Treasured Track: At the Drive-In – “Rolodex Propaganda”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to a bygone era in our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

I’ll admit, I don’t know what the hell “Rolodex Propaganda” is about. I’ve never cared. There’s talk about half eaten beards and scarecrow plots. Is it about a battlefield? Government censorship? Both? Again, don’t really care. All I know is the song fucking rocks.

There are plenty of At the Drive-In songs I could have chosen to highlight here. I thought hard about “Invalid Litter Dept.” and “Enfilade,” but I stuck with “Rolodex Propaganda” for a few reasons. Iggy Pop’s spastic vocals combine so well with Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s manic energy you’d think Iggy had always been a part of the band. It’s also a fairly light song, considering it’s violent imagery. It’s pop as hell, short and easily repeatable. I’ll bet there are At the Drive-In fans that hate how fun this song sounds. Screw ‘em.

Relationship of Command can be a heavy listen, considering its dark themes and Texan aggression. So a track like “Rolodex Propaganda” is a welcome break – an invitation to dance to keyboard sounds and melodic gurgling. I also dig that during live performances Cedric, Omar Rodríguez-López, and Jim Ward all got in on the vocals. Still, nothing beats Iggy delivering that “Manuscript replicaaaaa” line.

Treasured Track: Run the Jewels – “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to a bygone era in our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

Initially I planned to write about a song off the first Run the Jewels album. It’s a favorite of mine, and it reminds me of when a buddy and I would gush about RTJ while hanging out in Austin, TX. I suppose “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry,” off of Run the Jewels 2, is such a banger it refuses to be denied.

The heavy bass sets a serious tone for the flurry of words Killer Mike and El-P unleash upon the world. The dynamic duo are professional wordsmiths, and they go together like peanut butter and jamming rhymes down your throat. Like many of RTJ’s songs, “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry” is aggressive as a curb stomping. Killer Mike and El-P are anti-establishment, anti-fuckboy, and pro-second amendment.

It’s impractical to quote the entire song, so I’ll round up some of my favorite lines from these poets of vulgarity. “I read the books, did the math. / Don’t need a preacher preachin’ on my behalf. / No teacher can teach my arrogant ass.” You can’t shut up the educated, and don’t try to speak for them. “I’m not from Earth, from far away. / I bust through chests like baby greys.” Science fiction pop culture coming through. And “You can all run naked backwards through a field of dicks” is an elegantly verbose way of telling someone to go fuck themselves.

The beat changes up at the end and it’s a sprint to the last second, but try not to cry. Hit the replay button and class is once again in session with professors El-P and Killer Mike. Damn, these guys are good.

Treasured Track: blink-182 – “What’s My Age Again?”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to a bygone era in our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

“What’s My Age Again?” changed my life, and I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic way. I’d enjoyed plenty of music before blink-182, but true music infatuation didn’t exist for me until I first heard “What’s My Age Again?” on the radio. Mark Hoppus’s song about a self-sabotaging man-child is such an easy story for a teenage boy to relate to, and the song is catchy as all hell. It sounds like pop music with an edge and rock music that hits with quick jabs. It’s pop punk, and blink-182 introduced me to it.

The song bubbles up with Tom DeLonge’s clean guitar picking, but it isn’t long until the distortion kicks in while Mark shows us what a bad boyfriend he is. The chorus is easy to sing along to, and it’s made better by Tom emphasizing the back half of lyrics. It’s also nice how Mark changes the chorus up depending on the preceding verse (making a simple song a bit more complex) as the story continues. I have a preference for the third chorus though, probably because of my grade level when I first heard it:

“And that’s about the time she walked away from me.
Nobody likes you when you’re 23
And you still act like you’re in freshman year.
What the hell is wrong with me?
My friends say I should act my age,
What’s my age again?
What’s my age again?”

I must have listened to this song thousands of times. During those formative years of my life I was more of a Mark fan (though I loved Tom too), and I wonder if that’s due to my first favorite blink song. “What’s My Age Again?” and Enema of the State helped me through the rough times of high school, and I’ll always appreciate blink-182 for that. I have a prediction that I’ll be writing another Treasured Track article about blink, because there are so many that had an impact on me. Alright, time to watch some naked men running.

Treasured Track: Del Shannon – “Runaway”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to a bygone era in our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

Just like with movies, some songs simply age better than others. Watching American Graffiti right now will trigger memories of your own high school experience, even though it was released in 1973. And “Runaway” by Del Shannon will still help heal a breakup 59 years after its original release.

The term “ghosted” is fairly recent, but Shannon may as well have written “Runaway” specifically for the experience of being dumped by someone and being given no rhyme or reason for it. The song begins with a snappy guitar introduction and Shannon singing: “As I walk along, I wonder / What went wrong with our love, / A love that was so strong.” There aren’t many more lyrics to the song, so Shannon stretches them out in a creative way. The chorus is memorable because of the way Shannon wavers his tone like a wah pedal.

“And I wonder…
I wah-wah-wah-wah-wonder
Why
A-wah-wah-wah-wah-why
She ran awaaay,”
And I wonder where she will stay-yay,
My little runaway.”

Lack of closure is what “Runaway” is all about. There’s the pain of missing someone, surely, but not knowing what went wrong and where your loved one is staying now (and who they’re staying with) is worse. I always liked “Runaway,” but it wasn’t until I was unceremoniously ghosted (this was years ago, thankfully) that I thought, “Man, this song is perfect.” It still is, and a big part of that is the keyboard solo before the final chorus. Keyboardist Max Crook feeds off of Shannon’s urgency, dancing across the keys and hitting an erratic high tone that sounds like it was pulled from a horror B-movie set in a theme park. The sound mirrors the narrator’s bouncing, dejected thoughts, and it adds so much flavor to the song. Like many popular songs of the era, “Runaway” is a shorty; it clocks in at less than two and a half minutes. It’s short enough that if you’re going to hear it once, you may as well play it twice.

Sadly, Shannon was unable to overcome his demons later in life and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1990. In his honor you should watch Del Shannon play “Runaway” on Letterman. He’s clearly enjoying himself during the performance, and he sounds as good as ever.

Treasured Track: Foo Fighters – “Everlong”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to bygone eras of our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

Once someone asked me what my favorite song was. I thought it over before answering “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. This was about fifteen years ago, and although I don’t have a single favorite song now (more like dozens or hundreds of them), I still like that answer.

The dreamy guitar riff that introduces “Everlong” is simple and unforgettable. It’s so simple a novice guitarist can learn it and play it back within minutes, but that doesn’t take anything away from it. Likewise, the introductory lyrics are not complex, but Dave Grohl delivers them with a smooth kind of conviction: “Hello. / I’ve waited here for you… / Everlong.” By this point in the song the dreamy guitar has been met by a second distorted guitar that somehow doesn’t sound dated (with “Everlong” being released in 1997) and drumming that’s never too far away from excitable drumrolls. I suspect “Everlong” wouldn’t be half as good as it is if not for the bridge which abruptly reintroduces the opening riff backed by Grohl’s mysterious whisperings.

I was surprised to find the song’s runtime is over four minutes. Really, “Everlong” is so good it always seems like it ends too soon. It wouldn’t feel right to call “Everlong” a love song, but it’s passionate and sincere, and it still rocks. Grohl didn’t have to pen a soft ballad to work through his emotions; that being said I’ve always preferred the full band version to acoustic renditions. “Everlong” is best when washing over you with full force.

Side note: I liked watching AMV videos years back (they’re anime clips spliced together with popular music), and the Tenchi “Everlong” video is one of the best. It inspired me to watch the Tenchi Muyo! anime recently – I recommend doing the same if you like weird, funny anime.

Treasured Track: Bruce Springsteen – “Hungry Heart”

Our favorite songs are timeless. Even with years separating us from the last time we heard them, these songs call us back to bygone eras of our lives. Some of them helped us through heart wrenching breakups while others remind us of late nights spent with best friends. In this feature I reflect on the tracks that I’ve obsessed over in the past and always welcome back to my headphones in the present.

“Hungry Heart” is the first song I ever sang at karaoke (shout out to DJ Milo Spriggs at The Froggy Dog), and I’ll always love it for that alone. It’s upbeat as hell with its keyboard foundation and Bruce shouting out encouragement to the audience, but it’s also the story of a man who’s abandoned his family. I’m struggling to think of another fun pop rock song that begins with a line as shocking as, “Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack. / I went out for a ride and I never went back.”

Even with that, “Hungry Heart” is undeniably appealing. It’s a song begging to be sung along to, joyous in tone if not in context. And even if the narrator has done something despicable, one thing he isn’t guilty of is speaking untruths. Even the most cynical person would find it hard to deny the final verse, spoken in common language without any pretense: “Everybody needs a place to rest, / Everybody wants to have a home. / Don’t make no difference what nobody says, / Ain’t nobody like to be alone.”

Coincidently, today while listening to This American Life I heard about how babies raised in orphanages without any kind of love would simply die. “Hungry Heart” begins by introducing us to a terrible husband/father, and it ends by reaffirming our need to find a connection in life that helps us feel fulfilled. We can distrust the man while appreciating the message. You’re a master, Bruce.