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the soundtrack

not the most important or best songs in my life, but the ones that stand out at crucial times. In chronological order from the late 80's to the present. The format is as follows:

Name of the Song - Band Name - Person Who Introduced Me To The Band - The Moment in Question.

1. Flight of the Bumblebee - YoYo Ma and Bobby McFerrin - My Parents (?) - My first memory of intentionally listening to music has become symbolic of my childhood in a trailer near Millersburg, IN. It's a close call between all the songs on Hush and something from Jean Luc Ponty, but this was definitely a favorite. I remember setting our super-cool analog clock tape-starting alarm contraption so that YoYo Ma and Bobby McFerrin would wake me for school each morning.
2. It's the End of the World As We Know It - REM - Bruce Hostetler (?) - This is my first exploration into pop music with the help of Aunts and Uncles. I don't remember who gave me a tape of Eponymous, but I loved it good. In Jr. High at Fairfield, I had to take a radio class in which I was part of the "Alternative Rock" group consisting of the social outcasts. They all listened to Nirvana. I listened to REM. I got this song on our tape anyway.
3. Shadows and Tall Trees - U2 - Bruce Hostetler (?) - The first CD I ever bought was Joshua Tree for Carl on his birthday. My uncle Bruce was there to help pick it out and test to make sure it wasn't scratched. I'm sure he had introduced us to U2 in the first place. I have a lot of memories combining various U2 songs with Carl: from Axis and Allies to an early love interest of his later on. This song is an Axis and Allies memory. Playing in the trailer with CJ Friesen.
4. Industrial Disease - Dire Straits - Bruce Hostetler - When we moved into our new house I got a record player and some old records. I had Love Over Gold and several Boston albums. I don't remember the Boston stuff at all. Dire Straits have been with me forever.
5. Rift - Phish - Bruce Hostetler - When I started High School I made friends by introducing them to Phish and They Might Be Giants. It's all we ever listened to. Oh the <blank> old days. We convinced the science teacher to play Golgi Apparatus in class. We translated My Friend, My Friend into Spanish. Etc.
6. Honey - Moby - (?) - I actually had a bit part in my first play when I was in middle school - but the first show with a song attached was The Orphans, my first year of high school. I was backstage most of the show with Mary Lee, and we listened to Play obsessively. She told me I was the only freshman she didn't want to kill. Oh the pride.
7. Power of Two - Indigo Girls - Bruce Hostetler - I dated Mary Beechy. No one knew it at the time. This was our song. We were the funniest people I'd ever met. We made me laugh a whole lot. We wrote funny stories and drew funny pictures. We wrote more emails back and forth than people who spend all day at school together should be able to. She even broke up with me over email. It was a sad day, but life moves on.
8. The Christians and the Pagans - Dar Williams - Christy Buller and Amanda Friesen - I attended my first protest at the SOA in Georgia with some real great people. The only tape we had along was Mortal City. It was a powerful experience that led to quite a bit more activism, some good friends and a Dar concert.
9. Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton - Reid Kauffman - I started taking guitar lessons from Mathias Stegmann, and he uses an arrangement of this song as one of the first tunes you learn. This is still the main song I remember how to play from his lessons. Reid and I would play in the halls after school - ostensibly out of love for music, but actually to impress our crushes.
10. Give Back the Key To My Heart - Uncle Tupelo - Aaron Kingsly - During my year off after high school, I worked at Rachel's Bread. They introduced me to some great music. I also started dating Lindsy Diener and we made a mix CD that included this new favorite of mine.
11. Magnetic - Space and Noise Productions - Mike Shenk and Jesse Miller - I played Space and Noise full volume while moving into my first college dorm room with Josiah Groff. First rule of moving: always move the stereo first. It was a great year.
12. Cowboy Dan - Modest Mouse - Mike and Jesse - I joined a band with Mike Shenk, Jesse Miller and Dan Eisenstat called Goodbye Remotes and then changed to Elephants For Sale. We rocked. Cowboy Dan was our favorite cover.
13. How To Fight Loneliness - Wilco - Josiah Groff (?) - Josiah Groff listened to Wilco and played Snood the whole year we roomed together. I did neither, except by association. When he moved out for May Term I became obsessed with both. Maybe it was withdrawal? Wilco became the soundtrack to the next several years of my life. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was the most played CD in Shoup House, but this song is one of my all time favorites. One that got me hooked.
14. La Vie En Rose - Louis Armstrong - Lindsy Diener - This little song from the French Kiss soundtrack became the soundtrack to my wedding slide-show. Also, I think, that first wedding night.
15. Break - Fugazi - When I moved in with Lindsy I again moved the stereo first. I had a new stereo system and tested it with this song. I called Jerry Peters to come help me arrange the speakers, and to show off my new system. This album remained a favorite all year long.
16. I Am Drinking Again - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Jesse Miller - Jesse Miller gave me a stack of new music to listen to not long before I left Lindsy. It was mostly stuff I knew, and then this guy. When I moved out, this was at the top of my playlist. It seemed fitting.
17. Scientist - Coldplay - Eric Kanagy - I lived with Eric Kanagy while going through the divorce. This was one of his favorite sad songs. Eric and Lindsay Nance and I listened to it one particularly volatile night in Rubber House and left in tears.
18. State Fair - Rasputina - Rosanna Nofzinger - I moved back into the dorms and began hanging out with the women on Kulp 1st. Between dancing to Soul Coughing, painting our nails to Rasputina, and drinking to everything we had some good times. Women complimented me on my precision with nail polish. Everyone thought I was gay. Everyone also thought I was dating Lindsy Nance. Everyone didn't do their research very well, did they? I wasn't either.
19. You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl) - White Stripes - Mike and Jesse - The staple music for life in Umble Center while Nicole Miazgowicz and I were in charge. Everything from model building to spontaneous dance parties to brie and beverages and late nights studying theology. Everyone thought I was dating Nicole. I wasn't again.
20. Spiders (Kidsmoke) - Wilco - Josiah Groff - I moved in with Eric again. Happier times for the most part. We renovated his new house and threw a lot of parties. We also saw Wilco in concert thanks to Matt Fisher. This song rocks.
21. Good Friday - CocoRosie - AllMusic.com - Working on Much Ado About Nothing was about the most fun I've had in theatre, mainly thanks to Michelle Milne. I randomly stumbled across CocoRosie while playing around on AllMusic. This song became a quick favorite, and then part of the pre-show mix, and then my secret crush song. Then we started dating. Thanks CocoRosie. Now it is also the epigraph to my novel.
22. First Breath After Coma - Explosions in the Sky - I started my job at MMA and listened to Mogwai and Explosions in The Sky like never before. You just don't beat them for music to keep you alive through a long day in front of the computer.
23. A Thousand Kisses Deep - Leonard Cohen - I moved back out to the farm when life got a bit too stressful. I read Love and Tsotsi, and I discovered Leonard Cohen. This song was the inspiration for my approach to Danny and the Deep Blue Sea that fall. I was listening to Cohen while reading the script late one night, and I noticed the subtitle "an Apache Dance." I put the idea of dance to the music and knew what I wanted to do. We ended up using Goldmine Pickers "Barroom Waltz", which was perfect, but this song made the pre-show.
24. Galactic Love Song - Dirt Circle Dogs - I decided to quit everything and make new friends. I didn't end up quitting much, but I quit as Artistic Director of New World Arts and joined the Dirt Circle Dogs with Aaron Liechty and Dan and Sondra Eisenstat. This is one of their early demos that caught my attention.
25. Dig Me Out - Sleater-Kinney - Josiah Groff - I've been doing a lot of feminist reading and blogging. Inspired by Carl and a link to I Blame The Patriarchy from someone I hardly know who has never before or since sent me another link. At the same time I decided to get some Sleater-Kinney in honor of Josiah Groff. The latter became a soundtrack for the former. SK also found their way into Bigger Guns III, and broke up right after I started listening to them.

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