Good Music Videos and Songs of the Day

     It's been a while since I talked about Songs of the Day. Today, I woke up with the Keith Urban song "For You" from the Act of Valor soundtrack playing. Here's the link. This is a great music video, particularly those close-up shots of the fretboard. And the background explosions. This was played all the time on TCN (The Country Network) during my senior year of high school.
     Right after waking up, the next song to play incessantly was Jamey Johnson's "In Color." That's a good music video, too. (Also first seen on TCN.)
     And then for some reason Big Mama's song "Appreciate the Lady" from The Fox and the Hound was another Song of the Day. It's weird, the songs that get stuck in your head.

    I really like the way this acoustic version of The Band Perry's "Independence" was filmed. And I love the way it sounds.
     Another all-the-time-shown-on-TCN video (and a fantastic story song) is Brett Eldredge's "Raymond." This was the first video we ever saw on that channel, actually. I thought of it while walking through Arlington National Cemetery on Youth Tour.
     Another TCN story song is "The Call" from Matt Kennon. And the Eli Young Band songs "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" (which is a great one to play) and "Crazy Girl" were played over and over, too. "Crazy Girl" was a case where the video is actually better than the song itself, but the lyrics grew on me through sheer repetition.

     I talked some about music in "Guitars" and "Story Songs," I guess. The picture in "Guitars" was of Sam's acoustic/electric Steve. He and Abby Lee worked pretty well together, though she and I learned during a jam session at the Grahams' Fourth of July picnic that practicing outside in the middle of summer will burn your fingers off.

     Keith Urban's "Days Go By" was one of the first songs that I really got down once I'd learned how to play from Dale. Also, Keith's hair is awesome in this video. "Kiss a Girl"s video drove me nuts, with the cartoon background behind the band and everything, but it was another of those first songs I mastered to the point where Mom and siblings would be like, "Wait - that wasn't the CD?" And I liked the production elements showcased in the "Put You In a Song" video. (TCN played a lot of Keith Urban videos...) Besides, it's a good tune. They also played Craig Morgan's "That What I Love About Sunday" a lot. I love the song, and the lighting and editing - particularly the fade transitions - of this video are amazing. (And I thought the brown-haired girl in this video was pretty.)

     Keith and Brad Paisley's "Start a Band" is one of my favorite collaborations of all time, and the video is awesome, too. It was on CMT all the time while living in Tahlequah for most of 2009. Other great songs/videos that were playing then were Brad's "Welcome to the Future" (which I parodied after YT), Josh Turner's "Would You Go With Me?" and Justin Moore's "Small Town USA" (which was Trevor's All-Time Favorite Country Song for forever). Brad's "Water" was a tune that the Okmulgee homeschool group loved, though I was horrified by the opening shot of the blue guitar floating in the pool.

     TCN played Brad's videos for "Old Alabama," "Southern Comfort Zone" and "Beat This Summer" a lot, too. I first heard "Old Alabama" on the radio, and from the first listen to the intro guitar riff I knew it was a Brad/Alabama team-up. They use very distinctive effects pedals. Plus it's cool that Jeff Gordon is in the video.
     "Southern Comfort Zone" and "Beat This Summer" both came out during my freshman year of college, and "Beat This Summer" is another one of the rare "video story is better than the lyrics" examples. "Southern Comfort Zone" was one of the OFTEN played tunes, on the radio and on Abby Lee. (So was "Independence." They both fit the situation well.) Taylor Swift's "Ours" was one of the first songs I learned to fingerpick, and Taylor's soldier boyfriend is played by Matt Saracen from Friday Night Lights. And FNL's Lyla Garrity is the girl in Jason Aldean's "Tattoos On This Town." Those were also TCN videos and are both great songs to play. The Owl City/Carly Rae Jepsen duet "Good Time" also was playing everywhere freshman year, and as a video it's fine. Not the level of "Fireflies" or "Deer in the Headlights" or "Vanilla Twlight" or "When Can I See You Again?", but still pretty good. And Carly Rae stole another summer in 2015 with "I Really Like You," first because the song is so catchy, but then because the music video is almost entirely TOM HANKS LIP-SYNCING THE WHOLE THING, which is too hysterical. And if Carly Rae Jepsen comes up, so does "Call Me Maybe," of course. And as Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz pointed out, it's physiologically impossible not to like the song. But that instantly brings to mind (for Thunder fans) this parody made in preparation for the 2012 NBA Finals with the Heat. (What a fantastic season that was.)

     This turned out longer to be a longer post than I expected.