30 Day Song Challenge and Houseparty Hijinks

ne month can go by really really quickly when you're doing one of those 30 day challenges. It's also been a long time since I actually knew the date each day, without having to hem and haw before coming up with the answer.

Very busy over at the Mall at the End of Time writers' houseparty - where we've knocked five lives from a Ginger Tom, had some interludes in the kinky shop and at the edge of the planet under the stars, met and detonated a little bomb family, healed broken legs and more in a Japanese garden, and so on - so here's a rundown off Facebook of...

The 30 Day Song Challenge

Day 1 - Your favourite song
One song? How does anyone pick one song? Let's ignore the regular stuff altogether and go with Bilbo's Bath Song by J R R Tolkien: "Sing hey! for the bath at close of day / that washes the weary mud away!... A loon is he that will not sing: / O! Water Hot is a noble thing!"

Day 2 - Your least favourite song
Least favourite? Or hated? In the whole world? One song? Meatloaf. Any of his songs. Especially the ones that go on for 11 hours or more. No, I'm not posting a link.

Day 3 - A song that makes you happy
Lilly by Pink Martini. Actually, most of the songs off their second album. Pineapple Head by Crowded House. The Hollies are fun too. And The Bluetones' Time and Again: "If I found a brand new colour / something no one had ever seen / dug it up right there in the garden..."

Day 4 - A song that makes you sad
A lot of Johnny Cash's songs. Dağlar Dağlar by Barış Manço or Gülümse by Sezen Aksu. And many of the songs on the last Blue Rodeo album, especially Venus Rising. I'll link to my general Blue Rodeo playlist, just for fun.

Day 5 - A song that reminds you of someone
I first saw Mes Aieux with my friend Deniz (yes, same name!), during the Montréal Jazz Festival. Here's Degenerations.

Day 6 - A song that reminds you of somewhere
The radio station Radyo Eksen reminds me of living in Istanbul. But there's also The Small Faces' Tin Soldier, which I heard for the first time on a Turkish radio station.

Day 7 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
George Formby reminds me of our first visit to Holmfirth. And all the songs from Rubber Soul or Revolver remind me of the 1998 Ice Storm.

Day 8 - A song you know all the words to
The first I ever deliberately memorised were Roxette's Fading Like A Flower, and all of U2's Achtung Baby and Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Neighbours (on cassette!). I know the lyrics to most songs I like. There's always The Clash: The Magnificent Seven, London Calling or White Man in Hammersmith Palais.

Day 9 - A song that you can dance to
That I can dance to or that makes me feel like dancing? Going Downhill Fast or A Drinking Song by The Divine Comedy. Or Just When You're Thinking Things Over by The Charlatans.

Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Johannes Brahms' Wiegenlied: Guten Abend, Gute Nacht, Op. 49, No. 4
("that's Brahms! Brahms' third racket!")

Day 11 - A song from your favourite band
Can't choose just one. Here's my playlist for The Divine Comedy's A Short Album About Love.

Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Er, why would I put up anything from a band I hate? All you have to do is turn on a Top40 radio station. Blech! Okay, seriously. I'm not going to post it, but I hate that Girl I Want to Make You Sweat song about rape. (After I posted this on Facebook, I learned that maybe that's not quite the intention of the song, and that others, including UB40, have covered it!)

Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Well, guilty maybe cos so many people don't seem to like 'em. But I love Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. I won't subject you to Heart of Kentucky or If Fingers Were Xylophones or Llad Eich Gwraig, so here's a song called Stood on Gold.

Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Something by Tool, perhaps? Does anyone remember the song about the carrots? Also, anything by Gyllene Tider and The Carter Family. But I'm going to go with something Canadian here: The Age of Electric's I Don't Mind. Watch out for the Bolan reference!

Day 15 - A song that describes you
I don't know, you tell me!
I'm going with Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark at the moment, only for the line "sick of sitting around here trying to write this book". Though I quite enjoyed writing this book, actually. It's the editing that never ends...

Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
I don't really do that. How about a song I used to love but now wonder how I could have mustered all that emotion toward. Most Def Leppard songs fall into this category, as does Don't Cry by Guns 'n' Roses. Though I still love all of Appetite for Destruction, and Patience.

Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
I grew up with CHOM97.7, so 70s rock sounds welcome and familiar (Journey, anyone?); they've got all the Heart, Honeymoon Suite, Cars, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, etc. you could wish for. When they get the Led out, it's usually the same songs, but you might get lucky: No Quarter, Battle of Evermore, or When the Levee Breaks.

Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Ha! None of the bands I like get radio play (except in the UK). When was the last time anyone played The Cure? What about Die Toten Hosen? Duman? Jean Leloup? Jacques Brel? Anyway, here's Sali Mali by Super Furry Animals.

Day 19 - A song from your favourite album
Hard to choose. There's the first Stone Temple Pilots album, every Arctic Monkeys album, various punk compilations, the first two Pearl Jam albums, Pulp's Different Class and We Love Life, both Marion albums... All the albums mentioned throughout this challenge. Here's Nutshell from Alice in Chains's Jar of Flies.

Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you're angry
The whole of the Manic Street Preachers' The Holy Bible. Here's The Intense Humming of Evil. But it's not like I ever really get angry...

Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you're happy
Any of The Divine Comedy's first five albums. Or my Runrig playlist.

Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you're sad
Albums! The Divine Comedy's first 5; MSP's The Holy Bible; Gene's Drawn to the Deep End; Tom Petty's Wildflowers. Cousteau are *very* depressing. Magnetic Fields aren't far off, but I love Get Lost. And there's Crowded House's Afterglow, featuring Lester. Don't listen if you have a dearly loved pet.

Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Already had that - Harvest Moon by Neil Young and Scheherazade from Rimsky-Korsakov (which reminds me of Tolkien's The Lay of Leithian, about Beren and Lúthien).

Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
I don't know that I actually want these played at my funeral but I do love the hymns I Vow To Thee My Country; Praise, My Soul, The King of Heaven; Jerusalem; and... Solus na Madainn by Runrig might be nice, too. But here's The Smiths' There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.

Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Hmm. There's always George Formby, with his cheeky lyrics. The Smiths' Frankly Mr Shankly or Roxette's How Do You Do. Or Murry the Hump's The Green Green Grass of Home (yes, that grass), which they don't have on YouTube! You'll have to settle for Booze & Cigarettes.

Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
There's no such thing. Though not entirely true; a friend wrote a song ages ago that I could pick out on piano (G, A, C, A, C, A C C, A D C, D D D D, E D). I also, once, painstakingly taught my tone deaf self to play the intro to The Stone Roses' Sally Cinnamon.

Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Any song - I'm tone deaf. I'd love to sing Jerusalem. And it'd be fun to sing The Jam when in the UK; Strange Town or Down in a Tube Station at Midnight or That's Entertainment. Even more fun to join others and belt out Spirit of the West's Home for a Rest. Here's a link to my blogpost featuring Vince Ditrich of Spirit of the West's favourite YA books!

Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Guilty about what? Guilty for listening to it? Okay, I've got one. The Spice Girls' Viva Forever. Though I haven't actually listened to it in about five years.

Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Sesame Street's Pinball Number Count. Also Rebel L, and The Muppets' Mahnamahna. There's also Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, and Paul Simon's Graceland album. Oh, and Bad, which was the first U2 song I ever heard.

Day 30 - A Your favourite song at this time last year
Well, really, I wasn't all that different last year. How about nine years ago this time (give or take a few weeks), when I heard Idlewild for the first time. Hmm, which song to post... You Held the World in Your Arms is a good one. So's These Wooden Ideas. Here's American English.

Songs and artists I couldn't get around to mentioning: Clapton's Old Love, Alan Jackson, Deanna Durbin, Vera Lynn, Guster, Roy Acuff and Crowded House's Distant Sun.

Whew! What would be on your list?