The countdown to triple-X begins

That oughta boost my readership.

Anyway, it’s now the dog days of summer (I think), and along with those come another fun-filled, hopelessly narcisisstic and whiny, and completely indulgent Mister Faded Glory Countdown! You remember last year, as we counted down the Top 25 Grunge songs of all time as a prelude to our voyage to Seattle.

This year, however, the countdown becomes a bit (more) melancholy. As many of my regular readers (Um…both of you) know, in October Mister Faded Glory celebrates his cataclysmic 30th birthday. I’m not quite as paranoid as some would believe – I alternate between wanting to jump straight out of a window and quiet contemplation of a promising future. Well, and the random drunkenness.

Anyway, to commemorate this reluctant occasion, throughout the next 60 or less days we’ll be counting down the Top 30 songs, er, rather – the Just 30 songs with particularly poignant lyrics on the precipice of becoming, maybe, an adult. I realize that’s not a pithy name, but you’re just going to have to deal. And, as always, no complaints about the predominance of grunge lyrics in the countdown. As you know, MFG was born during the waning days of Generation X, and is one of its very youngest members. In case you forgot, that means I’m totally prone to self-congratulatory depression, peppered with occasional wistful nostalgia.

On with the countdown – the Pre-Eminent Pre-Thirty. Off we go.

• 30. Teenage angst has paid off well, now I’m bored and old.

Nirvana, Serve the Servants.

Kurt Cobain‘s opening chords on the first track of In Utero at once attempted to shed his “voice of Generation X” moniker while contemplating an uncertain future.

And that’s precisely what the lyrics signify for me. Well, the second part. I completely realize that all too often, I’m rooted in the past. Past incidences, feelings, memories, and more. Certainly that’s valuable, but there’s a point where you have to shed your past and continually look toward the future.

Isn’t there?

Or perhaps the song’s lyrics signify a refusal to remember the short time in which life is truly great – I don’t want to say that falls between ages 16 and 26, but for some, it certainly could. And, as you get older, and see a receding hairline, gray hairs, and sore joints, perhaps it appears as though life should.

In any case, I’m babbling, but each time Serve the Servants crackles the airwaves I think about Kurt’s cry of perpetual independence, with reluctant abandon of days of yore. And, hopefully I’ll continue to be somewhat of a mouthy, cocky adolescent – even as I turn further into adulthood and leave those halcyon days behind. After all, better things may be ahead.