Today's update was originally going to be a trifecta of Top Ten Lists -- my ten favourite sets of lyrics, my ten all-time favourite contemporary songs, and my ten favourite albums. I was hard at work compiling data in the field (since all good data comes from fields) when I noticed a fairly generous overlap between my first two lists. Striving to take advantage of this, I Venn'd the crap out of the two lists and came up with the Optimus Prime of music lists: five of the songs I really like that also have meaningful lyrics.

Now for the most part, I'm completely oblivious to the lyrics of songs. The words are just another pastel in the pastiche of musical sounds that make the song what it is. This is one roadblock to my singing along with the radio -- though I've heard the lyrics to Green Day's Holiday (which made my June list) a million times, I've never actually "listened" to all the words, so I just mumble vaguely similar phonetic sounds in certain places where I'm unsure (see also, Tatu).

So I'm presuming that these lyrics were reasonably significant to me in my past if they sneaked past my automatic lyrics filter (or alternately, my filter is clogged and needs more charcoal). The interesting part of this whole sordid exercise is that there are recurring themes in all five of the songs, which I never connected together until now: recovering from past mistakes, appreciating today, and unrequited love. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for dramatically angsty yet upbeat songs. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to psychoanalyze me based on my selection of lyrics, because that's a morass of a minefield I don't want to lose a limb in. Here are the five, in no particular order. The first link leads to the lyrics, and the second link leads to an MP3 sample:

• Coldplay - Shiver (470KB MP3)
• Muse - Endlessly (496KB MP3)
• The Monkees - Giant Step (332KB MP3)
• Ray Stevens - Mr. Businessman (516KB MP3)
• Kinky - Snapshot (356KB MP3)

Note for the Curious:
I briefly, fleetingly, considered picking five random songs with ridiculous lyrics to trick the analyzers, but decided to hedge at the ever-so-rare personal touchy-feely blog post instead. Selections would have definitely included I'm the Only Gay Eskimo, They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha Ha, and The Rockafeller Skank. If you want more touchy-feely, you can read the 10 new items I added to my 222 Things About Me list: .

Note for the Unscientific:
Venn'd is the past tense of "to Venn" which means "to draw two overlapping circles and then colour in the football in the middle".

Note for Those Who Can Count:
I'm sure that at least one of you wily mathematicians noticed that I mentioned another list. Here are my picks for great albums:

• Muse - Absolution
• The Hi-Lo's - Under Glass / I Presume
• Lennie Niehaus - Quintet & Octet
• Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Band - Once More With Feeling!
• Kansas - Best of Kansas (can compilations count as albums?)

I could not come up with five more. Most albums suck, even those that have a few good songs, and it's rare to find an album that's solid all the way through. I will definitely have all of these albums with me when I'm ostracized to Elba following my failed coup in Petropavlovsk.

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