Arbitrary Numbers: Top # Triumphant Songs

A new year's resolution for me in 2015 was to become happy with my body image.  I'm not shooting to lose weight, I'm not shooting to be "sexy" or any of that.  I just want to be happy.  So I'm eating a little better and working out a lot more.  Not like the gym or anything, I have never been able to strive in a gym environment.  I got myself DDPYoga, and have charged myself to do it and to walk/job 30+ minutes MWF every week.  My success rate as of this article being written is 50%.  That is way more than I have done in the past year, though, so I'll take it.  And I'll keep striving.

Because of doing a lot more walking, I listen to a lot more music than I had in the previous year.  I put in short shorts, a long sleeve shirt, do my DDPYoga routine, then head out into the 30 degree weather and just start walking with my mp3 player as my only company.  And every now and again a song come on that helps me work and fight and push on.  I am not the most athletic dude, but I am a persistent one.  Once I start working out, I generally keep going way past you would think a guy my size and shape could.  Some of those songs ... they give me a feeling.  I feeling I want to talk about.

These emotion playlist videos have been fun for me, and I thought I'd try to make sure I do one a month.  And this one, I knew I needed something to strive for, just like with working out.  So I'm going to pump myself up, get myself ready to fight, to win, to be a hero.  I'm going to do the ...

TOP 8 TRIUMPHANT SONGS 

(on my mp3 player)

[currently]

>> CLICK HERE for the playlist to listen along<<

"Hero of the Day" - Metallica

This is the song that started my mind along this path.  Well, kind of.  But it is the one I searched for to start the playlist.  Yeah, normally I just random until I find one and go, but this song to me is the exact song I mean when I want to talk about triumphant songs!  It is driving, engaging, but not just "epic."  It is a very personal song.

Oooo, I can tell you all the first time I heard the song, too.  In my freshman year of college, my new group of friends and I had somehow gotten into Dragonball GT.  Not Dragonball Z, but the next one in the series.  But there is a AMV for Gohan or Goku or Gowhatever with this song over it.  It was excellent, and it absolutely resonanted with me.  Not the lyrics, not the video itself with whatever character it was, but the music, put over those images.  I see a heroes striving, pushing, fighting, never backing down, never losing, never failing.

"Perfect Cell Theme" - Dragonball Z

Huh.  Well, that's just kind of funny right there.  I love randomized music and how it all works together.

This theme song for me has nothing to do with Dragonball Z.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I never heard it in context of Dragonball Z.  I only ever heard it in context of a fight my best friend in high school and I created between two of our own characters.  I don't know who came up with the fight, or who brought the music to it, but the whole this is forever entwined in my brain space.  Check it.  Play the song, and read along with me.

Imagine a warehouse.  Boxes around, crates, covered in tarps.  The air is dusty, the light outside the man windows is bright and it makes the shadows longer and darker inside.  At one end of the room is a man who looks a combination of Dave Bautista and Andre the Giant.  A Behemoth of a man, enormously muscular, wearing the tightest grey jeans and a mesh tank top over his enormous frame.  He grinds his teeth and stares across the warehouse to a young man.  He's toned and muscular like a gymnast.  He has short platinum blonde hair, kept at an even buzz with his slightly darker beard.  He wears a navy long sleeved athletic shirt and matching tights, without gloves or shoes.  He shifts his weight, and you can see sparks come off the concrete as his skin scrapes across it.

Suddenly they both bolt towards each other, a massive Behemoth and an explosive gymnast ready to Crash into each other.  Every time the gymnast slaps his hands on the Behemoth, a small explosion is created.  Every pounding footstep creates small holes in the floor as he pushes himself forward.  Backsprings and flips as he tumbles around the Behemoth, landing a few blows, before the enormous fashionable man smashes him across the face and the Crashes backwards into a crate, exploding.  They keep fighting, and fighting ...

He and I spent hours, days, months creating characters like this and pitting them against each other.  We played online chatroom roleplaying games with other characters.  But this song, and this fight, was the most realized one in my brain.  And man, does it get me pumped to feel like Crash as I walk quickly in my workouts.  Come on, I'm not going to run full tilt, I gotta work up to it, sheesh.

"Playing With Fire" - Paula Seling & Ovi

Eurovision is awesome!  Do you know what it is?  It is basically a Europe-only Olympics for songs!  It is fantastic, super fun to watch, and a thing I want to review this year if I can, because the years I've watched it I've loved it.  One of the best things about it is the rules and the voting, but that's for another day.

A song I LOVED from the 2010 Eurovision was this one.  It was fabulous, rocked my socks off, made me want to dance and fight and run and win!  I feel like a champion, for really no reason, especially because the song did not do Romania very well that year, mostly because of a boring live performance.  But I don't care, I love this song!  More people need to listen to more Romanian pop songs, I think.

"Dark City" - Machinae Supremacy

Goodness, how do I start talking about Machinae Supremacy?  They are a ... electronic heavy metal band?  They are fantastic, is what they are.  I've loved heavy metal for the longest time.  The driving rhythms, the dueling guitars, the fervor of the music, the pulsing and generally surprisingly heartfelt lyricism.  But Machine Supremacy did something a lot of heavy metal bands I listen to never did: it made me think.  I've loved Rhapsody of Fire and older hair bands like the Scorpions, I've enjoyed Dragonforce, and I've gotten into DreamTheater, but Machinae Supremacy's music really forced me to sit down and think about what they were doing musically.  They weren't all double bass pedals pounding or wailing guitars.  They always did something musically ... significant.  And that was always awesome.

Dark City has been a soundtrack song in my life for a long time.  I've wanted to use it in many places, and it was the original intro to my old IHAO videos before I switched to something a little more easily parced down.  I found the song by ACCIDENT when I was looking for the score to the film Dark City.  And I was blown away.  This song absolutely has always resonated with me as a heroic triumph.  As a theme song.  As a way to enter the battle, to fight my enemies, to declare myself the victor.  It absolutely is awesome to have on this list.

"Kick Ass" - MIKA

I saw Kick-Ass in theaters.  It was ok, a little better than that, really.  I've soured on it since then, but never on the soundtrack!  That movie had a rocking soundtrack.  And this song, which I thought was amazing, was the winner!

MIKA is awesome.  I had heard so many of his songs and never realized they were all the one guy because they always did so many different things.  But his soaring falsetto makes me want to SING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS as I race towards my goal!  I may not be that "young" anymore, but the song the rest of the song absolutely hits me in such a great way!  Look, here's just the chorus lyrics.  Sing them in your brightest falsetto and keep running ... metaphorically or not!

We are young

We are strong

We're not looking for where we belong

We're not cool

We ARE free

And we're running with blood on our knees

"Nothing Left" - Delain

Hey, remember heavy metal, me talking about it before?  Well, let me mention that Delain is probably the BEST heavy metal band, period.  It is a super-group, made up of the former keyboardist/song-writer from Within Temptation, the bassist from Nightwish, the drumer from Epica, guys from Orphanage, and the amazing jazz singer Charlotte Wessels.  If any of those band names mean anything to you, then you know just how rocking Delain absolutely is.

"Nothing Left" is probably not the first Delain song I would have picked if I wasn't doing this via random.  I'd probably pick The Gathering or April Rain; but I'm glad the God of Random did.  The song is fantastic, and has a lot of really cool bits and pieces to the music.  I love the name, and the metaphor the song strives to use as its central message in the lyrics.  It gets me pumped and pushes me farther and farther.  I will strive, I will work, I will win!  LET'S DO THIS!

"I'm on a Boat (explicit)" - The Lonely Island ft. T-Pain

Ha!

This brag-and-swag rap song by comedy MCs the Lonely Island is PERFECT!  It straddles that bragadocious attitude you need to push yourself, it's funny, it's REALLY well produced.  The song rocks.  Everyone knows it.  It also curses a lot, which for me is awesome.  I may not curse on this site, but I like cursing.  It's like when you stub your toe.  Cursing reduces the pain, that's actually scientifically proven!  So working out, pushing my fat body to keep doing the hard yoga stuff or just keep running ... yeah, cursing helps push me farther and harder.

"We Are One" - 12 Stones

Let's talk about wrestling!  Specifically, a thing I talked about before, the Nexus.  This was their song, as they shook up wrestling for ... like, a week before getting completely derailed.  But I was all in!  I was ready!  I was one, I was rooting for this new crop of characters all ready to murder John Cena.  That didn't happen, but that doesn't stop the emotions, man!

This song is a driving rock song about solidarity!  Even though I am listening to this song alone, I feel myself running alongside all my heroes, all the guys I love, ready for battle, ready to win.  There's an awesome drum beat that is simulated marching steps, and it gives me a rhythm to move to, to stay in time with.  I love that stuff.  This song, and so many of the other ones on this playlist, are what keep me going after it feels like my thighs are going to burst into flame and my lungs around going to completely deflate.  I'm gonna do it.  I am one, I am one, I'm the chosen one!

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I bet I could find more and more songs like these, songs that get me going and keep pushing me to exceed my limits and excel.  But for now, this is an awesome mix, and I'm happy to leave it as is.  As I've done the past few times, you can check out the playlist here whenever you want.  See you next month with another Arbitrary Numbers Playlist ... February will be love songs!