure As Shit” where she says “I sure as shit do love you / And I cuss because I mean it / And for that in my heart I am hopeful / And these words that I chose / I was so careful”...

My favorite track from the album is I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory. I’ve gotten complaints as I’ve been told that this seems to be the only song that’s ever playing in my car. This is in fact by far the song I’ve played the most times on my iPod since I’ve had it… I think it’s all the pedal steel that makes the song so catchy. I love the steel guitar, and if I could ever learn to play just one instrument it would be the pedal steel guitar… Anyway, here are some of the lyrics:

If I write down these memories
that I have saved away
Photographs of the years that have passed
inside my little brain

You’re cool and cred like Fogerty
I’m Elvis Presley in the 70’s
You’re Chateauneuf, I’m Yellow Label
You’re the buffet, I’m just the table
I’m a Ford Tempo, you’re a Maserati
You’re The Great One, I’m Marty McSorley
You’re the Concorde, I’m economy
I make the dough, but you get the glory

The Be Good Tanyas, “Blue Horse”

This was in the fall of 2001. I was a subscriber to the Erin McKeown fan newsletter, and I had read that she’d be opening for this band called The Be Good Tanyas for some shows she was doing in Canada. Since I liked Erin I thought I might like them too, so I looked for their CD in Borders and bought it one Friday night.

I was going through something emotional at the time and felt like I needed to get away. I woke up the next day at 5 AM Saturday morning and impulsively started driving up the coast along the Pacific Coast Highway, taking this CD along with me to listen to on the way. This was December 1, 2001. I though maybe I’d go to San Francisco where I’d never been up to at that time. . Well, ultimately I didn’t even make it as far as Monterey. I was tired after 5 hours of driving, and moreover I was confused and didn’t understand what I was doing. I got as far as Big Sur, this place on the central California coast where there are tall trees, windy roads, steep cliffs, small waterfalls, and fog. I just stopped alongside the road and listened, and I never wanted to leave. I felt like at that moment I belonged there, even if it was for just that moment. I often think of this imagery when I listen to The Be Good Tanyas, particularly when I hear the song “The Littlest Birds” with the lyrics, “You pass through places / And places pass through you / But you carry ‘em with you / On the souls of your travellin’ shoes”.

Several months later I was listened to this album while driving late at night on the freeway in LA somewhere with my thoughts wandering, and there was a moment where I was thinking that I finally understood entirely what was meant by the lyrics in the song “Only in the Past”, where they sing, “Run away to the seashore it doesn’t matter anymore / Doesn’t matter anymore / Words dry up and fly away with the passing of the days / Eventually you just let the stone fall ”. It’s about letting dreams and memories die and conceding defeat to the past. I was just thinking while listening to it that it’s too bad that nothing lasts. I can’t remember feeling so disconnected from life and from the world as I did around that time. All I could do was see the end of everything, and the end was never good. Happiness and sadness both seemed fake. If everything ended, it was hard to see the point of existence, and the only thing that seemed real was nothing… Hmmm… This song is supposed to be about moving on from a relationship and accepting that it’s time to move on, and it’s actually pleasant to listen to. Yet, for some reason it inspired me to think of all this other stuff that was swirling around in my mind at the time…

There are so many awesome tracks on this album that I find special meaning in, but if I have to choose a favorite one it’s Light Enough To Travel. It’s about not fitting in but not letting that get to you, or at least that’s what it’s about to me. Here are some of the lyrics:

Promise me we won’t go into the nightclub
I feel so fucked up when I’m in there
Can’t tell the bouncers from the customers
And I don’t know which ones I prefer

Promise me we won’t go into the nightclub
I really think that it’s obscene
What kind of people go to meet people
Someplace they can’t be heard or seen

Pete Yorn, “Music For The Morning After”

This is another one of the albums that featured prominently on the soundtrack of my life in the summer of 2001. Many of my favorite albums I first listened to around this time, and I think most people’s favorite music comes from particularly significant times in their lives. During approximately this period, plus or minus a year, I was in my early 20’s and experienced the most dramatic changes of my life so far, like being newly independent after finishing school and living in the city, the ups and downs of relationship drama, being totally in control of my own life for the first time and the opportunities and indecision that go along with that. Pete Yorn doesn’t really have the most brilliant songwriting, but I think he does an effective job of capturing that kind of restlessness people (at least I speak for myself) experience at that age.

My favorite track on the album is Life On A Chain. This is to this day one of the songs I listen to most often, and yet I’m still not 100% sure what it was intended to mean. To me, it’s about trying to move on but not being sure how to. Here are some of the lyrics:

Time alone is good, I spend my days in the city,
Dirty neighborhood, you know you’ll never convince me,
So I sold the town away, I couldn’t wait to forget you,
I was killed in half a day, I hadn’t time to regret you,
And I was waiting over here for life to begin,
I was looking for the new thing
And you were the sunshine heading my front line,
I was alone, you were just around the corner from me.