The Soundtrack to My Life

My ingenious fellow blogger, Geoffrey, recently posted a soundtrack to his life. Unfortunately, you can't read it, because his blog is protected, but it was still a good idea that I would like to emulate.

I often tell people I come with my own personal soundtrack, because I can't stop whistling, humming, and singing (that's when I'm not narrating to myself). These songs mostly consist of the Chicken Dance, the Sailor's Hornpipe, Für Elise, Frère Jacques, and Hungarian Dance #5, sometimes all in one amazing extended mix that would make any DJ proud. But if you wanted to go a little deeper and come up with a soundtrack that was somehow meaningful to my life, rather than just a collection of tunes that happen to be rolling through my head most of the time, you could do that too. It would look something like this.

1. Steve Winwood - Valerie
   There's no better way to begin a soundtrack to your life than with a hearty helping of narcissism. While this song isn't much to get excited over, it does have my name in it! It was also released just a year before my birth, as if to say, "Get ready, world...here she comes!" In a good way.
   
2. The Grass Roots - Temptation Eyes
   While I spent my formative years in the 80's and early 90's, when I reminisce about the music of my childhood, I mostly think of stuff from the 60's and 70's. We did a lot of listening to the oldies in my household, and I do believe that "Temptation Eyes" was my brother's favorite song for a while. I even have this recollection of the entire family sitting around the fireplace listening to the Oldies station while he successfully requested this song. Of course, I might be making this all up.
   
3. The Hollies - Bus Stop
   Part of the reason I have so many golden oldies in my repertoire is my dad's band, the Harmony Hogs, who specialized in covers of songs from their own good old days. Daddy spent many an evening rehearsing these songs in my presence. While I'd like to say that one song holds more significance for me than any other, this is really just an arbitrary selection. In fact, it's a particularly inapt one, since it's a completely implausible love song that holds no bearing on any aspect of my real life. Except that sometimes it rains.
   
4. George Harrison - Dream Away
   As I was a weird child, it is only natural that my favorite movie was a weird movie—Time Bandits. And this song is its theme song. Although the cool instrumental introduction is part of the thrill, if you find it too boring, skip to the middle where the pace picks up and there's singing!
   
5. The End Credits to Super Mario World
   In recent years, I've developed a love for video game music. Especially games that figured strongly in my childhood—like Super Mario World! The best thing about this video is, if you skip to 1:40, you can watch all the Yoshis hatch! I think nothing will ever make me quite as happy as Yoshi.
   
6. The Real McCoy - Another Night Another Dream
   When I wasn't jamming to the oldies, I was usually listening to whatever happened to be playing on the radio. I wasn't very interested in popular music back then, but when I slowly began paying attention to it 5 years later or so, it all came back in a flood of memories. For me, The Real McCoy (with that ridiculous bass voice interjecting raps in the middle of the song) will always epitomize the 90's. And trips to the mall in Bowling Green for haircuts and fun with the Girl Scouts.
   
7. Weezer - Buddy Holly
   If The Real McCoy are my poster children for 90's dance music, Weezer play the same role for rock. Buddy Holly and The Sweater Song instantly evoke memories of riding around in a minivan, a vacation to Florida, and...candy corn? Those were my golden years. It was all downhill from there.
   
8. Kitaro - Sacred Journey II
   As an introduction to the end of youthful happiness and the beginning of my painful first encounters with the Real World, I'd like to share a song that can both signify limitless bliss and bottomless sadness. Songs that can do that are truly powerful, and my favorite kind of music. This is one of those songs.

Although this is only half of a good album, I'm going to stop here because 16+ songs are a lot to listen to at one time, and a whole lot to write about! Stay tuned for the other side (if this album were vinyl instead of YouTube).