[some more songs that have stood the test of time (i think i have to have listened to the song for at least 1 year before inducting it) are tech romance by her space holiday, horse pills by the dandy warhols, and a host of stars songs: my radio, heart, elevator love letter, the first five times, and your ex-lover is dead. (mar 24 2007.)]

[how could i forget down about it by the lemonheads? i mean, really. (jan 27 2005.)]

[note: this was originally written aug 6 2002. if i were rewriting it today, it would be different, since i've been exposed to a fair amount of music since then. there are two perfect songs i would add to the list if i were making it today; by definition, no song will ever come off the list. those songs are if we can land a man on the moon, surely i can win your heart by beulah, which is that one pinnacle song which completes their place as perhaps the best band of today, and extreme ways by moby.

as for the nearest misses, i would add tomorrow by death cab for cutie, red vines by aimee mann, and a whole bunch of songs by weezer, who i somehow managed to forget when i was writing this up in the first place. probably i would put three: the world has turned and left me here, why bother?, and across the sea. i had forgotten siren by tori amos, which i hadn't listened to in a while before finding the tape in my car and remembering how much i liked it. empire city by bishop allen deserves to be here as well; i am almost convinced that it's a perfect song, but i don't think it quite makes it.

there are a bunch of third-tier songs i missed, of course, not really all worth mentioning, but one band that pretty consistently puts out stuff of that caliber is the apples in stereo. i think that's all for now. this addendum was written in the early morning of apr 12 2003.]

every now and then, i hear a perfect song. it's hard to describe exactly what i mean by this, but i feel that there are, i don't know, maybe ten songs which i've heard in my life which are just perfect, a level above. where everything just comes together. off the top of my head, here are some qualifications to be a perfect song:

• it has to be obviously good and lastingly good. that is, it has to be perfect the first time you hear it, and it has to be perfect the thousandth time you hear it. therefore, it can't be too abstruse, and it can't be too vapid.
• it shouldn't be too mood-dependent; it shouldn't require you to be in a particular mood to appreciate it.
• it has to be the best song of its type. despite the previous stipulation, songs do fall into types, and there can't be any other strong contender.
• it can't have any dead moments. all right -- maybe one dead moment, one five-second stretch that isn't sublime. but it has to be perfect basically all the way through.
• it can't be repetitive. the song has to flow from beginning to end, not find something that works and just stick with it.
• however, the song has to have a consistent texture. it can't just be a collection of tactics.
• the song has to be unique. this is a bit more flexible than other stipulations, but there has to be something about the song that sets it apart from all other merely-good songs.
• if you have to think about it, it's not a perfect song.

perfect songs. these are the cream of the crop. nothing has to be said about these songs individually because they are precisely defined by having nothing bad to say about them.

• comfort eagle, cake
• photobooth, death cab for cutie
• slide, goo goo dolls
• don't touch my bikini, the halo benders
• everloving, moby
• tonight, tonight, smashing pumpkins
• semi-charmed life, third eye blind
• walk on, u2
• diesel power, prodigy

now for the near misses. there are a whole bunch of songs that are pretty damn close to being perfect; most of the songs here fail simply because it's not evident that they're perfect songs, and thus the last criterion is not satisfied.

• death trip 21, ash. this song is unquestionably the best of its type, as a high-energy, adrenaline-based song. it's probably the closest of all of these to being on the list, but ultimately it's not as good the thousandth time as the first (though it's close) and it's not quite mood-independent enough (though it's close.) those aren't real good reasons, but it's an exclusive list.
• else, built to spill. it's unique. it's as good the thousandth times as the first. it's an incredible, incredible song. ultimately, though, i think the reason i like this song is that the constant background really resonates with me, and so i have trouble putting it on a list of context- and hopefully person-independent songs. in a sense i refuse to call this a perfect song precisely because it fits me so well, so i remove myself from judging it accordingly.
• jolene, cake. this is an incredibly well-constructed song, and it has even more edge than a typical cake song. again, i don't see any real problems with this, but it's not perfect in enough areas to put it over the top. it could stand to be 10% faster, maybe.
• the distance, cake. this is one of few songs that was once on the list but has fallen off. i'm not exactly sure why. i think it's because bodyrock, by moby, as well as his version of the james bond theme, both of which also fall into this category, give it serious competition for best-of-its-type, the type really being insanely cool songs. none of them stand out above the others, and so none of them can make the list.
• the cure might be the kings of this tier. the problem with their songs is really each other; none of them stand out from the rest enough to remove traces of doubt. i'm not saying that all cure songs are good, not at all, but among the excellent ones it's really hard to choose. the songs i'm referring to are cut, disintegration, from the edge of the deep green sea, and how beautiful you are.
• #41, dave matthews band. this is the song i used to listen to before going to bed, and it's perfect for that. it's got a perfect shape; it might have the best beginning and end of any song as far as flowing with the rest of the song. it's probably the best of its type. ultimately it isn't quite energetic enough to make the list.
• amity gardens, fountains of wayne. this has a lot of things going for it. it's unique because fountains of wayne are unique, but it's also unique among fountains of wayne songs. it's well-planned. the words fit the music very well. the only thing keeping it out, i guess, is that it has a tendency to fade into itself and thus as an experience can't be life-changing, since it doesn't have any of those moments.
• virginia reel around the fountain, the halo benders. this is a great, great song, and probably the second closest to making the list. i have high standards for halo benders songs, since so many of them are good, and there are about five seconds and five words of this out of many of both that don't live up to their standards, i think. this is an astonishingly ocmplete song, like #41; it fits together with itself perfectly, except maybe those five seconds, and it has some stuff over #41 as well: it's creative, and it has more local variance.
• tenderfoot, the lemonheads. this is an incredibly raw, visceral song, easily the best of that type. the only problem is that, precisely because of this, it doesn't fit into any stream of thought; it's always jarring. while this may seem like an impossible problem, i think a lot of the songs on the list solve problems that are as impossible.
• the smashing pumpkins, despite what i said about the cure above, are the real kings of this tier. to be honest, i think many of their other songs are as good as tonight, tonight, perhaps better. but i think tonight, tonight was the song that started this concept in my mind, and i also think it's the most universal. some unbelievably kickass songs, anyway, all of which i think are pretty universal (which is surprising, since most of the pumpkins' songs are definitively not universal -- i can't think of another band where the best songs are universal and the bad songs are nichey), are age of innocence, love, tear, try, try, try, and wound.
• deep inside of you, third eye blind. also close to making the list. i think the reason it misses is because the lyrics aren't as good as you'd expect from a top-tier song that's constructed like this. there are top-tier songs with worse lyrics, i think, but the lyrics are less important to those songs.
• stay (faraway, so close!), u2. i can't tell you why this song isn't on the list; i have no idea. it's not as close as some of the others, but i can't quite put my finger on why. it's not too blase, which is why some other songs that don't fail for any particular reason fail. i'm not really sure what's going on here.
• another u2 song, bullet the blue sky also makes this list. in fact, if it had a better ending, it would probably be on the list. i think the song also isn't quite long enough; it seems like the first two-thirds of a perfect song.

finally, a sampling of reasonable-distance misses, songs which are very, very good but which i didn't really have to consider for perfection.

• 10,000 maniacs, because the night. this song, which is a very, very good song, fails on two counts: first, it's a bit too repetitive. it's a good repeat, but it doesn't display the breadth you'd like to have from a story. second, it can be pretty exasperating if you're in the wrong mood, although somehow i always end up chalking that to a failing of mine.
• beulah is one of my favorite bands, and as such they have a lot of songs that go here. the reason they don't have any perfect songs, though, is because the only songs of theirs that are deep enough to be great listens on the thousandth time through (like delta) are mood-dependent. i feel almost guilty about it, but there isn't a single beulah song i had to seriously consider for the list.
• at least two songs by built to spill deserve mentioning here. built to spill frustrates me from time to time, because i can't figure out which of their songs i like. i also can't figure out how different their songs are from each other -- whether they have a lot of range or all their songs are really the same. anyway, the songs in question are car, which is doomed because it doesn't have quite enough cohesion, and girl, which is unquestionably the best song of its kind, as well as unique, but is so obviously mood-dependent that it doesn't get any serious consideration. cleo fails for similar reasons.
• counting crows have three songs worth mentioning here, and that doesn't count anna begins, which, i don't know, isn't really a song; it's more of a well-told story. those songs are mr. jones, which everyone has heard a thousand times and which loses out because it's a bit too repetitive and uniformly toned; perfect blue buildings, which is exquisitely constructed but a bit too mood-based and doesn't have a forceful enough personality; and why should you come when i call, which is a bit too repetitive and which i haven't really heard enough to know for sure in any direction.
• everclear is a band that's easy to rule out. if you don't like everclear, you won't like any of their songs. i thought i should mention them, since i do like everclear, but i'm aware that this is because of personal preference and that objectively they don't really hold a candle to a lot of other bands.
• the halo benders have a few here, such as snowfall, will work for food, big rock candy mountain, love travels faster. but none are serious candidates, since they're all either not complicated enough, too mood-based, or clearly not as good as one of the two halo benders songs above.
• mass romantic, new pornographers. i'm not sure how to describe the flaws of this song, which is a great rocking, loud song with many other things going for it. i think the best way to put it is that it's clear from listening to this song that their other songs aren't as good.
• i hope i didn't just give away the ending, new radicals. this is a great song in almost all respects, but the problem is that it's too long. not by much, and not obviously, but after a few hundred listens it becomes clear that the song is just a bit too extended to merit serious consideration for the list.
• molotov bitch, prodigy. this is a good song, but it's just too nichey and sparse to be universal. this is the sort of song that might have some lyrics which could be set to it to put it on the list, i guess.
• r.e.m. has a bunch of songs that fail for different reasons. to name a few:
  • leave might be my favorite r.e.m. song, but it's too intrusive to be universal.
  • it's the end of the world as we know it is unique, but not serious enough.
  • almost all of the album automatic for the people, one of the greatest albums of all-time, can be put on here. curiously, two songs that i don't feel belong on this list are everybody hurts and nightswimming, which are the two most famous songs off the album.
  • belong is an absolutely perfect song for what it tries to be. but it's not trying to be a perfect song.
• two princes, spin doctors. this was the song that i think made me realize that there was a qualitatively different set of songs, far above mortal songs. i later found a level even higher, but in a sense this song is responsible for the concept of this categorization.
• most of the album achtung baby, by u2, falls into this category. in a sense, this suffers from the same drawback as automatic for the people, as well as (a level up) the cure in general: none of the songs are so much better than the others that they stand out in context. achtung and automatic are reasonable choices for the #2 and #3 albums on a list because of their consistency, but they don't have the flash to be reasonable choices for #1, i don't think. they're not edgy enough, maybe.