This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

I’m pretty in the bag for any song that has the same bones as “Bright Eyes”: a sweet, upbeat tune that trades off boy and girl vocals. But “Bright Eyes” is an especially well done version of this kind of thing, even without any of the direct references to Bonnie Tyler or Connor Oberst that the title promises.

The subject is pretty typical for a song with boy/girl vocals: One of the singers is looking for a romantic relationship, but the other demurs. (“You go to great lengths to tell me this is not a romance.”)

The charm of “Bright Eyes” is that it’s the most positive version of this situation possible (and sounds like it). It’s not really an unrequited romance. It’s more a friendship that’s on the cusp of tipping over into something else, but luxuriating in the pleasure-delaying moment just before it happens: “What’s the hurry? Don’t you see, the best part’s in not knowing. We can take our time; you don’t have to worry.”

The chorus asks “Do you believe in fun?” then answers, “I surely do.” And it certainly does.

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Marisa

There are contrarians, there are iconoclasts, and then there is SportsAlcohol.com co-founder Marisa. A contraiclast? Her favorite Springsteen album came out this century, so she is basically a controversy machine.

Also, she is totally not a dude!

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