Song Challenge Day 11: A Song From My Favorite Band

Again with the favorite this or that.  It's kind of irritating to think that I'm supposed to be limited to one.  So I'll simply go with the most recent band whose music I've come to really appreciate.  Mumford and Sons has been around for a couple of years, but it seems like they've only recently been blipping on the radars, most recently with "Little Lion Man".  It's a great song, but not the song I've chosen for this day.  Instead, I'm going with the song that's just before it on their album, "I Gave You All".  If you haven't heard it, you need to.  Really the whole "Sigh No More" album is fantastic, full of emotion and passionate in its lyrics and its sound.

Song Challenge Day 10: A Song That Makes Me Fall Asleep

Like most of my friends, and many, many other people, I thoroughly enjoyed the Lord of the Rings films.  One of the great things about the films was the music, and while the title track to this final film is great, and definitely a sleeper, it's not a song, because it doesn't have lyrics.  Fortunately, at the end of the final film, we are treated to a beautiful song by Annie Lennox.  "Into the West" is an amazing song, and when I hear it I want to drift off into a blissful, dream-filled sleep and awaken fresh the next day.

Speaking of blissful, dream-filled sleep, would you look at the time...

Song Challenge Day 9: A Song That I Can Dance To

In college, for part of my PE requirements, I took swing dancing.  It worked out schedule-wise, I'd always thought it smart to know some form of ballroom dance, and with the girl to guy ratio heavily in my favor, I went with it.  I haven't really done it in 5 years, but there's nothing like Glenn Miller Band to get me back "In the Mood".  Great song, great dancing, great times.

Plus, you know, "In the Mood" has another meaning...

Song Challenge Day 8: A Song That I Know All the Words To

When it comes to songs I know the words to, well, I know a lot of them, but never off the top of my head.  People who know me know I can take a song and modify the words to fit the current situation, but usually the song I want usually just pops into my head at that time.

To pick a song that I know all of the words to, I scrolled through my iTunes library (in the process realizing there are SO many songs I know of that aren't in my library...), and found the ones that I'd be able to play "Don't Forget the Lyrics" on, and decided that's how I can determine if I know all the words to the song or not.  Problem is, I saw a lot of songs that I knew the choruses to, without really knowing the verses.

Then I saw Flogging Molly's "Worst Day Since Yesterday", and it clicked.  Now I realize there aren't a TON of words in the song, but oh well, I know them all, and it's my challenge.

Funny story, at least to me.  I was driving to work one morning, I had this song playing, and just as the line "as the four winds blow my wits through the door", I passed a school bus, and written on the side was "Four Winds".  I smiled.

Song Challenge Day 7: Song That Reminds Me of a Certain Event

When I was in 5th grade (at least I THINK it was 5th grade, but it may have been 4th), our choir teacher (again, I THINK it was choir, but maybe it was just music in general) decided we should have a lip-sync competition.  Now, I wasn't as popular then as I am today, which I know is hard to believe.  I was so un-popular that you would probably have categorized me as a 'loser'.  I really only remember my best friend from those years, who lived just up the street from me.  Oh, back to the story...

We were told to form teams.  Sadly, my best friend was already in another team, and without really having a lot of other friends, or any I guess, I was left to be in a group with other, ahem, 'losers'.  We were a sorry bunch of four, and somehow it was decided that I was the 'leader' of the group.  So I picked the song we were going to lip sync.  I should point out that at this stage in my life, all I really knew were cheesy educational songs, and oldies, as my mom loves oldies and that's pretty much all we listened to in the car.  So I decided to do "My Girl", by The Temptations.  I think this was around the time, or shortly after, the movie of the same title came out, which while I never saw it, may have had an impact, but who knows, and I digress.

So myself and my three other 'loser' teammates 'performed' (I really like using single quotes in this post, don't I?) our song, and it went as expected.  It wasn't just bad, it was horrendous.  Four guys, standing on a stage with less movement than four-hundred-year-old trees, lip-syncing about a girl when there was no girl present.  In hindsight, we could have done better, but that was then, and this is now, and I'm a way cooler person now, thanks to college (or maybe my senior year of high school, or some combination of the two).

Anyway, it if it wasn't painfully obvious, the song that reminds me of a certain event is "My Girl", by the Temptations.  Plus, in the not-so-distant past, I was within spitting distance of one of the Temptations, which is its own event.  Double-whammy for this song!

Song Challenge Day 6: Song That Reminds Me of Somewhere

Growing up, one of my favorite summer activities was going to camp.  I was ten when I first attended, and went to Mt. Aetna Camp in Maryland.  I was in the 'Mohican' cabin, with counselor TJ.  Kevan was also in the cabin, but I can't remember if he was teaching TJ how to be a counselor, or if he just stayed in the cabin for lack of other housing, but Kevan was my cousin Becky's boyfriend (and now husband), and while I remember very little about that week at camp, I do remember riding on Kevan's shoulders one night and talking about Becky, and he expressed how much he loved her.  Now he's related, ha.  I also recall the high-dive that one of my cabin mates did a belly flop off of, and buying balsa wood planes at the camp store.  I also remember the theme song of the week, which was Rich Mullens's "Awesome God", and every time I hear that song, I think about Mt. Aetna Camp.

That was the only week that I attended that particular camp, as our family moved the following year, and I started going to a different camp in Michigan, Camp Au Sable, that I attended for the next 5 or so years, sometimes for two or three weeks a summer, and ended up working there for three summers while in college.

Song Challenge Day 5: Song That Reminds Me of Someone

It's not often that a song reminds me of a person.  Often when I hear a song, my mind goes to where I first heard it, or where I'd hear it most often.  Sometimes people I know are in those memories, but it's more about a location or setting rather than a person or people.

There are a few songs that remind me of people though.  Jet's "Look What You've Done" reminds me of my friend Christina, not for lyrics or song meaning or anything, but because I recall driving along with her and having the song come on either the radio or my iPod, and we both liked the song and realized we had similar music tastes.

Honorable mention goes to anything by Rob Thomas, as it reminds me of my friend Rob, who looked like Rob Thomas, until he passed a way a couple of years ago.  I'm guessing he doesn't look like Rob Thomas anymore.