No one tagged me, but I wanted to try this meme out.

1. Go to the Billboard #1 Hits listings
2. Pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs of the year
4. Pick 5 songs and write something about how these songs affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

I turned 18 in 2001. Stop laughing. No, seriously...I know I'm a youngin'. Shup.

That was a BAD year for music, but I'll try my best.

1 - "Follow Me" - Uncle Kracker: I remember hearing this song on a bus in Chattanooga while on a band trip. My friend turned to me and said something like, "My boyfriend says this is our song." We then proceeded to crack up, because this is a song about an adulteress who has a possibly abusive husband and is fooling around with the narrator. Now every time I hear this song or "Lips of an Angel", I can't help but laugh at the fact that someone thought those songs were appropriate for soft-rock love stations, and high-schoolers everywhere are listening to nothing but the chorus and using these lyrics to proclaim their undying love to someone they might date for another 2 weeks before deciding that they're "over it" (as my friend and her boyfriend ended up doing).

2 - "Fallin'" - Alicia Keys: I LOVED singing this song. I hated the video, but the song was really fun to sing. I'd stand at the stove when no one else was home and belt it out while making my lunch...and when I hit the part that goes, "...I start faaaaaalllin' back in love with you...", my grandfather's cat would rush out from wherever she was and start biting my foot. It never failed. So I stopped wandering around the house barefoot, and after the first chomp of the rubber on my shoe, the cat stopped trying.

3 - "Whenever, Wherever" - Shakira: My boyfriend-at-the-time and I were watching this video one day while eating, and he suddenly stopped, put his pizza on his plate, and said, "She has a really big ass", then went back to eating as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

4 - "Drops of Jupiter" - Train: Let me get this out of the way - ever since "Meet Virginia", Train has been on my shit list as far as bands go. They're annoying, the lyrics are horrible, and they're so formulaic as to make me want to puke. Sure, I like songs by bands who do this same thing, but they're not so damned smug about it. Anyway, I'd never really paid attention to any of the lyrics of this song, but my BATT's best-friend's girlfriend (didja get that?) pointed out to me that the guy's singing about fried chicken and soy lattes. After that, I'd change the station when the song came on rather than blankly hearing it and waiting for the next song.

THEN, at karaoke one night, a regular got up and sang it, and boy was she into it...and I kind of made a crack about it to a guy friend (also a regular), and he said in a VERY serious voice: "She sings that song for her brother. He died last year." Whoops.

5 - "Hanging by a Moment" - Lifehouse: This was the song that BATT and I attributed to ourselves. I still get a twinge of sadness when I hear it, because our relationship ended under really stupid and preventable circumstances - but it's one of those "formulaic" songs that I still keep on heavy rotation on my iPod simply because I like it, regardless of its prior meaning. Did I mention I can totally rock out a baritone voice range? It's fun to sing to, as well.


I'm not tagging anyone, because no one tagged me. I have a feeling that everyone who was going to participate already has, so I'll say that if you haven't yet posted this, feel free to at your leisure.