Hearts and Hands: Seven Songs

This meme comes to you courtesy of Brian from Across the Water: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now.

Ever since Jenifer and I started carpooling nearly every day, I haven’t listened to much music. We prefer to yammer. Here, then, a minor musical odyssey:

1. “Love’s Divine” by Seal, from Seal IV. This CD recently came back to us after being lost at a friend’s house for four years, not that I’m counting.

2. “Nobody Wants To” by Crowded House, from Time on Earth. The opening track to a CD I listened to nearly every day for probably three months. Wistful, brooding, thoughtful as ever.

3. “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, from Right Down the Line: The Best of Gerry Rafferty (originally on City to City). Quite possibly my favorite pop/rock song of all time, nudging out U2’s “With or Without You” and The Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” I've never been to the place and the lyrics are dark, but for me this is the stuff of childhood: summer heat, that burning sax on the radio, and Star Wars in the theaters . . .

4. “Take My Hand” by Toto, from the Dune Original Soundtrack. Quite possibly a perfect song, except that at two minutes and 35 seconds long it is heartbreakingly short. The film was also too short but not perfect. (And yet still I love it.)

5. “Runnin’ Down a Dream” by Tom Petty, from Full Moon Fever. Saw him in concert for the first time a few weeks ago. Brilliant. I knew he was a great songwriter, but had no idea he was such a showman. Truly an American treasure.

6. “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, from Once: Music from the Motion Picture. Great song from one of my favorite movies of last year. It’s even better on the screen. See it.

7. “The Right Moment” by Gerry Rafferty, from Right Down the Line: The Best of Gerry Rafferty (originally on Sleepwalking). The last track on the Best of album. Has there ever been a more haunting kick in the pants? Yes, and it is “Archaic Torso of Apollo” by Rilke, but that is a poem and not an iPodological phenomenon. Crank dat Soulja Boy!

Bonus track: “Yahweh” by U2, from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Some nailed Bono for being too on the nose with the chorus. For me, the track is yet more evidence that no other major act closes an album so well:

Take this city
A city should be shining on a hill
Take this city
If it be your will
What no man can own, no man can take
Take this heart
Take this heart
Take this heart
And make it break

Next up: Brett at A Bucket of Love, Shawna at Shouting into the Wind, Tom at The Bag Means Your Mind, Tony at The Money Pitt, Courtney at ice cream socialite, Gabi and Natalia at Spanish at the Kitchen Table, and Fun Joel at Fun Joel.