When I was in high school, and probably even a little beyond that, I would judge people by the music they listened to. In truth I judged them for a lot of things, but I was raised Catholic so you can’t blame me.
Now I like many kinds of music (I love a good tuba solo), and I’ll give just about anything a listen, but alt- or outlaw-country (maybe Americana?) is my favorite genre and the one that my streaming service algorithm pushes. But if someone I’m getting to know loves a certain type of music, I’ll give it a listen, especially if it is way outside of my typical tastes. Because if someone is really into didgeridoo solos, you know they have a life story that is probably wildly different from your own, and that’s always worth hearing about. In that sense, musical tastes do tend to be a reflection of a person, though of course a reflection is only the surface.
And so I’ve been wondering to myself what the music I like says about me. To uncover that, I’ve kept track of a few songs I’ve become obsessed with over about the last five years. These are songs that I’ve heard and fallen in love with, and then I’ve listened to them again, and again, and again, to the point where eventually I could no longer listen to them because I’ve either saturated or perhaps satisfied something inside me.
The main reasons I’ll fall for a song are probably the same reasons all of us fall for songs: the lyrics resonate with me in some way, and something about how the words and music interplay makes for listening into oblivion.
These are some of the songs I’ve been obsessed with over the last half-decade or so. I should note that none of these are new—I’m not a musicophile and I don’t keep up with the latest stuff. These are just songs I came across that I loved.
Hey Baby, by The Cactus Blossoms (from Minneapolis!)
Motorcycle, by Colter Wall (this is about getting wild and loose and, you know, possibly riding your motorcycle off a cliff. So good)
Something’s Rattling, by Ben Gibbard (I hear you. Something is rattling inside me too, Ben. We just have to keep looking for it)
Dying of the Pines, by The Gourds (these lyrics are just so perfectly bizarre I about died)
My Favorite Picture of You, by Guy Clark (this is not the best version but he tells a little story about it. I may have cried a tiny bit the first few times I heard it. I wrote here about when I first came across it)
Time of the Cottonwood Trees, by Charley Crockett (probably my overall favorite artist within the last few years, and it just seems like the embodiment of how cottonwood trees on the plains of South Dakota always made me feel)
Harlem River Blues, by Justin Townes Earle (this makes me want to dance every time, and also to lay down and die)
7 come 11, Vince Neil Emerson (this is not the best version; you’ll have to find the best version if you like it a little)
25 and wastin time, by Vince Neil Emerson (I do a little two-step every time I hear this)
And lastly, just for fun, a song I was only mildly obsessed with: So far away, as performed by Town Mountain (this is a cover obviously made famous by Dire Straits. The first time I heard it I hated it. Then I liked it. Then I loved it.)
So what do these songs say about me*? I don’t really know. Most of them are about women, love, loss, wandering, and searching. Most are a little sad, but overall have a character who isn’t quite ready to give up just yet. And hell, maybe that’s me. Except that Dying of the Pines one. I don’t know what the shit that’s all about.
Bonus track: Way the World Goes Round, as performed (poorly) by Adam Overland—the one and only song I’ve ever sung and put online. I was drunk and John Prine had just died.
*All of these musicians are also white and male, and I would just like to say that there are many women musicians I love, and musicians of color, but the Great Streaming Algorithm in the Sky demands of us what it demands.
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