Random Top 10 #2

I apologize for the long break in between posts but sometimes a girl needs some rest and some time to spend with her man when both of us have been working so hard. Also, as I posted on my other blog, the death of Robin Williams on Monday left me devastated and afraid to be happy for awhile. They say that music can be good therapy so I am back with another Random Top 10. It may be a little shorter than my first random list but I have to admit I'm still a little fuzzy trying to get back in the groove of things.

#10. Heart Don't Lie by California Dreams

Now who says I can't talk about fictional bands...it's still music right? Now I absolutely loved the show California Dreams which I use to watch coming home from school when I was about thirteen. It was ending its run on NBC around then but was in reruns on TBS and WGN and I just loved it! Now a lot of the songs were very poppy and cheesy but there were a handful of songs that I fell in love with and I eventually got a hold of the soundtrack that contained those rare gems like this one.

There's really not a lot of meaning to the song except just being in love and hoping that the romance and words being said aren't just lies and that they come honest and true from the heart. The interesting thing about the song is that one of the writers is a woman named Elizabeth Guttman Daily who you may know better as E.G. Daily who voiced Tommy Pickles on Rugrats and Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls! Did you know she was a songwriter/musician besides being an actress? Neither did I but I am now interested in finding some of her work if all her songs have lyrics like this one!

#9. How Can I Fall by Breathe

Ah there is nothing like the 80s! I may have been a baby when this decade ended (well I was six and to my mom I suppose I was still a baby in her eyes) but the early 90s still had a soft spot for all those songs of the past on the weekend and then of course Delilah had her nightly shows where the softer side of the decade had a chance to shine. As a romantic, I love ballads and this one by the UK band Breathe is a personal favorite. It has pop keyboards and is about trying to fall in love when you can't get the words out. Trying to time and plan words to express how you are in love with someone isn't easy when you aren't sure how you feel or how they feel, is the time right or have you missed it by just a small fraction of time? This was probably a perfect song to play for someone in junior high school when tweens became teens and love became much more complicated to learn than geometry or chemistry! I always found lead singer David Glasper's voice to be so earnest and unsure when singing the words and still do find his to be one of the loveliest and most forgotten of the decade.

#8. She by Louie Says

Sometimes you will find the most interesting music when you least expect it say...watching one of your favorite or the greatest  TV show ever! Some music I learned to love when I would watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer and when I saw the Season 2 episode called Reptile Boy and heard the song She by Louie Says played partly in the middle and at the end of the episode it has always stuck with me. Now sadly the band only had one album before they went defunct and I never really thought I would enjoy a song by an indie band as much as I do this one. I've always felt the song was about loving a woman who tries to be aloof when it comes to love and no matter what she does the man stays in love with her. She'll leave then come back again she'll be cold one second saying she hates you and then break down crying and begging your forgiveness the next.

Now it may seem the girl is unstable but the man also admits that he will keep taking her back because sometimes her snowy exterior will melt into a smile that leaves him weak in the knees. He also knows that at times he may hate himself for the way he treats her which may be the reason she's kind of unstable in the first place. If you ever watched Buffy I think the song at the time fit perfectly with the tragic romance the main character and her vampire boyfriend were in. I mean a vampire slayer who came back from the dead and in love with an undead hunk could cause any relationship to have its bumps! (Sorry got caught up in Buffy nostalgia but that is for another time or maybe another blog...)

#7. Lying To Myself by David Cassidy

Now don't laugh at me because I have a David Cassidy song on here! Some of you probably can't get over him being a teeny-bopper artist back in the 1970s or Keith Partridge on TV but underneath David Cassidy always wanted to rock like Jimi Hendrix! Now his acting career may have disappeared after no one wanted to get happy anymore but you also can't forget that David Cassidy's father Jack Cassidy was an actor with Broadway experience so that singing talent runs in the family. Now it may be a song with that arena rock-power ballad sound but of course I absolutely love it. The song came out in 1990 when that sort of music was still okay to listen to before music became edgier with grunge and hard-rock metal which by no means is bad because I like music like that too. I actually heard this song much later on an episode of Behind The Music focusing specifically on Cassidy in the background in snippets so when I found the whole song I was ecstatic!

 It was written by Cassidy and songwriter Sue Shifrin who became Cassidy's wife a year later even though the two had an earlier ill-fated relationship which I think surprisingly may have been slight inspiration for this song. You see it's about a relationship ending where the man insists that he's fine and his lover really never meant anything to him and that her leaving the way she did isn't tearing him up. As the title states, he's lying to himself and he is ready to do everything he can to get her back out of shame and probably as a means to keep himself from becoming depressed. (Sorry recent events have put that thought into my mind as a possible alternative to the songs meaning.) If anyone has ever had a relationship like this or ever tried to pass off the heartbreak you felt (as I have done before) the song will take on a new meaning for you. If not, David Cassidy's voice will get you hooked to this song!


#6. I Believe In Love by Paula Cole

Now Paula Cole may be a little more famous for providing Dawson's Creek with its immortal opening theme song but I remember her more for this song (and some other one about cowboys but that's for another day...) which I heard on VH1 when it first came out. There's just something very powerful and haunting about Paula Cole's voice that is almost hard to describe and when I first heard this song it kind of reminded me of something soulful from the late 1960s or early 1970s. As a person who does believe in love this song really speaks to me and if you listen to the song it does have a love conquers all tone to it but not in a happy, fairy-tale way but how true love can win in the real world. You meet the one in high school or maybe college, you go out on dates or maybe you are just friends who soon discover after many other relationships that you are meant to be together. There are always factors that may take the relationship down an unprecedented path such as an unplanned pregnancy or a drunken night quickie wedding or even infidelity but if two people are meant to be together they will get through it and finally be together as the universe intended. It truly is a very beautiful song...

#5. My Heart Can't Tell You No by Rod Stewart

Ah Rod Stewart I'm not really sure how I came to admire him but I do know it was the late 80s incarnation that had to have gotten my attention. He was very big on VH1 around that time and I distinctly remember taking a shine to my mother's Rod Stewart anthology tape after discovering him through another song which led to this being my absolute favorite song! (we'll come to that other song later I promise...) When I got older I realized that the lyrics were very mature for the time I heard it originally as it is about a man begging his former lover to stay away from him every time she and her new man are on the outs. She keeps coming back to him, calling him when they fight and being that he still has feelings for her and could never deny her anything to begin with let's her back in only to be left in the cold when they decide to make up. Now I have never been in a relationship like that but I have known people who always come back to someone  when things don't work out on a romantic level between the new girl or guy in their life but then end up breaking their heart again. The thing I can relate to is watching someone you love be in love with somebody else and it still hurts to this day but not as much as it did then as now I am in a very happy relationship and very much in love. All that pushed aside, the older me has also come to appreciate the steamy, sensual tone of the song and the soulfulness of Rod Stewart's voice.

#4. The Kill by 30 Seconds To Mars

I admit there is two reasons why this is probably the only song I really like by 30 Seconds To Mars: first is basically the video is an out-right homage to The Shining by Stephen King (even if I enjoy the book and mini-series better) and second, in his own way, Jared Leto is still very much the hottie because man those eyes are just so intense! From the minute I saw the video I knew I would like the song because well I had to watch the entire video to hear the song didn't I so eventually it would be like a little worm burrowing its way into my ear and taking over my brain! (sorry the Stephen King reference sent me to a horror-themed place.) Now I may not like the Kubrick version but the video does capture the creepiness of the film and sort of points out the theme of duality of a sane person confronting their own inner madness kind of the way the book did.

I do like the dark tone of the song and can relate sometimes to the war within yourself theme of the song as the negative side of me (pessimistic, depressed and jealous) is always at war with the positive side of me (happy, creative and energetic). Everybody has two-sides to themselves and believe me I have reached breaking points in my life where I thought I might be going crazy but some of those breaking points also made me realize I can be a stronger person. Wait didn't I say there was another reason why I liked this song? Oh yeah, putting his looks and acting chops aside did I mention that Jared Leto can sing!? I mean damn talk about a triple threat!

#3. Helplessly Hopelessly by Jessica Andrews

Now yes I bet you are surprised that I actually do like country music! Of course I'm going to have to like country music because I am from Kentucky so my family likes country music and I had friends who also liked country music. I will tell you right now that my frame of country music listening spans from the late 1980s to at least 2004 and then I kinda stopped liking most country music that came out until Lady Antebellum came around. Now when the 2000s came about Jessica Andrews to me was a breath of fresh air amid the country ladies that had been around for awhile and not that there was anything wrong with Reba or Faith but Jessica Andrews was my age, innocent but also talented that when this very mature song came out it wasn't as if she did a full 180 and got all sexy.

The song is of course about love, first love, young love and feeling those emotions that are more adult. Of course the girl is a strong one except when she is with the man she loves and then she is just helpless to fight her feelings but she also remains hopeful even as she's hopelessly losing out to the emotions her heart is feeling. Of course as a romantic this is the kind of country music I enjoy because after awhile depressing country songs make me... well depressed and well bluegrass and honky-tonk was never my style. Especially at a time when I was the same age as Jessica Andrews who even though she did not write this song was singing about such an adult subject that it dictates (clearly about falling in love and going all the way as approached in a delicate country-song manner and not a blatant pop-rap way most songs addressed sex and still do). Even today I still get shivers when I hear this song...

#2. Promises Promises by Naked Eyes

Some years ago (maybe about seven or eight) I had to get a rental car after a run in with a deer and it had satellite radio (Sirius radio maybe not sure) so when I turned it to an 80s station this gem by British band Naked Eyes came on and of course, I loved it! Even though they are much more famous for the song "Always Something There To Remind Me" the pop-dance feel of this song is one I probably would have been clubbing to if I had been a teenager or twenty-something in the early 80s because basically by the late 80s I would have been a groupie for Whitesnake if I had been born in an earlier time period...but I digress. Despite being so damn catchy its lyrics tell of being in love with someone who of course makes a lot of promises about a serious relationship but instead they seem to just want to be free to be wild and crazy. So eventually it fizzles out but then somehow gets rekindled when those same promises get uttered again except now you are just a little older now where the pain hurts a lot worse where now the laughter just isn't enough to keep the relationship going. Yes I admit I have been in a relationship where promises are made and then broken but with one exception that I learned to move on and now I am in a relationship where promises are made but not broken just...stretched out a little. See because in real relationships things don't go as planned which is why if you truly love a person and make them promises, you do keep them.

Okay, maybe I have gotten a little deep and personal with this one in light of recent events but let's call it a cleanse of negative emotions through the positive aspect of music that it can make you happy and even though most of these songs have brought up good subjects for actual intellectual conversation I promise this song that tops my list may not turn to a serious conversation and may just be there for us to totally rock! So what song could it be? Well here's a hint: I have mentioned this man before talking about the group he is famous for but now let's just let him shine on his own...

#1. Lost In The Shadows by Lou Gramm

 Now when I first heard this song watching The Lost Boys a very long time ago, I had no idea it was Lou Gramm of Foreigner singing it until on VH1 Classic I saw this video played on an All Request hour of videos! Of course, being as how Foreigner is my second favorite band after Heart I had to go out and buy the film's soundtrack. Don't get me wrong the soundtrack is good but this song is to me the highlight of the whole album because Lou Gramm is a vocalist who can not only sing a ballad to make your heart melt but he can also belt out a rocker just as powerful to set your soul on fire that has men pumping their fist and women shaking well like they just got romanced by Casanova (trying to keep it clean because my mom mentioned she reads these blog posts  but you kinda know where I'm going...) Since it's a movie about vampires who are of course in a MTV generation  portrayed as sexy and dangerous you need a man with a powerful voice who's not that bad looking (come on late 80s-early 90s Lou Gramm was sexy!) to belt out a powerful anthem like this one! 

Of course it's about embracing the night, the dark, the shadows to try and fill the empty void that is in one's heart or in this case tormenting a being who has no heart but all these abilities new and strange to them where they can finally find some form of light beyond the vision of any normal person. This is of course mirroring to me Michael fighting the vampire influence inside him to kill people which he eventually finds the release of his dark urges in his um...joining with Star (I mean one line of the lyrics is about waiting outside the window of a girl and the song is in a movie about vampires...doesn't take much to figure what that's about!) So in a nutshell this song is sexy as hell with Lou Gramm's voice, the subtle sensual innuendo of his penned lyrics and of course a mid section of the song where Lou is breathing hard like he just ran a marathon or well...never mind my mind keeps going to the gutter so let's just wrap this up...

Well that was a pleasant installment on this edition of the random Top Ten now wasn't it? If this provided you with some chuckles and insight I'm glad and hope you will join me next time when who knows what we'll be covering next!