I'm spending some time this year polishing and archiving the blog, which means I'm quickly going through each post from 2008 to today, fixing formatting and grammar and typos, and then copying/pasting it to a Word document. This also means I'm spending a lot of time cringing at some of the more poorly done blog posts from my youth.
One that I have long thought was particularly stupid was "If We Make It Through December: Our Calendar of Songs," which simply named a song for each month of the year. It was stupid because it was premature—lacking the required musical knowledge, I resorted to googling a lot of my answers and linking to songs that I wasn't familiar with. So at that point, the question regarding that particular blog post becomes: why even fucking bother?
But my iPod is a lot heftier these days, and so I think I can give this another go. And to make this endeavor worth it, I'm going to not only do months, but also days of the week, and numbers up to 31. That way, instead of saying "Today is Monday, February 22nd," you can play a three-song playlist consisting of a Fleetwood Mac classic, a Foo Fighters rocker, and a Mountain Goats jam.
I mean, I guess the question remains as to why I'm even doing this, but the answer is simple now: I'm doing this because life is short and the days are long and what the fuck else am I going to do, work on graduate school applications?! Psh.
MONTH
January — "January Friend" by the Goo Goo Dolls — So I've been getting really into the Goo Goo Dolls lately... it's been a weird year so far...
February — "February Stars" by Foo Fighters — The only song for "February" I had on my iPod was a decent but ultimately unsatisfactory Charli XCX song, so let's avoid the Groban of it all and accept the fact that the Foo Fighters are always going to be a thing.
March — "Late March, Death March" by Frightened Rabbit — Trying to find non-homonym titles for this project, so e.g. Modest Mouse's "March into the Sea" would be disqualified. Not always going to be possible. My read on this Frightened Rabbit song is that it is a double entendre, but I guess interpretations will vary.
April — "April" by Beach Bunny — No need for shitty throwaway Neutral Milk Hotel tracks this time, now that we have Beach Bunny fucking shit up and taking names.
May — "Month of May" by Arcade Fire — Also trying to avoid specific dates (sorry Beach Fossils' "May 1st" and Fleet Foxes' "Third of May"), so thanks to Arcade Fire for covering the whole month for us (p.s. I always forget how hard this song rips).
June — "Junesong Provision" by Coheed and Cambria — I was pretty tempted to go with the Decemberists' "June Hymn" (or their "January Hymn" for January), but I decided to keep 'em at July. So here's an emo song recently recommended by erstwhile PoYB contributor Dave N.
July — "July! July!" by the Decemberists — I am trying to avoid repeats from the last Calendar Songs blog post, but there is no avoid this song. Ever.
August — "august" by Taylor Swift — Lots of songs with "Augustine" in the title, not many with just "August." Luckily, Swift is here to give us an amazing song, not just compared to other month-songs, but period.
September — "September" by Earth, Wind, & Fire — I am and forever will be a basic bitch. (Plus, this was one of the best La Salle Pep Band songs.)
October — "October Night" by WITCH — It's definitely worth checking this Zamrock band out if you didn't get enough heavy '70s African garage rock with Wells Fargo.
November — "Mr. November" by the National — I won't fuck us over.
December — "December Is the Longest Month" by Chumped — But not when it's your birthday month YEEHAAAAWWWW
WEEK
Sunday — "Sunday Morning" by All Dogs — Oh wow, there are a lot of classic songs with this day of the week in their titles, from Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning" to Nico Segal's "Sunday Candy." So I guess this isn't necessarily the best Sunday song, or even my favorite, but it's the one that's hitting the best right now.
Monday — "Monday Morning" by Fleetwood Mac — But, like, not all of these songs are going to be "___day Morning," promise.
Tuesday — "Tuesday's Gone" by Lynyrd Skynyrd — I'm here for two reasons: to blog, and to drink beer. And it looks like we're all out of beer...
Wednesday — "Wednesday Night Drinkball" by Bomb the Music Industry! — Wednesday really is the saddest day of the week, whether you have your shit together or not.
Thursday — "Thursday in the Danger Room" by Run the Jewels — It's Thirsty Thursday, but I already made too many alcohol references for one blog post; wouldn't work for this somber RTJ track anyway.
Friday — "Friday" by Rebecca Black — You're out of your goddamn mind if you think I'm going to pick something else. Happy 10th birthday, "Friday"!!!
Saturday — "Saturday" by Remember Sports — Ugh, too many good "Saturday" songs. Makes sense though, being the best day of the week.
DAY
1 — "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers — Here's how the compilation of this numbers list is probably gonna go: once I get up to like 27 or something, there's going to be maybe one choice at most, but up here at 1, there's like a thousand songs to choose from. Scrolling through, this stood out as the best at first glance.
2 — "Two-Headed Boy" by Neutral Milk Hotel — I feel bad about the NMH crack I made under "April," so here's a good song by them in a spot that could've held dozens of others.
3 — "Three Hopeful Thoughts" by Rilo Kiley — Alright, committing now to exploring more of Blake Sennett's work.
4 — "Four Winds" by Bright Eyes — A very weird choice by my brain as the song that immediately makes me think about high school graduation and the subsequent summer.
5 — "Five" by Angel Du$t — I recall the video for this song being pretty bizarre, but I don't want to look it up.
6 — "Six" by Bully — I wish this song was six minutes long.
7 — "Seven Swans" by Sufjan Stevens — Always forget that this dude is (was?) religious.
8 — "Eight Days a Week" by the Beatles — I guess it would be weird to list 50 songs and not include the Beatles.
9 — "Nine in the Afternoon" by Panic at the Disco — I guess it would be weird to list 50 songs and not include a shitty '00s emo band doing their best Beatles impression and being weirdly successful.
10 — "Ten Years Gone" by Led Zeppelin — My iPod doesn't allow you to input numbers into the search engine, so I'm going my best here.
11 — "Mornings Eleven" by the Magic Numbers — First heard this song in an Abercrombie and Fitch, which should tell you how long ago I first heard this song (and also whether my high school was a prep school or not).
12 — "12:51" by the Strokes — Luckily, there is no 51st day of the month.
13 — "Thirteen" by Big Star — Just noticed right now how much the White Stripes' "We're Going to Be Friends" was probably influenced by this song.
14 — "14 Hour Technicolor Dream" by the Syn — You could probably guess based on the title, but this is British psychedelia.
15 — "15 Step" by Radiohead — I could live in 5/8 time forever. (P.S. I just don't see an argument that this is actually in 15/8 time, sorry.)
16 — "Sixteen Blue" by the Replacements — It's like the Replacements needed to remind people that they are a legit band that can do it all, not just songs like "Gary's Got a Boner."
17 — "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl" by Broken Social Scene — It's probably been almost seventeen years since I first heard this song, and I still have no idea what the fuck they are singing about.
19 — "Nineteen" by Old 97's — Very weird how differently songs like this hit the farther you get from the subject age. I was nineteen THIRTEEN YEARS AGO.
20 — "20 Years of Snow" by Regina Spektor — I have a formatting rule on PoYB that all numbers under 20 are spelled out, and all numbers 20 and over are numerical (there are, of course, exceptions to this rule). I appreciate the fact that many of the titles on this list coincidentally adhere to this rule.
21 — "21 Guns" by Green Day — If every post-American Idiot song was like this, then maybe Green Day could've extended their incredible run of success even longer. As it stands, this was pretty much a death rattle.
22 — "22 Acacia Avenue" by Iron Maiden — I used Iron Maiden on the list in 2010, but this time, I actually know about Iron Maiden! I didn't just google it!
23 — "Genesis 3:23" by the Mountain Goats — I kinda dislike when song titles on an album are barely or not at all related to the content of the song, because they are harder to remember. But I'll give a pass to the MGs and their Bible-verse-titled songs on Life of the World to Come, especially because the best song by far on the album is like the only song with the 23 in the title that I am familiar with.
24 — "24 Hours" by Sky Ferreira — Wrong measurement of time, Sky!!!
25 — "25 for the Rest of Our Lives" by the Henry Clay People — Probably would've been "25!!" by BtMI! if they weren't featured for "Wednesday." It's actually kind of interesting, comparing these two songs, how they both express similar sentiments about a very specific age, perhaps from slightly different vantage points.
26 — "26" by Paramore — Anyone check out that low-key Hayley Williams album from a few weeks ago? Any good? I feel like it was filled with mostly cuts like "26," which is a nice song, but not necessarily my speed, especially if it was this kind of song for an hour.
27 — "27" by Fall Out Boy — Oof, we almost made it through the entire fucking list without me having to google for a random song, but the number 27 got me. Nothing that I know of. So here's Fall Out Boy I guess. Sorry to have failed you. (Okay, the song isn't awful. Pretty much what you'd expect.)
28 — "28 J's L8r" by Great Grandpa — I hate when it takes me four years to get a pun.
29 — "29 #Strafford APTS" by Bon Iver — C'mon, you knew at least one of the zonked-out titles from Bon Iver's 22, a Million was gonna make the cut
30 — "Thirty" by the Weather Station — I will probably feel about this song in eleven years the way I feel about "Nineteen" now.
31 — "31 Today" by Aimee Mann —"I thought my life would be better by now." Shit, Aimee, I'm 32 and I'm still blogging for some reason.
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