Side A
Artist	Song
Beck	Loser
The Clash	Clampdown
Fenix TX	All My Fault
The Hippos	Wasting My Life
The Darkness	Stuck in a Rut
Fenix TX	Minimum Wage
The Clash	Career Opportunities
Freddie Mercury	There Must Be More to Life Than This
Harry Belafonte	Done Laid Around (Gotta Travel on)
Ace of Base	The Sign
Van Halen	Right Now
Secret Affair	Time for Action
REO Speedwagon	Time for Me to Fly
Styx	Come Sail Away
Twisted Sister	We're Not Gonna Take it
They Might Be Giants	Boss of Me
Chixdiggit	Quit Yer Job
Violent Femmes	Kiss Off
Oingo Boingo	Goodbye, Goodbye
Side B
Artist	Song	Buy
Dire Straits	Walk of Life
Jimmy Cliff	I Can See Clearly Now
Love and Rockets	So Alive
The Young Rascals	People Got to Be Free
Pratt & McClain	Happy Days
The Eels	Fresh Feeling
Pete's Dragon	Razzle Dazzle Day
Buck-O-Nine	I'm the Man
Apollo Sunshine	Today is the Day
Riddlin' Kids	I Feel Fine
Offspring	One Fine Day
The Beach Boys	Make it Big
Sprung Monkey	Good Times
Dropkick Murphys	Your Spirit's Alive
The Avalanches	Since I Left You
Billy Joel	My Life
Timbuk 3	The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes	I Believe I Can Fly
Ash	World Domination
The Living End	Prisoner of Society
OK Go	Do What You Want
MXPX	Responsibility
Todd Rundgren	Bang on the Drum All Day
The Groovie Ghoulies	Doin' Fine
Exploding Hearts	So Bored
Travis	Side
Dance Hall Crashers	Lost Again
Clem Snide	Moment in the Sun
Talking Heads	Road to Nowhere
Colin Hay	Waiting for My Real Life to Begin

Comment:

My love note to IHOP

Though I adore all these songs, the mix itself is not to be taken too seriously, despite a few scattered attempts at thoughtful musings

It was originally supposed to be nothing but a silly celebratory-type mix, but as usual, I thought too much about it and ended up appending all this prelude stuff about how the job sucks and all this stuff at the end about how I'm not actually that happy in the aftermath. I basically ended up telling the story from beginning to end, is what I did. Oh well, I guess that makes it mildly more substantive, for whatever that's worth. And I know there are a lot of cheesy songs and not-very-respectable pop-punk acts featured, but with the sweeping melodramatic gestures of, say, Styx and Speedwagon, and the standard teen angst/riotous glee of Fenix TX, MXPX, Offspring, et al, they helped me convey my theme, and I'm not going for award-winning subtlety here. I made this just for fun, and to inspire me to quit my horrible fucking job at IHOP.

P.S. Unlike how most of the other songs pretty much get my point across in their titles alone, I chose Dire Straits as the first song leading into the euphoric, "yay, I just quit and I'm free!" 2nd-side because of its ineffable sense of waking happiness. Oh, and "The Sign", in case it wasn't painfully obvious, is meant to be the turning point for when I realize I should just quit. Oh, that song...

Lastly (I promise), some songs I wanted to include but ultimately left out (as you can see):
"The Prisoner" by The Clash (because I already had 2 by them)
"Where Do We Go From Here" from the "Buffy" musical (because I just didn't think the lyrics fit well enough)
"A New Hope" by Blink-182 (because it's just about a girl, and yes, I know a lot of songs on the mix are also about relationships, not leaving jobs or dealing with life, but, I dunno, the metaphoricality (...) of the others just fit better in my mind)
"Hangin' Around" by Counting Crows (its sound didn't match what I was going for in the beginning, and anyway, like "A New Hope" it was a little too out in left field for the theme, too specifically about lingering in a town rather than lingering in anything in general, like a job)
"White Collar Boy" by Belle and Sebastian (I just used it on my previous mix, and it was only a candidate here for its title and for being so good)
"It Don't Worry Me" by the Nashville cast (also just used it on my last mix, but I thought it would've gone well in the post-quitting section)
any version of "Pressure Drop" (because that's like my own personal default "well, it's all over and now it's time to reflect" song. The Specials and The Clash do it best)
"The Good Life" by Weezer
"Chain Gang" by Sam Cooke (but I just couldn't find a copy of it to put on my mix, dammit)
"Call it Quits" by The Ziggens
"(There's Gotta Be) More to Life" by Stacie Orrico (until I replaced it with the better Freddie Mercury track)
"I Just Want to Feel Alive" by The Huntingtons (until I realized the song sucked, and I had too many "alive" songs anyhow)

So that's the whole story. Been a while since I made a mix born of an actual theme, rather than just pasting together all the most recent music in my collection like I usually do. Hope it doesn't seem too lame to anyone. And sorry I wrote so much.

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