Personal Top 15 Songs of 2010: #15

I thought I would try something different this year and go through my top fifteen favorite songs of the past year, one at a time, from #15 to #1.

A few of words of "warning" here: if you're not into Regina Specktor or Radiohead, this list probably won't carry much meaning for you as they are responsible for the overwhelming number of songs on it. Also, these are MY top favorite songs of 2010: almost all of them actually came out in previous years (although I at least managed to keep them within this century). Finally, the "countdown" may be spread out on this blog with other articles interspersed. Eventually, I'll get to Number One, though (hopefully before 2011 is over).

So here goes...

#15: Folding Chair by Regina Spektor

This is such a positive, sweet little song that listening to it forces me to smile regardless how I happen to be feeling at the time. Regina is sitting on the beach and invites you, the listener, to open up your folding chair next to her. Having spent much of my leisure time on the beach over the years, this resonates with me considerably. There's something distinctively peaceful about sitting (or standing) facing the ocean as the waves repeatedly crash down and the water ebbs and flows from the sand on the shore. Intellectually, I don't know why this is so: for me, a land-dweller, the sea is really a vast impassable desert boundary and by all stretches of the imagination should be seen a stark barrier. Instead, though, it seems like "freedom" somehow. Is there some deeply hidden "fish" encoding within my genes evoking this irrational response? Who knows, but Folding Chair totally captures the essence of just unwinding on the beach, and in the company of a sweet, compelling personality (with a terrific voice).

Folding Chair is from Regina Spektor's 2009 album Far.