1. Neighborhood #2 (Laika), The Arcade Fire. I love this song just for this line: “C’mon Rockford, you can do it!”

2. Song of the Shrimp, Frank Black. The former Pixie relates the woeful tale of a naive young shrimp. Really.

3. Learning to Fly, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Have you seen the lineup for this year’s Austin City Limits festival? My goodness. If you’re anywhere near Texas, please go in my stead. I don’t think there’s a bad act there this year.

4. Buddy Holly, Weezer. Takes me straight back to homeroom my sophomore year of high school. What did we ever do to those guys that made them so vi-o-lent?

5. The Days of Wine and Booze, The Minus 5.

6. Lay All Your Love On Me, ABBA. I’m not familiar with this particular ABBA number, but it’s definitely disco. And that’s all I have to say about that.

7. Gentle Moon, Sun Kil Moon. Poppy likes to croon along to this song.

8. Little More Time with You, James Taylor. “Passed on the cocaine, said bye-bye to my methadone, put down the bottle for one more day, backin’ off of my tobacco jones.” Just what I want to hear in an adult-contemporary, romantic ditty. And yet, I love this song.

9. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), The Arcade Fire. A bazillion songs on the iPod, and it just keeps playing the “Neighborhood” songs. That’s OK, though, because I like this one. Especially this line: “Then we tried to name our babies, but we forgot all the names that, the names we used to know.”

10. Smoke, Ben Folds Five. Have I ever told you about the time my friend Sinead and I sat in the VIP beer tent at a Ben Folds show? It was fabulous.

11. Spark, Tori Amos. “She’s addicted to nicotine patches. She’s afraid of a light in the dark.” I love the way she enunciates.

12. She, The Pretenders & Emmylou Harris. Emmylou has a terrific voice, and this one’s good to sing along with. “Oh, she sure could sing.” Even if I can’t.

13. Someone’s Daughter, Beth Orton. This is another artist that Rockford loved long before I did. And then he took me to a concert, and I was hooked. “I wanna shout about it, but I keep quite about it. Wanna laugh about it, but I don’t joke about it. Wanna live without it, but I can’t do without it.”

Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” is No. 25 on the list of The 25 Most Exquisitely Sad Songs in the Whole World. I’m amazed that they found 24 songs sadder than that one. I haven’t heard of some of their picks, but the ones I have heard of? Pretty darn sad.

Happy Friday!

1. IMG_9694. I haven’t done any scrapbooking in months. This totally awesome page might inspire me to start again.

2. Sunset dancer. I love the lighting, the composition, the sweetpea and the rock ‘n’ roll hand.

3. Wisconsin Winter Wonderland. This is a refreshing break from the recent heat around here. I wilted yesterday.

4. French toast fluff and nutella sammich. I can’t imagine how this could be any better. When I’m feeling really indulgent someday, I might try this.

5. springtime in britain. An ideal setting to read a fairy tale.

6. Fairy Cottage. I love the colors here.

7. Day 108: All star bright and tongue-tied. Dorothy kicks up her feet.

8. IMG_2573. Great colors, and I love the look on the baby’s face.

9. Guess How Much … I Loved This Session. You probably can’t see it in the thumbnail, but there’s a baby on one of those shelves!

10. Day 185 :: floating through the day with my head in the clouds. I love jumping shots, and the tones and slight blur here are just lovely.

11. CWD164: Sparks Fly. Magic.

12. Day 153: Homeostasis. One of my favorite people on Flickr has decided to stop doing the 365 days project. This was her last photo.

13. Untitled. I love the expression on her face.

14. 365.118 Facing Fears. Another one of my favorite Flickr-ites faces her fear of the full-body shot. That’s something I have a problem with myself, and the words accompanying her photo touched me.

15. It’s Friday!. This looks like a vintage ad for cigarettes or liquor.

16. Batman and boy I wonder. Batman on the street.