1. Rebel Girl - Bikini Kill

I've always been a bit of a rebel. Okay, make that a lot of a rebel. I don't mean that I tatted and pierced myself up (although I've done that), or that I get in screaming matches with 'authority' (although I've done that, too), or anything normally associated with rebellion. Rather, I'm not interested in living my life the way others think I should. I'm not interested in being 'ladylike' or 'proper' - these are little more than empty compliments offered to those who live unchallenging, unthreatening lives. There's a saying I try to live by: "Well-behaved women rarely make history." Indeed.

2. Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress - The Hollies

If life were a gritty film noir and we all had theme music that played when we walked into the room, this would be my song.

3. Kiss Off - The Violent Femmes

The Violent Femmes are the patron saints of every angry teenage nerd that has ever lived and will ever live. I'm no longer teenage, nor much of a nerd (although I'm still pretty angry), but I still remember how it felt to be at the mercy of a world I pretty much knew was full of shit.

Bonus: someone put the song to clips from 'Welcome to the Dollhouse', a movie that was so painful for me to watch that I've only seen it once. See, I was Dawn Weiner. Thankfully, I was an ignored Dawn Weiner, but that was me, down to the pink plastic glasses, the bad fashion sense, the brutal siblings and the unrequited crushes on older boys. You think I'm joking, but seriously, if someone offered me a million dollars to go back and live the ages of 12 through 14 all over again, I'd have to turn them down.

Double bonus: the Dresden Dolls did a wicked live cover of this song!

4. Lines in the Suit - Spoon

"How come I feel so washed up/At such a tender age"

I had an early midlife crisis. Actually, I think it's technically a quarterlife crisis, since it happened at twenty-five, but I realized that I was putting a lot of effort into what essentially amounted to little more than spinning donuts on the lawn. This song is about that - feeling weary and disillusioned while still a youngster.

5. Kate - Ben Folds Five

I always wished someone had written this song about ME.