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.
I started this feature on my birthday back in May. We have come from 1970 to 2013. I would turn 43 that year. I was still working in radio part time at the Adult Contemporary station. I also graduated from college that year. It was 2013 that saw the career change from radio to sleep medicine.
Musically, there were quite a few tunes I really liked from 2013. Here are ten of my favorites.
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It is not every day that you hear a “chant” on the radio. That chant is what made Pompeii by Bastille very unique, and maybe even helped it reach top 5 status on the charts.
Songfacts says,
Rare for a hit song, the title never shows up in the lyrics. So why is it called “Pompeii”? Dan Smith told The Daily Telegraph that he was imagining what the dead inhabitants might have to say to one another. “It is essentially about fear of stasis and boredom,” he added. “Being quite a shy, self-conscious person, I was afraid my life might get stuck.”
Dan Smith was not a professional musician when he wrote this song – he was a bartender and student of English literature. He wrote the song in 2010 on a laptop in his bedroom after reading about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. He didn’t think anyone outside of his circle of friends would ever hear the song, but when he posted some tracks online, they got enough attention to earn his band a deal with Virgin Records. “Pompeii” was included on their first album and became their breakout hit.
While it isn’t a very “happy” subject, the song did very well.
Pompeii
There’s a song that Willie Nelson recorded called, “You Just Can’t Play a Sad Song on the Banjo.” I suppose that is true. The banjo is what really makes The Best Day of My Life by the American Authors stand out.
Songfacts.com says:
This joyful, banjo-laced tune celebrates the best in life, but was conceived in reaction to tragedy: the Sandy Hook school shooting on December 14, 2012. American Authors bass player Dave Rublin told Songfacts:
“We were upstate in the woods writing with our producer when the Sandy Hook shooting happened. When we heard the news, it was shocking to all of us because it happened right down the street from where we were. And in that framework, we were thinking that the world has hit a whole new low, and we wanted to focus on making things that make people happy and make people feel positive, because that’s something that was missing from rock and from songwriting, just something so simplistic that can be an earworm, that can carry people.”
Vocalist Zachary Barnett said, “We wanted to tell this story of how no matter what’s going on – whether you’re stuck at your job or having a bad day – there’s always an escape from that, and there’s always a way to make any day the best day of your life. It’s about escaping reality and entering into that dream world.”
This song was a big one at school dances when I was DJing. The positive message of the song is one that I can appreciate.
Best Day of My Life
To be clear, I have never seen Pitch Perfect, nor do I intend to (unless asked by my wife). At any rate Cups by Anna Kendrick is a song from that movie. It features the voice of Anna Kendrick accompanied only by a plastic cup, which she uses as improvised percussion. The song serves as her character Beca’s brief audition for the Barden Bellas, an all-female a cappella group from Barden University.
The version used in the movie was not the “hit” version. A longer version (a whole 2:09 minutes!) featuring instrumentation was released to radio in March 2013. I really liked this ditty.
Songfacts says: This song’s success meant that Kendrick became only the second artist to have earned both a top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and nominations in the two leading acting award ceremonies. The singer-actress was nominated for a 1998 Tony Award for featured actress in a musical (High Society) and the 2009 Academy Award for actress in a supporting role (Up in the Air). The only other performer to achieve the same feat is Barbra Streisand.
Cups
Life can be scary. As I have said in the past, my marriage to my ex was over at least a couple of years before the divorce. I stayed because of my boys. I had sworn that I would never divorce or fight like my parents, but I did both.
When my therapist and I talked it became very clear that I was only hurting myself and the kids by staying. As scary as it was, I had to be brave and step out of the comfort zone. I had to do what was right for me. That is kind of the message of Sara Bareillis’ Brave.
Songfacts.com says,
The record was inspired by her own life and addressed some of the demons she was battling. “I have never felt more open and more raw in my entire life,” said Bareilles. “2012 was a year of deconstruction for me personally. I have been confronting some of my greatest fears in the last handful of months and have been amazed at how empowered I can feel when I muster up the courage to turn and growl back at those monsters under the bed.”
Brave
Another song I played on the AC station that I liked had been a huge hit in Norway before going worldwide. Am I Wrong by Nico & Vinz was another great uptempo song that the kids loved at dances.
From Songfacts:
This song was Nico & Vinz’s international breakthrough. It peaked at #2 in their home country where it has been certified three times platinum. The single also hit the Top 10 in many other European countries as well as the US. “We always knew it was possible to reach outside of Norway with our music,” Sereba told Billboard magazine. “With this song, we wanted to say, ‘Are we wrong for thinking that we can actually do this?’ That’s how that message came about – trusting your gut feeling, going for it and searching for your own happiness.”
The theme continues – Before deciding on the divorce I had to “trust my gut feeling and go for it” as Sereba said.
Am I Wrong
Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic had great success as a writer. He wrote songs for Leona Lewis and Beyonce, just to name a few. Counting Stars is the first hit for him as a performer.
For whatever reason, I was really drawn to OneReublic’s music. When I read this quote from Ryan, it makes sense as to why. He told Billboard magazine that he finds it gratifying that so many have connected with such an uplifting and meaningful song.
“I think it’s our responsibility as a band, and what separates us from everyone else. I took that from being a fan of U2 for two decades now, since Achtung Baby,” he said. “To this day, they might be the only band on that level who sings about things other than just boy-girl troubles or the kind of selfish, ‘I’m a badass’ stuff. I’ve spoken with Bono about this when we toured with him, and he said the same thing.”
“I felt a responsibility to actually write and sing about things that have a level of human gravity to them,” Tedder continued. “If everybody else sings about sex and love and lust and money, then somebody’s gotta be singing about life and faith and hope and things of that nature. And in the pantheon of their esteemed career, they’ve had two #1 hits, and I think both were 25 years ago. It’s not about that – it’s about what songs feel real. I’d rather have a song that peaks at #15 that’s meaningful and embedded in the cultural framework we live in than a #1 song that explodes for five seconds, becomes the dance hit of the summer, then goes away.”
Counting Stars
Here is another song that got the kids dancing at school dances. I can see why. The Best Song Ever by One Direction may not be that, but it is a good one. It follows a proven format that has been used for decades. More on that in a second.
The song was compared to being almost identical to The Who’s Baba O’Riley. As a matter of fact, The Who guitarist Pete Townshend brushed off unsubstantiated reports that his band wanted to sue One Direction or seek to have this song withdrawn.
“No! I like the single. I like One Direction,” he told Uncut magazine. “The chords I used and the chords they used are the same three chords we’ve all been using in basic pop music since Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry made it clear that fancy chords don’t mean great music – not always. “
“I’m still writing songs that sound like ‘Baba O’Riley’ – or I’m trying to! It’s a part of my life and a part of pop’s lineage,” Townshend continued.
“One Direction are in my business, with a million fans, and I’m happy to think they may have been influenced a little bit by The Who. I’m just relieved they’re all not wearing boiler suits and Doc Martens, or Union Jack jackets.”
To me, I feel it is different enough. I guess I can hear a little of Baba in here. What do you think?
Best Song Ever
Again, another uptempo AC song makes the list. Again, a big dance song. This time around the personal connection is I remember my oldest boy loving this song. Wake Me Up By Avicii was another song that I loved a lot.
Songfacts says, Songwriting credits go to Avicii, Aloe Blacc, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Einziger of the rock band Incubus. They wrote the song at Einziger’s home studio in Malibu, California. According to Blacc, Avicii and Eizinger had the track worked up when he arrived. He had disparate bits of lyrics on hand, one of which was the line “Wake me up,” which he felt was the strongest message to go with the track.
While Einziger played, Blacc sang, “Wake me up when it’s all over,” and the cadence of the line went with the chord progression. The next line Blacc introduced from his notebook was “All this time I was finding myself, I didn’t know I was lost.” Blacc was concerned that these two lines wouldn’t make any sense in the same song, but Einziger told him it was fine, so they went with it.
Aloe Blacc came up with the lyrics on an airplane. “I was thinking to myself, ‘My life is a dream. Wake me up when it’s over,'” he recalled to Billboard magazine. “When I walked into the session with Mike Einziger on guitar and Avicii, Mike was playing his guitar chords and these words… the way I sang them just felt right. We ended up recording it that night and I drove home listening to this acoustic version that Avicii eventually made into a fantastic hit. It’s a wonderful experience.”
Wake Me Up
2013 was a very easy year for me to DJ for school dances, obviously. So many of these songs tie right into those dances. One Direction was a very hot group, so it is no wonder that they show up twice on my list. This time around it is Story of My Life.
From Songfacts:
Niall Horan recalled the first time Jamie Scott played them the song during an interview with UK radio station Capital FM. “We were in Nottingham on tour when we were touring the UK back in February and March,” he recalled, “and we just came into a room one day and he was like, ‘I’ve got this song that I’ve written and I want to play [it for] you.’ And we just fell in love with it the second we heard it.”
The song is more folk-orientated than most of One Direction’s previous offerings, but Scott told MTV News the quintet have the talent to pull it off. “It’s not that hard a thing to do because the boys have really good voices, they’ve all got very different voices. Harry [Styles’] rasp is something that you can always lean towards… All the boys have such a great sound themselves,” he said. “For instance the demo that we played the boys sounds a lot more folky than it does now. That’s what amazing about their voices [when they record it] straight away it sounds like them.”
Story of My Life
Happiness is a theme in many of these songs. It continues with my final selection by Pharrell Williams – Happy. Most hit songs around this time were written by teams of writers, but this one was entirely composed by Pharrell Williams. He wrote and recorded the song for the soundtrack of the 3D computer-animated action comedy film Despicable Me 2. Williams also penned tunes for the first Despicable Me movie.
I loved how Songfacts puts this:
Finding a way to follow a trend and be unique at the same time seems like an impossible task, but that is exactly what Williams was facing with “Happy.” It could have easily drowned in the stream of other songs that blended R&B, funk and soul if not for some clever techniques to help it ride the wave to the top of the charts.
For one, it had to be an earworm, and to do that, repetition is key. Aside from repeating the uplifting title 56 times, over 62% of the song is dedicated to its memorable chorus (about 20% more chorus time than most hits of the era). To make room for that monstrous chorus, there is no pre-chorus, solo, instrumental break or outro.
There is no denying that it is an earworm! All I can say is that as someone who is finally happy, I can understand proclaiming it over and over again!
Happy
That brings us to the end of 2013. What favorite of yours did I miss? Mention it in the comments.
Next week, we move into 2014. The list next week includes a Disney song, a song that dates back to 1934, some great dance songs, and one that I play at least twice when it comes up on my iPod. I hope you’ll join me next week.
Thanks for listening and for reading!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 