Don't Wait Up For Me

The Donnas

Get up your hair and take this Friday night. Screw curfew! School is out!

Penny On The Train Track

Ben Kweller

Another Saturday Night

Cat Stevens

Lover, Lover, Lover

Leonard Cohen

Your Cover's Blown

Belle and Sebastian

Cancel all operations.

Blankest Year

Nada Surf

Meet me at the party, Cody.

Elephant Gun

Beirut

Quirky sensibility and sensational musicianship . Yes, this one has Meg all over it.

Crazy Train

Ozzy Osbourne

Step back, take a deep breath, and bang your head.

Highway Star

Deep Purple

Dinner was on the table. I called the kids to eat and looked to see what background music would go best with burritos.

"Here, Dad, let a real DJ do this," Collie said, waving me from the computer. I shrugged and left.

This song came on, loud. Jason leapt up and threw his hands in the air. "Nobody gonna take my car," he squealed. "I'm gonna race it to the ground! Nobody gonna beat my car, it's gonna break the speed of sound!"

Lillie covered her ears. "Ooh, what is that?"

"Guitar Hero," I said, chewing. "It means the boys get the same soundtrack to adolescence that I had."

I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

Arctic Monkeys

Thanks for the request, Norby. Meet me on the danssflurrrrr.

Joy

Lucinda Williams

A song for anyone caring more than I do about who I'm fucking in blogs.

You got no right to take my joy
I want it back
You got no right to take my joy
I want it back

You took my joy
I want it back
You took my joy
I want it back

Love Song

Sara Bareilles

Lillie tells me this is her favorite song. But she wonders, "Why doesn't she want to write a love song?"

"I think she wants to write it because she wants to, because she's inspired," I answered. "Not like it's homework."

"Oh." Lillie sat in my lap, watching the video. "She's really pretty," my daughter observed.

"Yeah, she is," I agreed.

She watched a little more. "And really small," she added.

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien

edith piaf

while i was off not writing my sex blog, this annoying thing happened to me. this thing called love. it was doomed from the start. he was a co-worker and one of those fundamentalist ultra christians, the son of a preacher man. the more time we spent together, the more i tried to warn myself. but then at one particular happy hour that lasted well into the night (oh, how we liked our happy hours), he turned to me and said, "drinking dirty martinis always makes me want to kiss someone."

giddy from the shots of patron he'd been buying me, i told him, "well, i'm not gonna stop you."

let me just tell you—boy was a damn good kisser. i know this not from the quick kisses he snuck in as we sat at the bar next to a couple of our other coworkers, but because when he followed me out to my car to get a pack of cigarettes, we sat in the very back and made out long enough that said coworkers actually called his phone looking for us.

oops.

and then, that was that. well, as far as the kissing went anyway. but as school let out and summer began, we hung out more and more and the flirting and extra long hugs and the curling up on the couch together and him spending the night in my bed (without any sort of action) continued. one of my favorite memories with him is the night we went to see la vie en rose together in an old, grand theater, where we sat in the balcony and shared the arm rest between us as edith piaf's music and (rather embellished upon) life story tugged at our hearts. he had just made up his mind to go work in a country on the other side of the world for the next year (or possibly, two) and we were both feeling a little raw and vulnerable.

ok, so i was pretty much devastated.

a couple of weeks later, i hid it well as a group of coworkers came together at his place to wish him farewell, but i stayed after everyone had left and loaded the two-disc mix i had made for him onto his ipod for his flight. the first disc was devoted to our time together and all the music, both awesome and shamefully bad, we'd shared. for the second, i basically went with an "i'm so proud of you for taking this awesome step, but please don't leave me" theme with a few sappy love-esque songs thrown in for good measure. (of course, this song made the cut.)

as i gathered my things to leave that night, he pulled me into a tight hug and i cried on his shoulder. i whispered into his ear, "please don't stay for the second year."

he hugged me tighter and said, "take this with you."

and then he kissed me.

meg

Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex

cansei de ser sexy

"do you know css?" jefferson asked me as he worked at his computer one lazy weekend day.

"you mean, like cascading style sheets? i used to use them a lot . . . ," i began to say.

"huh?"

"what?"

"no, i mean css—cansei de ser sexy!"

"so, you're not talking geeky web code?"

"just listen."

i'm a very good listener.

meg

Rainbows In The Dark

tilly and the wall

seriously, who needs a drummer when you've got a pretty girl tap dancing? i love how she sings along even without a microphone.

oh, and they're currently on tour! who wants to go with me?

meg

Frodo, Don't Wear The Ring

yo frodo, what you doin' wearin' the ring?
all powerful jewelry, is that your new thing?
i know it's hard when you're little, more than three foot four,
your little ass so close to the floor.

ok, so the majority of this clip is really weird and i am so not into the whole lord of the rings thing, but those four lines may very well be the very best words ever written and/or performed.

and for the record? i can't choose between the two of them, so don't even make me try. let me just say that given the opportunity, i would gladly have a "man-man lady threesome" with the two of them.

meg

Drive

melissa ferrick

hands down one of the sexiest songs you will ever hear in your life.

i bought this album way back in two thousand. and, people—that was high school for me. spring of my senior year of high school. so, i bring this album home and already owning two of her previous albums, i know she's good. no, wait—i know she's fucking awesome. so, yeah—i get this album and i take it home and i start playing it from the beginning and it's fantastic. it's bigger than her previous albums, not quite as sparse and her voice is perfect and the harmonies are just awesome.

and then i get to track eleven. and i hear that beat. and then that simple little guitar line. and the crackly speaker sound to it all. but wait, it gets better. because then her voice comes in.

"if you want this."

oh, melissa, you know i want it. you know i'll ask you nicely.

meg

Wishful Thinking

the ditty bops

pretty girls who write their own songs, sing kick ass harmonies, juggle, swallow swords, ride their bikes across the country, act out scenes involving pirates while playing songs in six/eight meter and play guitar, ukulele, washboards and fruit shakers while putting on one of the best live shows you'll ever see?

totally awesome.

girls who do most of the above (you know, aside from the bike riding) in old-fashioned corsets and tutus?

too good for words.

meg

Lovelife

lush

for the longest time, i couldn't listen to lush without thinking about alec. the first night i met him, we drunkenly stumbled back to my place after drinking our way through a favorite local bar's awesome beer selection. as we passed his car, he stopped to pull a cd out of the stereo and brought it back to my place. it was lush's spooky and as the music played, we made out like teenagers and fell asleep together on my tiny twin mattress in the house i shared with two other girls. we spent that summer drinking our way through his new film budget, going to wild, kinky parties that lasted into the wee hours of each night, fucking like crazy and hibernating in his house with his rather impressive movie collection. three months later, he told me he was in love with another woman. a couple months later, they were married.

(and then quickly divorced, or so i heard.)

my newfound fondness for lush was soon accompanied by bitter memories. but then during my spring break last year, i headed west to spend a few days with madeline, who on my last afternoon with her, put lush's split into her stereo, ordered me to strip and then climbed on top of me and had her way with me.

so uh, problem solved.

meg

Chan Chan

buena vista social club

the first time i ever heard this song, i was tied up to a low table while a frenchman and his girlfriend had their way with me. as we worked our way through a whole host of firsts for me (first time bound, first time with another girl, first time fisting anyone, first threesome and on and on), the album played through in its entirety and though i was definitely distracted, i'd heard enough to know i needed to own it.

i mean, come on—just try and tell me company segundo wasn't the cutest old man ever.

meg