Come with me on a little journey that’s a lot weird:

So I can’t stop listening to this song:

Which I already wrote about — briefly, especially for me (gotta love Twitter’s forced brevity) — here:

Oh, and here:

A few weeks ago, while on repeat, it inspired these thoughts:

No need to go read the lyrics to find a connection; the words of the song were minor in comparison to everything else that contributed to the musings above.

I won’t divulge more details regarding most of that stuff, but I will admit that the movie Permission (review forthcoming…if I ever run out of things to say about it) was definitely an inspiration.

But we’re not here to discuss that. Rather, this whole introduction merely explains the genesis of the origins for 2018’s SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS List.

I’ve tweeted that caps-necessary sentiment once before:

Pause to allow the glory of The Greatest Showman to wash over me and purify my sins.

Anywho, the link between the two songs describes this new list: 2018’s SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS List will be comprised of all the songs that I can’t stop listening to this year. Repeatedly. Ad infinitum. Much to my girlfriend’s chagrin (because when I love a song, I bump it PROUD AND OUT-LOUD with no regard for who’s around me…and it’s usually her). I’m not sure if normal humans do this, but when I obsess over a song, it’s basically all I play for…an indeterminate and perpetually-fluctuating amount of time (which is how I fall behind on my New Year’s resolutions).

I by no means created the phrase SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS; it’s been a meme for ages. But for some reason, they’re instinctually the first words that pop into my head when I’m stuck in one of these beloved loops, probably because it captures the intimate, immediate excitement generated when I discover a new gem.

I’m interested in keeping track of all these songs this year, because come 2019, I think it’ll be a neat reflection not so much of the last 12 months in music generally, but rather  what songs spoke to ME specifically. Even so, some trends will obviously be gleaned; for instance, looking at the list right now, it looks like country — a genre long untouched by the cultural mainstream — will be making a renaissance (another of my missions this year is to defend my beloved country from the scornful, condescending ire of “coastal artistic elites”).

These won’t be the Best Songs of 2018, those whose influential artistry should be recorded for posterity. Instead, this will double as my Favorite Songs of 2018 List…but that conventional moniker’s not nearly as fun to write as SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS.

I’ll start a thread on Twitter with links to each of the songs, which I’ll continually update throughout the year. At random intervals, I’ll probably compile a few of them to post on here for everyone who’d rather not enter the warzone that is Twitter.

One more note: this will be a somewhat exclusive list. Since most of my music-listening time must be devoted to my aforementioned New Year’s resolution, a song’s gotta lodge itself into my cranium and refuse to come out until I listen to it into submission to make me want to SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS.

Wait, I have another note (Twitter concision doesn’t exist in the wild west that is Write All Nite; I’m the only sheriff around these parts): It’s safe to predict that a lot of songs from movies will qualify, mostly because being connected to larger stories, characters, themes, ideas, emotions, etc. will deepen them for me.

Click here to access 2018’s SHOOT IT STRAIGHT INTO MY FUCKING VEINS List!