This classic album from 2013 by the Arctic Monkeys is one of the most popular in their discography. Based on this renowned fashion of this album, I will be ranking my top 5 favorite songs from the album.

 

This is no easy task, as I am a fan of many of the songs on this album. I will be ranking my current top 5 favorites in this blog.

 

AM songs, ranked:

 

5. “Mad Sounds”

This song is on the slower side and is very pretty. It is a bit different from some of the louder, grungier songs on their album, which I enjoy as a nice change of pace. My favorite lyrics from this song are “Suppose you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do / We just weren’t feeling how we wanted to / You sit and try sometimes / But you just can’t figure out what went wrong” which then is followed by a calming sound of “ooh la la la la” repeated. It recognizes how sometimes things do not go the way they are anticipated nor how we wish that they would go, but that it will all be alright in the end.

 

4. “Knee Socks”

This song as an enticing musical orchestration in the beginning of the song which makes the listener want to pay attention to see how the song will go next. This steady tempo is constant throughout the song and is nuanced with various guitar strums and percussion throughout the song.

 

My favorite lyrics in this song are “Well, you cured my January blues / Yeah, you made it all alright / I’ve got a feelin’ I might have lit the very fuse / That you were tryin’ not to light”. This line implies that the love interest helped the singer out of his winter slump and that this new connection has caused him to get emotionally attached to the girl despite trying to avoid getting too invested.

 

3. ” I Wanna Be Yours”

This song is also on the slower side and definitely a more romantic song choice, as the singer describes his deep devotion to his love interest through various metaphors and similes relating himself to various essential items.

 

These include the following: “I wanna be your Ford Cortina / I will never rust” saying that despite this being a car notorious for rusting based on its poor rust-proofing, his love for her will never tarnish or wither away; “I wanna be your vacuum cleaner / breathin’ in your dust” which depicts that he does not mind if he has to make sacrifices for his lover and do chores he may not wish to do; and “If you like your coffee hot / Let me be your coffee pot / You call the shots” in which this last line acts as an idiom because he trusts her to call the shots aka make the decisions in their relationship, while also nodding to espresso shots in the coffee reference.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4DKq8T39zI

 

2. “Do I Wanna Know?”

This song depicts the singer being anxious as to whether or not his love interest reciprocates the love he has for her. He clearly feels for her strongly and is nervous of how he will take the news if it is not that she loves him too, hence his hesitation for wanting to know what she would say. Although he is currently living in uncertainty about where they stand, he would rather be unsure than be disappointed with the truth.

 

The song goes on to mention how the singer admits his feelings for the girl while he is under the influence, and regrets it the next day. Now that he spilled his thoughts to his love interest and she did not assure him that she shares this feeling mutually, he does not know where their relationship stands.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11vUCEXxk-A

 

1. “Snap Out of It”

This song is my absolute favorite from the AM album because it demonstrates the most imagery of a situation. The song is the story of the singer coming up to a female friend of his that he has not seen in a while, and begins catching up with the parts of her life he has not heard about. However, when it is mentioned that she is dating a new certain someone, the singer immediately recognizes that this man is not fit to be a good partner and starts explaining to the woman why she should end her relationship with him.

 

The most prominent imagery in the song comes from the chorus, “I wanna grab both your shoulders and shake, baby / Snap out of it”. These lyrics depict the typical vision of someone trying to make someone come to their senses by shaking them, which I think is an interesting touch and provides insight into how far out of it this woman must be (from the singer’s perspective) to be dating a man who is bad news.

 

Additionally, there is imagery provided in the cliches presented later on in the chorus. In the lyrics “If that watch don’t continue to swing” it references the typical phenomenon in which a person is hypnotized by watching a watch on a chain swing repeatedly back and forth, and later in the bridge references this by singing “Under a spell you’re hypnotized / Darling, how could you be so blind?” which reiterates the hypnotism reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkiKysLFuhE

 

I really enjoy this album and I hope you do too, and I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post.

Which song from the Arctic Monkeys’ album AM is your favorite?