I was tipped off to
Retro Crush’s 50 Coolest Song Parts by the venerable Memepool yesterday. It’s a pretty good listing of the cooling “parts of songs” ever. I’m all for listing stuff, but certainly not taking them as gospel. My stance on this is ever-so-bluntly pointed out by Retro Crush listing a Phil Collin’s song as the “#1 Coolest Song Part” ever. EVER. I couldn’t hardly agree more with Mr. Jackson Cooper‘s assessment: “Bullshit, I say.”
The end result might very well have been “bullshit”, but the whole notion of “cool song parts” is still wickedly valid. I think about cool song parts all the time. The #2 song on that list — “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who — was a prime example that was the first song I associated with “cool song parts” when I read the title of this well-conceived and ill-concluded list. As I was chatting with Jackson, I noted “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve sat in the car [with Kelly] and had her just listen to that keyboard solo [and resulting scream from Roger Daltrey],” and then stated “Kelly — this is what the end/beginning of the world will sound like.”
I know a cool song part when I hear one — there is something about the perfectly placed drum solo, the rising crush of an orchestra, a well placed lyric or perhaps a “ROCK!” that sends a shiver up my spine. It’s almost like I’m scared, excited and incensed all at once — such is the sway that music has o’er me. It’s not like I’ve always had this reaction to music, though. I clearly remember the first time it happened, and it was a bit of an odd circumstance for a revelation.
Cue wavy fingers of a man going back in time…
Well, I was working at Dairy Queen, washing dishes on a weekday night, possibly winter (winter fits the story, anyway). I was in my late teens, early twenties.
It was late at night, and we’ve got the radio tuned to some family-safe radio station — probably 107.7 WSFR — the best hits of the 70′s 80′s and today, played in a pseudo-random order, but with a very small sample of songs.
Considering the length of time I had worked at this restaurant, I’ve heard just about their whole playlist at least a hundred times over (all Jackson Brown songs are inexplicably played with twice the frequency, I don’t know why).
I know all the lyrics to every hit Kansas and Boston ever had — you know the one about “I done the rancher’s daaaaughter, and I sho’ did hurt his priiide”. Yeah, LOVE IT.
So anyway, it’s safe to say I’ve heard every hit song from the 70′s by now including Springsteen’s “Born to Run”.
There I am, attempting to scrape day-old burnt gravy out of the bottom of a stainless steel container.
Greasy Adidas Samba’s on my feet, black pants, apron and ball-cap, red shirt, pony-tail at the time.
…And that song comes on and, at that moment, I finally pay attention to it or perhaps, we paid attention to each other, I don’t know for sure.
But that opening of that song (the audio of which is sadly missing from it’s entry on that list) just grabbed me and I listened to the lyrics of hope and desperation on “mean streets”.
Streets that i’ve never tread, but the lyrics hit home, and hit home hard.
"Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
`cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run"
"Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims
and strap your hands across my engines"
His voice rising in intensity like a man trying to race up the stairs of a subway tunnel. The decrescendo of the middle of the song with Clarence’s sax going bum bum bum bu-bu-bu-bu-ba-bum. The dark before the dawn, and then that explosive rip of “The highway’s jammed with broken heroes…”
And i couldn’t help it — I let the dish fall in the sink, and I put my hands on the edge of the sink, and I just started to cry.
Not tears of sadness necessarily or even joy. Not the uncontrollable sobbing of terrible weight — just enough to know that I had been bested. Bested by a song that had hit me right square in the chest.
I think that might be where it started. A particular piece of music — just like these little chunks on the list — can hit me like a ton of bricks.
Like I said, a shiver up my spine, usually, but some things hit me right square and cut through all this flesh and bone and emotional defense, and POW. Right in the kisser.
So, yeah, from that point on, I’ve been a fan of Bruce Springsteen.
Why did it happen *right then*? When I know I’ve heard that song a million times? I’m not entirely sure, but I think I know myself a little better now.
