30-Day Song Challenge

So what does Siskoid listen to? It's a very eclectic playlist, I have to admit. Part of that is being a French-Canadian which opens up both French-language music and Canadian music which might not make it across the border/oceans. Another part of it is having worked in radio, on shows where making musical discoveries were an important element. As I often say, there are no bad genres, just plenty of bad music across genres, so I don't discriminate on that basis. I do have a bias towards the 90s, my musical peak, but we'll see how that translated in my attempt at the 30-Day Song Challenge (which I didn't spam you with all May long). I turned it into a playlist on YouTube, which I guess you can listen to while you read.

DAY 1: A song I like with a color in the title - Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones. Have loved it since I first heard it at the opening theme of Tour of Duty (the television show).

DAY 2: A song you like with a number in the title - Song 2 by Blur was a fun pop tune and part of an improv shtick I once had with a good friend.

DAY 3: A song that reminds you of summertime - Summer? Disgusting. I love a lot of wintry songs, songs that make me hear the snow, the wind and the cold... But summer? My choice will be so on the nose, you're going to think me tacky - Walking on Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves. But it's not just that it's literally about sunshine, it's also a song I identify with my summers in Texas when I was a kid, as I remember the video playing a lot on MTV, a station we didn't have at home. Amusingly, that video is all gray skies. And just as you're thinking Siskoid is a pretty mainstream guy...

DAY 4: A song that reminds you of someone you’d rather forget - The Rheostatics are my favorite band, so it's tough for me not to listen to Horses without thinking it's been a little skunked by its association to a certain someone. But it's a great song. Left here without further comment.

DAY 5: A song that needs to be played out loud - Camisra's Let Me Show You (the Tall Paul Remix). Its use in Spaced made it a classic at home. If it came up in the rotation, it had to be cranked up, and the household had to drink at least one drink. I admit to making it come up more often than it normally might, claiming it was "random". SorryNotSorry

DAY 6: A song that makes me want to dance - Gone Daddy Gone by Violent Femmes. It's the bridge. I want to do the air-xylophone, the air-drums, the air-guitar, so much fun. Damn, I gotta listen to the entire album now. Be back in a few...

DAY 7: A song to drive to - I don't personally drive, but the only regret I have is that I could blast music while going down a highway. My choice is Trocadero's Steady Ride (Gun Metal Green) from the album Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, music inspired by Red vs. Blue: Blood Gulch Chronicles. You could do worse than leave the disc in for the rest of your drive...

DAY 8: A song about drugs or alcohol - The first French-language entry in this list is Cocaïnomane by the Québécois group Les Vulgaires Machins. It's a recursive punk ditty that can essentially be translated as "I do blow so I can work more so I can make more money so I can do more blow..." Huge fun and worth playing two or three times in a row.

DAY 9: A song that makes me happy - Right now, that would be Cannonball by the Breeders. Not only is it a great riff, but it make me smile that it's a middle finger directed at Pixies front man Black Francis from the kickass Kim Deal. I love it when tensions within a band (even a band I love) bubbles up and creates more art.

DAY 10: A song that makes me sad - Christmas and Me Are Through by Your Vegas. One of many songs that might make me cry on any given day, and since Christmas is for me a time to feel blue, DAY 10 really should be a Christmas song. And that sustained note guys.

DAY 11: A song I never get tired of - There's every chance every song on this list falls under this category (or at least, I'd hope so), so let's just go with one of the songs I'm playing on a loop these days: Metric's Gimme Sympathy. It played in the background more than once while I was writing this up, and still not sick of it.

DAY 12: A song from my preteen years - Almost obligatorily French-language - unless you want me to drop some Spanish Abba on here (why we had THAT album is a mystery) - I'm going with the classic Québécois 70s group Beau Dommage. But which song? Their eponymous album from 1974 is wall-to-wall folk perfection. An under-rated hit that's perhaps more traditional than the rest of the record, I'm going with Le pic-bois (The Woodpecker).

DAY 13: A song from the year I was born - Stairway to Heaven came out the year I was born. How can I resist putting on the list? In my teenage years, I remember how special it was whenever they would play it on the radio, its length an obstacle to wider rotation even on golden oldies stations. Probably behind my affection for songs with multiple movements (more so than, say, Bohemian Rhapsody).

DAY 14: A song I'd love to be played at my wedding - More like my funeral at this point, amirite? Truthfully, how would I ever pick a song here without the woman I'm marrying attached? So I'm just gonna think of one that's for the guests, really. And if my imaginary wife wants to learn the chair'n'belt dance I developed with my friend Gwen in the 15-20 years ago on the Gypsy Kings' Bamboleo, all the better. (It's perhaps ironic that it's about not being able to find a lost love, but it fits the facts.)

DAY 15: A song I like that’s a cover by another artist - As a fan of clever covers, there are a lot of things I might have put in this slot. Going with my gut feeling then. William Shatner and Joe Jackson on Pulp's Common People is - despite my love of Pulp in general - my preferred version. I love the spoken-hop performance from both artists.

DAY 16: A song that’s a classic favorite - The Challenge usually says "classic" but what does that mean? The above image says "classical", but it's full of typos... Let's just go with a song that's been around a while and that most everybody in the Western world knows. Live and Let Die by Wings.

DAY 17: A song I'd sing a duet with someone on karaoke - Shy Ronnie 2: Ronnie & Clyde, by The Lonely Island feat. Rihanna. Look, if I'm gonna be doing karaoke, there's gotta be something in it for me, i.e. a comedy performance.  Whether I'd be doing Samberg's mumbling Ronnie or Rihanna's part, I'd have something to PLAY.

DAY 18: A song I like from the 70s - I don't know if I heard ELO's Mr. Blue Sky before it showed up in an episode of Doctor Who, but from then on, it got into my regular rotation. Very nice to hear it in the second Guardians movie as well.

DAY 19: A song that makes me think about life - Tomas Jensen is a quirky, erudite singer-songwriter from Quebec no one really ever talks about, but I love his lyrics. In this category, I'm going with M Cigare (Mister Cigar), which is about an existential dream in which the protagonist encounters various "misters" who explain their worldviews. Great poetry. Which "mister" are you?

DAY 20: A song that has many meanings to me - Respect to the Dance Floor by the French electro-fusion group Mass Hysteria is an anthem for mixing musical genres, but I'd picked it for my improv team's entrance at some point because at its core, it was about diversity and respect, and we did play on a dance floor. And it kicks serious ass. It later became THE entrance song at the beginning of improv games for the adult set, which I'm proud of.

DAY 21: A song I like with a person’s name in the title - Flight of the Conchords' Jenny is their best.

DAY 22: A song that moves me forward - Whatever that means. When I really want to get work done, I've got to go with driving, instrumental beats. Usually from a soundtrack, and it's usually between Murray Gold's Doctor Who music or, as reflected in my final choice, Bear McCreary's Battlestar Galactica score. The selection: Kara's Coordinates.

DAY 23: A song that I think everybody should listen to - No pressure then. Let's not be so arrogant as to think we can answer that question, but rather go for the joke. If you've been around me at all during the last year, you will most certainly have heard La mer (The Sea), a 40s French classic by Charles Trennet as interpreted by Julio Iglesias reading off the music sheet). I start playing it at random times. It makes me happy. (If you aren't around me, it plays at the end of 2011 film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.) In other words, I seem to think it should be listened to by anyone and everyone.

DAY 24: A song by a band I wish were still together - This one is as local as it gets. Zero Degré Celsius is a seminal indie band from Moncton (I even went to university with some of the musicians), who are apparently planning a comeback show, but regardless, they haven't recorded together in decades. Petitcodiac (named after the "Chocolate River" we have here) is an anthem to cultural resistance in the face of Anglo dominance.

DAY 25: A song I like by an artist no longer living - I'm a big fan of Frank Zappa's live stuff, and the You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore CD series offered me a wealth of material from across Frank's entire career. The first volume remains my favorite, and I'm going to recommend the 20-minute live Don't Eat the Yellow Snow, which includes (in addition to great performances from all musicians involved) a strange series of impromptu poetry readings thanks to a demented audience member.

DAY 26: A song that makes me want to fall in love - The first song I remember thinking was deeply romantic (must've been coming of age) is Hello, Again by Neil Diamond. Still works.

DAY 27: A song that breaks my heart - As opposed to making me sad? Come on, Challenge, you're repeting yourself. But from Due South, I love love love (and cannot sing all the way through without my voice breaking) Ride Forever, written and performed by Canadian triple-threat Paul Gross.

DAY 28: A song by an artist whose voice I love - That describes Marina and the Diamonds for me. I love how she can go from deep to high in a single note and the effects she very naturally creates. One of the songs that perhaps best showcases this is I Am Not a Robot.

DAY 29: A song I remember from my childhood - Okay Challenge. Haven't we done this one before? Or are my preteen years substantially different from my childhood? AND you asked for a 70s song which covers the same era. (See my conclusion for an over-reaction to this.) Well, ok, let's go as early as I can. Like before I was sent to school. We didn't really listen to children's records then, but to us, singers like Jos Dassin and Dalida had memorable songs we would easily learn, so they played round the clock. One strong memory I have is that Jos Dassin's greatest hits album skipped and my dad lost his cool and smashed it before our teary eyes. He replaced it the next week, thankfully. So yeah, I'm gonna go with Jos Dassin's L'été indien (Indian Summer); it just sounds the best to me in this moment, and has that neat spoken part at the front.

DAY 30: A song that reminds me of myself - I considered some kind of geek anthem for this spot, but in the end chose I Quit my Job by Nova Scotian banjo maestro Old Man Luedecke which perfectly encapsulates my philosophy when it comes to the grind that most people call employment. And when I DID quit my job? You can bet I played that thing at the end of the work day. Loudly.

I gotta say, for a meme that's been going around for almost 10 years, there are a lot of redundancies in there. If I were to create a 30-Day Song Challenge myself, it would look quite different. And in fact, that's exactly what's gonna happen. Come back in a couple weeks some time for 30 much more interesting categories (at least for geeks)!