Organised Chaos v3.0

Two memes to complete, so here goes. I don’t have a good track record with memes. I tend to overanalyse, and that’s just the least of my flaws. (There’s a pun in there somewhere…)

Anyway, the first one’s music related.

# Go to Pop Culture Madness site.
# Pick the year you turned 18 years old.
# Get yourself nostalgic over the songs that year.
# Write something about how those songs affected you.
# Pass it on to 5 more friends.

I turned 18 in 1995. That was a weird year. I was a weird kid. So that in effect made 1995 a pretty normal year. 1995 was the year United did not win the league.

The problem with this meme is that the focus is on the year. I don’t really follow pop songs by year; if it sounds good it stays in my playlist for a long long time, y’know? Then there are the songs that defined 1995 for me but weren’t in that year. Heheh. See.. overanalysis kan.. But I’ll try to keep to the rules on this one. Let’s see, 1995 eh. Hmm.. from the aformentioned chart, we have:

Pearl Jam’s Better Man

My first Pearl Jam song was Jeremy, but Better Man nailed the poetic beauty of Eddie Vedder’s lyrics for me. Everyone can write a love song, but this is the most real love song I’ve heard in a long, long time.

Blessid Union of Souls’s I Believe

I think I knew of this song from the various chart shows on tv in those days. Lyrics lack the punch I enjoy, but every time I hear it, I think of Seroja @ IKATAN. That’s gotta count as a song of 1995, no?

Live’s Lightning Crashes
This is more of a band entry than a song entry. It’s the ony Live song on the list. Top marks for totally random lyrics, too.

Better than Ezra’s Good

“It was good.. living with you, woo-oh”.. Song’s good, too.

Soul Asylum’s Misery

Ah yes. This song had the tag line, Frustrated Incorporated. I never knew what it really meant until much, much later; but I loved those two words and if you were to come across my textbooks of 1995, you’d see a weird looking caricature with the words, Frustrated Inc. beneath it. Everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

Songs on the list that didn’t mean much until after 1995:

Hootie and the Blowfish’s Let Her Cry

This became my letting go song circa 2004 I think.

Toad the Wet Sprocket’s Good Intentions

Toad the Wet Sprocket never fails to make me feel so hopelessly in love with the screwed-up-ness of everything.

Songs not on the list but defined 1995:

Ning Baizura’s In Another Life.

Yes, I still wish.

Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s Under the Bridge

“I dont ever want to feel like I did that day”, I was told. But on some days, I think feeling that way we did that day is still so much more worth it than what things feel like today.

*****

Meme Number 2 is the Thinking Blogger’s Meme.

Eliza tagged me. And now I am to tag five others who’s entries make me think. Macam main polis sentry.. hehe.

1. ABN’s View: Abn ’s parents were at Lancaster during my first PhD year, and he’s now at UCL, doing a course in Engineering.
2. Faizul’s Random Words: I met Faizul at a few events held by MACFIS / UKEC. He’s a first year at Warwick University, doing a course in Maths, Operational Research, Stats & Economics (MORSE)
3. Mooke’s So Be: I met Mooke through friends in London. I like the way her mind works.
4. Nik Nazmi’s Digital Digression: Nazmi is a friend whom I first met in person through my UKEC-related work.

Okay.. all of the above. Consider yourself tagged. Hehe.