My Top 50 Favorite Songs: 06

Please Note: The first 10 songs are NOT necessarily my favorite songs by what are most certainly some of my favorite artists. These songs stand out to me (for various reasons that I explain) from the rest of the artists' works, but I could not, under any circumstances, comfortably say that these songs are my definitive favorites from the artists. I have no definitive favorites from some artists; their entire collected work (minus a track or two) would be my favorites.

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6. "Waking Up Beside You" by Stabbing Westward

Stabbing Westward's finest moments have always been emotionally draining yet hard rocking ballads of sadness and lost love. The track "What Do I Have to Do?" may have come first and been more popular, but it lacks the nature of the relationship between Christopher Hall's lyrics and his subject that this song creates. This song comes after the relationship is over, and Hall seems to be looking back and remembering the trivial things that he now misses more than anything else in the relationship. There's also a sense that Hall's negative outlook on the relationship from the get-go could be at fault for its decline in the first place. It's the realism that I appreciate, the way I relate to his words that moves me. This song is not-unlike the previously mentioned Toadies song "Doll Skin" in that it's an honest heartbreak lament. The dark recesses that Hall is able to artistically translate have helped get me through my own dark times.