Jason over at Everything is Wrong With Me does periodic posts where he lists six songs and tells you why you should listen to them. I really like the idea and I'm starting a new series of posts stealing the concept right here.

1. What Sarah Said - Death Cab For Cutie
Quite possibly the most depressing song ever written. I don't mean that in a negative way.

And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me

I read somewhere that this song came about when a friend of the songwriter was walking with her partner and suddenly burst into tears for no reason. When her partner asked what was wrong she said to him that she had just realized that someday one of them would have to watch the other die.

I'm thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die
So who's going to watch you die

This song makes a perfect lead in to my next song...

2. The Trapeze Swinger - Iron & Wine
Clocking in at nine and a half minutes, but absolutely packed with beautiful imagry, this song by Sam Beam is filled with hope, regret, sadness and subtlety.

Please, remember me finally
And all my uphill clawing my dear
But if I make the pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl
An angel kissing on a sinner

I believe this song is being sung to a lover after the singer has passed on.

So who's going to watch you die? I'd like to think there would be someone.

3. Anticrist Television Blues - The Arcade Fire
Supposedly written to explore the dark heart of Joe Simpson, Jessica Simpson's father, and the corruption of religion, the descent from good intentions to the justification of greed and betrayal.

Oh, my little bird in a cage
Oh, my little bird in a cage
I need you to get up for me up on that stage
Show all the men that you're old for your age
Now in the times of fear
But if you don't take it, it'll disappear

4. Bring 'em Home - Bruce Springsteen
As timely today as it was in the sixties, Bruce's take on Pete Seeger's anti-war anthem is performed with his 17 piece The Sessions Band. I hope soon we won't have reason to play it except as a reminder of the costs of war.

5. If a Song Could Be President - Over the Rhine
A song that name checks Steve Earle, John Prine and Emmylou Harris doesn't have to do much else to draw my praise. When you add a barely under the surface dig at the President you get included on this list.

6. Gravity's Gone - Drive-By Truckers
Includes one of my favorite lyrics of the last five years:

I went stumbling through the fog trying to find a reason for the things I told her
She woke up sunny side down and I was still thinking I was too proud to flip her over