1. “Amie” by Damien Rice
This song isn't as dramatic as “Cannonball” or as popular as “The Blower's Daughter,” but it's still good. He sings about a woman named Amie and of their friendship. He asks her to come sit on his wall and read him the “story of O,” an erotic French novel from the '50s. Also, “ami” means friend in French. A commenter on SongMeanings.com claims to have gone to a concert and heard Rice's own explanation of it: “This song is basically about being with someone whom you can let your [guard] down with and completely open yourself to the impossible,” says commenter BlackEyedAngels.
The Song's Most Profound Line: “And you're not a saint; just another soldier on the road to nowhere.”
A link to the video and the other four songs after the jump . . .
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2. “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel
The commenters on SongMeanings.com are split 50/50 on this one. Some think the song is about a loose-legged woman that can find a new dude in the amount time it takes to get up and wash one's face, while others say it's a song of pleading to St. Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians. Either way, it's impressive that a song about a floozy or writer's block makes me want to get up, stomp my feet and dance around the room.
The Song's Most Profound Line: “Jubilation, she loves me again; I fall on the floor, and I'm laughing.”
3. “What Sarah Said” by Death Cab for Cutie
It's rarely okay for a song to be more than five minutes long, but I count this as a fine exception. To me, it's a song about eminent death and how it impacts life and relationships. If you ever have to spend a lot of time in a hospital, sit down and listen to this song — or don't. It's powerful. Besides, the description of the ICU as reeking of “piss and 409” is all too accurate.
The Song's Most Profound Line: “It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds.”
4. “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
This song topped out at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 100 in 1969, and it's still not old (gotta rep CCR for their California roots). According to album notes by Joel Selvin released in 2008, this song is rooted in “mists of Mark Twain books he [CCR front man John Fogerty] never read in school and grainy black-and-white B-movies of crocodile hunters in the dark Cajun swamps and Will Rogers playing a steamboat captain.” Mary, according to the notes, was a washerwoman.
The Song's Most Profound Line: “And I never lost one minute of sleepin', worryin' 'bout the way things might have been.”
5. “Ana” by Mana
This song sticks to Mana's common pick-a-prevalent-social-problem-and-sing-a-catchy-song-about-it tactic (read: environmental degradation in “¿Dónde Jugarán los Niños?“).
An uneducated, 15-year-old girl named Ana gets pregnant, then the impregnator leaves her, she gets depressed and is too scared to tell her family, so she “escapes to another world,” which I interpret to mean she commits suicide.
An uneducated, 15-year-old girl named Ana gets pregnant, then the impregnator leaves her, she gets depressed and is too scared to tell her family, so she “escapes to another world,” which I interpret to mean she commits suicide.
The Song's Most Profound Line: “Lo que más lamenta Ana
es que nunca hubo educación.“
