30 Day Song Challenge: 30

Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year.

Oneohtrix Point Never - "Hyperdawn"

I was actually sad enough to go into my last.fm page and look up what I was listening to in April last year because I couldn't think of what to put for this one. There wasn't really any one artist or song I listened to significantly more than any other. So I looked at what I listened to on April 30th last year, just to be really pedantic. Turns out I listened to a lot of Oneohtrix Point Never that day, so I've picked my favourite song from the album "Rifts." Enjoy.

(Sadly the sound quality of tis vid isn't great, but it's the only vid I can find on YouTube for it, so it has to do. Listen anyway, it's a fucking great track.)

and with that, we are done. Sorry if this whole thing got tedious. I hope there were enough songs you liked to make it worth it.

30 Day Song Challenge: 29

Day 29: A song from your childhood.

MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This"

The first album I ever bought was MC Hammer's "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em" when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I got it on cassette. The album has a song on it called "She's Soft And Wet." I had no idea what it meant, I genuinely thought it must be about someone who was caught out in the rain or something. People always think I'm joking when I say that, but I was 9 or 10. What else was I gonna think it was about?

Anyway, I played that album a hell of a lot. I loved it, and of course this was the song I loved the most off it. Still makes me smile a bit when I hear it.

30 Day Song Challenge: 26, 27 & 28.

Day 26: A song that you can play on an instrument.

Day 27: A song that you wish you could play.

Day 28: A song that makes you feel guilty.

Okay. I can't play an instrument, which means that pretty much every song I like is one I wish I could play.

And, a song that makes me feel guilty?! What?! That is one of the most stupid things I have ever read.

30 Day Song Challenge: 25

Day 25: A song that makes you laugh.

Ivor Cutler - "Bicarbonate Of Chicken"

I love Ivor Cutler. Poet, humourist, musician, etc, he is a legend and an idol of mine. This song is possibly my favourite of his. My poetry tutor at college in an effort to get me into poetry lent me some Ivor Cutler albums. The first one I listened to was 'Jammy Smears' which this is the first track of. The rest as they say, is history. Enjoy.

30 Day Song Challenge: 23 & 24.

Day 23: A song that you want to play at your wedding.

Day 24: A song that you want to play at your funeral.

I'm really getting quite bored of this "Challenge" right now. The categories have just become annoying and vague. I don't know the answers to these.

30 Day Song Challenge: 20, 21 & 22.

Day 20: A song you listen to when you're angry.
Day 21: A song you listen to when you're happy.

Day 22: A song you listen to when you're sad.

These would be pretty subjective and depending on what mood I was in at the time. Especially angry and sad. my choice would depend on whether I wanted to stay angry or sad, or whether I was trying to cheer myself up. I can't seem to answer these at the moment.

30 Day Song Challenge: 19

Day 19: A song from your favourite album.

Spiritualized - "Broken Heart"

I could never decide on one definite album that I preferred over all others. I would answer differently depending on what day you asked me. One of my favourites was Spiritualized's "Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space." When Sweet G took me to see them performing this album at the Barbican about a year and a half ago now, it was pretty much the best gig ever and cemented this album as the one above all others in my mind. I adore this album. Utterly adore it. I don't think I have a favourite song from it, I think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and it's the album as a whole taken as one piece of work that is simply phenomenal, but I think this probably works best as a song to be singled out of the context of the rest of the album.

30 Day Song Challenge: 18

Day 18: A song that you wish you heard on the radio.

The Unthanks - "Gan To The Kye"

What? That's a really dumb category. Okay, well I'm just gonna say this because I'm a little obsessed with this song at the moment. It's the first song from their new album 'Last' and I think it's an absolutely beautiful song. I especially love the strings.

I have no idea what happened with the previous posts. I appear to have been saving them rather than publishing them, like some sort of massive eejit. They're all up now anyway.

30 Day Song Challenge: 17

Day 17: A song that you hear often on the radio.

Cee-Lo Green - "Bright Lights Bigger City"

I don't listen to the radio very often, but I seem to hear this quite a lot when I do. I quite like it, but the chorus really reminds me of the chorus of the song "In The Crossfire" by Starsailor. Can anyone else hear it or is it just me?

30 Day Song Challenge: 16

Day 16: A song that you used to love but now hate.

Can't think of one for this either. I'll have to come back to this aswell.

Two days in a row. That's not very good, is it?

30 Day Song Challenge: 15

Day 15: A song that describes you.

I genuinely can't think of one. I'll have to come back to this one.

30 Day Song Challenge: 14

Day 14: A song that no one would expect you to love.

Mariah Carey - "Vision Of Love"

Pretty sure I covered this yesterday, but okay.

I don't care what anyone says, this song is AWESOME. THAT FINAL THIRD! LISTEN TO THAT! IT'S GREAT!

I shouldn't have started this challenge. I'm in serious danger of losing all my followers.

30 Day Song Challenge: 13

Day 13: A song that is a guilty pleasure.

Katy Perry - "Teenage Dream"

I try not to have guilty pleasures as I don't really see why I should be embarrassed by liking something. I still have them though, as it's a state of mind I can't quite get out of. And I think Katy Perry can't write lyrics for shit, but I love the chorus of this song, especially when she sings the line "Don't ever look back." I dunno, there's just something about it that I really like.

30 Day Song Challenge: 12

Day 12: A song form a band you hate.

Status Quo - "In The Army Now"

I fucking hate Status Quo. I fucking hate this song. Don't listen to it. It's horrible.

30 Day Song Challenge: 11

Day 11: A song from your favourite band.

Radiohead - "Pyramid Song"

Bloody Hell. I have a fair few favourite bands, but I've gone for the band that have probably most consistently been one of my favourite bands since I was about 15. I think this is my favourite song by them. Although now I say that I'm not certain. It's definitely one of my favourites. I just love the slightly haunting quality of it. I think it's really powerful.

30 Day Song Challenge: 10

Day 10: A song that makes you fall asleep.

Bill Hicks - "Gays In The Military"

I don't really have a song that makes me fall asleep. If I'm on my own, and especially when I was growing up, I wouldn't be able to get to sleep because my mind would become full of weird and often morbid thoughts. That makes me sound like a psycho, but trust me, I'm not. Anyway, to stop me from thinking, I would usually fall asleep listening to comedy, so although it's not a song, it's something that helps me to sleep. I wouldn't say it makes me sleep though; It just helps.

30 Day Song Challenge: 9

Day 9: A song that you can dance to.

Duck Sauce - "aNYway"

I sort of already covered this with Day 3, but I didn't want to repeat myself, so chose this instead.

I LOVE this track. The first time I heard it was on my birthday in 2009 at the Youthmovies last ever gig afterparty when Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs was djing in the basement at Foals' old house in Jericho (fucking check me out name-dropping like a total wanker) and I danced so hard. On a chair. It was totally awesome. That was a great night.

30 Day Song Challenge: 8

Day 8: A song that you know all the words to.

Pulp - "Seductive Barry"

There are probably a few others, but I chose this song because a) it is one of my all time favourite songs, and b) it contains my favourite song lyric of all time:

"I will light your cigarette with a star that has fallen from the sky.

Breathe in, breathe out, I love the way you move,

don't let anyone tell you any different tonight.

You are beauty, you are class, yeah you showed it all,

but you still kept a little piece back just for me."

Gets me every time. That is just phenomenal.

Anyway, here's the song.

30 Day Song Challenge: 7

Day 7: A song that reminds you of a certain event.

Flight of the Conchords - "The Most Beautiful Girl (In The Room)"

This song reminds me of mine and Sweet G's mates Hamu & Naomi's wedding. Me and the G had a right old comedy dance to this that made our mates laugh quite a lot. It was fun. Godd wedding, that one.

30 Day Song Challenge: 6

Day 6: A song that reminds you of somewhere.
Beth Orton - 'I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine'
This song reminds me of Grenoble in France. I went there when I was 17 for a trip when I was involved with the Pegasus Theatre's youth group. We devised a piece and went to perform it in Grenoble. We spent about 8 days there. At that time I was pretty much constantly listening to either 'Kind Of Blue' by Miles Davis, or 'Trailer Park' by Beth Orton. This song was the one I kept getting stuck in my head. It was kind of stuck in my head for the whole visit. I simultaneously loved and hated that trip for various reasons, but as an experience it is something that will always stay with me. Every time I hear this song, I remember Grenoble.



(This is the least obnoxious fan video I could find for it on YouTube)

30 Day Song Challenge: 5

Day 5: A song that reminds you of someone.

"The Girl Is Mine" by Michael Jackson featuring Paul McCartney.

Reminds me of my old best friend from primary and middle school, David Savage. He had the "Thriller" album on tape and when I went round to his house, we would often act out some of the songs, specifically this song and "Thriller" itself. David would always be Michael Jackson and I was always Paul McCartney, and we would mime the song to each other pretending we were arguing over a woman.

So when you listen to this song now, imagine two boys aged between about 8 and 10 pretending to fight over a girl who doesn't exist. Awww, how cute.

P.S. For the song "Thriller" I had to be the guy who does the narration bit. As he only really appears at the end, for the bulk of the song I had to pretend to be someone who was really scared of David/Michael Jackson.

30 Day Song Challenge: 4

As I'm doing NaPoWriMo on my other blog (http://paulaskew.tumblr.com/), I'm doing this on here so this blog doesn't get ignored for a month.

Day 4: A song that makes you sad.

'Selective Memory' by Eels.

I find this song absolutely heartbreaking.

30 Day Song Challenge: 3

As I'm doing NaPoWriMo on my other blog (http://paulaskew.tumblr.com/) , I'm doing this on here.

Day 3: A song that makes you happy.

'House Of Jealous Lovers' by The Rapture.

This song never fails to put a smile on my face. I once danced so hard to this song that I gave myself a really bad asthma attack and had to sit down for about 20 minutes until I could breathe again. And that was with the use of my Ventolin. THAT is how happy this song makes me; it turns me into a health hazzard.

30 Day Song Challenge: 2

As I'm doing NaPoWriMo on my other blog (http://paulaskew.tumblr.com/) , I'm doing this on here.

Day 2: Your least favourite song.

'Stop The Cavalry' by Jona Lewie.

Every Christmas, this gets played everywhere, and I FUCKING HATE IT!! There is not one single good thing about this song. It has no redeeming feature whatsoever. I REALLY FUCKING HATE IT!!!!

30 Day Song Challenge: 1

There's a thing called the '30 Day Song Challenge' that loads of people are clogging up Facebook with. I wanted to do it when only about one or two people were doing it, but now so many people are doing it that about half of my news feed is people putting up music videos. Which is kind of annoying.

On my other blog (http://paulaskew.tumblr.com/), I'm trying to take part in NaPoWriMo, which means I probably won't be writing anything on here for the whole of April, so I thought I would do the 30 Day Song Challenge on here.

Day 1: Your Favourite Song.

'Dayvan Cowboy' by Boards Of Canada.

This is a song I never get bored of. In my mind it is perfect. I love the video for it too (even if it does cut about half a minute out of the song).