Sunday 28 December 2008

150 songs...

...for my 30th Birthday. (Part One)

Once upon a time I wrote a post about music. Then I wrote a small follow-up to it.

I found those 18th Birthday Tapes the other day (they so deserve capitals) and was reading through the track listings and smiling at the memories that appeared.

So I decided to create my own playlist for my 30th. One hundred songs that represented the thirty years that I'd been around. Then I hit a few snags...mainly the fact that I couldn't narrow it down to 100. So I upped it a little. The list is now 150 songs, split up into 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 sections so that each decade gets a fair shot. Not every song is in the decade it was released in, they fit in where I remember them within my life.

It's been very good fun - although Anthony is a little scared by some of the choices, and is very scared by some of the songs he didn't know that I then played him.

As I suspected in that first post, there are a few songs that have carried across to the 150. There are also a few that haven't due to not conjuring up a moment in my head. The Beatles are a casualty for this very reason, as are The Rolling Stones. I know. Shocking isn't it. They summon up a general time (sixth form and uni respectively) but no specific memories so I've had to be ruthless and chop them out.

While I'm working on the 150for30, here are my 100for18 - the result of three days choosing and locating the songs (as I had to find all the LP's/tapes with them on) and three weeks or so of Dad arranging them, copying them onto the reel-to-reel and then making the cassettes.

  • Queen - Headlong
  • Del Amitri - Driving With the Brakes On
  • CSN - Just a Song Before I Go
  • Eagles - Take it to the Limit
  • Livingstone Taylor - House at Pooh Corner (which I want on the 150for30 list, but this version isn't on iTunes so I've had to go for the version by Loggins & Messina - meh)
  • Neil Young - Pocahontas
  • Beatles - Revolution 9
  • CSN - Long Time Gone
  • CSN - Cowboy of Dreams
  • Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young
  • Chicago - A Hard Habit to Break
  • Don McLean - American Pie
  • Jim Croce - Have to Say I Love You in a Song
  • Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
  • Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded by the Light
  • Oasis - Morning Glory/The Swamp Song/Champagne Supernova (since they all just flow into each other on the album)
  • Four Seasons - December '63
  • Beatles - The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
  • Jim Croce - Photographs and Memories
  • Eagles - Hotel California
  • Billy Joel - Piano Man
  • Elton John - Candle in the Wind
  • Neil Young - Rockin' in the Free World
  • Beatles - Yesterday
  • CSNY - Deja Vu
  • Jim Croce - New York's not my Home
  • Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love
  • Ash - Oh Yeah
  • Boyzone - Key to my Life
  • Levellers - Hope Street
  • Commodores - Easy Like Sunday Morning
  • Jim Croce - Operator
  • CSN - Suite: Judy Blue-Eyes
  • Beatles - Hey Jude
  • Neil Young - Like a Hurricane
  • Beatles - Ticket to Ride
  • Doors - Strange Days
  • Madness - Our House
  • CSNY - Our House (two very different songs with the same title - I always loved the fact Dad put them together)
  • Billy Joel - Always a Woman to Me
  • Stills-Young Band - Long May You Run
  • Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever
  • Queen - Radio Ga-Ga
  • Chris De Burgh - Lady in Red (on the tape track listing as by Chris Rea for some reason)
  • Dodgy - Making the Most of
  • Aerosmith - Cryin'
  • Ash - Girl From Mars
  • Who - My Generation
  • Bonzos - I'm the Urban Spaceman (Produced by Apollo C. Vermouth, otherwise known as Paul McCartney)
  • Fleetwood Mac - The Chain
  • Oasis - Wonderwall
  • Al Stewart - Song on the Radio
  • Mama's & Papa's - California Dreamin'
  • Byrds - Mr Tambourine Man
  • Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
  • CSN - Military Madness
  • Chicago - If You Leave me Now
  • CSN - Teach Your Children
  • CSNY - Ohio (These two songs are forever linked in my mind)
  • Eagles - Best of My Love
  • Bluetones - Carnt Be Trusted (When I wrote this on the list Dad asked if I needed spelling lessons, then he said the band needed them!)
  • Queen - We Will Rock You
  • Ruth - Fear of Flying
  • Neil Young - Round and Round (It Won't be Long)
  • CSN - Simple Man
  • Billy Joel - Uptown Girl
  • Huey Lewis - The Power of Love
  • CSNY - Helpless
  • Beatles - All You Need is Love
  • Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime
  • Bluetones - Putting Out Fires
  • CSN - Horses Through a Rainstorm
  • Billy Joel - Christie Lee
  • Doors - When You're Strange (With the voice of my friend David at the beginning saying "These really are strange days, and they're full of strange people too")
  • Beatles - Birthday
  • Bluetones - Bluetonic
  • Queen - Killer Queen
  • Dodgy - Grassman
  • Alanis Morrisette - You Learn
  • Bryan Adams - Run to You
  • Doors - Light My Fire
  • Neil Young - Unknown Legend
  • CSN - Blackbird
  • Billy Joel - The Ballad of Billy the Kid
  • Beatles - Good Day Sunshine
  • Crosby & Nash - Cathedral
  • Beatles - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
  • Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle
  • CSN - Chicago/We Can Change The World
  • Alanis Morrisette - Ironic
  • Crosby & Nash - Carry Me
  • Blur - Charmless Man
  • Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
  • Al Stewart - Year of the Cat
  • Billy Joel - Famous Last Words


  • Anyone still here?

    So lets see... at 18 I was in a phase of listening to a whole lot of my Dad's music, with occasional bursts of Billy Joel and Queen (courtesy of Mum), and a few dribs of current tunes.

    One of the reasons I split the 150for30 into three sections...

    2 comments:

    SWILUA said...

    what a fun happy birthday game! I've got one of those birthday things coming. I'm in denial, though.

    Michelle Fluttering Butterflies said...

    There are songs on this that I absolutely love and there are others that I have never heard of. Or maybe it's just that I've heard of it but didn't know the name or who it was by? I only listened to 50s music until I was about 14...