Hope they'll have a better understanding

-
I don't know about you, whoever you are reading these contrived and hopeless words and listening to these melody-driven soft rock songs, but I can usually tell the kind of week I've had by what CDs I've had on the stereo or what songs I've not shuffled past on the Ipod. And this week has been a trying one, for various confusing and emotional car-crash reasons, and I won't get into them here for fear of alienating the very few readers I do somehow manage to keep with me. Suffice to say when the going gets tough I tend to fall back on the songs of my youth, and not always the cool ones. In fact, rarely the 'cool' ones. But you need to look yourself in the mirror, occasionally, as hard as that might be, and whisper to the quiet auidence of 'self'... 'I still really like these sounds, and the memories they bring back, from a time when I was so young and before I ever got involved with her'. These songs, examples of which you can find below, are the musical equivalent of junk food to me. They define a kind of easy, comfort listening that doesn't challenge or confront - and they just wash over you, through you, in a few moments of guilt-ridden bliss. And I'm not being pejorative here, in comparing these songs to junk food, I really do mean this in the best possible sense - they give a warmth, a comfort... and there is a familiarity to them, you know? They just make you feel a little more alive and human and remind you of who you used to be, a long time ago. Well, that's my excuse anyway. You can judge away, of course, though be aware it's not just dizzy heights that can give you a bloody nose.
-
John Mellencamp - 'Check it out' (4.21)
Don Henley - 'The boys of summer' (4.51)
Tom Petty - 'A face in the crowd' (3.59)
-
I'd deny it, officially, but I still have a massive crush for this album, and John, even now. It's so very 1987 of me, I know. Sigh. Hang me good, people.
-