2018 Song of the Year

After taking a week off, I am back with my 2018 song of the year.

I tend to use Spotify for most of my music-listening. One of the intriguing features of Spotify is they can give you your own listening habits for the past year, including which song I listened to most. Considering the wide variety of songs I listen to (there are 1,466 songs on my main playlist alone, not counting the 9 other playlists I have for my own moods), any one song topping the others is an impressive feat, although probably not by a huge margin.

Aside from my main Spotify playlist, one of my favorites last year was my "Noir" playlist, which I describe as follows:

Noir honors all things "noir", including music from the classic film noir era, as well as more modern classics like "Body Heat", all the way up to tech noir like "Blade Runner". It even includes songs that it does not take any imagination to picture in a film noir scene.

One of the songs which is in both my main and my Noir playlists is Change My Mind, by The Motels. This is a song I have loved since I first heard it on The Motels "All Four One" album, from 1982.



Change My Mind has an oddly, yet beautiful, lounge jazz sound, which is even stranger when coming from one of the major 1980's new wave bands.

But even more interesting is the Change My Mind's lyrics. Like many of The Motels' early music, the lyrics display poetic brilliance. From AZLyrics:

I bet you guessed where I was some time ago
And I bet that you really didn't know
I don't need you
I don't want you
But I might change my mind

We could take off for Paris on a cruise
You and me could make front page news
But it don't mean nothing
Don't mean a thing
Cause I might change my mind

There was a time when it was good
We laughed and danced all over the neighborhood
You'd take my hand
I apologize
But I just might change my mind

I got to know if I've been or gone
Need to know if it's worth hangin' on
Time is mine
What's mine is yours
And I just might change my mind
I just might change my mind
I just might change my mind

Usually love songs are either crazy in love, or sadly rejected, or even occasionally unrequited, but Change My Mind displays a rare capriciousness. Lead singer Martha Davis goes back and forth throughout the whole song, in her finest chanteuse form, before finally ending with the line "What's mine is yours", only to pull back once more with three lines of "I just might change my mind".

Ultimately, Change My Mind is one of the greatest songs of flirtation ever written, offering everything while committing to nothing. Combining Change My Mind's lounge jazz sound with flirtatious lyrics allowed it to slip into one of my favorite playlists in 2018, and contributed to the song's standing as my song of the year for 2018.