I know many of you have been waiting all year for this, and it is finally here. Yes, time to unveil my 20 favorite songs of the past year. Rather than share the entire list up front and then post videos/audio files and comments for each one, I’m going Casey Kasem on you and unveiling them one at a time.

Many of these were featured as Friday Vids over the past year, so some should be familiar. But others, like our first song, will be new to the blog.

20 “Black And White” - Parquet Courts

The sound of New York in the summer time. Tense, on edge, your personality crushed by the weight of the city.

Do I bother to define myself beyond what they allow?

Have I already forgotten how?

#19 “I Got Knocked Down (But I’ll Get Up)” - School Of Seven Bells covering Joey Ramone

Normally I disqualify covers from my year end lists. But occasionally I make an exception.

And no, it’s not a cover of THAT song.

Rather, this is a wonderful cover of a song that Joey Ramone wrote while he was battling lymphoma, a disease that would eventually kill him. School of Seven Bells founding member Benjamin Curtis was diagnosed with the same disease in 2013. He recorded this song while hospitalized for treatment, connecting with vocalist Alejandra Deheza via FaceTime. Curtis played in his hospital room, she sang in the studio, and he directed her on how to adjust the recording equipment to get the sound he wanted.

Curtis died last December 29. This was released last June, a powerful and emotional last single by a band that made beautiful music.

Sitting in a hospital bed

Frustration going through my head

Turn off the TV set

Take some drugs so I can forget

I, I want life

#18 “We Only Come Out At Night” - Sugar Stems

I reserve one spot each year for a pure pop gem. This song lives up to the band’s name, sweet as sugar.

Go ahead and run your mouth if you think it’ll make people think you’re smarter

You always thought you knew it all anyway

#17 “Too True To Be Good” - Dum Dum Girls

DDG changed their sound a little for this year’s Too True release. They left behind the fuzzy, garage-rock sound of their first three albums for a darker, post-punk sound that is firmly rooted in the early–1980s. While making the musical change, Dee Dee did not lose her ability to write a terrific hook.

It’s hard to outrun a devil from behind

#16 “Milwaukee” - The Both

Take two legends of power pop, put them together, and magic ensues. Aimee Mann and Ted Leo sound like they’ve been playing together for decades, and their differing backgrouns (Mann coming from art rock, Leo from punk) compliment each other nicely. Bonus points for the nicely done video.

It’s the nucleus burning inside of the cell

#15 “New Skin” - Torres

A song I absolutely fell in love with back in February. This was part of Weathervane Records’ Shaking Through project, in which they document the entire creative process as a song is written and recorded. For this, they took Torres, Mackenzie Scott’s stage name, and added two members of The War On Drugs (Adam Granduciel and David Hartley), Sharon Van Etten, and Chris Wilson of Ted Leo & The Parmacists.

The result is a haunting song that recalls some of Van Etten’s finest works in its slow build and dramatic finish.

Oh, and bonus points for having a line about Kansas City!

The darkness fears

What darkness knows

But if you’ve never known the darkness

Then you’re the one who fears the most

#14“Seasons (Waiting On You)” - Future Islands

Sometimes great songs get an extra push from a video or nationally televised performance. This is a fine example of that phenomenon, as the band’s performance on Letterman last spring nearly broke the Internet.

But that performance should not hide that this is a great song even without Samuel T. Herring’s wacky stage presence. It is a simple, yet forceful, statement on the perils of trying to change, or change for, someone that you love.

Seasons change,

But I’ve grown tired of trying to change for you

#13 “Fall In Love” - Phantogram

Phantogram describes their music as “darkadelic,” which strikes me as perfect. Electro-rock with heavy psychedlic influences, their sound is dark and dense. Throw on lyrics that speak about the hopeless side of love, and their songs aren’t terribly uplifting. But damn do they sound great.

Bonus points: If I had to have a crush on someone in this year’s countdown, it would be lead singer Sarah Barthel.

Fall in me

I’ll let you bleed

’Cause you were fallin’, I’m sorry, ah baby

#12 “Spinners” - The Hold Steady

The Hold Steady will never again be as good as during their three-album run from 2005–2008. But they still write great songs, like this ode to getting out and trying to put heartbreak behind you. Or, put the ball in play, as some of us used to say.

The nights go on forever now

But the morning comes up quick.

#11 “Rent I Pay” - Spoon

I’ll entertain arguments that all Spoon songs kind of sound the same. But the thing is, they’re almost always really freaking good. It’s good to hear them recapture their old swagger after a couple albums with slightly different sounds.

And if that’s your answer no I ain’t your dancer

#10 “Teenage Wasteland” - Wussy

Songs about falling in love with music will always be made. But are we at the end of the age of songs like this? Songs about living in rural America and having your life changed by amazing music that rolls in on the radio waves from distant cities? “Kids these days, with their Interwebs and their file sharing…”

As a lover of music, a lover of radio, and a lover of Wussy, this song scratches me right where I itch.

Stuck in the corn maze with only a transistor radio

Making paths with the sound waves and echoes and Oh Baba-oh-oh-oh…

#9 “Goshen ’97” - Strand Of Oaks

We’re getting closer to the music that defined my year, much of which harkened back to the music of my youth. While this song looks back to the ‘90s rather than ‘80s, I certainly appreciate the intent.

Indiana native Timothy Showalter put together an amazing album, much of it focused on he and his wife’s failures in their marriage. But he kicked it off with this roaring track, which features some heroic guitar work by J. Mascis, that looks back to a time when his life was simpler and happier.

I was lonely but I was having fun

#8 “Lazaretto” - Jack White

White’s Lazaretto was perhaps the most disappointing album of the year. He seemed disinterested and unfocused. Thankfully, he was locked in on a few tracks, notably this absolute beast of a song that stands with the best things he’s ever done.

When I say nothing, I say everything

#7 “Honey Do” - Beverly

Sometimes the simplest songs have the biggest impact. Twenty words. Chugging guitars and pounding drums. Gorgeous harmonies. Combined, it turns into sheer beauty.

Tell me your oldest memory

Yes I will keep it

Oh honey do

#6 “Head Underwater” - Jenny Lewis

You can’t write about Jenny Lewis without throwing out the obligatory mention of how her music sounds straight out of the 1970s. Her songs would have fit in nicely with all the stuff we heard from the backseat of our parents cars.[1] Sun-drenched, breath-taking, AM-radio pop that owes a huge debt to Fleetwood Mac.

The beautiful sounds Lewis fills her songs with have always masked deeply honest, often painful, and occasionally dark lyrics. When I first heard this song, I took the phrase “head underwater” to mean some kind of rebirth, whether spiritual or metaphorical. And I still think that is partially the case. But dive into the lyrics a little more and it’s clear she is singing about some awfully dark times. A context in which putting your head underwater takes on a far more sinister meaning.

But damn if it’s not jaw-droppingly gorgeous. And that last line, where she says she’s free at last…man, that’s just a glorious line.

Bonus points: In addition to all the music of my youth stuff, this song, and Lewis’ album The Voyager, was produced by Ryan Adams. Who was a very important part of the music I listened to this year.

I put my head underwater baby,

I held my breath until it passed

Crossed my fingers and concentrated

I closed my eyes and I was free at last

#5 “Run Forever” Emma Ruth Rundle

I’m a sucker for a song like this. It is equal parts beautiful and haunting. It is as unsettling as it is comforting. Is it a plea or a warning? There’s a delicious tension to the music and vocals that prevents these differences from ever resolving.

Come on my love take cover with me

We can be gone and there’s no one we need

#4 “Lights Out” - Angel Olsen

I’ll write more about my favorite albums of the year next week, but this comes from one of my absolute favorites. And it stands out on a disk full of fine songs. Most of Burn Your Fire For No Witness is focused on pain and loneliness and longing to heal.

While this song certainly matches the tone of its album-mates, the lyrics set it apart. Rather than singing about the pain, Olsen is exhorting someone in deep pain not to give up. It’s a simple, touching moment of telling someone you care about that while things might seem bad, there is always a reason to look forward to better times.

Just when you thought you would turn all your lights out it shines

Some days all you need is one good thought strong in your mind

#3 “Gimme Something Good” - Ryan Adams

This was the soundtrack of my summer, something I heard every 90 minutes or so while we were lounging in the water at the lake. Which made perfect sense, because it has a timeless sound that would have let it fit perfectly into playlists from about any summer of the last 40 years. A song made for singing along to while riding in cars packed with friends, while chilling at the pool, or while grilling your dinner on warm nights.

I’ll get more into this next week, but Adams, and the sounds he created for his self-titled album, were at the core of what I listened to this year. Modern rock heavily influenced by the Heartland Rock of the mid–1980s. It may not be cutting edge, but it sure sounds great.

All my life been shaking

Wanting something

Holding everything I have like it was broken

#2 “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” - Against Me!

No song was a more forceful statement of self than this, the opening track of the first Against Me! album since lead singer Laura Jane Grace began her transformation from man to woman. It is packed with a righteous rage, the entire album a gigantic middle finger to everyone that questions the manner in which Grace leads her life. And yet, it also rings with an optimism and a profound sense of liberation.

This is a remarkable song, and features one of the most powerful moments of this, or any year, when Grace begins the second verse by spitting out, “You’ve got no cunt in your strut!” Because of what it represents, I’ll put that lyric up with just about any in rock history for throwing hate back at the haters.

You want them to see you

Like they see every other girl.

They just see a faggot.

They hold their breath not to catch the sick

#1 “Red Eyes” - The War on Drugs

It’s hard to write about a song that you love so much, but can barely sing along to. Adam Granduciel hides many of his lyrics deep beneath layers of guitars, synthesizers, distortion, and plain old mumbling. For much of the song, I’m just kind of humming along, guessing at words here and there, playing a little air guitar or drums, and making up words that seem to fit. And this is even after looking at numerous lyrics sites, which can’t seem to agree on several sections.[1] I was pleased to find a couple other reviews of the song in year end lists that made similar statements about the difficulty in discerning the lyrics.

What grabbed me about this song the first time I heard it last December was the quality that is present in so many of TWOD’s best songs: that sense of exuberant escape. We may not know which way he’s running, but that bountiful sense of freedom lifts you up and carries you along with it. As the synthesizers shimmer and the drums pound, Granduciel throws in those perfect little guitar runs that make you want to let go and follow wherever the song leads you to.

I can’t tell you exactly what he’s singing, or even singing about. But all those feelings that are wrapped up in the music continue to lift me up even after 12 months of listening to it.

I was not a big fan of the official video for the song. But I loved this fan video, which to me captured that primal feeling of escape that is the song’s core.

Bonus points: My favorite musical moment of the year, Granduciel’s “WHOO!” that sends the song into overdrive as the chorus, as much as there is one, begins.

Baby don’t mind

Leave it on a lie, you can have it your way