Artist	Song
Bruce Springsteen	No Surrender
Bruce Springsteen	Thunder Road
R.E.M.	At My Most Beautiful
R.E.M.	So Fast, So Numb
Third Eye Blind	Semi-Charmed Life
Bruce Springsteen	Backstreets
R.E.M.	E-Bow the Letter
Bob Dylan	She's Your Lover Now
Bob Dylan	Idiot Wind (Bootleg Series Version)
Pearl Jam	Jeremy
Pearl Jam	Black
Nirvana	Tourette's
Pearl Jam	Alive
Bob Dylan	Every Grain of Sand (Bootleg Series Version)
Nirvana	All Apologies
R.E.M.	Electrolite

Comment:

This came out of a combination of the emotions of two breakups, one in high school, one quite recent.

No Surrender is one of my favorite aural analogues for the feeling of invulnerability that comes in the beginning of the relationships (the good ones anyway). It is followed by the deeper feelings and understandings that come out in Thunder Road and At My Most Beautiful (one of the prettiest songs ever, I think).

Then comes the stage where things *seem* ok, but seem to be falling apart just outside of your consciousness. This wobbly feeling is captured for me by So Fast, So Numb and Semi-Charmed Life. Then comes the confusion, shock and rambling of Backstreets and E-Bow the Letter.

The next two songs, She's Your Lover Now and Idiot Wind (I prefer the Bootleg Series version for this) are two of the most bitter songs ever. They mark the times when I was thinking of the worst possible thing that I could say - what would really hurt.

Luckily, I was able to get past that into a bit of a funk where most of the bitterness was gone but the blackness was still there. The Pearl Jam songs from Ten capture this mood best for me. I threw Tourette's in there for those times when I just need to scream obscenities. That phase always comes before the full healing.

The next two are coming to grip with reality. Every Grain of Sand (again, the Bootleg Series version, not the schmaltzy album version) is heartbreakingly pretty and All Apologies is still very moving for me.

Finally, Electrolite is one of the best "moving on" songs I know, and it's tone of having been through a lot brings a nice balance to the out of control optimism of No Surrender.

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