Top 100 Favorite Songs of the 2000's (Part IX)

Hi kids,

Sorry for today's delayed entry...bad weather + other projects + cooking a big dinner + watching football pushed my involvement in the blog to this point of the evening. No sweat, though. Here come the next ten songs in the countdown:


SONGS 40 THROUGH 31


40. Train, "Cab" [2006]

This new rhythm I pursue/Is just my getting over you/Telling myself that I need to

Pat Monahan, Train's lead singer and main composer, gained a lot of fans (including myself) with the 1999 smash "Meet Virginia." He lost me somewhere around 2003's My Private Nation album. "Cab," a piano ballad reminiscent of an Americanized Crowded House, re-established my status as a closet Train fan. (Thanks, Pat.)


39. The Darkness, "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" [2003]

I wanna kiss you every minute, every hour, every day

Looking back, for sentimental reasons this was probably the most important song of my entire junior year of high school, as well as the fall semester of my sophomore year at college. Yet it's not even the best Darkness song -- that honour goes to "Get Your Hands Off My Woman," too X-rated for this list.


38. Bruce Springsteen, "My City Of Ruins" [acoustic version, 2001]

The boarded-up windows, the hustlers and thieves/While my brother's down on his knees

Given the full gospel treatment on The Rising, this instant Bruce classic is on the list for its premiere version, an acoustic-guitar-and-harmonica offering which led off "America: A Tribute To Heroes," the post-9/11 telethon held on the evening of September 14, 2001.


37. Coldplay, "The Scientist" [2002]

Questions of science, science and progress/Do not speak as loud as my heart

Back before Coldplay became The Biggest Band Ever (meaning last year, so even up through 2005's "Fix You"), Chris Martin and company used to be able to write epic ballads that didn't sound epic. Also, Sting now officially becomes the most "quoted" songwriter on this list; Martin almost certainly copped the "science and progress" bit from 1993's "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You."


36. matchbox twenty, "Bent" [2000]

Can you help me, I'm bent/I'm so scared that I'll never get put back together

"Bent" opens like something out of 1985: minor-key, echoing, with lots of space and electronics. And then, it becomes a brilliantly overblown mash-up of "Push" and "Real World." Rob Thomas recycles more than almost any other pop songwriter, but he does it well.


35. Maroon 5, "This Love" [2002]

And her heart is breaking in front of me/I have no choice, 'cause I won't say goodbye anymore

I got tired of this song around the end of 2004, after I'd heard it for the millionth time. Then right before Maroon 5's second album came out in the summer of 2007, I decided it was finally time to listen to "This Love" again. It's a great song. (...and yeah, it's totally, totally OK to like Maroon 5. 'Cause I said so.)


34. John Mayer, "Vultures" [2006]

Then I'll come through like I do/When the world keeps testing me, testing me, testing me

Although it's not one of Mayer's more popular tracks, it's at a perfect walking tempo, which made it unofficially the most-played song on my iPod going back and forth to college classes -- first in its skeletal John Mayer Trio version, and then in the '06 studio recording.


33. Fountains of Wayne, "Yolanda Hayes" [2007]

She puts down my file/Stares at me a while/And I swear I see her crack a little smile

Ironic, eh? That someone who's had as much vehicular drama as me, should put a song about a DMV worker on the list? Must be the synthesized horn section.


32. Death Cab for Cutie, "Crooked Teeth" [2005]

You're so cute when you're slurring your speech/But they're closing the bar, and they want us to leave

I'll never forget the exact moment I began to entertain the delusion that I had indie cred. November 2006, walking past a TV tuned to MTVu, showing the "Crooked Teeth" video. "AAAAH, I KNEW ABOUT THIS SONG FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO!"


31. Elton John, "I Want Love" [2001]

I can't love, shot full of holes/Don't feel nothing, I just feel cold

In what will probably come to be known as Sir Elton's last great radio hit, the man who -- along with lyric partner Bernie Taupin -- tackled so many intensely emotional and personal issues through the years in song ("Someone Saved My Life Tonight," "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word," "Empty Garden") delivers his most sincere statement in over a decade. Hakuna matata.


Alright, there's tonight's contributions. Let me explain a little bit about the list going forward. Tomorrow will be the last entry with ten songs (#30-21), after which I'll take a day off to enlighten all the readers with statistics and diversions about the songs on the list. Then, starting with the Top 20, I'll reveal five songs at a time with extended explanations. And after that, probably the final three songs or so will get their own entries. Hope you've been enjoying everything so far -- keep reading!

-- pl