it does seem stunning to me to realize that 2007 is almost at an end.

it was a strange and stranger calendar year, full of adventures and misadventures and well, enough fodder to cycle over and over neurotically in my little mind for the rest of eternity. but i shan't really, as a new year is about to begin, full of its own rambles & gambles & shambles.

and the rapid approach of a new year means getting to wax on endlessly about the best things from this, the dwindling year. ah yes, tis the time of the top ten - when every magazine and blog and news show preaches best of lists. well, i won't bore with too many, but instead focus on the most important - the top 10 songs of the year. or rather, MY top ten songs - the ones that were with me all through the drama, melodrama and silliness that was my 2007. so the emotive ones, i suppose i really mean. the ones i can put on, headphones pressed against me ears, and daydream:

someone great - LCD soundsystem.

i've gone off into raptures about this one before. simply, my favourite song of this year, and up there on the list of all times. there is something utterly devestating about this track, and yet the hope that shimmers forth every time i hear it is incredible. amazing, how embarassingly insincere that sounded, even though it was written with utmost sincerity. this is why i never write about music. but twattery aside, this song is gorgeous and will always define this year for me.

love to a monster - okkervil river.

the second most played song of my year (second only to lcd soundsystem). what does this mean? that i am a sad sack of an individual, who loves to lounge in a lethargic sense of loss? or just a nerd who likes to describe songs using alliteration? hard to say. all i know is i love love love this song. the words are incredibly sad, and yet, once again, i am not left with any lingering depression - only a nostalgic yearning, and the knowledge that like time, we all move on.

anorak christmas - sally shapiro.

this is one of those songs that sounds straight out of berlin in 1985. it makes me want to hop on the metro and ride into oblivion, staring out the window and dreaming color into the dark cityscapes that fly by.


foundations - kate nash.

musically, i dig the metronymy remix bestest, but this song on its own is all about the lyrics. "my fingertips are holding onto the cracks in our foundations, and i know that i should let go..but i can't." simple, and true. also there is reference to her boyfriend getting so wasted that he gets sick on her trainers, which i just love. so funny & heartbreaking at the same time. and haven't we all felt that we were hanging onto the wrong things because it seems right at the time?

province - TV on the radio.

so cliched, but this song sweeps over me. it's 4:37 of majestic melancholy, and when it's done i don't feel sad anymore. a bit nostalgic, maybe - for some of the moments that have faded into a definite past, but not too sad that they are gone. memories are sometimes enough, aren't they?

the ghost of you lingers - spoon.

oh boy. this one kills me. the stacatto piano. the echoing melody. as you can see, it turns my already questionable writing into moronic spluttering. this song was on repeat on my summer travels in europe - and so brings to mind airports and wandering and wondering and shuffling along moving sidewalks and standing in lines -- all the while gazing at various points of interest along the way.

guest room - the national.

really, all songs on this album should be on this list - boxer is incredible and i am absolutely enamoured with matt beringer, the lead singer, as he grips a bottle of red, singing his tortured little heart out. now, i may not be such a depressed artiste, but how i relate to some of his musings!


girls in their summer clothes - bruce springsteen.

a late bloomer for the year. an end of summer doozy that captures that end of summer feeling - there's still a longing for the warm days of june & july, but you know this song is lodged firmly in the gloomier moments when autumn takes over - when people are underdressed on overly chilly nights. this song is going to the fair and looking up at all the neon lights, drinking a beer on a patio when patio weather is most certainly done. it's wondering what could have been even though you know that not knowing is probably the best thing you could do. it's magic, really.


oxford comma - vampire weekend.

possibly the cheeriest song on the list. a paul simonesque delight, this song drips optimism and happy adventures. it came to me in the dreary month of march, and put spring in my step early. yes, i really did just write that.


stumblin' in - suzie quatro & chris norman.

finally, this is an oldie, so really shouldn't be on a top 10 list of 07, but i only discovered it this year. a schmaltzy gem of the best kind. mellow listening for melodrama. and stumbling in is such a great description of what we do, every time we take two steps forward into something like love. even if it ends up just being a crush or a fling or in the grey area somewhere between like and lord knows what - you never feel like you're walking straight, do you. you're clumsy and weird and cautious. but isn't it fun?

ahoy the sundaziest of sundays here.

and that made about as much sense as my nonsensical life. and you know what? that's just fine by me. see, it's a chilly evening in this little town masquerading as a big city, and i am putting off work with all my might. and my might is legendary, let me tell you. at least when it comes to procrastinating.

it's been a pretty delightful few weeks, mostly because i got that thing known as my life back on track. not that it was really derailed, but it was stalling for some of october, and now november (or novembre, as i seem to like to call it, despite not being francais at all) is rolling along in a lovely ball of momentum and yellow leaves.

there wasn't anything of real impact to report - just in general, there was an electricity that's been missing. which of course, suggests that i was going around giving people shocks with my charged up fingers, which isn't exactly accurate - but i'm sure my energy has improved. and i don't mean in a new age sense. or hell, maybe i do.

goodness, it's been awhile.

for some reason i have been bottling up the incessant desire to yibber yabber blibber blabber. but that sort of admirable resolve has dissolved, and here i am back again, welling up with useless lines to communicate. and fittingly, it's a sunday evening, my favourite night for introspection.

four days into november and as the temperatures are cooling, so is my ardour for being blue. you can only really be down for short stints - i must say, those who have the attention span for long term depression really are a determined bunch. it's pretty tedious sport.

sure, it's cool to mope around for a bit, but at a certain point pale and interesting invalid becomes dark and boring. you stay awake too late at night, staring out at the starry skies and wading through some sort of sleepy melancholy, then wake up too late, rolling over to bury your face into your starry, starry sheets, and wish you were anywhere but here.

of course, you know that here isn't such a bad place to be - in fact, it's pretty damn great. but self-obsessed sadness can be quite seductive. it gives you carte blanche to complain to your sympathetic friends, to feel sorry for yourself, to wonder and wander and wallow. even though deep down you know how irritating you find yourself in this sorry state - you, yes you! have turned into the kind of pretentious goon you love to hate. and so, you pull yourself out before it's too late.

yes, you shake shake shake the blues off. listen to the right kind of music - screw the torch songs, you need tunes that'll fire up your enthusiasm for life. of course, they can still have some element of bitter, of bad, of sad -- but there must be hope, whether it's in the earnest singing, the melody, or the lyrics themselves. songs by the mountain goats seem to do this well - where words like this make you smile, wanly perhaps, but you smile - you smile. i end this ramble with a few of my favourites:

I hope that our few remaining friends
Give up on trying to save us
I hope we come up with a failsafe plot
To piss off the dumb few that forgave us

....


The first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it
But I drank it all just cause you hate it when I let things go to waste
And I wandered through the house like a little boy lost in the mall
And an astronaut could've seen the hunger in my eyes from space


And the wind began to blow and the trees began to pant
And the world in its cold way started coming alive
And I stood there like a buisness man waiting for the train
And I got ready for the future to arrive.

.....

i am going to make it through this year, if it kills me.
i am going to make it through this year, if it kills me.