Seventh song of a seventh song

I've been tagged by Urban Cowgirl for a music meme in which I have to list seven albums or tracks which have featured in my life recently.

I did a similar one back in March, but my musical habits change from week to week, so there's no reason for me to decline the tag. Plus, it makes me feel special to be tagged. So:


1. Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor

I can't express how much this album rules. I love her voice, and she's got the kind of lyrics I would've scribbled all over my notebooks in high school.







2. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by Modest Mouse

I guess it's not cool to like Modest Mouse now that they're mainstream-ish, but I love them anyway. I actually heard them back in early college when my cousin loaned me a tape of one of their early LPs, and then I rediscovered them when Good News for People Who Love Bad News came out. They're definitely not for everyone, but I dig them a lot.

from the old EP, Interstate 8 (and re-released on Building Nothing Out of Something):


from The Moon & Antarctica:


from Good News for People Who Love Bad News:


from We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank:




3. Back to Black by Amy Winehouse

I haven't listened to this as much, since Regina Spektor has been in rotation every day for nearly a month, but I'm starting to get into it. She's been getting raves from bloggers all over the place, and I'm completely fascinated by a voice as huge as hers coming from someone who looks like she's pretty tiny.









4. "The Ocean" - Led Zeppelin

I heard this track on the radio today, and it reminded me how much I truly, truly love Led Zeppelin. Since I can't find it on the widget site, here's one of my favorite Zeppelin tracks of all time:





5. This one's sort of odd. I heard this song on the radio today:



And it reminded me how much I love Plans by Death Cab for Cutie. Whiny? Emo? Probably. But when I heard it last winter at the record store where I sort of still work part-time (if one shift every few months counts), it was one of the first albums I'd heard in a long time that absolutely transfixed me.

This is cheesy as hell and I probably shouldn't admit it, but I had this album in our bedroom stereo for at least a month last year, and whenever this song came on, I'd realize that I really would follow MB into the dark. It's a beautiful song, if you listen to it and think about what it would really mean to go into a void just to be with the person you love.





6. August and Everything After by Counting Crows

I haven't listened to this in a few weeks, but if I could only listen to five CDs for the rest of my life, it would be one of them.







7. Lay it Down by the Cowboy Junkies

I recently renewed correspondence with the person who was indirectly responsible for me discovering the Cowboy Junkies in late high school (he made a tape for someone who later gave me his tape collection). The album is in one of my five albums that I'd pick if I had to pick five to listen to for the rest of my life, and the songs take me back to the way I felt at that point in my life, and the tape-maker was pretty instrumental in shaping the end of my high school education...so all in all, this one pretty much had to be the album to round out the list. Unfortunately, the widget site only has two Cowboy Junkies songs, so you're getting one from Lay it Down and then one from The Trinity Session (which is the album that Neil Gaiman had his characters listen to in one of the stories in Fragile Things):





There are also a few more tracks on their MySpace page.

SPEAKING CONFIDENTIALLY
(Michael Timmins / Lay it Down)

Speaking confidentially
the fire that burned inside of me
has turned to ash the tortured tree
that grows beside the anguished sea
Speaking confidentially

Speaking metaphorically
the earth I trust beneath my feet
is moving now ever so slightly
I shift my feet but feel no relief
Speaking metaphorically

Speaking hypothetically
if the air you breathed was so unique
would you use it up to idly speak
or hoard it for a rainy week
Speaking hypothetically

Speaking kind of cryptically
the sea that raged beside the tree
burning bright for all to see
it just might mean the most to me
Speaking kind of cryptically



Now, I have to tag some people:

the bibliophile

J-Dog at Insert Snappy Title Here

Heather at Pale is the New Tan

Megs

Alyndabear

Angela at on second thought

the cheesefairy at the Cheeseblog


Freebird, ya'll! Freebird!