My Top 1000 Songs #368: 2541

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Yeah, ok, just a little too cute to have the late Grant Hart's "2541" back-to-back with Bob Mould's "See A Little Light." But I tend to closely associate the two. Both are wonderful break-up-ish songs; Hart's seems a little easier to link to the dissolution of Hüsker Dü, but like Mould's, it works perfectly fine as a send-off to any sort of relationship, a bittersweet anthem of moving on.

Hart's tune, first released on a 1988 EP of the same name and then in a slightly different version (spelled out as "Twenty-Five Forty-One") on his 1989 debut LP Intolerance, is ridiculously catchy. As the contributor of his former band's most infectious, pop-oriented tracks, it's not a surprise that Hart has a knack with an earworm melody, but the chorus here will have you singing "Twenty five forty-one... big windows to let in the sun..." from here 'til eternity.

It's a heartwarming ode to a first apartment (or first practice space), the dankness of the place--"We had to keep the stove on all night long so the mice wouldn't freeze"--no impediment to the emotional attachment, the sadness at seeing it left behind. And frankly, it's hard to imagine a more potent line than, "It'll probably not be the last time I have to be out by the first." Damn, just perfect.

EP version:

Solo live, 2011: