7 Things (Which Are My All-Time Most Played Songs) This Week [#34]
A weekly list of things I found interesting, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.
I thought it’d be fun to look at the songs I have in the Music app with the highest number of plays. You’ll see that most of these tracks harken from my iTunes days and were songs that I loaded on an iPod where they racked up plays. These days, it’s rare for a song to get dozens of plays like these have, since all the world’s music is now just a swipe away, no matter where I am.
Note: The title links below go to https://song.link pages which redirect to all the major music streaming services for your listening convenience.
7️⃣ “American Pie” by Don McLean: 71 plays
With “American Pie” you get a peek into how I learn lyrics. I have notoriously bad hearing, and really have to concentrate to understand most songs’ lyrics. And for songs that I want to learn by heart, they get put on repeat. About a decade ago as summer camp staff, once a week a group of my friends and I would sing this song as lunchtime entertainment for all the campers. So I had to learn it. There are a lot of words in this 8-minute song. And, yes, I can still sing it all from memory.
6️⃣ “Flathead” by The Fratellis: 72 plays
Appropriately, I discovered this song via one of those classic iPod commercials. It bops hard, and I immediately downloaded it. I still put it on if I need a pump up track.
5️⃣ “Goodnight Moon” by Go Radio: 78 plays
To be honest, I don’t know why this song is so high up on the list. Probably something…something teenage angst. I mean, it’s a good song, and I still enjoy it. But listening to it again tonight I get strong teen romance vibes. I imagine it racked up a significant number of its plays through my van stereo parked in the driveway while skirting date night curfew.
4️⃣ “Son of Man” by Phil Collins: 81 plays
The Tarzan soundtrack was one of the very first CDs that I ripped into iTunes. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I dig a bunch of the songs off it. Years later, my college roommate and I had it on a shared playlist of songs that we called “Bat Cave Jams”. Yes, that was the name for our dorm room because we were just that cool. At times, we enforced a rule that in order to enter the room you had to do a jig to one of the songs on that playlist. Good times…
3️⃣ “Brooklyn” by Youngblood Brass Band: 85 plays
This is the only non-lyrical song on this list. I discovered it from my jazz band friends in high school and got obsessed. We wanted so badly to get the sheet music and learn to play it. The tuba (sousaphone) solo in the middle of the song is next level, while the rest is showcase for bright and loud trumpet runs. We even used the song in the intro for our group’s school morning announcements videos. (Please don’t judge that video too harshly, we were very proud of it at the time and enjoyed learning to do the practical speed effects. 😝)
2️⃣ “Trashin’ the Camp” by Phil Collins & ’N Sync: 88 plays
See #4. “Trashin’ the Camp” was also on the playlist and often played because of its fun scat singing throughout. Although I am a bit embarrassed to realize that this means ’N Sync has a spot in my Top Played list. 😳
1️⃣ “Some Nights” by Fun.: 106 plays
And finally #1. The Some Nights album came out the year I started college and I imprinted on it hard that first semester. Turns out that Fun. band member, Andrew Dost, actually graduated from my university, which is probably why their music was featured during the freshman opening events that fall. “Some Nights” the song was my favorite song for a few years, and I still turn it up loud to jam out to this day.
I hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane with me. While this list doesn’t really represent the music I gravitate toward these days, I still get a kick out of all of these tracks.
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