Dan's Top 5:
1. Cattle - The way I figure, ground beef is a staple of Americana, and apart from all that juicy hamburger, there's sweet, luscious steak, and various roast cuts. Now, I don't know if I'm allowed to also credit the cow for milk and dairy products, since you don't have to actually eat the cow itself. Yet, beef itself is strong enough to warrant a #1.
2. Chicken - I put chicken here really because it's the most versatile meat I know of. Name me any type of cuisine and I can probably find you a dish in that style that features chicken. If not, then that cuisine probably sucks, because chicken rules.
3. Bison - Before I get too far away from the cow, I want to make sure I give some love to the Bison (namely, love in the form of killing it and eating its flesh). I've had a "buffalo burger" once or twice, and it's really fucking good. Probably the best burger I've ever tasted.
4. Turkey - Thanksgiving is probably the one reason this bird gets killed and eaten so much. As most people know, Ben Franklin wanted to designate the turkey as the national bird. It's also in some ways the mascot of my very own university. This only furthers the respect and thanks that I show towards it as I eat some more white meat.
5. Fish - I prefer a white, flaky fish like cod, haddock, or flounder. Fish and chips is probably the greatest "fast food" ever, especially when I got it in Britain and the serving was huge. Here's a tip - get it served with salt and vinegar. It's more for the potatoes, but it's not bad on the fish.
Tim's Top 5:
1) Chicken - I hate chickens. Hate hate hate hate them as animals and have been deathly afraid of them since I was growing up and spent summers at the farm to discover chickens being slaughtered, see them running around headless, only to find chicken heads strewn about the sand for days afterward. From those days on, I have always enjoyed chicken, particularly good fried chicken (I've never eaten collard greens, Fuzzy Zoeller fans), and am eating chicken toward extinction.
2) Beef - I really eschew beef since it does wonders to make me violently ill in a digestive sort of way, but it's the best flavored of all meats.
3) Turkey - Ground turkey had been my beef for three years and it never mattered since I was only making tacos and chili. Unfortunately, when I moved down here, I couldn't get good ground turkey anymore, so I had to buy the 93% lean beef, which has the downsides of being beef (I like cows, don't give a crap about turkeys) and being expensive.
4) Salmon - Not all fish are the same. I rarely eat non-salmon fish, usually only in a circumstance where I haven't actually been told what the fish is (i.e. fish tacos).
5) Deer - Venison is good, but I won't eat it because it's made of deer.
Tory's Top 5:
1) Cow - There is nothing better than a burger.
2) Pig - How has this been so unrepresented on here? Bacon is the pinnacle of a pairing food: Bacon and eggs, bacon cheese burger, bacon-wrapped ::insert food:: This should sum it up:
"What about bacon?"
"No."
"Ham?"
"No."
"Pork chops?"
"Dad, those all come from the same animal."
"Yeah right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."
3) Vension - Delicious. I've only had it once, but I remember the one I had was juicier than any steak I'd ever had. It was so delicious.
4) Lamb - This is the taste that never ends.
5) Chicken - Chicken is good, but it's at number five because chicken can also be really really boring.
Ryan's Top Five
I'll make this'n quick as I'm hungry...
1. Cow - It's what's for dinner.
2. Chicken - Healthier. But not good in lasagna, so beef wins out.
3. Pig - Sausage is a gift from the Lord.
4. Turkey - I would also have accepted tofurkey. No, I just like saying tofurkey. TOFURKEY TOFURKEY TOFURKEY!
5. Lamb chop - Was I the only kid who wanted to eat that singing sock puppet? I was? Oh, whoops...forget I said this...
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Top 5 Songs With Animal References in the Title
In continuation with our ongoing theme of musical titles... songs with references to animals in the title. Must actually be the name of a general animal, and not a proper name (e.g. if someone were to write a song called "Free Willy," it would not be accepted. Thank god no one has, though.)
Dan's Top 5:
1. The Beatles - Blackbird - Probably one of the best acoustic ditties ever.
2. Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf - The best pop song I've ever heard, hands down.
3. Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey - One of my other favorite pop songs ever, it gets more and more points because Peter says "monkey" so many times.
4. The Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven - I don't know why, but I really like this one. It also pays to show you like something by the Pixies besides "Where is My Mind?"
5. Cake - Sheep Go To Heaven, Goats Go To Hell - I like the metaphor in this one, as it's effective, yet straightforward enough that any idiot can work it out.
Ryan's Top Five
Some prefacing is in order. You really could do a Top 5 with only Beatles songs and be pretty fine. That said, that would be a bit boring, and there's loads of other worthy songs. Once again, the "honorable mentions" for this list are aptly named.
1. Badly Drawn Boy - Year of the Rat - I don't want to oversell Badly Drawn Boy, but I'll do so anyway: he is a musical genius. This is one of his best; he re-energizes a definitively tired theme--this is, basically, a peace-is-the-answer song that even features a children's chorus. And yet, this song still kicks ass, and manages to sound completely original. His instrumentation is amazing.
2. The Beatles - I Am The Walrus - Even in a list that avoids a lot of Beatles classics, this one deserves special mention. One of those "epic" songs that The Beatles excelled at (A Day In The Life comes to mind). Earns bonus points because Lennon wrote some lyrics intentionally to mess with the minds of English teachers, which is the musical equivalent of Edgerrin James telling a reporter, "You know, I had to score that last touchdown, for the fantasy players."
3. Harry Nilsson - The Puppy Song - A lovely pop song that not everyone has heard. Comes with standard feel-good lyrics, but not too-feel-good--basically, the lyrical attitude that characterized most of Nilsson's masterful career. "I'd take my puppy anywhere / La la la la, I wouldn't care / And we would stay away from crowds / And signs that said 'No Dogs Allowed.'" He repeats this first verse in the second and subs 'friend' for 'puppy.' Did I mention I love Harry Nilsson?
4. The Who - Boris the Spider - One of my favorite The Who songs. Try listening to it and not having "Creeepy, craaawly, creepy, crawly, creepy-creepy crawly-crawly creepy-creepy crawly-crawly..." in your head for the rest of the week.
5. Cake - Sheep Go To Heaven - "Goats go to hell." What can I say, I love Cake, and this is one of their best, maybe their best.
Honorable mentions: The Beatles - Hey Bulldog, Octopus's Garden, Blackbird, Rocky Raccoon, Blue Jay Way, And Your Bird Can Sing (almost made it), Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf (also almost made it), John Lennon - Cold Turkey (the guitar in this is awesome), Led Zeppelin - Black Dog, Rage Against The Machine - Bulls on Parade.
Tim's Top 5:
A very underrepresented animal tops my list...
1. Cobra Starship - Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) - When I hear this song, I remember the sheer mania that surrounded SoaP in my own mind and apparently in the minds of only a handful of other people when it came to actually seeing the movie. It's the ideal soundtrack song, it's memorable enough to be played on the radio, but it also is so ridiculously transparent that you can't help but think of the movie it's associated with. The rest of Cobra Starship's work is pretty middling to poor, but for one brief moment they got it right...and it'll never be August 18, 2006 anywhere else but in my heart.
2. I Am a Walrus - The Beatles - For many years, this was my favorite song. Now, it's at best my third favorite Beatles song (Rain and It's All Too Much are both superior to me now), but it's still a great one. I've still yet to see Magical Mystery Tour, and I'm not sure how I ever reached such a fate.
3. Three Little Birds - Bob Marley - Don't get me wrong, my reggae phase began and ended in the era of Big Mountain (real reggae band) and Inner Circle (not a real reggae band), but Bob Marley is an intriguing musician if you can get into him for reasons other than your frat brother's poster/your interest in smoking pot and needing to find a kindred spirit in this oh-so-rare desire and are unable to meet any living human beings.
4. Blackbird - The Beatles - For some reason, I keep buying Paul McCartney live albums, as if he was in some way getting better as a musician. Most of the songs sound mediocre at best, but Blackbird is still a masterpiece. It is extremely simple, but it's flawless.
5. Bulldog Skin - Guided by Voices - This spot was handed to Norwegian Wood, but I think the Beatles need to be displaced here. Bulldog Skin was one of the closest things Guided by Voices ever had to a hit, since it had a video that was played on MTV during 120 minutes -- the one time I saw it, it was immediately followed by Paranoid Android. But it was from their greatest album, one that's instantly overlooked because it bridged a period between the lo-fi they're really known for and the move to TVT records with Do the Collapse that offered the world Teenage FBI and little else.
Honorable mention: Hey Bulldog, And Your Bird Can Sing, Everybody’s Got Something to Hide But Me and My Monkey - The Beatles; Bird in a Cage – Old 97’s
Slow Cheetah – Red Hot Chili Peppers; Red Dragon Tattoo – Fountains of Wayne; Eagle Eye – Heatmiser; Red Mosquito – Pearl Jam; Sheep Go to Heaven - Cake
Tory's Top Five
1. Beatles - Rocky Raccoon - This makes the number one as it is by the beatles so it is deserved, as well as being my overall favorite song by the beatles. Yet it is one song that we do not have on our iTunes.
2. Elvis - Hound Dog - I don't know why this wasn't even honorably mentioned by anyone. It is definitely a trademark song of Elvis' and may be his most famous. It's at least also in the top 5 Elvis songs in addition to this list.
3. Flight of the Conchords - Albi the Racist Dragon - A dragon is an animal, let's not forget.
4. Pink Floyd - Sheep - This song is so bad ass. It goes through so many tempo changes and singing styles. When it hits "Did you hear, the dogs are dead" it is so utterly sweet.
5. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon - How did you guys miss this awesome eighties staple.
Honorable Mentions: Once again there are a lot of these. Ben Folds - Rock this Bitch (not necissarily a reference to the animal;) Bright Eyes - Down in a Rabbit Hole and Stray Dog Freedom, they didn't make it as they are not my favorite of Bright Eyes, despite his spot as favorite artist; Primus - Tommy the Cat and Fish On, Sailing the Seas of Cheese was an incredibly album; Damien Rice - Elephant, as with Bright Eyes its not one of my favorite songs by Rice; Pink Floyd - When The Tigers Broke Free, this also isn't a reference to the animal, but to tanks, but the name of the tanks are a reference to the animal, so it could've worked; Samuel L. Jackson - Black Snake Moan, amazing but not his original song and its from a movie and so on; Blink 182 - Mutt (see Ryan's upcoming guilty pleasure list.)
Dan's Top 5:
1. The Beatles - Blackbird - Probably one of the best acoustic ditties ever.
2. Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf - The best pop song I've ever heard, hands down.
3. Peter Gabriel - Shock the Monkey - One of my other favorite pop songs ever, it gets more and more points because Peter says "monkey" so many times.
4. The Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven - I don't know why, but I really like this one. It also pays to show you like something by the Pixies besides "Where is My Mind?"
5. Cake - Sheep Go To Heaven, Goats Go To Hell - I like the metaphor in this one, as it's effective, yet straightforward enough that any idiot can work it out.
Ryan's Top Five
Some prefacing is in order. You really could do a Top 5 with only Beatles songs and be pretty fine. That said, that would be a bit boring, and there's loads of other worthy songs. Once again, the "honorable mentions" for this list are aptly named.
1. Badly Drawn Boy - Year of the Rat - I don't want to oversell Badly Drawn Boy, but I'll do so anyway: he is a musical genius. This is one of his best; he re-energizes a definitively tired theme--this is, basically, a peace-is-the-answer song that even features a children's chorus. And yet, this song still kicks ass, and manages to sound completely original. His instrumentation is amazing.
2. The Beatles - I Am The Walrus - Even in a list that avoids a lot of Beatles classics, this one deserves special mention. One of those "epic" songs that The Beatles excelled at (A Day In The Life comes to mind). Earns bonus points because Lennon wrote some lyrics intentionally to mess with the minds of English teachers, which is the musical equivalent of Edgerrin James telling a reporter, "You know, I had to score that last touchdown, for the fantasy players."
3. Harry Nilsson - The Puppy Song - A lovely pop song that not everyone has heard. Comes with standard feel-good lyrics, but not too-feel-good--basically, the lyrical attitude that characterized most of Nilsson's masterful career. "I'd take my puppy anywhere / La la la la, I wouldn't care / And we would stay away from crowds / And signs that said 'No Dogs Allowed.'" He repeats this first verse in the second and subs 'friend' for 'puppy.' Did I mention I love Harry Nilsson?
4. The Who - Boris the Spider - One of my favorite The Who songs. Try listening to it and not having "Creeepy, craaawly, creepy, crawly, creepy-creepy crawly-crawly creepy-creepy crawly-crawly..." in your head for the rest of the week.
5. Cake - Sheep Go To Heaven - "Goats go to hell." What can I say, I love Cake, and this is one of their best, maybe their best.
Honorable mentions: The Beatles - Hey Bulldog, Octopus's Garden, Blackbird, Rocky Raccoon, Blue Jay Way, And Your Bird Can Sing (almost made it), Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf (also almost made it), John Lennon - Cold Turkey (the guitar in this is awesome), Led Zeppelin - Black Dog, Rage Against The Machine - Bulls on Parade.
Tim's Top 5:
A very underrepresented animal tops my list...
1. Cobra Starship - Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) - When I hear this song, I remember the sheer mania that surrounded SoaP in my own mind and apparently in the minds of only a handful of other people when it came to actually seeing the movie. It's the ideal soundtrack song, it's memorable enough to be played on the radio, but it also is so ridiculously transparent that you can't help but think of the movie it's associated with. The rest of Cobra Starship's work is pretty middling to poor, but for one brief moment they got it right...and it'll never be August 18, 2006 anywhere else but in my heart.
2. I Am a Walrus - The Beatles - For many years, this was my favorite song. Now, it's at best my third favorite Beatles song (Rain and It's All Too Much are both superior to me now), but it's still a great one. I've still yet to see Magical Mystery Tour, and I'm not sure how I ever reached such a fate.
3. Three Little Birds - Bob Marley - Don't get me wrong, my reggae phase began and ended in the era of Big Mountain (real reggae band) and Inner Circle (not a real reggae band), but Bob Marley is an intriguing musician if you can get into him for reasons other than your frat brother's poster/your interest in smoking pot and needing to find a kindred spirit in this oh-so-rare desire and are unable to meet any living human beings.
4. Blackbird - The Beatles - For some reason, I keep buying Paul McCartney live albums, as if he was in some way getting better as a musician. Most of the songs sound mediocre at best, but Blackbird is still a masterpiece. It is extremely simple, but it's flawless.
5. Bulldog Skin - Guided by Voices - This spot was handed to Norwegian Wood, but I think the Beatles need to be displaced here. Bulldog Skin was one of the closest things Guided by Voices ever had to a hit, since it had a video that was played on MTV during 120 minutes -- the one time I saw it, it was immediately followed by Paranoid Android. But it was from their greatest album, one that's instantly overlooked because it bridged a period between the lo-fi they're really known for and the move to TVT records with Do the Collapse that offered the world Teenage FBI and little else.
Honorable mention: Hey Bulldog, And Your Bird Can Sing, Everybody’s Got Something to Hide But Me and My Monkey - The Beatles; Bird in a Cage – Old 97’s
Slow Cheetah – Red Hot Chili Peppers; Red Dragon Tattoo – Fountains of Wayne; Eagle Eye – Heatmiser; Red Mosquito – Pearl Jam; Sheep Go to Heaven - Cake
Tory's Top Five
1. Beatles - Rocky Raccoon - This makes the number one as it is by the beatles so it is deserved, as well as being my overall favorite song by the beatles. Yet it is one song that we do not have on our iTunes.
2. Elvis - Hound Dog - I don't know why this wasn't even honorably mentioned by anyone. It is definitely a trademark song of Elvis' and may be his most famous. It's at least also in the top 5 Elvis songs in addition to this list.
3. Flight of the Conchords - Albi the Racist Dragon - A dragon is an animal, let's not forget.
4. Pink Floyd - Sheep - This song is so bad ass. It goes through so many tempo changes and singing styles. When it hits "Did you hear, the dogs are dead" it is so utterly sweet.
5. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon - How did you guys miss this awesome eighties staple.
Honorable Mentions: Once again there are a lot of these. Ben Folds - Rock this Bitch (not necissarily a reference to the animal;) Bright Eyes - Down in a Rabbit Hole and Stray Dog Freedom, they didn't make it as they are not my favorite of Bright Eyes, despite his spot as favorite artist; Primus - Tommy the Cat and Fish On, Sailing the Seas of Cheese was an incredibly album; Damien Rice - Elephant, as with Bright Eyes its not one of my favorite songs by Rice; Pink Floyd - When The Tigers Broke Free, this also isn't a reference to the animal, but to tanks, but the name of the tanks are a reference to the animal, so it could've worked; Samuel L. Jackson - Black Snake Moan, amazing but not his original song and its from a movie and so on; Blink 182 - Mutt (see Ryan's upcoming guilty pleasure list.)
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