sometimes there are songs that grab you the first time you hear them. you're in a car with some friends and a song comes up on the radio or on a mix cd, and you instantly click with the song. you start singing and doing that 'white-person-buckled-in-in-the-back-seat-but-still-trying-to-dance' dance that people do. then, after that ,it seems like everywhere you go that song is playing, and you learn all the words and sing and dance every time the song comes on.

a few months pass, and everyone else in america discovers the song and sings and dances too, but it's cool because *you* fell in love with the song first. then one time the song comes up on the radio or on the mix cd or on your ipod and you, without thinking, change channels or hit the 'next' button. you have suddenly realized you are sick of the song. america, however, is not, and they keep collectively foisting the song upon you everywhere you turn. you whine to your friends that you are so sick of that song. finally, mercifully, america gets sick of the song. when you hear the song a few years later in a club or on a radio station that plays 'older' music you might have some fond remembrances of the fun times you had when you were younger and the song was playing, and you might feel a little old that is is being played on a 'classic' station.

then there are those other songs; the ones you aren't as enamored with the first time you hear them. maybe it takes a few times of hearing them, and then they get in your head and refuse to leave until you download the song from itunes or until you get a friend to burn the song for you. years pass, and you still like the song, in fact, you like it more that when you first heard it. you have finally figured out what the singer is actually talking about, and the message means something to you; or maybe you finally understand the beauty of the song's simple arrangement. and now, no matter how many times you hear the song, you rarely skip the song if it comes up on your music player of choice. it has now become a song that you seem to not be able to get sick of.

this is my partial list of songs that are this way for me:

• dear prudence - the beatles


• surrender(live at budokan version) - cheap trick


• three days - jane's addiction


• just like heaven - the cure


• showdown - electric light orchestra


• stand inside your love - smashing pumpkins


• the world has turned - weezer


• you can't always get what you want - the rolling stones


• wild horses - the rolling stones


• refrigerator car - spin doctors


• heartbreak station - cinderella


• crystal - curve


• drug buddy - lemonheads


• driver 8 - r.e.m.


• across 110th street - bobby womack


• springtime - leatherface


• little wing - jimi hendrix


• one of these nights - the eagles


• the chain - fleetwood mac


• no more tears - ozzy osbourne


• alex chilton - the replacements


• signed sealed delivered i'm yours - stevie wonder


• superstition - stevie wonder


• wiser time - the black crowes


• under the milky way - the church