The best songs ever?

EDIT:
Check out the bracket: http://www.bracketmaker.com/tmenu.cfm?tid=143649&tclass=Best%20Songs%20Ever%3F
Also I've decided how I want to write about it. I'm going to write about the loser of each so that each song gets it's due. I'll start either tomorrow or the next day.

EDIT 2:
Further edits on the list after suggestions from Drew.
Semi-Charmed Life-Third Eye Blind has been cut for Greener-Tally Hall, I thought it was on there but it must have slipped through the cracks somewhere.

EDIT 3:
One swap after suggestions from Mike
California- Phantom Planet is cut for Mistaken for Strangers-The National
California probably shouldn't have made it this far anyways. I started writing the first few "battles" so I'd expect some up by late tonight or tomorrow.

The Flaming Lips song has changed from "Fight Test" to "Do You Realize???" This is a better represenative and isn't a Cat Stevens Rip-off.


If you've ever read my xanga from my early high school days you might know I like to make music lists. So today I've compiled 128 songs from my music library that I think are all candidates for the best song in there (or at least good enough to be in the top 128) I've battled my favorite albums and my favorite artists before but never have I done favorite songs. Compiling this list took about 3 hours that I don't really have to spend. I went through and picked 1 song from every relevant artist. The Beatles, Bowie, Clash etc all deserved more spots but I know I'm sick of seeing lists dominated by Beatles and Beach Boys songs.

I'm not sure yet how I plan on narrowing it down yet. I will probably do it tournament style with random seeding but the question is how much writing I'd like to do on each song/battle. Honestly I could write a page about most of these songs and in some cases several essays but that would make this take forever. I suppose I'll sleep on it.

Anyways here's the list for now, feel free to complain about the lack of Sugar Ray.


✓ 96 Tears And The Mysterians
✓ Peacebone Animal Collective
✓ Two The Antlers
✓ Wake Up Arcade Fire
✓ Roam The B-52's
✓ Silent Sigh Badly Drawn Boy
✓ The Weight The Band
✓ Brian Wilson Barenaked Ladies
✓ God Only Knows The Beach Boys
✓ Intergalactic Beastie Boys
✓ A Day In The Life The Beatles
✓ I'm A Cuckoo Belle & Sebastian
✓ Stand By Me Ben E. King
✓ Dry The Rain The Beta Band
✓ In A Big Country Big Country
✓ Just a Friend Biz Markie
✓ I Gotta Feeling Black Eyed Peas
✓ No Rain Blind Melon
✓ End Of A Century Blur
✓ Like A Rolling Stone Bob Dylan
✓ No Woman No Cry Bob Marley
✓ Toxic Britney Spears
✓ Somewhere Over The Rainbow Brother Iz
✓ The Way It Is Bruce Hornsby
✓ My City of Ruins Bruce Springsteen
✓ For What It's Worth Buffalo Springfield
✓ Carry The Zero Built To Spill
✓ Father and Son Cat Stevens
✓ The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
✓ Lost in the Supermarket The Clash
✓ Overkill Colin Hay
✓ Brimful of Asha Cornershop
✓ Just Like Heaven The Cure
✓ Lights And Music Cut Copy
✓ Time After Time Cyndi Lauper
✓ One More Time Daft Punk
✓ The Crystal Cat Dan Deacon
✓ I Believe In A Thing Called Love The Darkness
✓ Heroes David Bowie
✓ Under Pressure David Bowie & Queen
✓ Babylon David Gray
✓ Soul Meets Body Death Cab for Cutie
✓ Layla Derek & The Dominos
✓ Come On Eileen Dexy's Midnight Runners
✓ Gyroscope Dismemberment Plan
✓ Walking The Dodos
✓ The Boys of Summer Don Henley
✓ Hotel California Eagles
✓ September Earth, Wind & Fire
✓ Rocket Man Elton John
✓ Stan Eminem
✓ Tears In Heaven Eric Clapton
✓ Do You Realize?? The Flaming Lips
✓ Blue Ridge Mountains Fleet Foxes
✓ Landslide Fleetwood Mac
✓ The Modern Leper Frightened Rabbit
✓ Faith George Michael
✓ Crazy Gnarls Barkley
✓ Gin & Juice The Gourds
✓ The Message Grandmaster Flash
✓ Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) Green Day
✓ Sweet Child O Mine Guns N Roses
✓ Papa's Got a Brand New Bag James Brown
✓ Young Hearts Spark Fire Japandroids
✓ 99 Problems Jay-Z
✓ Numb/Encore Jay-Z And Linkin Park
✓ Hallelujah Jeff Buckley
✓ Take Me Home, Country Roads John Denver
✓ Imagine John Lennon
✓ Flashing Lights (Ft. Dwele) Kanye West
✓ Hounds Of Love Kate Bush
✓ Waterloo Sunset The Kinks
✓ Heartbeats The Knife
✓ All My Friends LCD Soundsystem
✓ Sweet Home Alabama Lynard Skynard
✓ I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye
✓ Real World Matchbox Twenty
✓ Missed The Boat Modest Mouse
✓ No Children The Mountain Goats
✓ 99 Luftballoons Nena
✓ Two-Headed Boy Part 2 Neutral Milk Hotel
✓ Smells Like Teen Spirit Nirvana
✓ The Past Is A Grotesque Animal Of Montreal
✓ Hey Ya! Outkast
✓ Band On The Run Paul McCartney & Wings
✓ Gold Soundz Pavement
✓ Mistaken for Strangers The National
✓ Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd
✓ Every Breath You Take The Police
✓ Purple Rain Prince
✓ Common People Pulp
✓ Bohemian Rhapsody Queen
✓ Losing My Religion R.E.M.
✓ Fake Plastic Trees Radiohead
✓ Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) Radney Foster
✓ Under The Bridge Red Hot Chili Peppers
✓ Ooh La La Rod Stewart
✓ Sympathy For The Devil The Rolling Stones
✓ Closing Time Semisonic
✓ Random Rules Silver Jews
✓ Mrs. Robinson Simon & Garfunkel
✓ All Star Smash Mouth
✓ Disarm Smashing Pumpkins
✓ The Way We Get By Spoon
✓ I Am the Resurrection The Stone Roses
✓ What I Got Sublime
✓ Chicago Sufjan Stevens
✓ Give a Little Bit Supertramp
✓ Once In A Lifetime Talking Heads
✓ Greener Tally Hall
✓ Drops of Jupiter Train
✓ Wolf Like Me TV On The Radio
✓ Cold Days From The Birdhouse The Twilight Sad
✓ One U2
✓ Astral Weeks Van Morrison
✓ Pale Blue Eyes The Velvet Underground
✓ The Drugs Don't Work The Verve
✓ The Start of Something Voxtrot
✓ The Rat The Walkmen
✓ Tired of Sex Weezer
✓ Seven Nation Army The White Stripes
✓ Baba O'Riley The Who
✓ Fatalist Palmistry Why?
✓ I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Wilco
✓ I'll Believe In Anything Wolf Parade
✓ Maps Yeah Yeah Yeahs
✓ Ce Jeu Yelle
✓ Changes 2Pac

Mr. Chi-City

Title: Steven goes to Chicago or how I learned to stop worrying and love the interview

Chapter One: in which Steven takes a plane to Chicago

My flight was at 3:40 and I ended up waiting at the airport for 2 hours. Me and Brian would always complain when my dad when this on our family vacations. I told my dad I was 2 hours early in an email and he replied "You can laugh at your parents and make fun of the way they do things, but in my experience it is hard to avoid doing things the way they taught you." hmmm, too true.

I made the mistake of not checking in for my flight online ahead of time. Because of this I ended up in the last group of people to get on the plane. As such I was stuck in a middle seat. I really dislike open seating for airplanes. What's the point? It's good at splitting up families. Also there was an announcement that unaccompanied children between the ages of 5 and 11 could board early. Wtf, would anyone let their 5 year old fly alone?

Chapter 2: in which Steven eats dinner with some guy.

I arrived at Midway and met up with the other Cognizant candidates and we took a paid for ride to our hotel. Most of the other candidates disappeared after check-in but one was in the room across hotel from me and we decided to grab dinner.

Now this guy wasn't weird in the conventional sense. He was just one of those people you just think is kinda off and can't put your finger on it. He makes fun of himself for being short several times and mentions how he often has to buy kids clothing. He brings up middle school and how he hates it and it's pointless. I don't know what happened to this guy in middle school but he sounds pretty upset about it.

Dinner was Italian food and since I kept the receipt it's all on Cognizant. Having not eaten all day it was pretty much the best food ever.

Chapter 3: in which Steven tries to sleep but ends up listening to Staind all night
10:00
I felt lucky to be tired at 10pm that night. Having spent all week staying up until 4:30 I was worried falling asleep was going to be an issue but I nodded off at about 10:30.

12:00
I wake up. There's a lot of shouting in the hallway and there's obviously some drunkeness going on. Sounds like there was some sort of party. Ok whatever, I've been drunk in a hotel before and I'm sure I've woken people up too, no big deal. I fall back asleep in about 30 minutes.

2:00
I wake up. There's music. What? Why is there music? So the party animals turned out to be in the room immediately adjacent to mine. Apparently this party had moved to the hotel room. though the wall I can hear Staind playing. The Chorus comes and the bros sing along. "NOW THAT WE'RE HEEEEERE, SO FAR AWAAAAAAAAY." This is just getting silly, but I'm a patient man and this party's gotta be winding down since it's already late. I ignore the shitty tunes and fall back asleep.

?:??
I wake up. What time is it? There's music still pumping through the walls. Ugh, enough is enough, I pick up the phone to dial the front desk. I have trouble finding the button, it seems like the phone changed since last night.
"Hello this is the front desk"
"Yeah I'm in room 709 and there's music playing."
"Ok, hold on"
I wait in my bed, still up because of the music. There's a knock at my door, I guess they want to check in on me before they go over there. I answer the door and they turn on the light.
"Hey thanks for calling, take this" I'm handed a battery operated device that shoots knock-out pills. "You might need that in case they try to come in here while I kick them out."
"Can't I just keep my door closed."
"No we need you"
He also gets the guy across the hall to do the same thing. Maybe he called in too?
There's an altercation in the hall but slowly the people file out the room. I guess security was successful. However one guy remains and waltzes into my room. I fire a pill at him but miss and he ignores it and smirks.
"Hey, sorry about the music" He says sarcastically. "Can I have some of your candy?" He gestures towards my big cardboard box of candy.
"uhhhh, sure" I don't want any of that candy and I'm not even sure where it came from anyways.
My musical friend leaves my room.

4:00
I wake up. Ugh those surreal dreams always get me. But the idea to call the front desk is pretty good as music is still coming through the walls. I call down and they send security up to deal with it. Through the wall I hear them being kicked out of the room. I feel a little bad about it since I just wanted them to shut up not get kicked out. Oh well, that's what he gets for eating my candy.

Chapter 4 in which Steven has an interview.
The interview's from 8am till 12pm. I arrive on the dot and eat the breakfast they've provided for us. We have a video conference with the Chief technology officer then head to different rooms to be interviewed. I guess I'm last in line and they only have so many people. So I spend 40 minutes on my droid before anyone comes in.

The first interview is the technology interview. I mess up a bit here, I didn't answer his questions about classes the exact way he wanted. I don't know if I would have come up with words like encapsulation. These are all easy concepts, but the words to describe them are a little more complicated for me. Oh well, I rebound a little bit later in the interview we at least get a report going on and it ends out ok.

The second interview is all premade questions about business type situations. For example "Name a time you disagreed with a policy and what did you do about it." I think I nailed these questions. I think I had something relevant to talk about at every question and at least fairly interesting. He seemed to like the answers well enough too.

Overall one really good interview and one ok interview. I'm hoping that's enough, the main recruiters also seem to like me. I should find out monday if I have a job.

Chapter 5 in which Steven returns to AA
We leave immediately after the interviews. The guy I ate with dinner was in the car to airport along with two others. He brings up how he hates middle school again, hmmm.

The airport has a store called "Nuts on Steve." I keep my distance.

Again the plane has open seating and I'm stuck in the middle seat. Damn you southwest. The actual plane ride is short though at 1 hour and I feel glad when I arrive back in Detroit.

After I make my way through the airport It feels good to be driving back to AA. "Raise Your Glass" is on the radio. It's no "I gotta feeling" but it'll do.