30 Day Song Challenge - Day 27

Today calls for A song that you wish you could play. Though there are many songs I wish I could play, I think this is top of the list. I know I will never be able to play it, and I just love the way it sounds. It is Canadee-i-o by Nic Jones, a folk song from Labrador.



Luckily for me, there is a slightly more achievable version - and it is on octave mandolin! This is from Jon Boden's folk song a day project, and the guy playing is Dan Plews


A folk Song A Day - Jon Boden - Canadee-io & Bold Sir Rylas from edward cooper on Vimeo.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 26

Day 26 is A song that you can play on an instrument. Well, it isn't really a song, it's a dance tune, and it is my absolute favourite thing to play on the cello.

This version is performed by Mischa Maisky who, it has to be said, has some fantastic hair.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 25

I'm awful, I know. Let's get on with day 25 - A song that makes you laugh. Many songs make me laugh, for many reasons - they could be comedy songs, or they could be so bad that they are just hilarious! I've gone for the first one that popped into my head.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 24

Gosh, it's been a while, hasn't it? It's so hard to believe it has been 2 weeks since I was in England. I'm currently doing summer courses, which is a new experience for me, and is a lot more intense than I had imagined. I'm two weeks in and I already have midterms and papers rearing their ugly heads because the courses have been condensed from an entire semester into 6 weeks!
I have been spending the past few weeks firstly enjoying my time at home, then moving and settling into both my apartment for the summer and my timetable, but I'm back now, so I will hopefully be doing a bit of blogging.
Today's description gave me some trouble A song that you want to play at your funeral. How do you come up with that? Most of the songs I thought about seemed terribly self-indulgent or overly miserable, but I think I have chosen one which satisfies me. Rather than being about me, it would be to thank my friends for being there throughout my life :)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 23

I think there may be some delays with the 30 Day Song Challenge for the next week or so - I am home and have lots of fun things to do and lovely weather, and my internet access is sporadic at best! Today is May Day and some of my friends and I went to join the May morning celebrations in Oxford. I will post a full account in the next few days - I took so many photos, I ought to share some of them - but I had a brilliant time, and I am so happy to be back in Oxfordshire for the moment. Until I went away to Vancouver I took this place for granted, but now I really appreciate what a wonderful place this is to grow up and live. I can't see myself staying anywhere else for too long!

So, back to the challenge - today is a song that you want to play at your wedding. I haven't given too much thought to how I would want my wedding to be, but I think romantic songs are generally appropriate, so I have chosen a song that I think is very romantic.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 22

I'm on my way home! I'm currently sitting in the airport looking out at the runway, waiting for my plane :). In the meantime, here is day 22 of the 30 day song challenge - a song that you listen to when you are sad.
This song is also good for travelling and going to sleep, so I will probably end up listening to it on the plane later!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 21

Today is a song that you listen to when you are happy. Today I am very happy because I am finally finished with exams and I am off for a week at home tomorrow! This came on my iPod today and made me smile. To me it is a song for sunny, chilled out days - bring on the summer!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 20

I did it again! I wrote the post but forgot to publish it! Silly billy!

Today's song description is A song that you listen to when you're angry. When I'm angry I tend to have a very low tolerance for upbeat music, but every so often there is a kick-ass song that just makes you feel better when you listen to it, and this is one of those songs. I've gone for Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds.

(Beware! Language!)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 19

Today's description is a song from your favourite album. The album I have gone for is Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, since it was the first album I actually loved as an 'album' rather than a bunch of songs I liked. Now, in no way was I alive when this record came out, my love for Fleetwood Mac is definitely my parents' doing, so a big thank you to them for introducing me to one of my favourite bands!
and yes, I know that Rumours is everyone's favourite album, and therefore a bit of a boring choice, but there is a reason so many people love this album and that is that it is amazing. The combination of three main singers and songwriters means that the sound is incredibly varied, and the anguish that they were all going through at the time runs through the entire album, giving it this unexpected edge. Fab! It was so hard to choose a single song, since one song could never sum up the entire album, so I have cheated and gone for one song from each of the three main songwriters
first up, Stevie Nicks


Next, Lindsey Buckingham


and last but not least, Christine McVie









Ohhhh, and let's have one from all of them! I have no restraint tonight, I've just had about 5 long island iced teas!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 18

The description for today is A song that you wish you heard often on the radio. Well, an awful lot of the songs I love are the sorts of songs that you just don't hear on normal radio programmes, so it is hard to select just one. I did another search-through-my-iPod-until-I-find-something-suitable job, and this is what I came up with!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 17

Day 17 is A song you hear often on the radio. The only radio show I can really make time to listen to at the moment is Adam and Joe on 6Music, and they rarely play the same song twice. However the last two times I've been in the car with the radio on, this song came on. I was pretty happy about it too, as I love it! It makes me really happy to see genuinely talented singers like Jessie J and Adele topping the charts, as they are at the moment :)

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 16

Today calls for A song you used to love but now hate. It was quite difficult to think of one for this - songs usually tend to grow on me, and I tend to keep a soft spot for songs I liked when I was younger.
I have managed to come up with one though - Teenagers by My Chemical Romance. For some reason, for a short while in my life, this song spoke to me in some way. I don't know whether I was going through an angry phase or what, but I was a teenager and this is a song about teenagers.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 15

Whoops! I was so out of it last night - I wrote this post but forgot to publish it! I'll make up for it by posting two today!
Sorry my posts have been so brief lately, I have been cramming furiously for the past few days! My next (and last!) exam isn't until next week, so I am looking forward to doing something other than revision (namely, packing up all my stuff to move out of here) for a little bit.
Today's description is A song that describes you. This was hard. I have become convinced that musicians don't really write songs about people like me! Or rather, if they do, they write about aspects of myself that I don't particularly want to broadcast over the internet...
I've gone for Battery Human by Stornoway. I've certainly felt like this for the past few weeks - the combination of rain and revision has left me inside all day, chained to my computer and drowning in bits of paper! I intend to spend all summer outside to make up for it!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 14

A song that no-one would expect you to love.  Well I have no idea what people expect of me, but I think if you only knew my music tastes from what I put up on this blog, you probably wouldn't expect me to like this

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 13

Today is A song that is a guilty pleasure. I definitely have plenty of those - I am a huge power-ballad fan! However I haven't gone for a power ballad today, I have chosen Star Girl by McFly. I know, shameful - but isn't that the point of a guilty pleasure?

My favourite bit is when they say "there was nothing on earth that could save us when I fell in love with Uranus". Yes, I am very mature.

30 Day song Challenge - Day 12

Just a quick one today - today is supposed to be a song from a band you hate. Not sure I hate any bands (except possibly Kate Nash) but there are plenty I don't like, or that annoy me. One of the things that annoys me about some songs is the artist's attitude towards women, and also euphemisms that are so obvious they kind of cease to be euphemisms. Today's song encompasses both of these.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 11

Day 11 is A song from your favourite band. Yet another difficult one! I'm not sure I have one favourite band, as there are many that I adore, so I've gone for a band who's music I have been listening to a lot lately, and, well, I've listened to them a lot since I first came across them a few years ago.
Today's song is by Sigur Rós, from the first album of theirs I bought - Takk, and the song is Sæglópur, which translates as "lost at sea".



incidentally, what happens at 4:10 is part of the reason I am terrified of seaweed!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 10

Today's description is quite fitting for how I feel today - A song that makes you fall asleep. It was also a very easy choice. I've gone for Silent Sigh by Badly Drawn Boy, although it isn't the particular song that makes me fall asleep, but the album it is taken from, the soundtrack to About A Boy.
Around the time the film came out, my sister bought the soundtrack. It proved very popular with my whole family, and we would listen to it in the car. I distinctly remember a time that we went to visit my family in Co. Durham - one day, this CD was playing as we were driving back to my Grandparents' house from my Uncle's house. Suddenly a song came on that I had never heard before. I was completely puzzled - we had had the CD for months, and I had listened to it many times... Only then it dawned on me - I had only ever listened to it at night, or on long car journeys, and I had always fallen asleep halfway through!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 9

Today's song description is A song that you can dance to. I feel that this needs to be accompanied by a disclaimer - I cannot dance. I have the sense of rhythm, but absolutely no co-ordination or style. So, if by dancing, you mean flailing randomly in an overexcited manner, then this song will make me do that! I would have gone for Do You Love Me by The Contours, but since I mentioned that in an earlier post, I thought I'd go for something else. If you don't at least give a little shimmy when you listen to this, there is something very wrong with you!
So, here it is - I Wish by Stevie Wonder!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 8

Day 8 calls for A song that you know all the words to. Well, this was quite difficult, since I know the words to an awful lot of songs. There is a lot of valuable space in my brain that I could use to store knowledge of chemical thermodynamics or phylum synapomorpies, but instead is taken up by song lyrics. I still remember all the lyrics to every song by the Spice Girls and S Club 7, who I was obsessed with when I was about 6. You get the picture.
Since this was so hard to choose, I basically came up with my selection by skipping through songs on my iPod until I came to one that I really enjoy singing along to. It also happens to be rather nerdy!
I've gone for one of the songs from the Lord of the Rings musical - Lothlorien
I went to see the Lord of the Rings musical with my Dad just before it finished in the West End, and absolutely adored it. We have the CD, of course, and I do know pretty much the entire thing off by heart (yes, including The Cat and the Moon), but this song wins for today, thanks to all those twiddly bits, that bit of elvish at the beginning (told you I was nerdy), but most of all, it's sheer belt-ability!
The beginning bit is Legolas singing, but the main bit is Galadriel, played by the fabulous Laura Michelle Kelly