Raina Rose - Texas

This indie folk singer fails out of Portland, Oregon (like so many good things do), but this is after a long stint in central Texas. Truthfully, this song probably won't have the same meaning for you if you've never lived in Texas and experienced the bizarre conflict that it sets out for the open-minded and liberal people. As Raina Rose so gently puts it, "There's a lot of damned fools that call Texas home." That's so very much the truth that this track inspired me to see Raina perform when she came to town.

Her live shows are just as friendly and consistent as her tracks are, not exactly warm, but you never get the feeling that anything is being held back, either. This particular song speaks to all the things that there are to love about Texas, the peace, open spaces, the freedom of vast expanses, but it embraces the state in a bittersweet way, as it also points out the heat and unpleasant political climate. It's a must-hear for anyone in Texas.

Ordinary Life - Dear Bernard Original Cast

Welcome to the world of Honeypot Productions, fronted by a tight-knit group of Hollywood lesbians. Among these names are two you might recognize-- Heather Reid, half of The Murmurs and Gush, and Jorja Fox, who has graced the silver screen in several films (including Memento) and made a name for herself in CSI as the spunky Sara Sidle. Dear Bernard was the most recent major effort of HP, and the music for this small, independent musical was written entirely by Reid.

Dear Bernard tells the story of an English girl coming to the US in the early 1970s, who becomes wrapped up in the world of flashing lights and finds herself awash in a world of glamour. This particular track comes towards the end of the show, when she's looking back on everything that she's become and gain and lost during her rise to the top.

I'm not sure what I like best about this song-- the general message ("it's been an ordinary life with extraordinary friends"), or the idea that musical theatre (and theatre in general) is not dead, and has a great deal more to offer the world than the latest Andrew Lloyd Webber production, which sounds strangely exactly like all the other Andrew Lloyd Webber productions.

Colin Hay - Beautiful World

Colin Hay is proof positive that it's not really what you know, but who you know (not to imply that he doesn't know anything, because his music certainly suggests otherwise). Fans of the television show Scrubs or the movie Garden State will recognize Hay's work, as he played the annoying guitarist who followed Zach Braff's character in an episode of the former and was then picked by Braff to join the soundtrack for the latter.

Beautiful World is probably his least intense song, though the subject matter is no less serious as his other tracks. It's a happy track, over all, about finding joy where it comes to you, and managing to be okay when things don't go exactly right. In it, he muses about a relationship that's less than perfect, but okay the way it is nonetheless ("I like sleeping with Marie; she is one sexy girl full of mystery/she says she doesn't love me, but she likes my company/for now that's good enough for me") and juxtaposes it with the little happinesses in life ("I like driving in my car; I roll the top down, sometimes I travel quite far, drive to the ocean, stare up at the stars").

All in all, this song reminds you that there's nothing wrong with accepting things as being "good enough."

Jenny Owen Youngs - From Here

The allure of Jenny Owen Youngs (apart from her schoolgirl outfits, quirky manner of speech, close relationship with Regina Spektor, and obsession with sharks) is how jaded she is, and how good she makes it look.

From her cover of pop starlet Kelly Clarkson's Since You've Been Gone to the brutally straight-forward Fuck Was I, Jenny's got her musical bases covered. Her side project band Rocket Explosion covers several of the songs on her "Batten the Hatches" album, and they change them up enough to make them equally worth a listen. This alone should imply a kind of musical diversity worth seeking out; Jenny, however, has a lot more to offer.

From Here is a musical version of that moment where you take a step back from another person. She warns the audience, "I don't have a thing you want," and suggests that "[her] not caring is the best thing happening to you." With that kind of warning issued, who would keep blazing forward? Exactly the kind of person about whom the song would apply. If nothing else, when it's all over, they can't say that they weren't warned.

Missy Higgins - Scar

Missy Higgins doesn't get nearly enough airplay outside of her native Australia. This is a shame, because despite her youth, she provides enticing lyrics with strong melodies, making for an a panoply of very solid tracks. This one in particular has been dubbed my new theme song, so when it came on over the speakers while I was out on my birthday, it seemed a bit like fate. I'd already decided that it would be my song for the day, but hearing it out in public just added a whole new spin to it.

Scar is a catchy single with a bridge that feels like a personal aside. In it, our singer talks about past relationships, and how she was constantly surrounded by people who tried to transform her into something that she wasn't ("a triangle trying to squeeze through a circle, he tried to cut me so I'd fit"). It's a bit like Ani Difranco's 32 Flavors in that regard, except that Higgins takes it a step further, asking those who come next to "leave [her] with a scar," so that she can remember the past and learn from it in future experience.

The Streets - Don't Mug Yourself

This song is goofy and ridiculous and not at all the best of Mike Skinner's work under the name "The Streets." So why pick this song, and none of the others, which are a million shades of brilliant? Because this one is fun like very few songs are.

If you're an American mulling over your current comprehension of the meaning of the word "mug," know that "don't mug yourself" is British slang for something akin to "don't make an ass of yourself." The song is a brief two and a half minutes long, but it manages to wrap up an entire subculture in that time.

Don't Mug Yourself is about sitting around in a bar with your mates the day after a date and staring at your phone trying to decide whether or not to call, only to have your friends take your phone away and tell you to stop being an obvious git. Add a feisty drum loop, some heavily-accented rap, and a goofy chorus, and you have what is by far one of the most entertaining Streets songs to date.

The Decemberists - We Both Go Down Together

Oh, how dreadfully Shakespearean. We Both Go Down Together is a delicious narrative effort that tells the tale of love and class boundaries and what we can presume is a double suicide (or other transcendent effort, depending on one's interpretation).

Okay, so class boundaries aren't exactly universal, as we live in a world where we like to believe ourselves above them. We proudly note that we believe in social mobility and blah, blah, blah. But at its heart, this song is unapologetic and honest, from its statement of personal differences ("You come from parents wanton/a childhood rough and rotten/I come from wealth and beauty, untouched by work or duty") to the bolder "we fall but our souls are flying" as the two lovers take flight off of a rocky cliff into the ocean below.

It's not just the Romeo and Juliet doomed lovers theme that makes me mention Shakespeare. What comes to your mind when you think of rocky English cliffs, whipping winds and the "untouched Miranda" mentioned in the song? If you said "The Tempest," give yourself ten points.

There is some debate about the nature of the deaths in this song; it's been argued that this is a murder-suicide and not a double suicide. While I could see the validity of the argument were this song a clear reference to Romeo and Juliet (come on, now... ALL of Shakespeare's lovers were doomed!), the fact that it's cast from the mold of The Tempest suggests that it's less a tragedy and more a romance.

Kate Jacobs - Helen Has a House

You know those songs where reason tells you that you shouldn't like them, for one reason or another, but you really, really like them nonetheless? This is one of those songs. There's something about Kate Jacobs' voice that I tend to find rather jarring at first, but the song is solid, from the introduction which plays like a set of scales to the soft lyrics which remind me of cool autumn days in Virginia. Despite strangely self-sufficient advice such as "don't bend your back bearing other people's crosses," the song sits on the fence between folk and bluegrass. It's a little too much piano to be either; it lacks the twang to be bluegrass but has a rural feel to it far beyond that of conventional folk.

It's heartfelt and honest in a very East Coast kind of way. Beyond that, it's a little hard to explain. It has the same heart as Paula Cole's Bethlehem or Caroline Herring's Carolina Moon, without being just a carbon copy of either. It stands on its own.