Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
We’ve come to 2012 – the year I turned 42. Once again, as I look over the list, many of these songs took on personal meaning after 2012. I was probably programming the Classic Rock station and beginning the sleep program in college in 2012. So let’s look at my ten picks.
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When I worked in radio, I had to watch American Idol to be able to talk about it on the air the next day. I truly loved Kelly Clarkson. I was glad that she won in the inaugural year of the show. She has also proven herself to those who thought she’d be here one day and gone the next.
What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger) appeared on Kelly’s fifth album and went to number one on the charts. Would you believe it was inspired by one of the great philosophers? The song was inspired by a quotation from German philospher, Friedrich Nietzsche who said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
Kelly told the folks at MTV why they chose Stronger as the name of the album:
“There were a few different titles that were going around and I think the reason why we came up with Stronger was just because every song was about empowerment and almost like overcoming stuff,” she explained. “So, even if it was a bad situation and a sad song, it was about overcoming that. So by the end of the song, it’s kind of more inspiration than sad. So I think that’s why [we named it that], and I think after 10 years of doing it you feel a little stronger personally and musically. People know you better. It’s just easier, I think.”
For me, the song took on new meaning while going through my divorce. Believe me, there were times during it that I was so frustrated. The yelling, the fighting and all of that was just awful. But, I came through it. It didn’t kill me, but it certainly made me stronger.
What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)
Next is a song from another American Idol winner, Phillip Phillips. Honestly, I had no idea until I starting researching this post that he was from American Idol. After the first couple years, it got old to me and I stopped watching.Songfacts.com says:
Phillips was so ill with kidney problems during his Idol run, he had to be hooked up to IVs before going onstage and wear extra makeup to disguise his sickly pallor. Because he was so focused on his health, he never really knew what was going on with the show and didn’t expect to win in the final moment – which led to some confusion when his name was announced.
I was familiar with this song because I played it on the Adult Contemporary station. I liked the guitar work in it and thought it sounded a bit like Mumford and Sons.
Home
Entertainment relationships cannot be easy. It is almost rare to see one that lasts more than a couple years. Some of the break ups, though, have led to many a hit song (just ask Taylor Swift!). This song is said to be directed at Katy Perry’s ex, Russell Brand.
It is the lyric that hit me, once again, after the divorce.
“I’m wide awake, not losing any sleep/ I picked up every piece, and landed on my feet,”
Wide Awake was written for her movie, Part of Me. She says, “I was doing this movie and they asked me if I wanted to write an end-title song for the movie, and I was like, ‘I know exactly what I want to say.’ I was really kind of dying to write another song at that point. I didn’t want to wait until I did a whole new record, and it’s kind of the perfect last word of me at this moment.”
Wide Awake
The next song is on my list because of job dissatisfaction. It is Icona Pop’s I Love It.
There were a few of us who were kind of miffed that we weren’t getting things we needed to do our job. A co-worker said, “Well, they obviously don’t care.” He began to sing the line, “I don’t care … I love it” whenever something went wrong.
No supplies? “I don’t care …” Computer keeps crashing? “I don’t care…..” Someone asked what you thought of the situation? “I don’t care…..” Yeah, it was not a very positive vibe around that time.
Whenever I hear the chorus of this song, I think of my former coworker ad chuckle a bit.
I Love It
Owl City is really Adam Young. He did this as a duet with Carly Rae Jepson. Asked about the song, he said,
“I feel like every artist is inherently granted one shot to sing about having a good time in his or her life, and six months ago, I realized I hadn’t cashed in my chips yet. So I thought, ‘I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna give this a shot… and get my friend Carly to sing on it’. The final product rarely exceeds your expectations, and this thing just kind of happened.”
Did he like working with Jepson? He says,
“I feel like every artist is inherently granted one shot to sing about having a good time in his or her life, and six months ago, I realized I hadn’t cashed in my chips yet. So I thought, ‘I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna give this a shot… and get my friend Carly to sing on it’. The final product rarely exceeds your expectations, and this thing just kind of happened.”
Who doesn’t love having a good time? This was a pretty big song at proms I did in 2012.
Good Time
One of the things about seeing a band live is the amount of audience participation. Some artists throw the microphone toward the audience so they can sing the next line. Sometimes there’s a question and answer chant between artist and audience. It’s gotta be cool for the artists to hear his or her song being sung by thousands.
The Ho’s and the Hey’s in The Lumineers song, Ho Hey, were not meant to be on the song. Yes, if the song was performed live, they had intended it to be something the audience would shout during the song. They decided after working on the song that they needed to be in the studio version.
Songfacts says,
The repetitive melodies and familiar section structure are kept interesting by the song’s sonic progressions that perfectly match the emotional developments in the song’s story. In the second verse, the lyrics move away from the dejection of the previous verse’s lyrics and take on a tone of hope and resolve. Fittingly, the melody is invigorated by a surprising octave jump and a more gravely, assured vocal performance. Also, a kick drum is introduced and synchronized with the “ho” and “hey,” which acts as a sort of exclamation point, encouraging the sing-along nature of the track.
I loved that the song sounded folky and stood out on the radio.
Ho Hey
In my years of DJing, I have seen dances come and go. In most cases, the dances are all the same with a different steps. One of the most annoying dances ever was Gangnam Style by Psy. The only reason it is here is because of the many times I had to play it at DJ gigs.
The lyrics are all in Korean except for the line, “hey… sexy lady.” It’s about a guy flossing his fashionable “Gangnam style,” and the sexy girl he’s after.
Here are a few of the lines translated to English:
I’m a guy who has bulging ideas rather than muscles
That kind of guy
Beautiful, lovable
A girl who covers herself but is more sexy than a girl who bares it all
A sensible girl like that
Yeah, the English doesn’t make it better.
Gangnam Style
Passenger is really a guy named Mike Rosenberg. He wrote Let Her Go. He told VH1,
“It didn’t take long to write, at all. Under an hour, I think. When I wrote it, I definitely felt like it had something… I never had a song on the radio, I didn’t believe I could have a song on the radio, because generally, folk music doesn’t get on commercial radio, it just doesn’t. I kinda thought that that kind of success was for other people, people who really tried to get that kind of success, because I never have.”
The song itself stands out not only for its sound, but the way it is laid out. It’s almost odd. Songfacts explains:
Structurally, this is a very unusual song. Based on acoustic guitar and strings, it has a 25-second intro before going directly into the first chorus (“Only need the light when it’s burning low…”). On the line “And you let her go,” the song picks up, introducing drums and going into an instrumental break before finally hitting the first verse at 1:03.
Beginning with the chorus is the equivalent of a movie that is shown out-of-sequence (like Pulp Fiction) – we know the big scene, but don’t know what led up to it. Passenger tells us the conclusion up front, then explains what he went through – the anguish he endured before he could just let her go.
The chorus comes back three more times, including at the end of the song where it repeats twice, ending with the voice isolated on the last lines to accentuate the conclusion: “You let her go.”
It is probably that strange lay out that makes me like the song. That and it is about finally letting go of someone.
Let Her Go
IF you want proof that real life inspires hits, listen to ANY Taylor Swift song. As a matter of fact, here is the story of how she came to write We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.
Songfacts says,
The empowering kiss-off to an ex was inspired by an incident when during a session in the studio with Max Martin and Johan Shellback, a friend of the singer’s former boyfriend happened to walk in. Swift told ABC News’ Nightline: “[My friend] starts talking about how he’s heard [my ex and I] were getting back together and that was not the case. When he leaves, Max and Johan are like, ‘So what’s the story behind that?’ And so I start telling them the story of ‘break up, get back together, break up, get back together,’ just, ugh, the worst.”
“Max says, ‘This is what we’re writing; we’re writing this song,'” continued Swift. “And I picked up the guitar and just started singing ‘we are never.’ It just happened so fast. It was so much fun.”
After the songs she has written about her many exes, I’m surprised anyone would want to date her.
We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
The last song on the list is about never quitting. If you have dreams, you gotta keep going, keep trying. Pink’s lyrics state,
“Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame, Where there is a flame someone’s bound to be get burned. But just because it burns doesn’t mean you’re gonna die. You gotta get up and try.”
I think many can relate to this. Pick yourself up and get back in the race.
Pink has claimed this is her favorite video. She does some pretty risque dancing. As a matter of fact, she showed it to her mom and posted her reaction on her Twitter page. Pink says,
“My mom, after seeing the new video… ‘Wow, honey. I’m speechless. And uncomfortable. No one can ever say you play it safe.'”
Try
So that wraps up 2012. Did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me in the comments.
Next week we head into 2013. The list from that year looks like a playlist from the Adult Contemporary station and a high school dance combined. It’s actually a good year for good tunes. I hope you’ll come back next week and check it out.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 