Even Your Emotions had an Echo; or: My Five Favorite Songs of 2006

5. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley

First and foremost, Cee-Lo Green is one of the coolest men in music. Did anyone deserve success more this year? Did anyone deserve more success this year?

Second – best lyric of all time:

“I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place. Even your emotions had an echo in so much space.”

I thought about that lyric about six gazillion times. It's better than anything Cee-Lo did with the Goodie Mob, and he did some amazing stuff with the Goodie Mob.

Third – you can’t deny a song that led a revolution in music.

4. Southtown Girls – The Hold Steady

Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, half of what I adore about this amazing song is the Twin Cities references, but the other half is how completely it closes an amazing album by continuing the brilliant lyrics and offering the best coda I could imagine for this wonderfully expressive compact disc.

3. Dimension – Wolfmother

When I need to speed the transition from work to home, when I need to shake it all off, when I need to inspire a primal scream, when I need to revisit the 70’s and channel Zeppelin, Sabbath or even Styx, when I need to giggle about falling down in the dessert and needing to write something down, then there is no song that will work like this song. If you haven’t heard it, hear it. If you don’t like it, then join Al Qaeda or something – you’re damaged.

2. Wolf Like Me – TV on the Radio

“When the moon is round and full, gotta bust that fox, gotta gut that fish.”

Nice.

“Gonna teach you tricks that’ll blow your (mongrel) mind.”

Even TinyE sings it.

Anyway...convinced? Ready to be a werewolf?

Hmmmm…okay…then check this out.

1. Born Secular – Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins

Apparently Jenny Lewis was “born secular and inconsolable.” In a year of songs and albums paying homage to artists of yore, this disc, which conjures up Dusty Springfield, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and gives a nod to the Traveling Wilbury’s, is easily the best of the bunch. On an album of phenomenal songs, this is the pinnacle. The lyrics on this song are so amazing, so representative of a different time, that I was convinced it was a cover. The music is simple – as is often the case in country music (even alt-country), but the emotion is so pure and sincere that it moves me (purely and sincerely) every time.