A soundtrack for my life
Apr. 26th, 2009 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumA few weeks ago commodorified made a challenge, to make a soundtrack for your life; with one song for each year. She mentioned me by name, and I’ve been tossing it about in the darker corners of my mind.
42 songs to sum up my life. It’s hard. Not just taking a mere 42 songs from the 6000+ on the computer, but trying to recall the greater number of songs I’ve ever known. How am I to choose? Those songs I really love, which speak to me when I need cheering?
What of those which were anthems for me? The one’s which carried me through hard times? What about those I think of as messages? The one’s which gave understanding?
Or those which speak to me of things I’ve done, been or wanted to be? There are some which explain some aspect of what I am, and how that happened to come about.
Perhaps the background music, those songs which were playing?
All of that.
In 42 songs?
Good Lord.
It’s not something to just dash off. I am not going to try and ascribe a single year to each of them. The first part of my life (say to about 16) isn’t clear to me from here. We build our past from the bits of the lost present we recall, and we filter it through who we are now. I’ve tried to avoid being too much in the present as I chose, but that’s not completely possible. What I think of myself is colored by the now.
It’s flawed. There is no way to recall all the possible songs. Whether I will it, or no, the songs I have in the computer get weight. The first 30 are easy. The problem is the next 70. How do I cull out this one, or that one?
Do I use a lot of the same artist? Perhaps I ought, there are artists I like, a lot (Billy Joel, Gordon Lightfoot, Al Stewart, Jimmy Buffet). The point isn’t to introduce you to music, but to make my life more plain to the rest of you, so apprehensibility is something of a concern.
The other problem is making represent my life as a whole, not my present.
So... I’ve made a list, checked it twice (or thrice, or some semblance of many times). It’s not right but it will never be right, and so it’s as good as it’s likely to get.
Rather than explain it, I will leave it stand as is. If you want to ask about the songs, feel free. I make no promises to answer but neither do I categorically refuse to answer. Odds are the shape of the question will be the framework in which the response is cast.
The songs are, by and large, in no particular order.
Sunny Day (Theme to Sesame Street)
Bury me standing/Oysterband
Dancing as Fast as I Can/Oysterband
Renegade/Warren Zevon
The Leaving of Liverpool/Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Distantly in Love/Jimmy Buffet
Sharp Dressed Man/ZZ Topp
Heartache Spoken Here/Warren Zevon
He Went to Paris/Jimmy Buffet
Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire/ChumbaWumba
Peace Train/10,000 Maniacs
Cloudy/Simon and Garfunkel
Like a Rock/Bob Seger
Wall of Death/Fairport Convention
Different When it Comes to You/Bruce Cockburn
Summer Roads/Liam Clancy
Turn the Page/Bob Seger
Caledonia/Dougie MacLean
My Old Friend the Blues/The Proclaimers (written by Steve Earle)
The Parting Glass/Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Jacob Marley's Chain/Aimee Mann
Bring us a Barrel/Poxy Boggards
Money Back Guarantee/Jimmy Buffet
Always look on the Bright Side of Life (Cockburn)
I'm Your Man/Leonard Cohen
Whatever you say, say nothing/Liam Clancy
Done with Bonaparte/Mark Knopfler
The Loyalist/Dave Nachmaninoff
The shouting end of life/Oysterband
Baby Grand/Billy Joel, and Ray Charles
Braes o' Killiecrankie/Joann Gilmartin
Donald Whar's yer troosers?/Andy Stewart
Wonderful World/Louis Armstrong
Age of Reason/Al Stewart
Vespers/Jim Croce
I'm a Freeborn Man/Liam Clancy
Summer Highland Falls/Billy Joel
The Mary Ellen Carter/Stan Rogers
She's moved on/Oysterband
And so it goes/Billy Joel
Over The Water/Oysterband
With a Little Help From My Friends/The Beatles
If/when, I get the three songs I don't have, I will make the whole thing available as a yousendint file.
commodorified made a challenge, to make a soundtrack for your life; with one song for each year. She mentioned me by name, and I’ve been tossing it about in the darker corners of my mind.42 songs to sum up my life. It’s hard. Not just taking a mere 42 songs from the 6000+ on the computer, but trying to recall the greater number of songs I’ve ever known. How am I to choose? Those songs I really love, which speak to me when I need cheering?
What of those which were anthems for me? The one’s which carried me through hard times? What about those I think of as messages? The one’s which gave understanding?
Or those which speak to me of things I’ve done, been or wanted to be? There are some which explain some aspect of what I am, and how that happened to come about.
Perhaps the background music, those songs which were playing?
All of that.
In 42 songs?
Good Lord.
It’s not something to just dash off. I am not going to try and ascribe a single year to each of them. The first part of my life (say to about 16) isn’t clear to me from here. We build our past from the bits of the lost present we recall, and we filter it through who we are now. I’ve tried to avoid being too much in the present as I chose, but that’s not completely possible. What I think of myself is colored by the now.
It’s flawed. There is no way to recall all the possible songs. Whether I will it, or no, the songs I have in the computer get weight. The first 30 are easy. The problem is the next 70. How do I cull out this one, or that one?
Do I use a lot of the same artist? Perhaps I ought, there are artists I like, a lot (Billy Joel, Gordon Lightfoot, Al Stewart, Jimmy Buffet). The point isn’t to introduce you to music, but to make my life more plain to the rest of you, so apprehensibility is something of a concern.
The other problem is making represent my life as a whole, not my present.
So... I’ve made a list, checked it twice (or thrice, or some semblance of many times). It’s not right but it will never be right, and so it’s as good as it’s likely to get.
Rather than explain it, I will leave it stand as is. If you want to ask about the songs, feel free. I make no promises to answer but neither do I categorically refuse to answer. Odds are the shape of the question will be the framework in which the response is cast.
The songs are, by and large, in no particular order.
Sunny Day (Theme to Sesame Street)
Bury me standing/Oysterband
Dancing as Fast as I Can/Oysterband
Renegade/Warren Zevon
The Leaving of Liverpool/Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Distantly in Love/Jimmy Buffet
Sharp Dressed Man/ZZ Topp
Heartache Spoken Here/Warren Zevon
He Went to Paris/Jimmy Buffet
Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire/ChumbaWumba
Peace Train/10,000 Maniacs
Cloudy/Simon and Garfunkel
Like a Rock/Bob Seger
Wall of Death/Fairport Convention
Different When it Comes to You/Bruce Cockburn
Summer Roads/Liam Clancy
Turn the Page/Bob Seger
Caledonia/Dougie MacLean
My Old Friend the Blues/The Proclaimers (written by Steve Earle)
The Parting Glass/Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
Jacob Marley's Chain/Aimee Mann
Bring us a Barrel/Poxy Boggards
Money Back Guarantee/Jimmy Buffet
Always look on the Bright Side of Life (Cockburn)
I'm Your Man/Leonard Cohen
Whatever you say, say nothing/Liam Clancy
Done with Bonaparte/Mark Knopfler
The Loyalist/Dave Nachmaninoff
The shouting end of life/Oysterband
Baby Grand/Billy Joel, and Ray Charles
Braes o' Killiecrankie/Joann Gilmartin
Donald Whar's yer troosers?/Andy Stewart
Wonderful World/Louis Armstrong
Age of Reason/Al Stewart
Vespers/Jim Croce
I'm a Freeborn Man/Liam Clancy
Summer Highland Falls/Billy Joel
The Mary Ellen Carter/Stan Rogers
She's moved on/Oysterband
And so it goes/Billy Joel
Over The Water/Oysterband
With a Little Help From My Friends/The Beatles
If/when, I get the three songs I don't have, I will make the whole thing available as a yousendint file.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-28 12:53 am (UTC)As soundtrack, I like to think I've managed to take a few people to places "over the water". Sometimes it's all I have ot offer.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-28 07:53 pm (UTC)