Day 24: A song I want played at my funeral

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that absolutely everyone played this game at some point, so I'll skip over the likes of 'Highway to Hell', 'Another One Bites The Dust', 'Going Underground' and other, similarly-hilarious gems, and just get straight to the song.

On a tear-jerkingly self-indulgent note (and really, if you can't be tear-jerkingly self-indulgent when choosing a song for your own funeral, what's the point?), there's always be Warren Zevon's 'Keep Me In Your Heart', which I wrote about a few weeks ago. But that'd be senselessly cruel - if people are (hopefully) going to be pretty sad already, there's no need to push them over the edge. While I'd be less inclined to go with a "wittily" inappropriate song than I would have been a decade or so ago, I still suspect that the best choice would be something a little more upbeat, more positive. Funerals are a downer to start with, there's no need to pile on the misery. And since I've already written about the Rolling Stones, which according to my own arbitrary and self-imposed rules means I can't write about 'Shine A Light', which would probably have been my first choice...



It's a great song, obviously, but this version is particularly brilliant. I'd hope that I wouldn't need to explain why I love the Ramones so much - they're quite clearly one of the greatest pop groups ever formed - but this cover is a particular highlight of their career, for me. It may not be a blindingly-obvious funeral song (which is, of course, one of the reasons I'm choosing it), but it works better than it might initially appear. Like most of Dylan's songs from this period, the underlying meaning is buried under a slightly-purple lyrical overload, but at its heart, the song is a simple enough iteration of the "it's better to regret what you've done than what you didn't do" principle, and as such, perfectly-suitable for the occasion. Besides, the gloriously-simplistic guitar solo from 1:18 - 1:33 is about as life-affirming a musical moment as I can think of, and its presence would have substantially improved 100% of the funerals I've ever attended.


Yes, the deeply uninspired nature of this entry is part of why I haven't updated the blog in over a fortnight. But it's not most of it. Sorry, it shouldn't happen again any time soon.

Day 23: A song I want to play at my wedding

Confession: I'm already married. To be honest, when the day actually arrived, I didn't worry for a second about the music. It came as a bit of a surprise to me - I'd envisaged complicated interactions with the DJ, demanding specific songs, generally directing the flow of music - but in the event, I quite simply had more important things to worry about. And everything went fine anyway.

I still wish I'd put my foot down a bit more firmly about the first dance, though. As requested by my parents-in-law (who, since they were paying for most of it, were thoroughly entitled to a say), we went with a traditional waltz, which went comically wrong when the DJ unsuspectingly played a Vienna box waltz instead of the more standard number we'd been expecting. Neither my wife nor I know how to dance a proper Viennese box waltz, which resulted in much hilarity. Still, you can't win them all.

If we'd gone for a slow non-waltz song instead, though, I'd have chosen this song.





The lyric is a bit more ambiguous than might be considered ideal for a wedding song ("The time has is nigh / When I must remove your wings / And you must try to fly"), but there's a swooning, elegant beauty to the melody which almost makes up for it. Quite simply, it's one of the most gorgeous songs I've ever heard.

Day 21: A song I listen to when I'm happy

Happiness is a bugger to write about, it really is. So, I'm not going to. In a startling break from established form, this is going to be a no-waffle post. Honest, it is.

There's so much music that I listen to when I'm happy that selecting a single song was stumping me. So, as I usually do in moments of indecision, I asked my wife what to do. She said "do a song that makes you strut, you're always happy when you strut". And she's right, I am - it's laughably-easy to spot when something suitably-rhythmic comes up on my iPod, because my entire gait unconsciously changes - my stride lengthens, my posture loosens, and a slight swing works its way into my shoulders. I probably look absurd, but I don't care. Because I'm happy.

And when it comes to songs to which I can really get my strut on, there's one example which stands out head and gently-swinging shoulders above the rest.



If that rhythm doesn't get you moving at least a little bit, there's every possibility that you are actually dead. Seriously, you should probably get that checked out.

Day 17: A song I hear often on the radio

I don't currently listen to a lot of radio. But when I do, this song is all over it.



Admittedly, it loses something without the video. And it's not actually one of her best songs (in fact, I'd say it's the first significant wobble in what had, up to this point, been about as flawless a series of pop singles as has been produced this decade), although it has grown on me since I first got the album. But sweet merciful jebus, what a magnificent video. It's completely ridiculous, of course - overblown, self-indulgent and utterly, gloriously vacuous. But that's why it works. It's so gleefully self-aware, puncturing its own pomposity at every turn, that it's hard to resist. It cracks me up every time.

I have nothing else to say about this today. I'm pretty sure there's a long post in me about Lady Gaga and why I rate her so highly as a performance artist (which, in this case, is a bit like being a performing artist, only more so), but it's not coming out today, so it'll have to wait for another occasion. In the meantime, watch the video. If you've already seen it (and if you haven't, where have you been?), watch it again.


LET'S MAKE A SANDWICH.

Oh, come on. Let's.

Day 08: A song to which I know all the words

After a week of struggling to figure out which song best fits the listed requirement, it's a relief to finally reach a category as completely-arbitrary as this one. As, I suspect, with almost anyone who's ever listened to music in a more than passing way, there are so many songs - indeed, so many whole albums - to which I know all the words (just about every CD I owned between the ages of 15 and 20, for a start) that there's really no limit to what I could post here.

Besides, I've just got home at a little after 3am, having spent the last 8 hours or so at an Autechre show which was, as I believe the kids used to say back when I was one, absolutely banging.
So, to be honest, I'm in absolutely no fit state to be writing a lengthy blog post, especially when I still haven't watched the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who, which I'd frankly rather be doing right now. So, with a minimum of ceremony, and in lieu of every other song I know the words to...I'm going to take the piss. But only a little.



"And when I have some words
this is the way I'll sing
through a distortion box
to make them menacing

Yeah, then I'm gonna have to write a chorus
we're gonna need to have a chorus
and this seems tobe as good as any other place
to sing it till I'm blue in the face"


Still makes me giggle. Good night all, I'm off to watch the debut of the Eleventh Doctor. Hopefully there'll be a slightly more substantial post tomorrow.