dominanefret

At the beginning of every creative writing class my professor poses a question of the day that the entire class must answer in turn.
These questions can range anywhere from "What is your favourite desert?" to "What is your most embarrassing guilty pleasure tv show?" (Mango with Sticky Rice and Hannah Montana.)

This past Thursday the question of the day posed was "What band or musician, when you listen to theirmusic, do you think 'wow, that is so me.'?"

I really liked this question, because it wasn't "what is your favourite band?" That answer would be different. And the answers people gave were really interesting. Every time someone gave their answer there was a chorus of "yeah! I see that! Totally!"

The exercise made me think of the meme that was going around a few years ago, the one where you were supposed to create a sound track for your life. I'm pretty sure I have actually posted that meme on this journal several times over the years. When I think back on the songs I listed all that time ago I can say that a. very few of them would be the same at this point in my life, and b. I now can see that while I was filling it out I was not using songs that embodied me, but songs that either reminded me of a certain situation, fit a certain situation, or I wanted to fit a certain situation. It wasn't realistic.

I do think though that it is easier to list specific songs that I feel embody me in some way than bands. This is not meant to be a "life story in music". I guess it is more of a thesaurus or wikipedia entry? Open to interpretation. There are stories behind some of these now, but with pretty much all of them I assigned the story to the song after the fact. The songs came first. I identify with all of them.

Ben Folds Five - Mess
"i don't believe in love
and i can't be changed
all alone as i've learned to be
in this mess
i have made the same mistakes
over and over again"

Counting Crows - Einstein on the Beach
"Albert's always sincere, he's a sensitive type
His intentions are clear, he wanna be well-liked
If everything is nothing, then are we anything?
Is it better to be better than to be anything?"

Nine Days - Absolutely (Story of a Girl)
"This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And while she looks so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her
When she smiles."

Great Big Sea - Ordinary Day
"Janey sings on the corner, what keeps her from dying
Let them say what they want, she won't stop trying
She might stumble, if they push her 'round
She might fall, but she'll never lie down, it's not so bad."

Carbon Leaf - Nowadays
"So in love with the notion, of being in love."

KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See
"Her face is a map of the world
Is a map of the world
You can see she's a beautiful girl
She's a beautiful girl
And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm."

Damien Rice - Volcano
"don't throw yourself like that in front of me
i kissed your mouth your back is that all you need?
don't drag my love around volcanoes melt me down
what i am to you is not real
what i am to you you do not need
what i am to you is not what you mean to me
you give me miles and miles of mountains
and i'll ask for the sea."

Remy Zero - Perfect Memory
" remember how they tried to hold you down
and we climbed those towers
and looked down upon our town
and everything we hoped would last
it just always just becomes the past (it hurts)"

Train - Meet Virginia
"She only drinks coffee at midnight
When the moment is not right
Her timing is quite, unusual
You see her confidence is tragic, but her
Intuition magic And the shape of her body?
Unusual."
"And she wants to be the queen,
and she thinks about her scene,
pulls her hair back as she screams
'I don't really wanna be the queen.'"

Matchbox Twenty - 3am
"Shes got a little bit of something, God its better than nothing
And in her color portrait world she believes that shes got it all.
She swears the moon don't hang as quite as high as it used to
And she only sleep when its raining
And she screams and her voice is strained."

Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
"I am everything you want,
I am everything you need,
I am everything in side of you
that you wish you could be,
I say all the right things,
at exactly the right times,
but I mean nothing to you,
and I don't know why."

Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet
"All I did was miss you,
and the way it used to be,
all I did was keep the beat,
in bad company.
All I did was kiss you,
through the bars of Orion.
Juliet I'd do the stars with you anytime."

There are more, but I can't think of them now. I am exhausted. It has been a long day. Week. Month.

So, tell me. What are songs that embody who you are? Your essence? Good, bad, and not even sure.
Give me quotes! I'd like to know what music you don't necessarily "like" but definitely identify with.