This will be the last FRT for a while; I’m ready to give it a break. All of these save for #6 are mine, and #s4,5,8, and 10 are special favorites. "Estranged" is my favorite GNR track ever; "I’ve Loved These Days" is my favorite Billy Joel song. Both, at different times in the 80s and 90s, were my "theme songs." You’d have to look up the lyrics to know why. (And yes, I really do own several Charlotte Church tracks. Don’t start.)
1. "Paperlate", Genesis
2. "Mercy Street", Peter Gabriel
3. "The Promised Land", Bruce Springsteen
4. "Love Song", Third Day
5. "Better Than You", Terri Clark
6. "Gold Digger", Kanye West
7. "Men of Harlech", Charlotte Church
8. "I’ve Loved These Days", Billy Joel
9. "City on a Hill", Third Day
10. "Estranged", Guns n’ Roses
Bonus Tracks: "Sexuality", Billy Bragg; "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters", Elton John
No more FRTs for at least four weeks, I promise. As much pleasure as I take in inflicting my musical tastes — and the stories behind the songs in my life — it’s time to give it a short rest.
But for those of you out there who do FRTs, you ought to do more than just list songs — tell us if one or more of them have special significance from your life.
I cannot imagine you as a Guns and Roses fan Hugo, they seem so sort of white trash to me. Axl Rose, yuck.
Liesl, please watch the language. “White trash” isn’t an acceptable phrase on this blog.
As for Axl, couldn’t disagree more! What I loved about him was his ability to encapsulate a particular kind of masculinity with which I once identified: a strange mix of hateful rage and extraordinary vulnerability. He was so amazingly tender and so mercurially ugly, all at once. (If I were younger, I think I would feel the same way about Eminem). From 1987-1992, there was no band that meant more to me than GNR.
My favorite Axl memory is his performance at UCLA during the 1992 MTV Music Video Awards; a stunning duet with Elton John. Wow, wow, wow.
“White trash” is unacceptable? No concerns about free speech?
Paperlate - the whole studio side of 3 Sides Live is one of my favorites…..
Chris, “free speech” is what governments provide, not blogs. This is a private forum in which I am free to make certain demands for civility, and to ban those who refuse to honor them.
Liesl–I’m guessing from your name that you aren’t from the rural South. Describing someone as “white t****” is a serious insult; it’s in the same category a “n*****” for blacks, and is traditionally a “fightable insult.” (One that is enough of a provocation that teachers will ignore attacks on people using it.) So–it makes sense for Hugo to ban the term on this blog.
(Hugo–if the above is too off topic, delete it–it won’t bother me.)
On the subject of theme songs–for a long time, I wanted my theme song to be “King of the Road” by Roger Miller. (”Trailers for sale or rent…”) And for a long time–or at least, what felt like a long time–it was Hank Williams “Nobody’s Lonesome for Me.” Those were bad years.
Thanks for explaining it to Liesl, Sam. And I have a fondness for Roger Miller myself. I first learned about him with all of those tv ads for his collections that used to run in the early 1980s.
Whatever, Hugo. I use the term “white trash” all the time, and my family is totally trailer park from Covina. If black people can call themseelves the N word why can’t I use “white trash” on your site?
I saw you today BTW, I like your red-white sailor shirt. Very tight and hot.