The Music of My Life – 2012

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,

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.

The Music of My Life – 2010

We are in the home stretch, as they say. We’re closing in on 2025 and admittedly, the newer music is not as well known to me. Once I was forced into retirement from radio and mobile DJing in 2020, I lost touch with almost all new stuff. I am guessing as we get closer to the end, I may need to double up on years and maybe feature 5 from some of them instead of 10.

I was introduced to Colby Caillat when I worked at the Adult Contemporary station. There was something about her voice that really stood out to me. I Never Told You is a song that I like not because of the lyrical content, but because of her voice.

As I heard this the first time, there was just something that sounded “real.” It was like there was real hurt and real struggle to it. It was only later that I found out why. She told songfacts.com in an interview that it was “the most difficult song she ever wrote. “‘I Never Told You’ was a long work in progress, said the Malibu-based singer-songwriter. “I started it by myself when I was on tour in Germany. Then two years later I played it for Jason Reeves and Kara DioGuardi when we were writing together in Hawaii for my album ‘Breakthrough’, and they helped me finish writing it that week. It’s now one of my favorite songs!”

I Never Told You

They say you are your own worst critic. When I listen back to my old radio shows, I think of how things could have been edited or worked with a better punch line. I’m fine when it is me telling myself what to do. Sometimes, however, there are people who think they know it all. They offer you this “sage” advice that isn’t worth squat.

That kind of situation led to my next song. I love the angst that you hear in the lyrics and voice of Sara Bareilles on King of Anything. She told Billboard magazine:

“It was the last song I wrote before we went into the studio, and I was at the point where I started sharing the music with my inner circle and started getting feedback. I remember having a very vivid realization of, ‘Oh, I forgot that this was a part of it. Everybody gets to tell you what they think about what you do.’ I could tell I was getting defensive. That song was a little bit of a pep-talk song-and that’s exactly what ‘Love Song’ was.”

She went on to tell PopEater:

“I’ve had more unsolicited advice on my life than I care to mention, and this was how I dealt with it. It felt empowering to turn that frustration into music, especially a song that doesn’t even sound angry. Apparently, I don’t get over things very quickly.”

She says that it is sort of an “F You” song. What do you think?

King of Anything

Adam Levine said that “‘Misery’ is about the desperation of wanting someone really badly in your life but having it be very difficult. Kind of what all the songs I write are about. I’m not treading on new ground, but I think a lot of people – including myself – deal with that all the time. Relationships are difficult, and it’s good therapy to write about them.”

I had never seen the video before choosing this one for my list. It’s loaded with some steamy scenes. Levine told MTV News about the Joseph Kahn-directed video.

“The cool thing is, when Joseph wrote the treatment after reading a few sentences, I thought it was really amazing,” he said. “Because it kind of turns the whole idea of the sexual energy between two people – a guy and a girl, a music video, you’ve seen that a million times – that exists in this video, but it’s turning it on its ass and having the girl be the more domineering one who’s trying to kill me.”

The song was one that really just stood out when it played on the radio.

Misery

I was still working at the Adult Contemporary station when I was going through my divorce. After it was finalized and Sam and I started to feel like there was something between us, I heard this song. The lyrics really struck a chord. I really did feel like a teenager again.

Katy Perry says that, “‘Teenage Dream’ is a euphoric feeling. It gives off this feeling that a lot of people have been through. I remember my teenage years, and I remember falling in love for the first time and how impressionable that was. How sensitive I was to every feeling. Heartbreak was really hard. Of course heartbreak is really hard now, and love is still intense, but it’s a different type of feeling, that teenage love. I want people to have that feeling again of falling in love unabashedly – those teenage dreams.”

This new love was unexpected, but made me feel giddy inside. It still feels that way.

Teenage Dream

In this world, we tend to beat ourselves up. We pick on ourselves. When we feel like doing that, we ought to remember what Mr. Rogers taught us. He would say, “I like you just the way you are. You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you.” That’s great advice for children and adults. That’s also why I picked the next song.

Bruno Mars conveys that Mr. Rogers message to his lady – “You’re amazing just the way you are!”

Bruno said, “I’m a big fan of simple songs. When we wrote Just The Way You Are, I wasn’t thinking of anything deep or poetic. I was telling a story. Get ready to fall in love!”

Sometimes the simple messages hit just right. The song went to #1 for Bruno.

Just The Way You Are

The Bruno Mars song was written with Cee Lo Green in mind. Cee Lo didn’t feel it was right for him, but he did feel like Forget You was.

Before I go on, I should state that Forget You is like the “Edited for Television” movies. If you replace “forget” with another F word, you’ll see what I mean. When I first hear this, I had no idea that is what the song was really called. The music service I used when DJing sent over the “radio edit” which had edited out the “s*#t” from “ain’t that some s*#t.” In the unedited version, Cee-Lo drops 16 f-bombs in just 3 1/2 minutes.

The song features Cee Lo’s Elektra labelmate Bruno Mars. It originated during a session in L.A. with Mars and Phil Lawrence.. The pair played to Cee-Lo a rough demo of a song they weren’t sure was worth completing. “When Bruno first sung ‘F—- You’ to me, they were still a bit indecisive on whether or not it could work at all,” Green told Entertainment Weekly. “I was like, ‘I like it. Let’s record it.'” The trio then completed the song with Cee Lo contributing many of the verse lyrics.

I loved the feel of this song and I was hooked from the line, “I guess he’s an X-Box and I’m more Atari!”

Forget You

A lot of folks dissed Michael Buble’ when he first came out. He was doing covers of old standards from crooners from the 40’s and 50’s. I guess they figured, anyone could do that, but Buble’ wrote some great original stuff. When his original stuff gained popularity, those folks shut up.

He has proven his talent and his fans love him. I love the arrangements he has come up with for his covers and his original stuff stands out, too. The guy is more than just covers and Christmas music.

Hollywood is not only a great song, but a great video. Michael likes to have fun and it shows here. His personality really shows through here I think. The video parodies several celebrities, including Canadian teen idol Justin Bieber. Speaking of the clip, Bublé told The Sun: “The video is about celebrity culture, people’s dreams about fame and what can go with it. You can see what fun I had playing the characters.”

Again, the song was different, fun and stuck out when it played on the radio, which is why I love it.

Hollywood

Christina Perri’s voice is very unique. It is almost as though it changes with each of her songs. For Jar of Hearts, I almost felt that it was deeper and darker than her other songs, if that even makes sense. I truly am mesmerized by her voice.

I have been accused by certain people from my past as being a “heart collector,” but that is really just nonsense. I was never a stud in school or afterward, and to say I was a Cassanova or Rudolph Valentino is simply hilarious. Anyway, in the song, Christina Perri looks to distance herself from a guy who is worse than a heartbreaker – he’s a heart collector, keeping them in a (metaphorical) jar and tearing love apart.

She wrote the lyric about a serial heart collector she once dated. On her blog, she told the story behind the tune: “I wrote the song after I went home to Philadelphia for the holiday last December [2009]. I sat in my childhood bedroom and hid from the boy (with the jar of hearts) who wanted to see me. My heart wanted to see him, my head knew better.”

I am aware that men are the more common keepers of “jars of hearts,” but I know at least two females from my past who were the same way.

Jar of Hearts

Train was really one of those groups I liked. I played a lot of their stuff on the radio and at parties and dances. This one, I found out, didn’t start out as Marry Me. From songfacts:

Pat Monahan got together with the producers David Katz and Sam Hollander to write the title track of the album, but their sessions also sparked “Marry Me,” which started off as a song called “Stay On Me.”

“It was absolutely beautiful and had the same longing melodies,” Hollander said in a songfacts interview, “but it just didn’t raise its hand. Then Pat went back in and flipped it to ‘Marry Me,’ and the emotion went a step further.

When Jonathan Daniel, Pat’s manager, played it for me, I had chills. I could not believe what Pat did with it. Sometimes you get those surprises. Sometimes a song never lives up to the demo in the room, but that one far surpassed it. He deserves the credit. That’s his heart – he’s a big-hearted guy with a really deft lyrical touch.”

I love hearing the origin stories for songs. I love the idea for the video, too. The video, directed by Lex Halaby, opens with a montage of real married couples telling the stories of how they met. When the song starts, it turns into a storyline where Monahan falls for a waitress, played by Anna Camp of True Blood and The Good Wife.

Marry Me

My final song is one that just “sounds happy.” What makes this unique is that instead of Tom Higgenson singing lead, guitar played Tim Lopez does the honors. Tim actually wrote the song. He told songfacts:

“It was written for this girl that I was dating while we were making our last album out in Malibu. We have a lot of history; I’ve known her since I was 11 or 12. I wasn’t really emotionally available to her at the time. I hadn’t completely gotten over my divorce, so when the band left on tour, I decided it wasn’t right to try to keep the relationship going so we called it quits. It was only over the last year or so that I’ve realized what I walked away from. The song was an attempt to rekindle things and win her back. She’s currently dating someone else, and I’m happy for her. But in case it doesn’t work out… who knows?”

The song barely cracked the top 40 (peaking at #38), but it is a song that sounds so good to me.

Rhythm of Love

With that, we wrap up 2010. Did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me in the comments.

Next week, we venture into 2011. Looking at the list, there is at least two ear worms; there are plenty of songs that I always played for one particular high school at their dances; and a song that I thought should have been a hit for a group who was big in the 80’s. I hope to see you next week.

Thanks for reading and for listening.

Hot Or Cold

There was a Katy Perry song that I used to play when I was doing radio part time called Hot N Cold. I often wonder if she spent time at my workplace and found the inspiration for that song here! It’s insane!

Our tech room is a rectangle. At both ends of the tech room there are doors that lead to opposite hallways. They just installed this huge heating/cooling unit at one end of the tech room. There is still a thermostat on the wall and a remote that controls the big unit up above.

You can walk in one door and feel like you are freezing and walk through the other door and feel warm and toasty. There is literally no rhyme or reason for this. All night long I feel like I’m either in an igloo or in the tropics. I bring a zip up sweatshirt to work and it goes on and off throughout the night. It’s crazy.

When I try to explain it to people, the one thing that comes to mind is the old Batman episode from the 1960’s with George Sanders as Mr. Freeze. In the show he can make where he is standing cold and where others are warm. It’s hard to explain, so maybe the picture will help.

Batman in the warm area – Mr. Freeze in the cold area.

In all honesty, I’m not sure whether the thermostat or that big thing on the wall is responsible for the temperature anymore. Last night it was reading 75 degrees on the big unit and 72 on the wall thermostat, but I was in my sweatshirt and wrapped in a blanket.

It’s quite comical because depending on where you are in the tech room, you are either on Team Heat Miser or Team Snow Miser!

Whether it is hot or cold, you have those who are uncomfortable or those who are comfortable. We must all be taking our Vitamin C, because I would think that going back and forth between temperatures would eventually get somebody sick.

One thing is for sure, you never know what you are walking into each night …

Someone asked me why my winter coat was still in my car recently. If they only knew. What they don’t know is that I’ll be packing my bathing suit for when I am in the tropical area of our work space. It was hard to find a suit that matched the color of my scrubs …

Happy 79th to Capitol Records

On this day in 1942, Johnny Mercer and Glenn Wallichs launched Capitol Records in the United States. Wallichs was the man who invented the art of record promotion by sending copies of new releases to disc jockeys. It wasn’t until 13 years later, in 1955, that the now famous Capitol Records building was built.

The first artist to record at Capitol was Martha Tilton in April of 1942. She recorded the song “Moon Dreams”

Capitol Records was home to some of the biggest musical artists in history! Here are just a few:

Nat King Cole –

(Mona Lisa, A Blossom Fell, Answer Me My Love, Unforgettable)

Louis Prima and Keely Smith –

(Just a Gigolo, Old Black Magic, Jump Jive & Wail, What is This Thing Called Love)

Peggy Lee –

(‘Deed I Do, Fever, Big Spender)

Dean Martin –

(That’s Amore, Return To Me, On An Evening in Roma)

Frank Sinatra –

(One For My Baby, I Get a Kick Out of You, Love & Marriage, All The Way, Young At Heart)

The Beach Boys –

(Help Me Rhonda, Fun Fun Fun, Surfin’ USA)

The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney –

(TOO many to list!)

Stan Freberg –

St. George and the Dragonet, Yellow Rose of Texas, Heartbreak Hotel, The Great Pretender)

The Bee Gees, Garth Brooks, The Letterman, Jerry Lewis, Heart, Al Martino, Johnny Mercer, The Steve Miller Band, Katy Perry, Sammy Davis Jr., Tennessee Ernie Ford, Gene Vincent, Bob Seger …. The list goes on and on!

So many amazing singers and talents sang in the Capitol Records studios. Happy Birthday!!