My Top 1000 Songs #441: Landed

[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.]

"Landed," off Ben Folds' 2005 sophomore solo LP Songs For Silverman, is another in a series of slightly-bitter but ultimately self-critical break-up songs. Which might cause it to get lost among Folds' other, arguably more colorful work, if not for the music--a beautiful mid-tempo piano ballad with a rousing chorus that sounds like a throwback to peak Laurel Canyon 70s singer-songwriter territory. It's a James Taylor song for those of us who grew up absolutely hating James Taylor... have we gotten old? Or did Folds find something worth salvaging in unhip campfire music?

Plenty of great  mixed-metaphor couplets to be found ("I've been flying high all night, so come pick me up, I've landed"), though it's really that warm, familiar musical texture that seems to compel me to throw it onto playlists all the time.

Live with Ben Folds Five: