Flower pickers are everywhere

1.     Song that mentions (at least) one city: Route 66. too easy! I was a big Depeche Mode fan in highschool.

2.     Song from your childhood or song that makes you think of your childhood because of the lyrics: The Bee Gees - What A Fool Believes. Largely because as a kid I had no idea what the lyrics were, so I just made some up. At the time I was living in farm country and taking horseback riding lessons, so I decided the song was about an aging horse with worn out teeth.

3.     X-Mas song - The Pogues - Fairytale of New York. also too easy! come to think of it, this one satisfies question #1 as well!

4.     Song that makes you think of a person that means a lot to you: Live - Lightning Crashes. This past year, my grandma had a health scare and spent some time in hospital, and here I was thousands of miles away feeling powerless and very upset. This song just popped into my head out of the blue because of the lyric "The angel closes her eyes ..." and then I remembered the video where the old lady dies ... and then I bawled my eyes out.

5.     Male/female duet: Iggy Pop and Peaches - Kick It. Kind of like a nasty lovers' quarrel, with guitars.

6.     Song you've formerly misunderstood the lyrics to: Safety Dance. For starters, I thought it was called "Safe To Dance" ... and then there's the poetic lyric, "Everybody look at your pants."

7.     Song with 'rock n roll' or 'rock' or 'roll' in the title: The Donnas - You're No Rock N' Roll Fun. A song about overly intellectual musicians who would rather sit around writing songs than party with other bands.

8.     Song that comforts you: Loreena McKennitt - Cymbeline/Fear No More. One of those funereal Celtic ballads about how the dead have passed beyond this world's pain. I like to sing it at memorial ceremonies.

9.     Song with a hidden meaning (like sex, drugs etc): Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners. Okay, so maybe the song itself has no hidden meaning, but the band name ... I have it on good authority that dexedrine was the poor man's drug of choice in the British Isles in the 70s & 80s, and musicians used to smuggle it over to Ireland while on tour.

10.   Cover song (that you like more than the original): definitely not Route 66. How about ... Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal. Definitely.

11.   Song you used to hate/not like but grew to love/like: hmm ... this is a tough one ... usually it's the other way around for me, where a song I liked on first listen turned out to be painful after a few more listens. I guess any of the "new" Radiohead ... Kid A, Amnesiac and In Rainbows, were all hard to get into, but I stuck at it because I knew I would love the music once I understood it. and I do!

And for extra credit ...

12. An instrumental song: Fatima Mansions - More Smack, Vicar? It sounds ... like it sounds.

Alas, the link for actual listenables will have to come later ... I had to go to a public computer to publish this journal because for some reason they don't always publish from home ... and now I have to go home and make you guys a playlist.