• favorite song

Whenever I have to answer this, I usually go with First Song for B by Devendra Banhart. It's been a couple years I've been using it & I don't think it'll get old, because to me it's like a hymn to love/god. Very spiritual to me when it gently builds, but also there is no doubt it's a despairing plea. It has a lot of pain in it. And I can't think of a song that shows what I feel love is more [I mean, I'm not really sure what love "is" but whenever I've felt it, any time, it's always been a bit of this song.] Other than the poetry to it, I also think it's an any-weather song. Doesn't matter when or where or what I'm doing; if I put it on, it always takes me there. If I want to talk about it musically, I think I should devote my time to Devendra's whisper sing. The way he is lulling, you can kind of hear his breathe and his spit, and his wet lips and his throat swell. It's guttural but in the way you want to listen and I think that's how I like life more generally. When I first heard this piece, as soon as his voice came in, I was paying attention. And the image started reeling in my head. It was a trance, a vision sort of. Like looking into my own head through someone else's head and seeing heaven things. When the line starts, "I want to see you be the one whose first light harbors in the new day and see you settle into yourself and never be afraid," I fell inside. I thought, "That's it! That's it!" But then he sings, "Now I take everything as a good sign because I'm in love. I take everything as a sign from God." And the piano builds right at that moment. It was transcending for me. It just placed me in a whole other dimension, and it made me feel...religious, I guess. Religious about love and pain. By the time he begged "Please destroy me," I was in tears. I knew it had done something to me. That's what makes it worthy of this title.

• a song from my favorite band/artist

My favorite band (generally) is Miniature Tigers. I think it must have been around junior year I found them. I had gone through some tough shit, and that wasn't the point really, but I had some things carrying me through and that was mostly Oldies. I was flipping through stuff that sounded like Beach Boys/60s shit when Minis came on. I think they were described as a modern take on the stuff of old generation. Charlie Brand became a brainboy for me and I was real pleased to have found a bridge world. And it was music that made me happy, somehow, because it was kind of happy the way I was happy- the way where you're not sure what happy is, but you're it when you're saddish (?) And this stuff changed my world. It opened an entire door for me into myself and my interests. For the song, I'm using Boomerang because I think it represents what I like about them (that combo modern-retro thing, the sensual lyrics, the lull-pain). Also, much like Brian Wilson (who is genius god) Charlie is angel-voiced. I think he's singing from heart and he sees in song and that's what I want to do- I want to spend time listening to him. There's also a happy dichotomy to it, with this pumping beat, which gets me dancing and basically swallowing in my feelings, like a rain parade of my feelings, and it's actually a pretty swell time hanging out with them in my head. I feel like there's some kind of mutual understanding. That Charlie and I are made up of the same thoughts in the same bridge-world.And in that world we can dance together. I am blabbing, but that's how I feel pretty much.

• a song that makes you happy

As I preface, I generally do NOT like happy music. It's kind of f'ed up but I just don't feel anything but sadder listening to it! Maybe I was born bitter or something. But anyway, not so long ago I found Snakadaktal (you already know this because I had to announce it to the world), and I heard this track Fall Underneath. H O L Y S H I T. The beat started and it was a little funky, and I was already feeling that groove settling down inside me, but then this sweet angel-voiced vocalist comes in, and she's saying these sweet, sad, sensual things. She's like this nymphet and giving me these things, these contentments. When she started with, "Well I don't know if there's treasure in the ocean or if death will whisk me far away. I like to think that we live in a kind of motion where our hands and feets are here to stay," I just thought it was guardian-angel-talk. I wanted to throw up my soul and say, "Yeah, f' yeah, this is good. This is good. This is the Dao. How I should be thinking and living." It just was like soul juice or something. I can get lost in a smile listening to that. It gives me some kind of peace, and that's what makes me want to feel it, and bop with it.

• a song that makes you sad

I had to think about this awhile. Because, as I've already kind of indicated, I find pleasure in miserable things (god bless the pisces). Maybe this is indicative of the timing, but I remembered that a song came on the other day on my iPad as I was laying in the bathtub. And I was doing the thing I do where I place my ears only under the water so the music is muted and I kind of feel like I'm halfway undersea, in a place falling, but not quite. A safe kind of fall. Anyway, I have a guilty pleasure for Coldplay because my dad used to play the old stuff all the time and I liked it in long car rides with him. The new stuff is shit. Besides Magic. When it came on under the water, I was thinking kind of in the way where you're outside yourself and not in control of what you're feeling. And maybe it was the way it sounded submerged, or maybe it's because I've been thinking about what love means a lot. I mean, I've kind of been forced to. My parents were married 25 years and split. My ex-boyfriend and I had to face the reality that what we were feeling was probably forged. And the boy I'd kept locked inside- I let him out, and it was wildly intense, partly devastating, partly the most beautiful things I've ever felt. So this song, Magic, it's kind of this beat that settles into you with this broke-music Chris Martin is singing on top of it. It's just broke. He's talking about love lost but he's trying to remedy it. He's incantating. He's trying to convince himself it's still pretty. That love is still pretty and worthwhile. And oh my God, that just made me lose it. It hurt me deep. Because I was afraid I was losing that feeling. I was afraid I stopped believing in the thing I believed in most; magic, I guess. I thought I stopped believing in Magic. If I listen back, it takes me straight to that place I was.

• a song that reminds you of someone

There's a number of things I could pick, but I think I'll go with Don't Let Me Down by the Beatles. This song gives me so many feelings when I listen to it. All these things start reeling inside of me. Well, anyway, long story short, one night late when I was discovering some things I had inside of me, Fernando sang this to me. He was really getting into it. And I was just staring at him, pretty dewey-eyed. In retrospect, it sounds like something else now, like something painful and sad because he's singing this song, this song about how I feel about him essentially [when we did the thing for the first time the only thought I was having was that "I guess no one really done me like (he) done me he done me good"]. But then there's a so-Fernando truth to it, "A love that lasts forever/a love that has no past." I've heard that from him quite a few times. And so there's this weird duo thing happening. He's singing out this song about this girl, and I'm singing it back to him with my eyes, wanting it bad to be me. He looked so happy though. He looked so cool, calm and happy. That was his place. He was in it and I was seeing it and I was in love with it. So that's why I like listening to it because it takes me to that place I got to see. And it's just this awesome memory when I go back to it, of this boy singing this song he loves, and singing it loud like he doesn't care I'm looking right into his whole self. I can replay exactly how he looked/sounded in my head. It makes me think of the good things in life.

• a song that reminds you of a place

Okay, so looking back on that "songs that make me happy" section I realize that though that is true, something is truer; there was a time in my life where I was happy, where I was carrying nothing with me. I somehow got there and I've lost it because I haven't been going to the holyland as often. But the summer of 2010, I was there. I was there all the time in my head. Bethel Woods is the place I found it. So insert more happy music into that section. The Freedom performance by Richie Havens is going to be my pick here for reminder of place. I can't tell you what it was like. This was about a week after I tried to suffocate myself in context (dismal, but necessary to highlight what happened). The point is, I was not living. But I go to this Museum, and I lay down in these bean bag chairs with this big screen on the ceiling, right? And fucking Richie Havens comes on. I'm laying there and all the lights are out and there's some other people there with me. And the room is lighting up with this performance. It's like I'm there. And my eyes just peeled; they just peeled! I was in that room for around four hours. I saw so many things & I saw so much life. It honestly saved me. I think the performance was juxtaposed with images on the sides of the walls; people wading in the nude, kissing in the river, having babies, crawling through mud, dancing topless and laying in the back of their vans, drugging or not. Marching up roads and waking to stars and music. All those pictures; all the music. I walked right into living. And I've never let myself forget it! Fuck yeah, Bethel Woods. I need you rn. Take me back!

• a song that reminds you of an event

Easy. Bruce Springsteen's whole album The Rising, but I'll pick Worlds Apart because I think that one made me feel the most when the CD came out. This is Springsteen's 9/11 tribute album. For whatever reason, even though I was young, 9/11 has tremendously affected my perspective and worldview. I honestly think about it at least once a week, and I find it popping up in my poetry when I didn't mean to put it there. My mom bought me this album because she felt that day, too, and she explained to me how he toured around finding the words for it, coming from families and officers and firefighters. And I put it in my CD-player and I sat and listened to it all the way through in my closet in the dark. It was an experience. I had something that was speaking to me and healing with me about the whole thing, and not in the way others were. It wasn't mad at the other end. I think if you put yourself in the moment, like you sit there in it and think about people burning and jumping out a building, and phone calls cut off into dust, and the city being blanketed by a different kind of smog, finding ashes on the edges of your air conditioner vent, finding papers in the sewer from office work set free- you think about children without parents anymore, and walking out of that, of a world falling on top of you, into the streets. And you think of having to recover those bodies, and you think about getting mauled by debris, and you think about thinking the world is gonna blow up RIGHT NOW because this thing happened. Then you start to think about the day after, and the community rising up, and American flags everywhere. You start to think about your government. You start to question what "terrorist" means. Is this really a war we're declaring? What's going on here? You're looking out at people carcasses and split heads from the top floor, and you're saying, "And now we want to go blow up Islamic children? And now we want to spread the fear? And now we want to plant ourselves into their eyes, and make them think, 'Look at this evil!'" You get pretty whacked out thinking about that when you're younger. I'm reminded of the incredible Samantha Smith, who wrote an incredible letter to Soviet leader Andropov in 1982 at 10 years old. It highlights that the world really wants peace; nobody wants war. And when you're young, and listening to Bruce Springsteen in a closet, you really begin to internalize that. I'll go my whole life thinking you should never draw your bow back. This song in particular was sensual, controversial, cultural- it gave me a lot of commitment to peace.

• a song that you know all of the words to

A lot of stuff, but I thought I'd put something fun, so Queen's Don't Stop Me Now. Queen got me through Middle School! Seriously! But I mean, I used to sing this on the table when I was like 9 and apparently that was really funny given the line "I'm a sex machine ready to reload." Also, come to think of it, I think all my penis envy definitely comes from this song. It just feels like dick music! Like, woah ho ho, here is my dick and look what I can do with it! Happy happy! Party in the pants! I'm having a ball!

• a song that you can dance to

I am going to pick the theme from the Party at Kitty & Stud's porno (sorry Ivy, I had to). This song just makes me want to groove. I seriously may like it more than watching Stallone ooooh----ah-----OOOOOH. In all seriousness, this is so funky sick and I am built to dance to it. I just will never let anyone see. IGNORE KITTY.

But if not that then, this lovely mashup. Also file under: good mood. Happy song. Also file under: voices that make your panties wet.

• a song that makes you sleepy

This generally doesn't happen but I do remember falling asleep to I Remember by Devendra Banhart once. Such a gentle song. I love when he hums. But this song also makes me feel teary. In a good way generally. Like, if I'm feeling down, I could definitely put this on and let the last lines be the ones I hear before I sleep: "Don't let what was get in the way of what's next and don't forget what's to come hasn't come yet."

• a song from a movie you love

But I fucking love movie soundtracks so this is unfair. One of my all-time favorite compositions though- shit, man. I actually have a ton. Okay, okay, I'll just roll with it. The theme from Jurassic Park. John Williams is a fucking genius & when this movie played when I was young child, it was one of those moments I genuinely remember being like, "Wow, wow, mom, dad, look! This is so cool!" The song kind of takes me there. No. I want to change it to E.T.. The Flying Theme really gets me to those places even more! Like, what a dope song when you're a little kid who believes in anything. I only liked horror so seriously these feels are few and far between and TROMBONE I LOVE TROMBONE in the Flying Theme. There are so many contenders that I will probably look back on and say, "Why did I not put this, or this, or this?" But I guess I'll go with my roots on this one. The stuff that started me off with music myself.

• a song from your favorite male vocalist

Okay, so, I think I can't describe this. Brian Wilson literally sounds like a god-messenger to me. I don't know what else to say. It's like his voice just goes straight through me, or up me, or something. When I was a little girl I was just blown away. I would sit there and close my eyes and just get really high off this sweet sad sound. It dips me, carries me, kisses me, hurts me, fills me, tips me, I don't know. If somebody asked me why I like Brian Wilson's voice so much, I would have to answer that it comes from something else. That it's the stuff of angel worlds. Now that he's such a broken man, this sounds even sweeter. I want to just do the strip of the piano/vocals, even though the finished product is great too, but this is about the man. So, here's Surf's Up. The best vocal piece I've ever heard. The song that almost broke up the Beach Boys.

• a song from your favorite female vocalist

Lilah Larson is not only THE babe of the century, but this girl is so- you know what, I don't know. When I saw her live, all I knew is that, yep, I am connecting with you right now. You are giving me you. You are pulling you out of you and letting me have you in this moment. Besides that, this song is really important to me. I think it might have been my anthem: Glass Nor Stone by Sons of an Illustrious Father. (The "I can be alone" verses. Yes, thank you Lilah. Thank you. I needed that.)

• a song nobody would expect you to love

I guesssssss people already know this about me but I feel like it's still unexpected: Wings by Macklemore [http://youtu.be/8wMDAvZO3BA]. If you really know me, I feel like you'd get why Macklemore appeals to me (challenge to Ivy? Is this really that unexpected?) This song actually has a lot of depth!

• a song that describes you

I find myself in everything I listen to (or at least an idea I agree with) so this is really challenging for me. (For opposite reasons to yours, Ivy, so that's really funny to me!)But if we're talking about a song that captures me best, and not my interactions with a specific person/thing/feeling/situation, I do think that's really hard to capture of anybody! So I was thinking, I guess this kind of means a song that somebody is singing about a person, and that person is you, and not a song you relate to. Then I was like, fuck, wait, I was NAMED after a song: Anna Begins by Counting Crows. The older I grow, the more this song becomes me. It's a weird phenomenon where I understand it more by the year. But I'm sure the person that he's singing about is me, because the way he's talking to her, the way he's saying she goes, is just very inside of me. He says she's saying "All or nothing." I'm always saying how it's the high-highs and the low-lows and I don't ever want to feel anything in between. The character in this piece, she's changing her mind. She's like this intense, changing, accusatory, demanding girl. She's playing with fire, too. She wants things, but she doesn't want them enough, because sooner than later those things aren't enough anyway. But she's gentle, sweet, kind, sensual. "She's talking in her sleep; it's keeping me awake...she begins to toss and turn. Every word is nonsense but I understand and I'm not ready for this sort of thing. Her kindness bangs a gong; it's moving me along. And Anna begins to fade away...She disappears." I feel like that's the general pattern I follow. Mood-wise, too. All my life I've been kind of this quirky sort of thing that loses herself to find herself again. I guess it's kind of like I demand all these things that I can never have, or no one could possibly give, and let them break me. But I try to do it in this way where it's like, "Look at me, the martyr, the kind one! Look at everything I've given." Partly to convince myself life's worth it, and partly because I can't help it. And then I disappear to myself. And I start again. And there's all these things going on in this song. The motions of the guitar, the quiver in his voice- there's just something in it that has me in it! It just feels like someone who's talking about me. So thanks, Mom! Thanks for picking this! Not exactly my best light!

But I'm also going to have to put a couple other things for this one, because even though that's like a third-person view, I feel like Lo Fang's Confusing Happiness gives the first-person thought to that story in general. The lyrics are pretty illuminating to my perspective. It goes hand-in-hand with the Counting Crow's piece.

Lately, I've been feeling very Better Girl by Best Coast too though. I have a very complicated view of myself; I want and need those parts of my personality, but also the general thought to this song has kind of been permeating lately.

While we're on this, the song that best describes me as a child is Emiliana Torrini's Weird Friendless Kid because it pretty much sums up the image of my youth; weird, smart and pretending I was a movie-star. I've always been in this other dimension. This was probably written about me.

Also, have always felt a special connection to Florence and the Machine, especially in her piece Falling. This song is actually perfect in capturing how I feel about myself. Florence is always very spiritual; she's strong but in a very fragile way. And I think that describes me well, too. Because at the end of the day, sometimes it's about the fight.

I could go on and on but I am breaking literally all the rules. So many good contenders.

• a song that you used to love but now hate

You heard it here first. Maybe -hate- is a little strong, but pretty much all Rosenstolz makes me think WTF. I hate her voice. Still was really useful in honing those German skills way back when, though.

• a song from an artist you wish more people liked

This is complicated for me because if I really like a band and it's not really too heard of or whatever I get a little possessive over it and rather keep it in my close circle. Hearing things mainstream sometimes ticks me off, which is really pretentious but whatever. That being said,Starfucker is so dope that I cannot. Here's White of Noon. I would love this to come on the radio and to be like "Turn that up! That's my jam!" If people were interested in this stuff as club music, I would totes frequent!

• a song from an album you wish more people had heard

Again, weird q for me. I guess I will go with Rhye's Woman because I think the whole album is genius. First of all, the man has a magic voice. Secondly, the ode here is kind of brilliant. He is just saying Woman again and again and it just feels kind of like a goddess praise. You don't get that in many forms nowadays. And most Indie stuff sounds the same. So I feel like Rhye's doing something a little different, and I like that and want it to be appreciated.

• a song from your favorite album

This is hard to justify. I don't like this question. I could answer it a million different ways. But an album? The whole thing as a whole? Smile Sessions. Because the world waited for it intently. It was the thing that was to never be after Brian has his breakdown. But it was this vision, this piece as a whole with all the parts dispersed throughout the next track and the next, all mixed up, all coming from this one guy's head like it was nothing! Like he just saw it that way in this wonderfully childlike but beautiful, deeply insightful way. And it's a piece that really is more of a journey: first of all, you've got the literal idea of the cross-country travels throughout the US, but then you've got the Brian Wilson story, and how like thirty years later, he ACTUALLY gets up and does this. He actually arranges it and makes it happen. It was therapy to him. Smile Sessions was therapy! I just think it took incredible courage, and to see him manifest this, it is just a moment you can't compare to other musical stories. This was ahead of its time when it was being built; it was doing things that just hadn't been done. It was so quirky and so complex. No one really had much faith in it. When he lost heart, he just laid in bed for years and years and years and I just listen to this as a whole and think, "Wow, here it is- he finally showed it and this is the stuff of creative genius." Here's Child is The Father of the Man, which is just soundly representative of that.

• a song you listen to when you're angry

I rarely anger so this is difficult for me. I guess the only person I get genuinely angry with is myself, so I'd direct this question inward. But I would never listen to a song to get more angry; I'd listen to release it. And for me that would be just to get pretty dramatic and think about not wanting to live, or something like that. Thank you tUnE-yArDs for having Wait for a Minute. Something cathartic about a song that is fed up with itself and admits pain, then settles on killing itself. Somehow you like yourself more by the end of it. Maybe it's because the idea sounds stupid and just needs company.

• a song you listen to when you're happy

For sure have an answer to this. Generationals does Gold Silver Diamond. It's not even a happy song! But the music makes me feel good. It seems to fit my happy-states. I can do swaysssss to this and weeeeeeeee.

• a song that you listen to when you're sad

This is so dramatic but lately it's been My Teenage Castle by Little Peggy March. I don't think it's me being actually sad as much as it is me pretending I am 15 and live in a pink canopy bed with a phone chord wrapped around my finger, though. All my music is sad so I feel like this could apply to ANY SONG I HAVE MENTIONED PROBABLY. But rn, rn it is definitely this song. It's how I feel, okay!?! Embarrassing girl side of me.

But wait, actually, if I'm genuinely sad, probably Enya's Wild Child. Because this song convinced me to want to live! (Pretty sure I already explained this story). I was sitting in my house during a huge thunderstorm, and if you know the place it's made of glass pretty much with high high high ceilings and the back side just all windows facing into the woods. Lightning looks crazy! And her album "A Day Without Rain" was sitting there and I thought it was ironic, so I put it in. When "Wild Child" came on, I was taken. With that setting, with the feelings I was having, it really spoke to me. And if I'm feeling that bad down, and I put it on, I'm reminded. It's hard for me to not wallow though! SO this doesn't happen often.

• a song that you want to play at your wedding

If I ever get married, this is going to be the hardest choice for me, not because I have a hard time finding relatable songs, but because I relate to so many. In my fantasy world, because it's so important to me that I'm Italian, I would really fricken love if my partner would be down with That's Amore by Dean Martin. It's cheeky! You'd think I'd want to be sentimental at my wedding, but I actually feel the opposite about it. Because the best dream is to save the sentimental stuff for private. Secret affairs have always appealed to me just because privacy is intimacy. I don't give myself much privacy. If I'm keeping a story to myself, it's the stuff of real dream novels, trust me! Listen though, if I find -cough- a partner -cough- that would want to dance to this like we're some -cough- gaudy Italian -cough- duo, yes, thank you for bringing joy to me. I have no idea why I am putting cough cues in this. I think I'm just getting hyper about being Italian. That happens sometimes. Gee whiz, where's my Italian Stallion? Come to me, baby! Let's be fun and cheeky and you can squeeze my face and throw cake at me and make the whole crowd laugh! I'm getting dizzy thinking of this.

• a song that makes you laugh

Easily Shabop Shalom by Devendra Banhart. Self-explanatory when you like off-color jokes.

• a song you want to play at your funeral

It's funny. I've been to sooooooo many funerals and I never remembering there being a 'song' moment. Also, I have no idea what to put for this! I feel like I want all the world's music to STOP for me! Because I'm actually a dramatic dickwad! But, I mean if I have to pick, ugh, I just feel like a dramatic bitch, because I'm like, "Let's make them feel at peace" but that doesn't feel good enough to me- ugh, how about something dramatic like Now We Are Free. Yes, it is totally from Gladiator (srynotsry) and I'm not sure who'd want to listen to this at a funeral, but this is my DREAM funeral, and at my DREAM funeral I died doing something really cool, like as a martyr, or war hero, or I was assassinated for something I'd said- or did something like totally dramatic [oh my partner died? okay, bye]... no, seriously, it's gonna be a problem when I die of like cancer or something and I am getting really weird right now about not doing enough with my life and I want to do something in my life that would make this song appropriate OR at least do something that makes my death mean something??? Is this a problem? It is 4 in the morning.

• a song that you wish you had written

Obviously I should have never brought up liking Italian things, but honestly, Caruso is so beautiful and brilliant. When I first heard it I must have been around 9 years old. I remember being stunned. This was the stuff of mystics, of some place high on the hilltops where they thought the gods were hiding. If I ever could get this out of my head, wow, I'd be so poetic! The Andrea Bocelli arrangement is my favorite.

• a song that changed your music taste in some way

Definitely Mini Tiger's Egyptian Robes. First song I heard by them. Didn't just change my music taste, changed my writing, my film taste, my lifestyle. It was deeply sexual. I heard it at a time when I was shifting. I began to open more. Up in my head I mean. It was like I became a woman or something. My idea of it at least; a woman as power. So suddenly my world made sense. It was like I struck a brain wave. Other things attributed to this, too, but Mini Tigers was a huge breakthrough in opening up. But opening up was weird, because it was also about moving backwards, too. It was about this bridge-world like I said before; taking the styles of the past and prying them open to be progressive. I'm totally rambling here, but the point is, this point forward, everything became about making love: my music had to sound like making love, my writing had to sound like making love, my films had to speak to making love, my life had to be like making love. Make love to cities, to people (plural), to objects, myself. Mini Tigers just made me want to take all my sadness and use it to look at the world and make love to the world and I don't know how else to say it.

• a song from your childhood

Yay! I get to put Cyndi Lauper. I'll go with Sally's Pigeons. Twelve Deadly Cyns was the first album I ever bought. I was soooooo happy when I got that CD. I wouldn't put it down. For the books: Queen's Greatest Hits was next, followed by the Rocky soundtrack. But anyway, this track in particular really reminds me of growing up on Staten Island and playing in the streets and stuff. It's got that sad kind of undertone that fits my story, too.

• I am adding this because why is it not a question? sexy song

I have a lot of different moods about the bedroom but the trend is generally the same. If you want to get me hot, Sway really does it. This is just straight-up seduction.

Another contender is Tv Girl's Lovers Rock. Also my idea of a sexy time. I'm pretty outdated in how I like the seduction done. I borrowed everything from some 50-70s dreamgirl pornography. This is a nice bridge-world song for it. I have VERY strong ideas how love-making is done.

And finally, Please Please Me for obvious reasons. I will claw at you.