with a little help from my friends

So, with a little help from my friends*, I put together what I think is a pretty good playlist of "recovery music" for Eldest. It's starts reminiscent and sad, it heads right into some great angry, pissed off music and returns to get over it, feel good about yourself stuff. It ends oddly, but she adores "Amazing Grace" and I had an adoration of Ladysmith Black Mambaza period (thank you, Sting), so it was a good compromise finale.

What do you think?

Everybody Hurts—R.E.M.
Damaged People—U2
Broken—Lifehouse
Slow Dancing In a Burning Room—John Mayer
The Long And Winding Road—The Beatles
Nothing Better—The Postal Service
Breathe—Michelle Branch
Break Away—Rick Cowling
Circle—Sarah McLachlan
How's It Going to Be—Third Eye Blind
My Happy Ending—Avril Lavigne
Broken—12 Stones
All These Things That I've Done—The Killers
The Pretender—Foo Fighters
The Breakup Song—American Hi-Fi
Never Again—Kelly Clarkson
Song for the Dumped—Ben Folds Five
Since U Been Gone—Kelly Clarkson
Stuck in the Middle with You—Stealers Wheel
Over it—Katharine McPhee
Goodbye to You—Michelle Branch
Let Me Go—3 Doors Down
Better Days—Goo Goo Dolls
Unwritten—Natasha Bedingfield
Put Your Records On—Corinne Bailey Rae
Least Complicated—Indigo Girls
Suddenly I See—KT Tunstal
Beautiful—Christina Aguilera
Age Six Racer—Dashboard Confessional
Amazing Grace—Ladysmith Black Mambazo

She's started listening to it and kept saying, "I love this song!" "These lyrics are perfect!" "Mom, this song says 'fuck'?!?" Why is it that they think we are so darn clueless? And, yeah, I understand she needs to to say "fuck you" really, really loud about 500 times before she feels better. I mean he broke up with her by TEXT MESSAGE, for goodness sake. (Tonkelu--13 years my junior--recommended the "fuck you" screaming Ben Folds Five song, but I'm proud to say I already knew about it.) And when Eldest saw it on the list she said, "Where did you get a Ben Folds Five song? You're a MOM, you're not supposed to know about them."

I'd say I owe my mother an apology, but I promise, she never could have pulled this off for me. She quit listening to new music right about the time Barbara Streisand and Helen Reddy made it big. She never even bothered with the Beatles. She skipped from big band, via Elvis, to elevator music. My punk phase terrified her.

It's an MTV house.

*Sorry. Couldn't avoid the cheesy musical reference.