So, the 30 Day Song Challenge is sweeping Facebook at the moment, and as with many of my friends, I spent a spare few hours pondering such existential questions as “But what song defines *me* as a person?” and “What does *guilt* really mean in this context?”. From this, the list below was produced. There’s more than 30 songs, I didn’t do it in thirty days, whether a Wii game counts as a song is rather dubious, but it was definitely a challenge. And here’s (what I consider to be) some ace music.

This article is in three parts, and the second part will be published tomorrow.

day 01 – your favorite song

It was a cold, clear night in Bradford when I first heard DJ Tiesto’s remix of Adagio for Strings by Barber. And I kinda hated it for bastardising what I considered to be a truly epic game soundtrack. Then I went and listened to it again a few days later and got obsessed. Since then I have listened to it hundreds of times and it just doesn’t get old.

day 02 – your least favorite song

I hate Travis’ Why Does It Always Rain On Me sufficiently that I refused to listen to it when trying to find a Youtube recording. Apologies therefore, if you get rickrolled. Setting aside the fact that the lyrics are nonsensical and the lead singer couldn’t sound more bored if he tried, the last sentence of the chorus missing off the final “me” drives me in a mental open loop of absolute craziness every time. JUST SAY ME.

day 03 – a song that makes you happy

Yay, it’s a really nice happy song about how much the singer loves his family. Yay.

day 04 – a song that makes you sad

Martina McBride has a very beautiful voice, and some powerful lyrics to an equally powerful video about domestic violence and child abuse. It makes me miserable every time I watch though, so I try not to do it very often.

day 05 – a song that reminds you of someone

Sam O’Connor. 2009. Vodka. Nuff said.

John Barrowman is a meanie and won’t let me embed his music videos. :(

day 06 – a song that reminds you of somewhere

In October 2006, I was sitting in my step-dad’s car waiting to go to my admissions interview at the University of Cambridge. An extremely bad quality rendition of Fallout Boy’s This Ain’t a Scene crackled down the radio, but I got the point. Unfortunately I couldn’t explain the motivations behind 19th century spiritual movements adequately, and I ended up at the University of Manchester instead. But I got a great song and a hell of a life of activism instead of studying, so I guess it worked out.

day 07 – a song that reminds you of a certain event

I cannot go into detail about what event made the Lloyds TSB Dubstep Remix significant to me, though you may be able to guess from the genre, but suffice to say it was a very odd evening. Definitely at its best played at 5am with bass speakers in student halls though.

day 08 – a song that you know all the words to

Dating back to the days when I was obsessed with Bowling for Soup and they hadn’t deteriorated after A Hangover You Don’t Deserve, Girl All the Bad Guys Want is (along with the Gas Man Cometh by Flanders and Swann) the only track that I can remember the entire lyrics, tune, and musical breaks to.

day 09 – a song that you can dance to

Brighton, 2008, Legends, Bradford LGBT Big Gay Roadtrip. We got Low. :D

day 10 – a song that makes you fall asleep

I assume that by this is mean “a song you can fall asleep to”, but My World by Avril Lavigne does actually have the power to send me to sleep. By sheer historical accident, but one which I would imagine many would find intensely ironic, I happened to buy Avril Lavigne’s Let Go album at the same time as having a massive bout of insomnia. As the type of music fan that tends to play the same music over and over again for a month before moving onto something else, it became a habit to play all the way through as I was trying to fall asleep. Several weeks of Pavlovian training later, I now cannot listen to any song on the album with suddenly feeling very sleepy…

Tune in tomorrow for songs 11-20.

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