100 Songs to Save Your Life, Part Two

A year and a half ago, I wrote a post about the episode of One Tree Hill in which Peyton Sawyer writes lovingly to her unborn child about the subject she is most passionate about -- music. Although I have a book blog, not a music blog, that post has been more popular than any other one. At the time, I added only fourteen songs, in no particular order. Here are fourteen more, and in Peyton's words:

"So if you flunk a test, or have a really bad break-up…or just miss someone so much it hurts, listen to this -- my playlist: a hundred songs to save your life."

15 "Drops of Jupiter" -- Train: I have no emotional ties to this song. I just think the lyrics are fantastic: "She acts like summer and walks like rain/ . . . . She listens like spring and she talks like June. . . ." You can feel the amazement the singer feels simply by being in "her" atmosphere.

16 "Name" -- Goo Goo Dolls: I loved this song so much in high school, I actually recorded myself singing it. Haha! Ah, the follies of youth...

17 "One More Try" -- George Michaels: What can I say? I am a child of the 80s. Must include a song from G.M. There was one particular trip to Panama City Beach when I think my aunt played Faith for eight hours straight. Of course, that could be the perspective of an 8-year-old skewing things a bit...

18 "The Heart of the Matter" -- Don Henley: My parents were huge Eagles fans when I was young, but my favorite Eagle was always Don Henley. As my music memories seem to primarily revolve around trips, I remember listening to the music video from a hotel room in a town somewhere we had gone with my dad on a business trip. I thought there would never be a song I loved more.

19 "The End of Innocence" -- Don Henley: See above.

20 "The Last Worthless Evening" -- Don Henley: See above.

21 "The Song Remembers When" -- Trisha Yearwood: I went through a "country" phase when I was young. I still love me some country music, although I'm not the die-hard fan I once was. This is a song that (to me) made Trisha Yearwood's career. And it's beautiful.

22 "Hold On" -- Wilson Phillips: When I was in third grade, Wilson Phillips was the greatest band ever. Nevermind that they were actually just a singing group (not a band). My friends and I thought they hung the moon. I still love this song.

23 "Leaving on a Jet Plane" -- John Denver: Long before the movie Armageddon made this song famous, I loved it. My daddy used to walk to me to sleep at night, singing me John Denver classics.

24 "After the Goldrush" -- Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstandt, & Emmylou Harris: Riding in the car with my mama, we liked nothing better than singing along with our tape of the first Trio album. Now I torture my middle school students with the 1990s follow-up, Trio II, which features this amazing song.

25 "Landslide" -- Fleetwood Mac AND the Dixie Chicks (I love both versions equally): Just one of the best vocalist songs in the history of music. Period. If you don't get chills at the end, you're not human.

26 "All I Wanna Do" -- Sheryl Crow: "All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die..." When Sheryl Crow released this album during my middle school years, there wasn't a girl in the 8th grade not be-bopping to this (slightly risque -- at least to me, in 1994) song. Especially loud when we were singing at the top of our lungs: "Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard!" [**Further story: Two years ago on a trip to California -- in which I visited Santa Monica for the first time -- Sheryl Crow was on my Southwest flight! She was very polite to everyone, and her son Wyatt was so cute, running up and down the aisles!]

27 "More Than Words" -- Extreme: An excellent love song. And, my dad met the members once in his engineering office in Nashville. But can you say "one-hit wonder"?

28 "I Can't Make You Love Me" -- Bonnie Raitt: Beautiful, haunting lyrics.

Re-visit my original 14 songs here.