No. 4:
Why doesn’t anyone believe in loneliness?
Stand up and everyone will feel your wholeness.
Soundgarden, Zero Chance.
So, yeah. This is turning into a depressing countdown, and I hate feeling like I need to quote High Fidelity: Am I depressed because I listen to [grunge] music, or do I listen to [grunge] music because I’m depressed?
But honestly, for crying out loud, we’ve all been mopey and alone, Mister Faded Glory, we fucking get it. Even though Zero Chance is maybe Soundgarden’s very best song, precise, patient, and aching, that’s exactly what we don’t need – yet another gut-punching melancholy song.
So here’s your bonus:
I’ve quit this a million times, can’t quite stay away
Just one more time…I’ll be ok
But I’m so damn tired …When I come back down,
Though I’m crazy to
Anything you want from me I’ll do…
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Come Back Down
Toad’s low-rent masterpiece probably has deeper meanings in addiction, recovery, or reliance on someone you care about. But for me, instead, it’s the perfect bar song – not for a singalong, exactly, but for its expression of the vicious but blissful cycle of weekends out on the town, even for no real reason other than because.
If you’re social at all in your twenties, of course you can’t quit going to the bar a million times. You can’t quite stay away, sitting with friends, reminiscing, watching sports and playing darts, drinking pitchers even though you shouldn’t, and if you’re desperate – hitting on nearly anything that smiles, certain she’s the one. If you’re truly nostalgic and narcissistic, you’ll probably write a caustic book on the subject. Not that we would know either way. (About writing a book or wasting time on a barstool).
