A few months back, I realized two things: 1. My sons get along a lot better when we listened to music on the way to school; 2. They have not had wide exposure to music. So we started doing theme weeks where would listen to an artist, genre, or decade in the car on the way to and from school. Each Monday for the next few weeks, I am going to whittle down one of those playlists of 40-60 songs into a 12-14 song playlist. This is Monday Mixtape.
2002-2009
Who says we have to go in chronological order? We’re going to fast forward from the 60s to our playlist from last week: 2002-2009. Why not just the 2000s? Well, EA wanted to curate a special playlist for 1998-2001 (not so coincidentally our last two years of high school), which meant our decade journey took stops in 1990-1997 and 2002-2009. So welcome to the 21st Century. These are in order by the year released.
1. “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton (2002)
That piano line. Apparently Vanessa Carlton was working on the riff in her home and her mom told her it was a hit. Mom was right. That thing is imprinted into my brain and I love it. I am also fully convinced that any guy in the early 2000s who could play the riff from “A Thousand Miles” on piano had an unfair advantage in the dating realm over the rest of us.
2. “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé (feat. Jay-Z) (2003)
Twenty years on, the horns that kick off this song feel like an announcement and a coronation.
3. “Hey Ya!” by Outkast (2003)
A stone cold classic. The internet is still arguing over what time signature this song is in. Polaroid had to release a statement asking people not to shake their instant photographs. Plus there’s the music video with 8 Andre 3000s, which I promise you aired about 50 times a day on MTV International when I was on foreign study my junior year of college.
4. “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes (2003)
While we were listening to this one in the car, we started wondering what exactly constitutes the seven nation army that couldn’t hold Jack White back. Then I just read that this comes from Jack White mishearing “salvation army” as “seven nation army” as a child. So could the Salvation Army hold Jack White back? What constitutes the Salvation Army? All of them? A single Santa doing a collection at Christmas? Can Santa use the bell as a weapon? Is the Salvation Army specifically in Wichita? I’m brimming with questions. Love the song, though.
5. “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service (2003)
It was fun to explain to my 9 year old and 12 year old in 2023 that this group is called The Postal Service because one band member would write and perform the instrumental tracks and then literally mail it to the other who would edit it and add vocals before mailing it back. I might as well have been telling them about telegrams and horse-drawn carriages.
6. “Float On” by Modest Mouse (2004)
Confession: This has long been one of my Top 3 go-to songs if I am ever forced into a karaoke situation. If you have ever heard the song, you know that the lead singer’s vocal performance is a bit unorthodox. There are a lot of places that I could go extremely wrong trying to sing like that. But I’ve been practicing in my car for years and there’s part of me that foolishly believes I could thread the needle and be awesome.
7. “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane (2004)
Fun Fact: This song was used in a trailer for Disney’s 2011 film Winnie the Pooh. Being a new father and seeing images of Pooh and Christopher Robin in the Hundred Acre Wood scored to the lyrics “I’m getting old and I need something to rely on” darn near destroyed me. Yes, a Winnie the Pooh trailer made me cry and it’s all Keane’s fault.
8. “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley (2006)
One time I saw Gnarls Barkley (perhaps one of the greatest band names ever) perform this song on TV dressed up like Darth Vader and a bunch of stormtroopers. The boys thought that was awesome and deserving of being on this list.
9. “How to Save a Life” by The Fray (2006)
It seemed like this song was everywhere; not just on radio, but also a dozen different TV shows. In my opinion, Scrubs made the best use of it.
10. “The Underdog” by Spoon (2007)
I randomly caught the Texas band playing this song on some late night TV show and I immediately plopped down 99¢ to buy the song on iTunes. I didn’t even wait until someone gave me a gift card. This is probably my favorite song on this playlist.
11. “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence + the Machine (2008)
I have mentioned before that there are multiple songs that in my head are inextricably linked to the parable of the Prodigal Son. This is one of them. At camp in 2011, we did a modern re-telling of the story with a runaway daughter that culminated with shooting a short about her finally coming home set to this song. Every time I hear this song, I keep tweaking and perfecting that mini-movie in my head.
12. “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay (2008)
If not for my rule restricting bands to one song, there could have been a lot of Coldplay on here. I really, really love their first four albums. “Viva la Vida” is not my favorite Coldplay song from this decade (that would be “Till Kingdom Come” followed by a few others), but it does represent what is probably front to back my favorite album by the band.
13. “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift (2009)
For many years at camp, one of my jobs was to write silly parody songs for our opening night intro variety show (think a family-friendly SNL written by a bunch of sleep deprived college and seminary students). And let me tell you, Taylor Swift is not only a phenomenal songwriter, but she also makes it ridiculously easy to change the lyrics to make those strong melodies about anything. One summer we had a movie theme and so my friend TJ and I did a riff on Twilight in which Bella sang to Edward “If I could see you were a danger to my safety / I’d run far away / So why can’t I see-e-e / You are wrong for me-e-e?” One of my favorite random clips online from that summer is from the last night that we did that performance. Off in the wings backstage, TJ (in a Hannibal Lecter mask), my sister Shari, and our friend Michael who sang at my ordination are singing and dancing along to that ridiculous little song. That memory is not possible without you, T-Swift.