| Our Lady Peace – Innocent Lyrics | 18 years ago |
| For some reason, this song comes over really powerfully when you watch the video. Something about the kids in it - it's as if they lyrics are their words, their story. Which, I suppose, is the thinking behind it. | |
| The Goo Goo Dolls – Flat Top Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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It's songs like this that make me so disappointed with Let Love In. The guitars crunching away behind a soaring vocal and some of the best political lyrics I've ever heard. This is what Johnny Rzeznik could do back in the mid-1990s. What happened? It's almost as if he's now 'scared' to rock too hard. And his lyrics are now so tame by comparison. I'll always love the Goos. I just wish they'd rediscover the genius of songs like this one. |
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| Blink-182 – Adam's Song Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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It might seem odd that a song about depression can take me back to one of the best - if not the best - times of my entire life. But that's what Adam's Song always does. I was fifteen when I first heard it. It was on a ski trip with my high school in California. I'd never left the UK before, so that trip was quite simply the biggest thing I'd ever done in my life up until that point. The whole experience suddenly opened my eyes up to the world beyond my little town just outside of Liverpool, UK. A ski trip to california might not exactly be backpacking through Southeast Asia, but as a fifteen year old, it sure felt like it. One of my best memories of that holiday is when the skiing was over for the day and we'd all just be hanging around our hotel rooms together, laughing, joking, flirting with girls (a big deal for a shy fifteen year old who'd been scared of girls for most of his life!). And I remember how, on one occasion, we all fell silent as the first notes of a song kicked in on whatever music channel we happened to be watching. That was Adam's Song. For some reason, every one of us thought it was an awesome song. I remember that sudden feeling of shared experience, like this simple, seemingly mundane moment would stay with me until my dying day. That song was played over and over during that holiday. It was never off the TV. I think it was about to be released in the US. (It never got released in the UK. They decided to re-release What's My Age Again? instead over here). On the last day, I bought Enema Of The State, and fell in love with every track. I was only fifteen. This was my first proper exposure to rock music. Looking back as a twenty-three year old, I'm well aware of the way a lot of people now view Blink. But I'll never forget the pleasure that one song in particular gave me. I loved it. I still love it. I don't connect with the lyrics at all. I've never experienced anything like what that song is about. But when I turn out my lights and put my earphones in, put on that song and close my eyes, I see that Heavenly Ski Resort hotel, the white snow of the Sierra Nevada, the faces of my old school friends, including my late friend Michael Kelly, who'll never, ever be forgotten, and I hear the sound of the voices of all the wonderful Americans who made this stranger who knew only his own, familiar surroundings, feel safe and so very welcome. |
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