Top 5: Rounding the Bases!

Well, it's late spring, the days are getting hotter, people are showing more skin, and there's baseball everywhere you turn. Heck, our beloved Cubbies are sitting on the best record in baseball right now! Clearly, there's something in the air.

So why not...the return of the Top 5 list? And why not combine two great summertime activities--baseball and making out?

Okay, here's how it works (thanks to Joker for the idea way back when): I'll list five songs, ranked according to the classic "baseball as sexual metaphor" round-the-bases scale, with the fifth spot reserved for an absolute strikeout song. Feel free to suggest your own listings in the comments. Here we go:

First Base: Edwin McCain, "One Thing Left to Do" This little gem, from McCain's 2001 album Far From Over, is a jazzy little tale about picking up a woman in a bar, then doing the flirtatious dance to get her home with you for the night. The slinky guitar is a come-on, the saxophone a seduction, and McCain trades his signature shouts for a late-night, beer-soaked growl as he tries to convince the girl he's not just after one thing (though he clearly totally is). The song will stall out at first base for most listeners, though, as they start to laugh at his late-song suggestions for the "one thing left to do:" pay the bar tab, grab some Waffle House, "call up one of your girlfriends, and...wait, wait, I was just kiddin'!" Still, it's a heck of an icebreaker.

Second Base: U2, "Love Comes Tumbling" Sure, "With or Without You" is the safer choice, and has probably resulted in a lot more babies being born (quite possibly the majority of 20-year-olds in this country today were conceived to this song, in fact), but this lesser-known track, an Unforgettable Fire outtake repurposed on the Wide Awake in America EP, has a sort of sultry, late-night-rolling-around-in-bed quality to it that I've always liked. It's maybe a little too eighties, and doesn't really sound like U2 that much, but it's a nice bit of soundtrack to some light fooling around.

Third Base: Garbage, "Thirteen" The original version of this song, by Big Star (a band that radio listeners don't know, but that every other band loved), was a sweet little ode to schoolboy crushes, set against cutesy guitars and featuring lines about the Friday night dance and the local swimming pool. The song is so innocuous that it has been used on two sitcoms, as the soundtrack for Eric's and Donna's breakup on That 70's Show and Ted's cutesy two-minute date on How I Met Your Mother. But in the hands of Garbage, layered with synth effects and a looping bass beat, as sung by the smoky, hot-sex-on-a-platter voice of Shirley Manson, this is a song that will engender a stand-up triple any night of the week. I saw the band do this live before I'd ever heard the recorded version (released only as a B-side), and I'm pretty sure I tried to make out with myself in the middle of the concert.

All the Way Home: Maxwell, "Whenever Wherever Whatever" Put simply, if you're not both naked by the end of this song...well, it just ain't ever gonna happen.

The Strikeout: Snoop Doggy Dogg (featuring Nate Dogg, Kurupt, and Warren G), "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)" This gem of a hip-hop song--in my opinion, the sheer acme of the West Coast sound--has it all: a danceable, grindable beat, a groovy funk guitar, the smooth R&B-tinged vocals of Nate Dogg, and three brief but clever rap verses by Snoop, Kurupt, and Warren G. You could probably make out to this...unless you're paying attention to the lyrics. This is also, quite possibly, the most misogynist song ever put to tape. I won't quote lyrics here (this is a family site, after all), but the gist is this: "I have enjoyed sexual relations with you in the past, madam, but I have grown bored and would like to move on. However, I do insist that you have sex with all of my friends, lest they get upset with me for not sharing your fine services with them, and I do expect you to service them with a smile on your face. Now, get to it." This--in the more graphic terms used by the artists--will probably send the woman you're with out the door fast enough to leave one of those little Roadrunner dust clouds behind. However...if you find a woman who hears the lyrics, is okay with them, and still sleeps with you, you should shower immediately, and call a physician posthaste.