23: Still Alive
I should say a bit about the process of these compilations. I don't just sit down on July 3rd and make a list - although back before iTunes and reliable internet, I did something like that. (I also had to insert each CD one at a time to burn a song off it onto a blank, and the songs burned in real time, and I had to add up the track times by hand. Thank goodness technology marches on.) But since iTunes has been around, what I do is open a blank playlist immediately after my birthday and let it sit there all year while I occasionally drop songs into it that have struck my fancy for whatever reason. Then I can sit down the week before the 4th with a long list of songs in chronological order and edit them as I please.
Often there are one or two gimmicky songs that I've predetermined are going to be on the list, usually at the beginning or end or both. The three years that the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out, I knew I would put the end credits song at the end of each CD. I've had brief openers like "Foreword" and "One Year Later" just for the sake of puns. This year I decided that the list would be bracketed by the Portal games, since I played Portal soon after last July and Portal 2 just a month ago or so. I also thought that my list was edging towards the depressing, though I hadn't looked at it yet, and that two Jonathan Coulton songs would provide some much-needed levity.
Long story short, they are funny, but they are also intensely passive-aggressive and a little bit melancholy, and unfortunately those things are more relevant to my year than the humor. This is the first year ever since I began this project that I have looked at my list of potential songs and found them to be so overwhelmingly bleak and negative that I have had to go back and do an attitude overhaul. If the negativity had been due to any individual event, I would have left it, but looking back I realized that a lot of it was just there to perpetuate my own failing self-esteem and affirm my self-pity, and that's just bullshit and I didn't want to remember this year that way. I didn't erase the fact that this year has been lonely, empty and unpleasant in many ways, but the self-hate had to go.
But life is what it is. Time to open another empty playlist and see what songs next year brings. Hopefully they will be happier than this year!
1. Still Alive - Jonathan Coulton, Ellen McLain; Portal
"This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS."
2. The Device Has Been Modified - Victims of Science (Portal trailer music/dialogue remix)
"I don't hate you." XD
3. Yea Yeah - Matt & Kim
"I found something in a lightning storm..."
4. Around the Bend - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
The only song on this year's list that is only here because it makes me DANCE. "Give me good good times around the bend~"
5. Black Sheep - Metric (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
Okay, this one makes me dance as well. It's sort of angry, but it isn't an anger that is relevant to me - I just loved Scott Pilgrim and I love the catchiness of this song. And it reminds me of the amp battle, and there is NO BETTER USE of a theater's audio system than EXTREME BASS ABUSE. *is looking at you, tripod foghorn sound from War of the Worlds*
6. Maybe, This Time - OK Go
"You've spent your entire life quick-tongued and always right. Hasn't being right just let you down?"
This is anger that is relevant to me and... things. Hello again, passive aggression.
7. Until the Day Is Done - R.E.M.
"The verdict is dire, the country's in ruins. Providence blinked, facing the sun - Where are we left to carry on?"
This is anger that is relevant to me and my last shitty job and general corporate fuckery and America and money and ugh.
8. Can't Let It Go - Goo Goo Dolls
"Half the world is begging while the other half steals. Where did everything go wrong? / Can't we try to win this peace? 'Cause we're never going to win this war."
9. Desperation Song - Carbon Leaf
"Peer out through shadow's doubt - I had no passion all along? You settle down. Where're you running to? What else can you prove? Is this all a game, was this all a ruse? I've waited by the phone, cold as river stone, anxiety, alone..."
10. Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds
This is entirely Futurama's fault. I must be one of the three people in the world who find "Luck of the Fryrish" more crushing than "Jurassic Bark." And no, I don't have any strong mental association between this song and The Breakfast Club or the 80s in general.
11. Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
I associate this medley mostly with the end of the original Life on Mars, so... that's nice? Except for the suicide?
12. Fountain - Sara Lov
"All that anyone ever has for you are the things you reflect back to them."
13. Leaves from the Vine - Avatar: The Last Airbender
ALL THE TEARS.
14. The Sore Feet Song - Ally Kerr
"I'm tired and I'm weak, but I'm strong for you."
This song is the opener for the anime Mushi-Shi, which I can't recommend highly enough; it's profoundly serene and almost unbearably beautiful. I have watched it sparingly, using a new episode now and then to help me calm down, defeat anxieties or simply go to sleep when my mind is racing. I haven't finished the show. The second verse is a bit jarring, as it isn't in the show's opener, but I've warmed to it - "I fought off giant bears and I killed them too" is sung so childishly it makes me smile. The whole song now makes me think of a child making an exaggerated declaration of love and devotion.
15. Hideaway - Karen O & The Kids
"By the way - know you've always been the one. By the way - know they'll never understand."
This is a complicated one for me. It evokes a very specific feeling, but not much in the lyrics reflects what that feeling is about. In a fandom sense, I always relate this song to the Midnighter/Apollo + Jenny Quantum family dynamic ("seat us in the sun"/"gonna take me from my man"/"my baby's gone"), who spend much of their time separated and yet there is a stronger pervasive sense of mutual respect and devotion among that one atypical nuclear family than I can recall from almost any other fictional source.
16. The Call - Regina Spektor
"You'll come back when they call you... no need to say goodbye."
I can't sing this song without crying. I can't listen to this song in the presence of other people. Just. I can't. I don't even. It hurts so much. And this isn't discounting the fact that it was written for the Prince Caspian movie - because of course growing up I always wanted to find a door to Narnia - and then I realized that I had found Narnia, and it was called college, and now it's over.
17. Wash Away - Joe Purdy
"And I had friends, oh, but not today, 'cause they done washed away - they done washed away."
YOU GUYS. I MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH.
18. Everything's Not Lost - Coldplay
"If you ever feel neglected... Don't let it drag you down."
I forced room into the playlist for this and the next piece. I needed some unequivocal hope. I'm sending a message to myself now: it gets better. You aren't allowed to not believe that.
19. Er'cana Harvester - Tim Larkin; Uru: Ages Beyond Myst/Myst Online: URU Live
One of the best things about this year has been discovering that I could play Myst Online: Uru Live, the MMORPG version of Uru and its expansion packs, plus loads of other official & user-generated content. It bums me out to no end that I can't play any of the previous games anymore - they're so outdated - but they used to be a huge source of joy, freedom and aesthetic influence for me. Like Mushi-Shi, MO:UL has been a major source of meditative calm and pleasure for me in an otherwise difficult year.
20. Want You Gone - Jonathan Coulton, Ellen McLain; Portal 2
"You've got your short, sad life ahead - that's what I'm counting on. I'll let you get right to it."
:/
21/22. "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! YEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAW"
:D
Often there are one or two gimmicky songs that I've predetermined are going to be on the list, usually at the beginning or end or both. The three years that the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out, I knew I would put the end credits song at the end of each CD. I've had brief openers like "Foreword" and "One Year Later" just for the sake of puns. This year I decided that the list would be bracketed by the Portal games, since I played Portal soon after last July and Portal 2 just a month ago or so. I also thought that my list was edging towards the depressing, though I hadn't looked at it yet, and that two Jonathan Coulton songs would provide some much-needed levity.
Long story short, they are funny, but they are also intensely passive-aggressive and a little bit melancholy, and unfortunately those things are more relevant to my year than the humor. This is the first year ever since I began this project that I have looked at my list of potential songs and found them to be so overwhelmingly bleak and negative that I have had to go back and do an attitude overhaul. If the negativity had been due to any individual event, I would have left it, but looking back I realized that a lot of it was just there to perpetuate my own failing self-esteem and affirm my self-pity, and that's just bullshit and I didn't want to remember this year that way. I didn't erase the fact that this year has been lonely, empty and unpleasant in many ways, but the self-hate had to go.
But life is what it is. Time to open another empty playlist and see what songs next year brings. Hopefully they will be happier than this year!
1. Still Alive - Jonathan Coulton, Ellen McLain; Portal
"This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS."
Click to view2. The Device Has Been Modified - Victims of Science (Portal trailer music/dialogue remix)
"I don't hate you." XD
3. Yea Yeah - Matt & Kim
"I found something in a lightning storm..."
4. Around the Bend - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
The only song on this year's list that is only here because it makes me DANCE. "Give me good good times around the bend~"
5. Black Sheep - Metric (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World)
Okay, this one makes me dance as well. It's sort of angry, but it isn't an anger that is relevant to me - I just loved Scott Pilgrim and I love the catchiness of this song. And it reminds me of the amp battle, and there is NO BETTER USE of a theater's audio system than EXTREME BASS ABUSE. *is looking at you, tripod foghorn sound from War of the Worlds*
6. Maybe, This Time - OK Go
"You've spent your entire life quick-tongued and always right. Hasn't being right just let you down?"
This is anger that is relevant to me and... things. Hello again, passive aggression.
7. Until the Day Is Done - R.E.M.
"The verdict is dire, the country's in ruins. Providence blinked, facing the sun - Where are we left to carry on?"
This is anger that is relevant to me and my last shitty job and general corporate fuckery and America and money and ugh.
8. Can't Let It Go - Goo Goo Dolls
"Half the world is begging while the other half steals. Where did everything go wrong? / Can't we try to win this peace? 'Cause we're never going to win this war."
9. Desperation Song - Carbon Leaf
"Peer out through shadow's doubt - I had no passion all along? You settle down. Where're you running to? What else can you prove? Is this all a game, was this all a ruse? I've waited by the phone, cold as river stone, anxiety, alone..."
10. Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds
This is entirely Futurama's fault. I must be one of the three people in the world who find "Luck of the Fryrish" more crushing than "Jurassic Bark." And no, I don't have any strong mental association between this song and The Breakfast Club or the 80s in general.
11. Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
I associate this medley mostly with the end of the original Life on Mars, so... that's nice? Except for the suicide?
12. Fountain - Sara Lov
"All that anyone ever has for you are the things you reflect back to them."
13. Leaves from the Vine - Avatar: The Last Airbender
ALL THE TEARS.
14. The Sore Feet Song - Ally Kerr
"I'm tired and I'm weak, but I'm strong for you."
This song is the opener for the anime Mushi-Shi, which I can't recommend highly enough; it's profoundly serene and almost unbearably beautiful. I have watched it sparingly, using a new episode now and then to help me calm down, defeat anxieties or simply go to sleep when my mind is racing. I haven't finished the show. The second verse is a bit jarring, as it isn't in the show's opener, but I've warmed to it - "I fought off giant bears and I killed them too" is sung so childishly it makes me smile. The whole song now makes me think of a child making an exaggerated declaration of love and devotion.
15. Hideaway - Karen O & The Kids
"By the way - know you've always been the one. By the way - know they'll never understand."
This is a complicated one for me. It evokes a very specific feeling, but not much in the lyrics reflects what that feeling is about. In a fandom sense, I always relate this song to the Midnighter/Apollo + Jenny Quantum family dynamic ("seat us in the sun"/"gonna take me from my man"/"my baby's gone"), who spend much of their time separated and yet there is a stronger pervasive sense of mutual respect and devotion among that one atypical nuclear family than I can recall from almost any other fictional source.
16. The Call - Regina Spektor
"You'll come back when they call you... no need to say goodbye."
I can't sing this song without crying. I can't listen to this song in the presence of other people. Just. I can't. I don't even. It hurts so much. And this isn't discounting the fact that it was written for the Prince Caspian movie - because of course growing up I always wanted to find a door to Narnia - and then I realized that I had found Narnia, and it was called college, and now it's over.
17. Wash Away - Joe Purdy
"And I had friends, oh, but not today, 'cause they done washed away - they done washed away."
YOU GUYS. I MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH.
18. Everything's Not Lost - Coldplay
"If you ever feel neglected... Don't let it drag you down."
I forced room into the playlist for this and the next piece. I needed some unequivocal hope. I'm sending a message to myself now: it gets better. You aren't allowed to not believe that.
19. Er'cana Harvester - Tim Larkin; Uru: Ages Beyond Myst/Myst Online: URU Live
One of the best things about this year has been discovering that I could play Myst Online: Uru Live, the MMORPG version of Uru and its expansion packs, plus loads of other official & user-generated content. It bums me out to no end that I can't play any of the previous games anymore - they're so outdated - but they used to be a huge source of joy, freedom and aesthetic influence for me. Like Mushi-Shi, MO:UL has been a major source of meditative calm and pleasure for me in an otherwise difficult year.
20. Want You Gone - Jonathan Coulton, Ellen McLain; Portal 2
"You've got your short, sad life ahead - that's what I'm counting on. I'll let you get right to it."
:/
21/22. "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! YEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAW"
:D