You Probably Think This Song Is About You....

The other morning I was listening to something on the radio, and "American Girl" came on.  I sang along like I always do to Tom Petty, and I thought, "Yeah.  That song is mostly me."  That started me thinking about other songs that sort of "define" me or that I identify with strongly.  I don't mean songs that I love or that are my favorites.  That list would look very different, although I suppose one or two of these might make that list, too.  I pulled songs that have people in them with issues that feel like me.  Here then is a list of ten songs that can be said to define me in some way.  I suppose none of them can be said to be the whole picture, nor are all of them together the picture complete.  Call them facets of a prism, then, throwing colors on the wall.

1)      “American Girl” - Tom Petty

·     I am frightfully close to being that girl in that song.  Like her, I can’t help thinking “that there is a little more to life somewhere else” because “After all it [is] a great big world/ With lots of places to run to.”  I like to go see this world.  Often.  As much as I can, in fact.  Like the girl in the song, too, I wind up with certain people on my mind, no matter where I may roam.

2)      “Let Me Die in My Footsteps” - Bob Dylan

·      The whole song, really.  It has that Transcendentalist and Carpe Diem philosophy of seizing the moment and making a difference, of not coming to the end of your life only to find that you’ve had no life at all.  Let death take me in action, not waiting around for it.  I want always to be one of the ones who is “learning to live,” not the ones who is only “learning to die.”

3)      “Fly Away” - Lenny Kravitz

·      “I want to get away/I want to fly away/Yeah, yeah, yeah….”  Yeah.  All the time.  Yeah.  At the end of long bad days, more than usual.  Some days, this is my own personal national anthem.

4)      “Ecstasy” - Crooked Still

·    “Oh had I wings I would fly away and be at rest/ and I’d praise God in his bright abode…”  I wish for wings, renewal, and escape more often than any other thing, I suppose.  This song touches the church music of my childhood, the old hymns I was raised with.  There are several things about this one that are foundational.

5)      “Stay Away” - Chris Thile

·    “Cause she don’t care at all anymore/And I don’t know why I still do/ and why I’m telling you/ Cause you are the devil / And you can stay away from me…”  Every line of this song.  Switch the gender and you have every relationship and every piece of a relationship I’ve ever had.  Every time. 

6)      “Meheni Rachi” - Laura Marling version

·     “And I am from a country land, where beauty only grows/ You know I’d love to leave someday, I dare not ever go”, “I don’t need anybody / But I want someone”, “Perhaps I’ll be a bird one day, if I’m good enough / And I’ll get up and fly away and give up all this stuff.”  This song, too, is about expectations and not being able to live up to them, about needing a different path and longing for wings.  In a way, I guess it summarizes some of the others.  It’s just lovely. 

7)      “I’m Not That Girl” (Elphaba’s Version) - Wicked

·    “Don’t wish, don’t start/ Wishing only wounds the heart/ I wasn’t born for the rose and the pearl…”  I heard this song the first time when I went to see the musical with my friend, and it was as if somebody put my entire life to music, painful and true.

8)      “Dark Turn of Mind” - Gillian Welch

·     "You know that some girls are bright as the morning/ And some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind.”  This song describes what it’s like to be less than “sunny” pretty accurately.  It also covers that it’s not always a bad place to be.  From the first time I heard it, I knew it was me.

9)      “I’m a Woman” - Koko Taylor

·    “That means I’m grown/I’m a woman, I’m a rushing wind/I’m a woman, I can cut stone with a pin/ I’m a woman, I’m a love maker/ I’m a woman, you know I’m an earth shaker.”  Booyah.  Enough said.  Tread carefully.    

10)   “Ruby Tuesday” - Rolling Stones

·     “Don’t question why she needs to be so free/She’ll tell you it’s the only way to be/ She just can’t be chained / To a life where nothing’s gained/ And nothing’s lost/ At such a cost.”  And there’s more.  The whole next stanza, for example.  I don’t care if Richards originally wrote it for a temporary groupie who wouldn’t stay or a long-term girlfriend he couldn’t keep.  The lyrics fit me in the here-and-now.