DISCLAIMER: This list of songs will inevitably grow by a metric fuck ton as I randomly procure the time to sit my ass down, listen to EVERYTHING in my mental playlist, and write about it to share my personal thoughts. All of these songs have shaped my personal perspective on lot of things in my own life. They’ve comforted me as their subject matter seemingly played out in my own life’s story. Or they were songs passed on from who I grew up around and what they exposed me to over the years. It’s a broad genre spectrum of songs, for which I am grateful that I was exposed to nonetheless.
For whatever reason logging this list of songs is therapy to me. Because obviously God put me on this earth to sit around and analyze music and write about it. That said, here I am. doing what I apparently was meant to do.
Many of these songs in this list is what I grew up listening to because my parents, grandparents, other family or friends I grew up with were blasting in the background or turned me on to. I think you will find it to be an eclectic mix of multiple genres, but the common thread you will notice with all of these artists and songs is their creator’s God-given ability to craft a song that punches you in your damn gut, metaphorically or literally. That’s what they’ve done to me.
My simple hope is that this list of songs reaches someone somewhere who also needs to hear one of these songs for their own life’s situation or circumstance. Maybe it helps them cope with what the song conveys. Maybe they’ll discover and artist or song on this list whose musical artworks and words will impact them the exact same way they did to me. Many of these artists and songs were discovered by the intermediary of another human being. That’s how this shit works…
This song list is presented in an alphabetized oder by artist name. Because there is literally no Fu**ing way for me to logically rank these songs. They’re all tied for #1 in my mind, depending on what piece of my life’s timeline we’re trying to rationalize with a song alone…
Alice In Chains – Nutshell
Alice In Chains, along with Ozzy Osbourne, was my first concert experience in 1992. I was listening to a lot of things in the 1990s, but a heavy almost daily dose of this band was inevitable during that period of my life. This song in particular, while a bit depressing in its lyrical subject matter, as with many songs from this band, the guitar melodies and solos are iconic from this era in music. Their MTV Unplugged version of this song is also one of my favorites moments in music. That’s why they opened with it…
Beck – Morning
Probably my favorite song from this multi-talented musical genius who has been with me since 1994’s Odelay in high school. However, this song is one of my favorites from his catalog and is a lovely song to play to get your day started.
Bill Withers – Lovely Day
This is my number one song I’ve always liked to play when I’m trying to get my day started off on the right track and in the right frame of mind. And it always seems to work until some other poor bastard in my life comes along and reverses the course this song sets. Press play again, when that happens. Get me back on track, Bill…
Black Stone Cherry – The Rambler
Probably my favorite album to this day from this band, and this song can still be a tear-jerker, just like the first time I heard it. This song always appealed to my own inner gypsy who always just wants to hit the road and get out of Kentucky, especially when dealing with heartbreak. With music at the core of my healing.
“So turn the radio up when your heart breaks down.”
Bob Sager – Still The Same
There are so many women who’ve came and gone from my life, and this song tells the tale to remind me that shit has been going down between men and women long before I was born. I remember Seger – and this song specifically – banging through my father’s speakers when I was a kid. In fact, I have the original vinyl he gave me. That said, I’m laying the wax down on this song. Fucking music gold.
Buck Owens – I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail
This is a Cherryh Butler song in my life – circa 2011-2012 in my life’s timeline – while working at Networld Media Group. Thank God for country music. That’s all.
“I’m about as helpless as a leaf in the gale with that woman.”
Carrie Underwood – Jesus Take The Wheel
I can’t count how many times when I’ve felt like giving up in life because I just can’t go on with the onslaught of bullshit that life sometimes throws our way. And when I’ve reached those points this song has given me the strength and motivation to endure as I literally asked Jesus to take the wheel of my life. Any here I am….proof that he does when you ask him to.
Cody Jinks – Hippies & Cowboys
The moment I heard this song I was hooked on its melody alone. The lyrics hit like bricks and the heartfelt story Cody sings of is almost transcendent to my own life, in some way I can’t explain other then the fact that I can identify personally with almost everything he sings of in this song. At some point in my life’s timeline, I identify with what he sings of. I like two dollar beers, I like three dollars wells, at some old honky tonk bar I know by the smell. Some old drunk on a bar stool on Merle Haggard tune, yeah that’s my kind room. This is a f**king country song, if I’ve heard one.
Cody Jinks – We Get By
The story of my life, essentially. When this song came out I thought he he wrote this song about my life. That’s the beauty of songs and songwriters. They can write something about themselves, but it also somehow applies to your life, too. Cody is musical Jesus in my world.
Cody Jinks – I Can’t Complain
Another song that was written which plays out like my own personal mentality. Yes, I’m crazy. Yes, I’ll never change. I’ve heard it all before. I don’t care, but I can’t complain. This song is fucking country rock banger!
Cody Jinks – A Memory & A Dream
Fucking musical Jesus once again writes and records a song which seems like was inspired by my own life’s story. After at least three near death experiences logged in my own life, this song conjures memories of my life, overall. Another banger in my world when I need musical rationalization on life’s weird damn experiences.
“Well, I’ve been screamin’ at the world
Since the time that I could talk
Well, I’ve been runnin’ into walls
Since the day that I could walk
‘Cause all them bottles I’ve drank, never mind the smoke
Man, the years are gangin’ up on me, but I’m holdin’ onto hope
And I’m still caught somewhere in-between
A memory and a dream”
Cody Jinks – I Would
The ultimate love song. This song reminds me of the exact feelings I felt and thoughts I inhibited in the days I was with Cherryh Fucking Butler. Motherfucker if this song doesn’t still make me think of this woman even tough it was written approximately 10 years after my relationship with Cherryh ended. Whatever the fuck. If I could, I would…
Cody Jinks – Sober Thing
Although I have not yet embraced complete sobriety as a lifestyle choice, this song’s story and message was written in such a way which makes me feel guilty for not doing so. I’m somewhere in between the messed up than the sober thing, as the song goes. Just another recorded example of why I consider Cody as our modern day musical Jesus. In my world and this song is definitely something which inspires me to want to do better. Some day…
“Well, it’s me
In case you were wonderin’
Same old mess as I have
Always been
I’ve been fightin’
Regrets and memories
Time has not healed me
Like I thought it would”
Cody Jinks – Same Kind Of Crazy As ME
Almost as if this song was written about my life and personal perspective. I’ve always wondered if Jesus and God were the same kind of crazy as me. Just like good ole’ Cody also wonders, himself. Tattoo this on my chest before I die…
Cody Jinks – The Plea
Sung from the perspective of traveling troubadours’ love letter back to both his momma and his wife, Jinks songs seem to always have a storyline that I can adapt back to my own life in some way, shape or form. Almost as if it were written according to my own life’s story, which obviously it wasn’t. Oddly or ironically, is all it is. Nevertheless, Cody Jinks is musical Jesus to me, personally. A true gift to humanity, if humanity will just fucking listen to what he has to say.
David Bowie – Black Star
This is one of the most mysterious songs, from one of the most mysterious artists ever recorded, in my opinion. I don’t have an exact clue what exactly this song is about, but I’ve got a hunch. Recorded and released just shortly before David Bowie would come to pass, this song’s poetic and obscure message mesmerizes me. What the fuck is he singing about or predicting still begs the question. Is he singing about some kind of prophetic warning, or is he referencing something else?
For whatever reason I wonder if he is referencing Kendrick Lamar, at one point in the song’s chorus. It’s a song that also masters a wonderful transition into another song, within the same song. Only master songwriters can accomplish this transition inside one song.
David Bowie was a HUGE part of my musical infatuation growing up as a young man. I identified with his weirdness, and it was something I’ve always found my own ways to pursue in life’s pursuit.
Eagles – Desperado
Because I believe that I will likely spend the rest of my life, alone. Because I only seem to want the ones I can’t get.
Eagles – Take It To The Limit
Because this song is about exactly what I have done in almost every life situation, relationship or scenario I’ve found myself in. And yet still here I am without while still taking it to the limit, one more time…
Eagles – Lyin’ Eyes
In all my life’s experiences with women and relationships, this song’s story still remains true in the modern age. And while it’s not my intent to come off as overly sexist with this song’s endorsement, there are unfortunately many women who still operate according to this song’s story. Guys, take note. This song is about at least one woman who you’ve ever known or loved in your lifetime.
Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
Yes, this song shows up in a lot of people’s personal playlists, including my own. A testament to how damn good of a song this is. Life’s little lessons on love are sprinkled throughout it, right? This was the one album that my I remember my Father playing from the time I can remember. This band would get hooked in me deep, from an early age. I soon learned how incredibly accurate their songs are when it comes to life and relationships. Little poetic musical prophecies.
Frank Sinatra – It Was A Very Good Year
Look. At almost every life interval that this song sings a story about, I have a corresponding life experience to which I can directly associate it with. It’s more than ironic, ok?
- 17 – Lori Sagert on the village greens of Oldham County
- 21 – My next door neighbor in college who lived down the stairs in Richmond, Ky.
- 35 – Cherryh Butler, the blue-blooded girl of independent means in the back of a taxi or limo in every fucking city across this great land.
Just like the song’s story. Explain that one to me…
“And now I think of my life as vintage wine, from fine older kegs.”
Guns N’ Roses – Estranged
One of the more obscure songs from the Guns n’ Roses catalog, but perhaps my personal favorite, from my personal favorite album from the group, Use Your Illusion II. Most of my life I’ve personally found many of my relationships to reach an inevitable point of becoming estranged, for reasons unknown. This song has also been a go-to for when I seek rationalization of why seemingly perfect relationships evolve into this state of distancing for no apparent good reason. And there is nothing fucking better in life that bring me out of a funk than a Slash guitar solo that speaks to my soul.
Guns N’ Roses – November Rain
The ultimate rock n roll love ballad about a relationship that went wrong. It was the first usia video on MTV that I could not turn off or over when it came on. The song was originally intended to be on Appetite For Destruction, but Axl decided it wasn’t finished yet. By the time it did came out, because I was just becoming old enough to understand the song’s meaning, having just experienced one of my first relationships which started off sweet, and ended sour.
Guns N’ Roses – Yesterdays
A song that reminds us all that we grow and learn through life. Just keep moving forward no matter what, and by all means when you look back to yesterday, just remember that is has nothing for me.
Johnny Cash & Waylon Jennings – There Ain’t No Good Chain Gang
Besides this being another song introduced to me at a very young age in life by my Grandmother, this song contains a very important life lesson for all men no matter your age: There ain’t no good in an evil hearted woman. Please do not try to argue this point with me. You’re wrong. Ole Waylon and Johnny would have never recorded this song if it weren’t anything but the TRUTH. Selah.
Johnny Cash – The Man Comes Around
The combination of Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin is almost prophetic, based on my musical interpretation and understanding of the book of Revelation, and the way history played out. Undoubtedly sung by someone who understands that book much better than myself. And the whirlwind is in the thorn tree. I am ready to be judged exactly as I am, when the man comes around. Jesus will return, brothers and sisters…
Johnny Cash – Man In Black
Because it’s my favorite color. To wear. I remember my grandmother, my Mother’s mother – playing Johnny Cash to me as a child, and this song is one that stands out in my childhood memories.
Johnny Cash – A Boy Named Sue
Written by one of my favorite poets and authors of all time, and recorded by one of my musical heroes, this song reminds me of my entire childhood and teen years, even though I had a Father who was semi-present in my life. However, I was picked on growing up quite severely, but the personal animosity that this song’s story describes is something I have carried around within me to this day. And although I’m not named Sue, the gravel in my gut in the spit in my eye is something I also inherited from my father.
Johnny Cash – The Beast In Me
This song was written as almost if was about me. I’ve got on within me, too. When this song came out and I heard it for the first time, I cried. This collaboration between Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash was God-sent, just like this song is to me personally.
Johnny Cash – Hurt (Nine Inch Nails Cover)
This is the GREATEST cover of a song which has ever been recorded thanks to the work of Rick Rubin. Even Trent Reznor himself admitted to this upon hearing Cash’s moving and nerve shattering rendition of a song which describes the feelings of self-torment. At one point in my life, I contemplated suicide. This song was my soundtrack for those feeling. Hurt is something that I’ve unfortunately lived with for most of my life in some form or fashion, but this song in both NIN’s version and Cash’s version has helped me endure.
John Prine – When I Get To Heaven
The moment I heard this song for the first time I cried. I was in my first year of living in Nashville when this alum and song came out. What an amazing human being John Price was, and the songs he wrote were nothing short of poetic. I was lucky enough to be in Prine’s presence about one year before he passed away, and not long after he released this song and album. I feel like everything he sang about in this song went exactly as he explained, and he is right now up there drinking a vodka and ginger ale, smoking a cigarette that is nine miles long. I have some little version of this in my own head for when I die. I’ll tell you how it goes in another writing….
Johnny PayCheck – Take This Job & Shove It
It was the first song which came on the radio just about 10 minutes after I had quit where I was working for the world’s biggest asshole in 2016, even though it was already a song which I remember hearing by some way from my Grandmother. Relative to the 2016 incident, I would still be tempted to punch that rich bastard in his mouth out of respect for those he’s fucked over, if he appeared before me to this day. Ironically almost 10 years to the date, here thereafter, I now work with the estate of the man who recorded this song and made it a national anthem for dudes with stories like mine. How fortuitous, right?
Kendrick Lamar – Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe
Kendrick Lamar is responsible for being the artist who got me back listening to hip hop again after a nearly 10 year hiatus. I went on that hiatus because I believed – in my opinion – there’s been a severe lack of genuine, heartfelt, ghetto poets who’ve emerged in the last 10-15 years. To me, hip hop is the mastery of the English language. It’s an ability to manipulate your words into a story that flows, phrases rhymes, and if you removed the music, you’d have a ghetto poem. The best hip hop artists are those who actually have something to say which is important. Keep in mind that my foundation of hip hop appreciation is rooted in NWA, Dre, Ice Cube, Tupac and Eminem. Artists who had something to say, and a story to tell. No matter how fucked it was. It was truth. It was honesty. It was their stories. That’s exactly what Kendrick is. So much of modern day hip hop artists are garbage, with nothing important to say. But Kendrick rises above all those fools.
Michael Kiwanuka – Cold Little Heart
This song ranks in my personal favorite Top 10 songs recorded in the last 10 years. Obviously written from a place of personal experience, this British songwriter is incredibly intriguing as his songs hit hard especially if you are trying to find a rational explanation for why someone just left your heart in little pieces. It’s a British Blues Rock masterpiece of a song, in my opinion.
“Bleeding, I’m bleeding
My cold little heart
Oh I, I can’t stand myself”
My Morning Jacket – Victory Dance
I just happened to be one of the few journalists in front row attendance to MMJ’s album release party for Circuital in 2012 at The Palace in which they opened their set with this song. Triumphant appeal would be how I would describe this song. I was mesmerized and drawn into the musical spectacle I witnessed on this very special night sitting five rows back as they performed this song for the first time to an audience. As this song’s subject matter applied to my own life, it is one of the songs I link to my escape from the very city where both myself and this amazing band hail from.
My Morning Jacket – Wonderful
Probably the most gut punching, feel good song on Circuital. I remember being tear jerked at The Palace Theatre on the premiere night they performed this album on the day of its release. It was one of those magical moments that I got to experience from 3 rows back. My Morning Jacket’s live performances are better than their records.
My Morning Jacket – Movin’ Away
Reminds me of the my final bow with my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, and is the literal soundtrack for why I moved out. Good riddance to that city, unfortunately. Even thought I know Jim wrote this song with the destruction of a personal relationship as its inspiration.
My Morning Jacket – Circuital
Reassures me of the fact that everything in life follows a circular motion. Everything comes back around. History repeats itself. Both in humanity’s history, your past, and life. The rhythmic progression of this song is mesmerizing and easy to get lost in.
My Morning Jacket – Steam Engine
This song was the soundtrack of my relationship with the love of my life, Cherryh Butler. We used to lay in the sheets and experience the touch you need so much, just like the song’s lyrics implies. That came to life with her. MMJ & Ryan Adams was the soundtrack of many of my relationship memories with Cheryl, but this song was the song I remember playing when I dropped her off at SDF from the last time in our relationship arc when she came a visited me at my home in Louisville. This song can still tear jerk me to this day when I listen to it.
My Morning Jacket – Master Plan
This song reminds me of the my inevitable plan I would initiate in 2020 to work on my own. And although the song was written and delivered to satisfy a metaphorical context of a relationship arc, for me it was the song which I had been working on in my head for years on finally professionly breaking out on my own. Which I still am enjoying to this point in my life in 2025. Music and songs hit everyone differently.
Nina Simone – Feeling Good
Comes from a soul music queen, hands down. It’s a feel-good freight train of a song. When I first heard it, I was only a teen, yet still to this day, when anything good in life transpires, or a major transition in life occurs which God suddenly reveals, this song gets played.
Nine Inch Nails – Closer
When this song dropped my mind was fucking blown. It’s the perfect song for rage. For despair. A song you can dance to. A song you can fuck to. A song you can fight to. And I did to all of these scenarios. And, a song which launched the industrial musical revolution of the mid 1990’s into the mainstream. I had already been hooked on NIN from their Pretty Hate Machine album, but this song really hyper focused my attention to the genius of Trent Reznor as a songwriter, which still persists and is something I recognize today.
Ozzy Osbourne – See You On The Other Side
Ozzy was my first concert I ever attended, although this song had not yet come out at that time. It was just a few years later when it did on his Ozzmosis album, but this is one of my favorite lesser known songs from his catalog. Obviously referencing meeting someone on the other side of death, in the after life, this song is about moving on from someone who has passed, and just resting in comfort that you’ll see them again on the other side.
Pink Floyd – Dogs
If you ever want to hog time on a juke box at a bar somewhere, and you have the option to play this song, play it. It’s 17+ minutes of some of the most mesmerizing guitar hooks and musical bridges that David Gilmore & Roger Waters recorded. Although, one of the band’s more off-kilter songs, from their 1977 Animals album, which is packed with songs about exactly what you’d expect. Animals. Roger Waters keyboard & synth work that mimics dogs barking always seems to fool my Greta everytime. It pisses her off cause she thinks another dog is intruding.
Pink Floyd – Young Lust
No comment needed. Just listen to the song’s story.
Rod Base & DJ Easy Rock – It Takes Two
As crazy as this may sound, this was the first physical piece of music I owned. I bought the cassette tape of this EP from a catholic grade school friend of mine in the late 80s. And because my father was a police officer, I had to hide this recorded piece of contraband at home. Bear in mind he was a homicide detective so this did take some amount of skill considering I was only about 11 years old at the time. Nonetheless, as I blasted this song through my Sony Walkman headphones in the middle of the night in my bedroom and walking home to/from catholic grade school. I had found my love and appreciation for hip-hop and urban inspired music at a very early age in life. In secrecy.
Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
This is my go to song about 2-3 weeks after I get dumped. Why the fuck do I have so many relationship stories that went like how this song’s story implies? One of life’s strange mysteries, but this song is an alt-country folk Americana sonic gem. You know, when you’re a dude, that is, who got dumped by a woman you still can’t get off your mind, and will willingly get used again if she called. Songwriting at its best.
Ryan Adams – Fuck The Rain
My ultimate go-to artist for when I get my heart ripped out of my chest by the succubus types of dames I have fallen for over the years. Ryan Adams, although a bit of an asshole as a human himself, and has had questionable relationship drama of his own, seemingly inspires most of the songs he writes. He is frustrated with this world we live in. Like me. Nevertheless, is one of the greatest songwriters of our modern time. In my opinion, of course.
Ryan Adams – Wonderwall
Sometimes an artist can cover another artist’s song, and take it to a whole new level. Almost owning that song’s intent more so than the original composer did. This is one of those songs. Originally an Oasis song, Adams’ take on the song and melody is felt more so than the Gallagher brothers version did.
Still Corners – The Trip
This is my personal favorite GET THE FUCK OUT OF DODGE song which I always play as soon as I hit the road for a length trip. No matter where I’m going, it’s song #1. It helps me drive better, and it will do the same damn thing for you when you find yourself on the road and are like “hey, I need a road song.” This would be that song. Furthermore, the symbiotic balance between the artist’s vocals and the rhythm guitar player’s lead on a melodic hook, is seemingly balanced to perfection. One can easily become lost on the road with this song…
TALK – Run Away to Mars
I had never even heard of this artist before, but this is just one of those really strongly written and conceived songs. You feel what the songwriter felt when he composed this song. The longing to just run away from all of this world’s problems, which many humans feel in today’s worldly context – is the message that resonates here. Musical escapism at its best, in my opinion, from one strange artist. Even stranger than what David Bowie was considered in his time.
Taylor Swift – Karma
Even though I’m not anything near being considered a Swifty, I can admit and acknowledge that this specific song’s lyrical appeal to my own life was immediately evident. A deep cut from Taylor’s 2022 album Midnights – my personal favorite from her catalog – where she wrote most of the album with Jack Antonoff, who is a lyrical songwriting genius in my opinion. Nevertheless it was a song that caught my attention and was immediately relatable to my whole karmic life philosophy about the Kirt Webster shit-show I found myself tangled up within from 2018-2019.
“And I keep my side of the street clean. You wouldn’t know what I mean.”
Tim McGraw – Humble & Kind
This song hit me harder and resulted in human change more so than most every song I’ve listened to. I’ve always been humble, but I’ve not always been kind. Sometimes the Marine in me takes over, and everyone in my orbit feels the overexerted passion which comes from a place of good. However, this song helped me to understand what God and Jesus is trying to teach every human being, including myself. Likely the best message ever to be delivered in one single song, that if everyone adopted, the world would be a much better place to live in.
“When the dreams you’re dreamin’ come to you
When the work you put in is realized
Let yourself feel the pride but
Always stay humble and kind”
Tupac Shakur – Dear Mama
Tupac blew my mind when I finally dived into his 1995 album, . He is a ghetto poet and this song is nothing more than a sweet ode to his own mother, based on his story, loving her unconditionally no matter what. What’s not to respect about this as a human being. This is basically the only rap song I know the lyrics by heart. That’s how it hit me when it came out and I was a naive 17 year old listening to gangster rap and being moved by it, while having a father who was a white cop. Hard to relate, right? Nevertheless, the song reminds me of the love I hold for my own mother, even though Tupac’s story is a far cry from my story.
Waylon Jennings – I’ve Always Been Crazy
Look, I am just going to say that this song’s title describes my entire mental persona. I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane. OK?
Waylon Jennings – Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way
When I moved to Nashville in 2018, I thought to myself “son, you finally got it made.” And while I set out to preserve that three chords and the truth kind of sound in the artists I worked with, I was metaphorically slapped upside my head with the reality of the post-bro country era I moved to Nashville in – where pop-country still refined supreme – yet I was still asking everyone around exactly what this song’s question raises.
Waylon Jennings – Closing In On The Fire
This song didn’t jump out to me until his Grandson, Whey Jennings, hired me to run his PR/Publicity in 2023. From whatever reason I felt that my earning of a Jennings’s family member’s trust in helping shape and direct his musical life’s path meant that I was closing in on the fire. I’ll just leave it at that because at this point in history, much remains to be seen and done to fully realize what good ole’ Waylon was likely implying on this song’s meaning.
Willie Nelson – Time Of The Preacher
This song is quite possibly the greatest country song, from one of the greatest country albums, sung by one of the greatest country singers. I will fight you if you disagree in the slightest with anything said here within about this song. Got it?