Tuesday Top Ten: "Final Lap" Songs (by The Weez)

This is a guest post by The Weez, one of GMYH's friends. The Weez lives in Los Angeles. He has met both Royce Gracie and Frank Dux. Most notably, he was the 3000th visitor to Give Me Your Handrew. I made a couple minor grammatical and punctuation edits, and I added a couple bracketed explanations to explain references that most other people wouldn't get. I put the latter edits in brackets. Other than that, it's all The Weez's writing.

This is the song you click to on the iPod for the last 5 minutes of your workout, when you're most vulnerable to cashing in early. Right when you get the spaghetti legs, you scroll over to one of these songs, and you get the extra NOS Boost to finish up at top speed, and thus justify the eight Blue Moons you'll be having later that night.

Most of the songs are a bit retro, since I think nostalgia plays a part in how these songs affect your drive. As in, "I was in really good shape when this song came out in high school. Thus, my 17 year old self thinks I'm a pussy."

Honorable Mention: "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi. Yeah, the one with the video about the ginger jumping off bridges and trains to get to the Bon Jovi concert on time. You do realize this song came out over ten years ago, right? It's technically Classic Rock at this point. Ugh. In any case, though it seems an obvious choice, the beat is actually too slow, and it'll weaken your pace at this crucial point in the workout. They actually tweaked the tempo up a bit for the Glee mash-up with that Usher song, and it works much better. Not that I'd know that.

10. "Hands Open" by Snow Patrol
Even hipsters jog too, I guess.

9. "I Was a Teenage Antichrist" by Against Me!
Included because it features a very hooky version of my claim that "My 17 year old self thinks I'm a pussy" when they belt out, anthemically: Do you remember when you were young and you wanted to set the world on fire?" (Point is, everyone reading this but Active Duty Service Members and Cristoff [who completed an Iron Man last year] is an old pansy.)

8. "My Wave" by Soundgarden
It's easy to dismiss this pacifist 90s rockers skreed about Laissez-faire existential surfing politics to be pretty dated.... but goddamn, does Chris Cornell rock.

7. "Live Like We're Dying" by Kris Allen
What do sheltered suburban kids use for "filthy mixer" these days? I suppose that's what I am for liking this song on a run...but it works. Nothing is more inspirational than having some dude remind you about all your dead relatives and friends in a really catchy Top 40 format. Try pulling up 200 yards early after remembering that Elizabeth Berry [a girl from our elementary school who got hit by a car in first grade] has been in the ground for over 25 years....

6. "Locomotive" by Guns N' Roses
This song is a GODDAMN RUSH. It's best suited for running downhill, kicking dirtclods with your Sauconys onto slower, less agile fatfucks. To be frank, this isn't actually as good of a 'last lap' song as "You Could Be Mine" is, but the urge to leap onto a 60cc Honda, skid out in front of a Kenworth wrecker and skirt down a dry riverbed would be too strong if I recommended that little ballad instead. [This was not on Playlist.com, but here is a link to the song on YouTube.]

5. "Panama" by Van Halen
Yeah, a pretty kick-ass song these 30 years later. But what the fuck does he mean by "Panama" anyway? We can all agree that he meant "Pandemonium" or "Mania" or something like that, right? Also, even though we all know that the delivery of "I reach back, between my legs....and EEEEEEASE the seatback"....is pretty homosuggestive in its delivery, it's still cool to sing aloud while driving. Right? Cool.

4. "One Vision by Queen
This is the original "Music makes you go faster" song. If you'll recall from the 80s action classic "Iron Eagle" (the "Teen Wolf" to Top Gun's "Back to The Future), preternaturally talented teenage jet fighter Doug McMasters enlisted the help of retired mechanic "Chappy" Sinclair to help him concoct a plan to rescue his father, a downed pilot being held in Genericbrownpersonistan. Sensing that the Reagan administration held a too liberal policy on initiating unilateral strikes on rouge Middle East states, the mismatched pair steal a pair of F-16s and fly across the pond to rescue Old Man Masters. Along they way, they find themselves falling behind their time schedule...Chappy informs Doug that if they don't somehow magically fly faster, they'll miss their window to sneak attack Genericbrownpersonistan's poorly defended, ether-soaked fleet of Estes model airplanes. Bypassing the"AFTERBURNER" switch, Doug inserts his Cassingle of Queen's ONE VISION, and the pair's Fighting Falcons leap forth into the Wild Blue Yonder. If the memory of that inspirational scene doesn't cause you to run faster, then may adult-onset diabetes claim your pudgy feet.

Also, you can hear Freddy Mercury say "Gimmie gimmie gimmie fried chicken" at the end of the song.

3. "Pompeii" by E. S. Posthumus
This is the song you need to have in your head if you ever come home to see two dudes walking out your backdoor with your TV in their hands. You'll chase them down like a zombie puma ("28 Days Later" zombie puma, not "Walking Dead" zombie puma) and smash your Panasonic Plasma over their heads just to see the shattered glass sparkle in the sunlight. ES Posthumus is a pretty much "must buy" for any workout mix, btw.

2. "Right Now" by Van Halen
Pretty self explanatory from the lyrics. Yes, Van Halen has two songs on the list. Ironically, "Running With the Devil" isn't one of them. Unironically, "Love Walks In" isn't as well.

1. "Run Riot" by Def Leppard
Like I wasn't going to put a Def Leppard song in this list. I fucking put a Def Leppard song on the air during my "Jimmy Buffett Special" on WLTL in 1993, fer Chrissake.

[FYI, my top ten "final lap" songs are, in no particular order (this largely mirrors my top ten running songs): "Breed" by Nirvana; "Romeo Delight" by Van Halen; "Live Wire" by Motley Crue; "Murders In The Rue Morgue" by Iron Maiden; "Alternative Ulster" by Stiff Little Fingers; "I Get Wet" by Andrew W.K.; "Hybrid Moments" by The Misfits; "In Your Eyes" by Runner & The Thermodynamics; "B.O.B." by Outkast; and "Search and Destroy" by The Stooges.]