"I Have an Irrational Love for Train."

My name is Jonna, and I love Train.

I do, I can't help it. At the risk of making all my friends and the readers of this blog think I'm ultra lame, I'll say it. I'm a proud, Train-loving, 26-year-old.

My friend Eddie and I once went to a Train concert. Actually, we sat through an entire rodeo, complete with bull-riding and calf-roping (or whatever it's called) and then watched Train. And, it was freakin' incredible.

You know how bright and lively and energetic Train sounds through your car speakers? You know how "Hey, Soul Sister" makes you want to sing and smile and be happy? That's how they sound live. The lead singer runs around the entire stage and takes pictures and he belts it out to the crowd, which is mostly full of women straddling the 40-year-old line of life.

So, why am I professing my undying love for Train? Because I am head-over-heels for their new album. This album is totally worth the $10.99 that iTunes sold it to me for. And, because I'm hoping that I can get a group of friends to buy tickets and go up to Dallas in September and watch them with me.

But, because I don't want to bore you too much, I'll just share with you my three favorite songs from the new album, in no particular order.

1. "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" 

It's a really upbeat song, which is semi-challenging since it's starts off talking about an "it's not you, it's me" situation. This should be pretty unsurprising from the title but the vocalist rattles off a series of hilarious, and inventive, excuses he'll give his friends who ask, "where's your girl." For instance, he maintains that maybe his ex isn't around because she got "run over by a crappy purple Scion. This is something I find particularly entertaining, mostly because I have a friend that has a Scion. But his isn't crappy. Or purple.

2. "You Can Finally Meet My Mom" 

This little nugget is really about taking advantage of any time you have with loved ones. Not a new, crazy innovative song theme. But still good. Now, while this song is insanely peppered with pop culture references (I think Bieber, Whitney Houston, Steve Jobs, AND pop rocks all weasel their way into this one), it's actually pretty awesome. I find this lyrics especially memorable: 

... There's so much that we miss
Trying to be rich, and famous
Pretty and thin, to win 
It's a shame that youth is wasted on the young ... 

That lyrics is just screaming to be a status update, if you ask me.

3. "This'll Be My Year" 

I think I have a thing for songs with pop culture references. These lyrics highlight different pivotal events from the world and the songwriter's life. And, for any other 26-27 year olds who are reading, this song starts recounting events in 1985 and makes it all the way up to 2012. Gotta love it.


And, if you didn't believe me when I said Train was awesome live, listen to this one. Proof.