Songbook: Volume Two

(First off, need to give a huge shout out to long time friend of the blog (and hopefully one of our future sponsors) www.starzantees.com You want to be hip? You want to be unique? Then you'll want to be like Starzan.)

(To refresh, the idea behind Songbook is taken from the Nick Hornby book of the same name. The idea is to write about a song but not actually review the song. It is more to discuss how the song fits into your life.)

Soul Asylum “Somebody to Shove”

I don’t know about anyone else, but basically my entire life has been defined by my few years of college. I bet it is pretty universal. Those years where you are nineteen or twenty years old build the framework of who you will become. Every moment in those years is new and unique and alive. You truly believe that no one has ever fallen in love the way that you have, that no one has ever had their heart ripped out of their chest like you just had, and that no one has ever gotten drunk to the degree that you just did. It is that one moment in your life where you feel that the world is yours for the taking. Everything is possible and the future of mankind hinges on you and your friends. And if there is one thing that I am certain really is universal is that everyone will always claim that the music of their generation trumps anything that came before or since.

That’s why I will always speak proudly of a band like Soul Asylum, who are one of the lynchpins in my argument that Minnesota has produced better bands than the entire state of California. (Don’t believe me? Dylan, Prince and The Replacements. That’s my first three. Dare ya to beat it.) They were one of those bands that I always listened to in school. When I wrote a quote every day in my notebooks for class Soul Asylum lyrics made a constant appearance. If you ask me about my junior year of college I won’t mention getting the only C of my academic career or breaking up with a girl just so I could start dating her roommate, I’ll mention listening to Slave Dancers Union day in and day out.

But even I will say that what I’ve just written makes absolutely no sense. It’s been more than a decade and there is no logical reason why a song or an album should carry that much importance in my life. You could argue that it isn’t healthy and I don’t know if I’d disagree. That is until I heard the opening guitar riff (that Dave Pirner forgot how to play and had to actually mention that fact during concerts) and I’ll just start bouncing around the room.

This is because Somebody to Shove is one of those songs that just hooks into your soul. It just hits on all of those insecurities you have growing up. “I’m waiting by the phone, waiting for you to call me up and tell me I’m not alone.” Tell me that thought did not go through your mind when you were nineteen. We all sit around and want someone, anyone to confide in us just so we can know that we aren’t the only ones who view the world this way. It doesn’t matter how social you are, how many friends you have, there is always that nagging doubt that sits in the back of your mind. I don’t know if many people actually solve it, I think most people just try to focus on other aspects of life in an attempt to drown out that voice. But Soul Asylum brings it to the surface and makes you want to start pushing people around. Because no one wants to sit around and wait for things to happen, you want to stir things up.

Soul Asylum is going to hold a strange place in music history. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone calls them a one hit wonder based on Runaway Train, which is so wrong. Most people would consider them a grunge band, which neglects all of their early punk work. And others will just remember that Dave Pirner dated Winona Ryder, which just shows that I really, really need to learn how to play guitar (and grow bad dreadlocks). But all of those views miss the point. Soul Asylum realized that most people live lives of quiet desperation, so much so that you can go deaf from the noise. They put words to that desperation and screamed them for everyone to hear. And as a skinny kid with bad glasses and poor social skills who listened to the song and said, “Finally someone gets it” I just have to say thanks.