No. 905 – Bridge Burning

Performer: Foo Fighters

Songwriters: Dave Grohl, Chris Shiflett, Pat Smear, Nate Mendel, Taylor Hawkins

Original Release: Wasted Light

Year: 2011

Definitive Version: None

At this point, this is the most current song on the list. It’s entirely possible, if not inevitable, that I’ll find something next year or the year after that deserves listing, but when that happens, I’ll do it as an A/B type of thing.

To a certain extent, there’s a problem with properly ranking songs that are newer in your experience. It sounds great, because you’re new to it, but you have no historical perspective, so where do you rate it fairly? I could love this song even more, but it could very well be that a year from now, I hate this song. Trying to be as conservative as possible, this is where I rate it now. My guess is if I were to do this list again in another decade (and I won’t), this song would be in the top 700 if not higher.

And I already have a vision when I hear this song, even as new as it is. I had it loaded onto my iPod with a bunch of other newer songs when Laurie and I drove out to the Morton Arboretum in October to see the leaves. We always try to hit the peak leaf season each fall, but I had an inkling that we were going too soon this year.

Sure enough, when we arrived, my favorite trees were still green, even though things were pretty far along in the city. So, we resolved to go back three weeks later. At the time, the trees in the neighborhood where I park to take the train to work were a glorious shade of red and yellow. Perfect.

However, at the Arboretum, my favorite trees were totally bare. In three weeks, they went from green to gone. Like they say at Wrigley Field, wait till next year …