What! Nothing off 'In Rainbows'? My top 100 songs of 2007 (part III)

050
Buck 65 - Blood of a Young Wolf.
"Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my arm"
I heard this song in a club about two years ago, and although I knew it was Buck 65, I never felt the urge to trawl through the entire back catelogue, good as it may or may not be, to try and find what it was. By sheer fotune, I heard it again in the summer this year, and practically fell over myself to write down as many lyrics as I could to find out what it was. It worked perfectly, as it's the only Buck 65 song that references Neko Case and Egg and Spoon Races. It's as good as it ever was.

049
The Snuggle Ups * Dancing in the Dark
"Man I'm just tired and bored with myself"
The second Bruce Springsteen cover on this years chart. This band I know exactly nothing about, apart from that they no longer exist, and this is the only song I've been able to find by them. Basically it sounds like a homosexual Shins tribute act covered Bruce Springsteen in the style of Fischerspooner. Most people I've played this too have liked it, which includes Chris at work, who likes Wolves in the Throne Room and might be roadie-ing for Avenged Sevenfold.

048
The Tough Alliance * Mine Was Real
""I can't give you my heart, you abused it""
Swedish. An unlikely cover of a semi-obscure old soul song by Rozatta Johnson, which is similarly worth investigating for it's tear-inducing brilliance, this speaker-bouncing jazzed up cover paces the same turf as the aforementioned '25 years and running' only the lifted melody adds more poignancy, albeit nonsense. I love this band, if they weren't such a dubious art-pop 'concept', we'd all be happy together

047
The Kissaway Trail * 61
"We can, we're strong, we'll beat it!"
Alright! Fist-pumping positivity from the Danish school of indie rock. Basically Mew, but if Mew didn't know that Radiohead fans were also into them. They're all a bit wonky looking, in that half of look like models of Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers made out of pipecleaners. This, of course, reminds of when I went to see them at the Barfly and Ewen turned up with his friend who'd never been to see a band before. I'm a bit jealous that Thr Kissaway Trail was her first.

046
Lucero * Bikeriders
"Kathy, do you mean it this time?"
If I could claim to have written any song from any time period by any band, I'd probably choose this one. Not because it's necessarily the best song ever written, but because it so perfectly encapsulate the perfect rock and roll song: rhyming couplets, a voice that sounds like it's been honking whiskey since noon, and best of all rock n' roll cliches - it's about motorbikes. I can't believe I'd never head Lucero before this year. I entirely blame Last.FM for this discovery, because for about three months, my "top friend" had them has his most-listened. So I did a single white female on him, and copied his music taste.

045
Minus the Bear * Dr L'Ling
"I'm afraid of becoming a causual business man on matters of the heart"
The training week in Bournemouth was strangely fun. I've never had a whole hotel room to myself, and the TV in the room had Sky One so I could watch rolling breakfast news in the morning after Breafast in the dining room with all the builders and computer technicians on their midsummer conference break. This reminds me of making coffee in the words slowest kettle, in a room with a view over the Bournemouth International Centre, listening to the Bournemouth Supremacy (see above) and watching Eamonn Holmes earn a living.

044
Now It's Overhead * Turn and Go
"There is not what I want in a mountain peak. There is not what I want in a valley deep"
I prefer to take the above lyrics metaphorically, rather than adopting a literal, St Bernard approach. To not find satisfaction in either the dizzying heights of happiness, or find salvation in the bottomless pit of despair isn't a nice experience at all. It's about disillusionment. It's horrible. Luckily though, this reminds of Christmas! And baubles! and plastic dancing light-up Christmas tree lights hangng over Working Street in Cardiff!

043
Kings of Leon * Knocked Up
"I'm a ghost and I don't think I know where we're gonna go"
Every year I write about the one song which seems to soundtrack the transition between the end of winter and the start of summer. This year it came early, in March. It proved the be a false dawn because the summer didn't actually happen at all, but for one weekend, it was warm. Lisa and I got a lift home from Borders with Karen, and despite it being the first sunny day of the year, I ended up watching 'Entourage' until all hours of Sunday morning. This is significantly better than a seven minute two-chord Kings of Leon song about getting a girl up the duff has any right to be.

042
Sun Kil Moon * Carry Me Ohio
"I'm sorry for never going by your door"
Mark Kozelek on top form. Thanks to him, Christmas, thanks to him, proved be a pleasantly dour affair, as I got albums by Sun Kil Moon, the Red House Painters, and a Mark Kozelek solo album, unbeknown to my parents they're all fronted by the same man, so they had to put up with endless misery all through Scrabble. This is a song I've been coming back to all year, and it hurts every time. Like picking a really painful scab.

041
Voxtrot * Real Life Version
"I see you, always struggling"
Another album that failed to live up to expectations, for reasons unknown the only song I really fell for on Voxtrot's album was the one that didn't sound like typical Voxtrot, and in anyone elses hands would be a mawkish Embrace-esque piano ballad. Luckily, Voxtrot are unashamedly twee, which obviously starts to grate, so when they write an actual proper song, it's a relief. A song for your mum.

040
Funeral For a Friend * Into Oblivion (Reunion)
"Will you be the same as when I saw your last, tell me how much time has passed"
This year was undoubtedly the year Matt Davies from Funeral For a Friend went insane. Not content with joining the "singers in emo bands going alt-country" bandwagon (see also: Thrice) and actually pulling off a worryingly authentic Ryan Adams impression despite singing in a Welsh accent, and then this. Out went the usual Funeral For a Friend devices, in comes.... a concept album about a man lost at sea on a rowing boat, that sounds like Iron Maiden. Your eyes are also diverted to the beyond-description closing track 'The Sweetest Wave' which features lyrics about killing all the surrounding fish, but this was the jewel in the crown, the lead single. Pompous shite, but gourmet pompous shite.

039
Destroyer * Your Blues
"Lord knows I've been trying"
Apparently this song is about "the fascination with the thing's we've lost no matter what the circumstances are".

038
Tokyo Overtones * Slow Graffiti
"Listen Johnny, you're like a mother to the girl you've fallen for"
I wouldn't have bet any money that a cover of one of my least favourite Belle and Sebastian songs by a French band that record some of the instruments backwards, and throw in loads of dated 90s drum effects ontop of the damn thing, would end up becoming one of my favourite songs of the year. But these things happen. The album this is taken from ('A Century of Covers') is largely unlistenable, save for an entertaining cover of 'Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying' sung in Italian, and a unspeakable cover of 'Dog on Wheels' which is up there with the worst things I've ever heard.

037
The Knife * Silent Shout
"In a dream I lost my teeth again"
Swedish. Whilst I was about two years out with realising how good 'Heartbeats' was, I'm justabout crawling into the same level of lateness catching up with how good 'Silent Shout' is. More impeccable Swedish electro pop, that reminds me doing fuck all except listening to The Knife, which in turn reminds the next time, of listening to it the previous time. A bit like when you look in a mirror and hold up another mirror, and then you see yourself disappear into a magical mirror world.

036
Manchester Orchestra * Where Have You Been?
"when you look at me, I'll be digesting your legs"
I often imagine what an actual Manchester Orchestra sound like. Just before I wake up in a cold sweat. This was yet another song from the infamous 'catsitting' sessions which I've now built up to be a much bigger event in my year that it ever could have been. I remember listening to this on a bus journey from Winchester to Southampton, where I got excited about shopping and then felt my enthusiasm drain with every shop I went in, before going into Borders in Southampton and spoke to a total irritating bore there about Freidrich Nietzsche, whom I know nothing about, and then I went home and watched The Bourne Identity.

035
Johnny and the Moon * The Ballad of Scarlet Town
"Don't tell me to repent, what to sow"
The horse from Hot Hot Heat returns in unprecedented folk-stomp brilliance. Just perfect for that trip down the Morgan Arcade to McDonald's.

034
The National * Start a War
"We expected something, something better than before"
This couldn't remind me of anything other than the most excrutiating half hour of 2007 when Gemma and I tried to watch a clip on Youtube of The National performing this in a cage, and it kept stalling, or taking too long, or going back to the beginning, and so I must have heard the introduction this song about a hundred more times than the entire thing. It's worth it, because once the first line is over, it's a lovely song.

033
The Arcade Fire * Keep the Car Running
"Same old city with a different name"
The best live show I saw this year, of the pitiful few I went to, was The Hold Steady. But running a close second was The Arcade Fire at Portchester Hall in London in January. Allegedly Chris Martin was in the restaurant downstairs. They walked through the crowd doing 'Wake Up' and then they played this, and it was completely brilliant.

032
Fucked Up * Triumph of Life
"When you get better at looking, I get better at hiding"
The more I listen to 'Hidden World' by Fucked Up, the more I discover. It was only the third or fourth listen that I started to notice the hand claps and floor stamps that riddle the last third of the song. Elsewhere, it's more sped up punk rock power chords being bellowed over by a hoarse, bald fucker. This reminds me of looking at imitation DVD titles like 'Transmorphers', 'Nightmare Hostel', and '48 Days Later" in Woolworths.

031
Band of Horses * Is there a Ghost
"I could sleep when I lived alone"
This song only has fourteen worlds. But it feels like a lot more.

030
The Rosebuds * Silja Line (On Settling For a Normal Life)
"Let's all drink to the ones we know"
Interesting # 1. I made a mix for my dads birthday, and this turned out to be his favourite song on it, and it went on to be one of his favourite songs of the year. Interesting #2. The Rosebuds are not Swedish, but they do reference 'the windy streets of Stockholm' in this song, and the Silja line is a connecting Ferry route in Scandinavia. But that's not just why I like it.

029
Stars of the Lid * December Hunting For Vegetarian Fuckface
Instrumental
A strange one. Anyone familiar with Stars of the Lid knows this dilemma. Why is this song a cut above the average Stars of the Lid song? Why, in a year in which they returned for the first time in years with a double CD of complete ambient perfection, did this stand out. Surely not just the title? Maybe the length, because for the first time, a Stars of the Lid song comprising of one long drone (as is the norm) straddled 17 minutes, and allowed enough subtle changes to go the distance? For anyone unfamiliar with Stars of the Lid, this is the "hit".

028
Jason Anderson * My Balancing Act
"Every 'hey, how's it going?'. 'I guess I'm fine. I guess I'm fine'
When you're setting up a new store, you have a three week period known as 'the sort'. During this time, you regularly have very early starts, often very late finishes, and an obscene amount of physical labour. I did another this year, and this was one of the two songs that carried me along on my way in each day. The other is still to come. This song, I think, sums up the feeling of having a borderline personality quite neatly. Quite naively and in paint-by-numbers terms, but it's fairly accurate.

027
Shout Out Louds * Tonight I Have to Leave It
"When we go out dancing I don't want to be bothered"
Swedish. I made myself a t shirt with the title of this song on and it got hideously deformed in the wash. Just as well really because I coldn't keep the text straight and I'd have to stand at a 45 degree angle to your eyesight for it to look central. But why would you be looking at my chest anyway?

026
Enablers * Pauly's Days in Cinema
"That's quite a frame when he takes that critical left turn into the bar"
Slint + Shellac = party like you dig post rock in 1999!