Top Ten Songs Now Keeping Me Awake (Revised w/videos!)

NOTE: If you checked this post out earlier, go ahead and scroll down. I added a couple of videos (Death Cab... and Brooks and Dunn) for my grandmother (The Great One). I figured she had to be wondering "Death Cab for Cutie? What the heck is that?" Well, here you go grandma. I hope you, or whoever listens, enjoys.

Have you ever read so much of something that you reach a point where you just don't want to read any more of that particular subject?

I have. Methodist Episcopal Church history. Didn't know anything about Francis Asbury two weeks ago... now I do. Am I a richer, more well-rounded man for it?

I don't know, but I'm so tired of the man that the only thing keeping me awake is my latest playlist. Remember, the idea is to rotate in music that can serve as background tunes while I study. They are also, probably on some unconscious level, a good indicator as to where my head is at right now.

Make sense? Probably not. Whaddya want... this blog is free.

Here are the Top Ten songs in heavy rotation right now:

1) Can't Find My Way Home - Blind Faith
Have always loved this song. Just re-discovered it. It is music for my homesick soul.

2) I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab For Cutie
"Catholic School, is vicious as Roman rule. I got my knuckles bruised, by a lady in black. I held my tounge, as she told me son, fear is the heart of love, so I never went back." A love song where a man can't imagine the heaven described to him by the church could be any better than the love he shares with his true love. Beautiful and sad, all at the same time.




3) The Bird - Morris Day and The Time
Have been so into Morris Day and The Time that I emailed the people who organize "Square Fair" at home, and suggested them as an act. Hey, it can't be any worse than Loverboy last year... seeing Mike Reno now makes it hard to believe that at one time "I Heart Mike Reno" used to grace bathroom walls and school notebooks across the country. Now he looks like my long lost brother.

4) Peace of Mind - Boston
Once again, I am betraying my questionable taste in music. Seems like every music critic and darling of the creative music scene hates Boston, but I listen to them and I'm transported back to Jack Reeves' family room, Charleston, West Virginia circa 1975. Besides, critics can't play... that's why they're critics. Thom Schultz and his Rockman, forever!

5) Believe - Brooks and Dunn
There were lots of "Old Man Wrigleys" in my life as a child. The Hartleys (who lost his leg in WWII), The Carneys (he made his own moonshine and like to shoot snakes in the middle of the night when he was liquored up... mom used to use his moonshine to unclog our pipes), Old Man Winter (a sweet man who liked to sit with a three-year old boy on the front porch, watching the world pass by), The Greenlees (great the best strawberries), Joe and Weezie Myers (I don't know how they loved us so much, but they did), and The Kelley's (homemade peach ice cream for all of us kids in the summer). Their faith has become my own.




6) Ramblin Man - The Allman Brothers Band
Beats me. Guess I feel like a Ramblin Man.

7) Rockin' the Paradise - Styx
Yeah.. I can hear my friends in the post-punk band Ho-Ag right now, ridiculing me mercilessly.... Hey, punks! You never even listened to Devo growing up. It was all Mojo Nixon, Faith No More, Frank Black, and before anyone liked them, Nirvana. Now you dress up like Devo on Halloween and everyone says they're a primary influence. I know the truth, you New Wave poseurs. Back in the day, I couldn't pay you enough money to listen to Devo. The Moog synthesizer and theramin is all the weird MST2K and Ed Wood flicks you guys used to watch on TV. I know the truth!!! I need a signed copy of "The Word From Pluto", or I tell your adoring indie punk fans that you grew up playing in a church. Consider yourself warned!

Stop by and say hi if you're home for Christmas!

8) Ghostrider -Rush
There's nothing left if there's nothing left, Ghostrider

9) Do You Feel Like We Do - Peter Frampton
If you were a member at Elkland Pool in Charleston, West Virginia the summer of the year this album came out, you would remember that the lifeguards played it about a million times. Sun, a diving board, and a day playing "shark" with friends... that's when I think of when I hear this song. I can still smell the hot dogs at the concession stand.

10) Kyrie - Mr. Mister
One of the first sermon series I ever did at "The Peak" was "All I Needed To Know I Learned In The 80's". This was one of the songs we did, and as I remember it, it sounded fantastic. May God have mercy on us on all the roads that we must travel.