In 2019, 2020, and 2021, I used my birthday as an excuse to write a completely self-indulgent column that’s just five songs I like with no theme other than that I like them. I didn’t do that in 2022 and 2023 because our illustrious editor Roman Gokhman told me to stop.

You know what he didn’t tell me? That I can’t do a self-indulgent column as a Christmas present to myself! Ha ha, loophole!

So here, once again, are five songs I really like. If you updated the “desert island record” concept to be a playlist, these would be on mine. I promise I didn’t include “Careless Whisper” again. Really, this time.

Stevie Nicks — “Edge of Seventeen”

I promise that I’m not a diehard Fleetwood Mac fan, at least not in the way I’m a Metallica and Gordon Lightfoot fan. I like them, but they’re not a favorite. And yet somehow, this is the second song from either the band or one of its members, after “The Chain” in 2019. I really, really love this song.

This is also one of the rare songs where I can’t explain exactly why I like it so much. I’m a journalist, I explain things professionally, and I’ve been writing about music for about seven years now, so you’d think I’d be good at this. But alas! It’s just a really good song, and incredibly fun to sing along with in the car.

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Ghost — “Square Hammer”

If you’ve read more than a couple of my columns or know me in any capacity, you know that Metallica is, by a wide margin, my favorite band and that Gordon Lightfoot is squarely in second place. I’m a bit obsessed with both. And, believe me, we’ll get there.

I never really had a third place entry, but Ghost is creeping into that spot. They’ve yet to make an album or EP that I didn’t like basically all of, which is really saying something because even Metallica has an album (or two depending on how you count them) that I can’t stand.

Somehow, I didn’t put one of their songs on one of my self-indulgent lists, but it’s time to rectify that. I was tempted to go with “Pro Memoria” but it’s a bit dark, so I went with one of their more upbeat, mainstream-sounding songs about Satan.

Dua Lipa — “Break My Heart”

I’ve gotta throw you off at least once.

I generally don’t like pop music. It’s not an elitist thing, I swear. It’s all very catchy and perfectly appropriate for certain moods and situations. But the problem with pop is that it’s designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Broad appeal almost always means excluding things that might alienate someone, which means minimizing experimentation and novelty.

Every now and then, though, a pop artist or a song does hit me the right way. Janelle Monáe, for example, mixes her pop with other influences and includes enough creativity and weirdness to make it great. Anyone whose first several albums are a multi-part sci-fi rock opera is fine by me.

This song makes that list. It’s got the slick, polished production and the standard pop vocals. But it has a bass line and enough internal variation to keep it interesting. It has elements you’d usually expect from a boy band, not a solo woman. And it just plain sounds good.

OK, back to my well-developed personal brand.

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Gordon Lightfoot — “Sundown”

I already did my favorite “Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” as well as “Carefree Highway” and “If You Could Read My Mind,” but my list of favorites is very, very long. It was still tricky to settle on just one. Do I want a lesser-known one like “Baby Step Back” or “Cotton Jenny?” Maybe go totally left field with “The Auctioneer?”

No, this time I went with arguably Lightfoot’s most well-known song. If you’ve heard any of his songs in the wild, it’s either this one or “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and one of my life’s goals is to expose as many Americans as possible to as many Gordon Lightfoot songs as possible, but his hits really are fantastic, even to people like myself, who know pretty much everything he’s recorded.

That said, if I do another of these, don’t be surprised if it’s his version of “Me and Bobby McGee.”

Metallica — “Low Man’s Lyric”

Now’s the really hard pick. “One” is and will always be my all-time favorite song, but I used that as the first song the first time I did one of these. Then I went with “Creeping Death” and “Master of Puppets,” both solid choices.

But here’s the thing: I’m not one of those fans who insists the band died when it released Black Album, Load or even St. Anger, though the latter is absolutely terrible. Metallica’s staying power comes from its evolution. Look at the rest of the Big Four: Slayer and Anthrax are on the nostalgia circuit and Megadeth is basically just Dave Mustaine making jokes ripped from a Fox-Nation-exclusive stand-up special while looking like the Cryptkeeper’s loser uncle. Meanwhile, Metallica is filling stadiums around the world.

So, in honor of that, I’m going with “Low Man’s Lyrics,” off Reload. It’s a distinctly non-power ballad, a very deep cut from the first Metallica album I ever listened to front to back. I think it’s a tragic story, well-told, set to subdued music appropriate to the theme. It’s a fantastic representation of the band’s range as songwriters and musicians.

Also, I was telling the truth this time. Not even one instance of “Careless Whisper.”

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and send column ideas to him at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky. (He has some invites if you ask nicely).