Who says Friday the 13th is unlucky? Since it’s a special day, instead of your usual 3 to 5 songs in the List Addicts list, it’s going to be a baker’s dozen. Also to celebrate a novel opening that I made that won $20 this week (woohoo! twenty bucks!) – the random songs that I’m serving up will presumably, be songs that can inspire you to write and make that work of art that you’ve been waiting all your life to finish.
Songs are the perfect inspiration. They create the mood, and are great soundtracks for the imaginative mind. What we have here is a collection of songs that have carefully been selected to get your creative juices flowing –
1. Stars – Counting Stars on the Ceiling
If you’re looking for inspiration, what better way to start by listening to Stars songs. I love Stars, their music isn’t just beautiful to listen to, but most will tell you a story. Counting Stars in the Ceiling is your typical non-romantic, romantic sounding Stars song (they’re experts at that – as all you Stars fans out there know). It starts with Baudelaire’s poem recited in its original French, and continues on to paint a picture of a rainy night and a couple’s passionate rendezvous. It’s a one night stand of course, and the song describes what happens afterwards. It’s the sort of song that right at the bat, gives you a nice mental picture – ‘Rain since Tuesday. Barely found my way to the shop / for the milk in the morning / and the news of the world had turned around/Then I heard you calling…’. And with such a great soundtrack, your imagination will just be primed to go into create mode.
2. Corduroy Utd – I Saw Love
I’ve fallen in love with this song. I’ve had this in my head for a few weeks now and I can’t shake it off. Corduroy Utd.’s song is just so charming and cute that if it were a puppy up a shop window, you’d want to take it home right away. It’s a simple duet that anyone can relate to, and also, song that anyone can sing since it requires minimal vocal prowess. If you’re up to penning a love story, this might would probably a song that’ll get you started.
3. Evripidis And His Tragedies – Abroad
Abroad put simply, is a song about going abroad. It’s for anyone and everyone who’s chosen to go far, far away from home to find his or her fortune in a foreign land. For Evripidis, who wrote the song, it speaks more of his personal experience moving from Greece to Spain – which, for those of you wondering, explains where the accent came from. Personally, I love foreign accents. Besides sounding exotic, it kind of lets other people know that you’re the kind of person that will go out of your way, (obviously out the comfort of your own country) to experience how the other side of the world lives. I have a lot of respect for that – since from my own personal experience, it takes a lot of guts to do (especially if you’ve chosen to live, and not just be visitor in that foreign land). I can’t say the same for the guy with the Eastern European accent that attempted to pick me up at the bus stop though. Oddly, I find the Eastern European accent sexy, but bus stop guy, you were creepy.
4. Maximo Park – Postcard of a Painting
Maximo Park was my music in the car whenever I came home from my graveyard shift. Everytime I heard this song, and I was stuck in a traffic jam in the morning rush – all sorts of mental images crop up that would make for excellent primetime television viewing while listening to this song. It might just be me and my sleep deprived state, not fully getting used to the whole sleeping in the morning routine that’s fueling those mental images – but this wonderful song surely helped in getting me alert enough to drive my way back home. Also, watch out for that part when he says ‘You are just another thing that I have yet to fathom‘, it gets me all the time.
5. The Cribs – Mirror Kissers
When I hear this song I get inspired to do a The Commitments style novel about rowdy kids wanting to form a band. They’d be as kooky as Ryan Jarman, and would say things like ‘Before I came out from Wakefield, I thought I was speaking the Queen’s english’. They’d score their greatest hit (this song), when one of them attempts to try to play My Sharona but fails, then the band just goes on improv and makes it sound more noisy and punk.
6. We Are Scientists – Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt
I’ve been listening to a lot of We Are Scientists songs lately, this included. This song has probably been used in a TV show or something since it makes for a great soundtrack for a chase scene. I think the music video for this song actually shows the band fleeing from an angry pedobear. Besides, it has such inspired lyrics that could be make anyone be inspired to create anything : ‘My body is your body/ I won’t tell anybody / If you want to use my body / Go for it yeah!’
7. The Rest – Modern Time Travel
The Rest has got to be by new favorite Canadian band right now. If you want a song that could easily evoke an emotional reaction, this would be it. Besides the moving, mood evoking rhythm and instrumentation, it also has a really great title for a song: Modern Time Travel. It’s so interesting that it makes you want to hear the song, and then maybe write about it because you weren’t really sure how modern time travel fits into it. But I kid, its a truly beatiful song that makes any heart want to explode 😉
8. As Tall As Lions – Break Blossom
I usually stay away from heavy stuff – but I could not, not post this song since it’s pretty amazing song. Like Modern Time Travel, it’s one of my top songs that I can think of that can evoke an emotional reaction, without being all too sappy.It’s a song about suicide, and how small things can make a difference. If you’re into writing that sort of stuff, this one is the perfect song for you.
9. Cynthia Alexander – Comfort In Your Strangeness
This one’s an oldie, from many many years back – when I was still a teenager listening to Cynthia Alexander’s album with my walkman (the ancient ancestor of the mp3 player). Some songs stick to you because it’s attached to a memor. Mine was thing song, and the memory was the archeology dig in college where I’d wake up in our little hut and stare at the holes in the roof. Despite the absence of a proper bed and that weird sawing noise every night (which we deduced, might have been large rats gnawing at the bamboo parts of our hut), I found a lot of comfort with the company I was with. This song might not bring out inpiring memories for anyone who hasn’t listened to this song yet, but I do find Cynthia Alexander’s songs beautiful enough to invoke inspiration.
10. The Dykeenies – Clean Up Your Eyes
This band takes their name from the fantasy film ‘Willow’, their songs won’t inspire you to make a fantasy masterpiece though. What ‘Clean Up Your Eyes’ does, is to make you feel. It’ll make that dark frozen heart of you feel and remember how it felt like when you first fell in love. Note: this is description reeks of sap, but the song is is way, way cooler (especially the acoustic version if you could get a hold of it).
11. Ms. John Soda – Line By Line
Line by Line is the sort of song that seems like it could fit into a spy/mystery movie. Not so much James Bond – but it sort of has that murder mystery kind of feel to it. At the same time, it’s a pretty great song to listen to even if you’re not thinking of anything murder/mystery related.
Figurine songs are your quintessential songs for a futuristic love story. If you’re delving into that genre, I’d suggest getting a complete set of Figurine albums. Heartfelt, as the title would suggest, is their most heartfelt song – at which if you’re the type that loves electronica (and the other half of Postal Service for that matter), this song would be made just for you. It also imparts to us a very important lesson, lest we forget – ‘Love, love is just a word / A used up term / Unless it’s heartfelt / Love, love is just a noun / An empty sound / Unless it’s heartfelt.’
13. Look See Proof – Single’s The New Together
Did Bloc Party just make a new song? No, it’s actually Look See Proof, doing Single’s The New Together.
Whenever I hear this, I imagine it as a perfect song ending to some sort of a movie. The one that plays while the credits are rolling. I guess it’s just me, but yeah – it gives you that good uppity feeling, especially if you just felt like you wasted 90 minutes of your time watching a lame movie about parallel universes and Peter O’ Toole…even if you know, Quentin Tarantino directed it and Brad Pitt starred in it.
photo by Beige Alert
