"Our Songs'

[Dingleschmutz]

I searched through the past year and couldn't find a thread about this anywhere. So if one exists, have one of the mods change the title to "Flay the newb" and have at it. Anyway...

I decided to lay out a very important ground rule last night with the new girl I'm kinda seeing just in case we ever start thinking about more. No "our songs". I freaking hate "our songs". I mean I understand when they kinda naturally come about because of circumstances (more on that in a minute), but it's almost worse that way because those songs are usually halfway decent and then can never be listened to again when the relationship ends. At least the songs that are arbitrarily chosen for me against my will (while infuriating) invariably suck, so it's not like I'd ever want to listen to them again anyway. So here are my memorable ones, numbered from least annoying to most annoying.

The Circumstantial Song

4. Crimson and Clover - Tommy James and the Shondells

I love oldies, and this used to be one of my favorite songs. Unfortunately it was ruined for me because I seriously underestimated the girl I was dating at the time. After we'd been hanging out nonstop for about two weeks, I decided to put up an away message on AIM, and all it said was "Crimson and Clover". One of my favorite games is to be the only one in on the joke, and I figured putting something cryptic like that up would drive her nuts and I could just play dumb and flirty for awhile. Except she knew the first line was "I don't hardly know her but I think I could love her" and immediately knew it was about her. This not only deprived me of my fun little head game, it also eventually robbed me of the song. It's also part of the reason I fell so hard for her. She was the only person who could ever match my deviousness, and we could have whole cryptic conversations with stuff like that that would just annoy everyone else around us because they could never figure out what we were talking about. I freaking hate that song now.

The "I'm obviously not paying attention to what you listen to" songs.

3. Falling in Love Again - Eagle Eye Cherry

This one just makes me laugh. This was the song that one of my high school girlfriends arbitrarily chose for us. This is funny because 1.) This was when I was really getting into Rancid, Social Distortion, and the like. Eagle Eye Cherry would have been offensive to me. 2.) This girl and I dated our Junior years of high school (falling in LOVE?? AGAIN??) and 3.) This is the ex-girlfriend that is now (and in retrospect always has been) a lesbian.

2. Amazed - Lone Star

First college girlfriend picked this one. We were probably 19 or so. The awfulness of the song is well known, but the memory of HOW she'd make me listen to it a couple times makes me want to light myself on fire; slow dancing to it in her bedroom. I mean it was uncomfortable and awkward back then, but right now it's making me think I need to go home and drink a lot of scotch and just blindly hope that's the memory that's erased for good this time. Just seeing it in text on screen is making me cringe as much as seeing one of those sports injury videos that feature compound fractures. Yeesh.

1. More Than Words - Extreme

The evilest of all the ex-girlfriends chose this one, so it never stood a chance. But even when were dating I thought it sucked. Stupid 80's band with a complete misnomer as their band name? Check. Nonsensical lyrics? Check. To this day, I have no idea what the hell "More than words is all I have to do..." means. That doesn't even sound like a foreign exchange student butchering of the English language, it sounds like Downs Syndrome. I have no idea why she picked this one, (except for that girls lose their heads and clothing for acoustic guitar songs) but this is one of two songs on the earth that will actually raise the hackles on my neck and turn me violent, along with Feliz Navidad.

So... What are your "our songs"?