30 Day Song Challenge - Day Twelve ... A song that make you want to have sex ...

Fuck, I'm so far behind ! Ah well.

See, here's the thing. Let's not be bashful about it - for a lot of us, music and sex are wrapped up all together. You can bet your house that the first songs ever grunted by cave men were about two things - their prowess as a hunter and that sweet little bit of cave girl tush they wanted to drag off by the hair. All my big crushes as a teenager were on musicians (and none you'd likely expect either.) My first two boyfriends I met at school because we were into music and involved in musical projects at school. First long relationship was with a dj. My fiance is a guitar player. All of my important relationships have been with people who were musical in some way (or who wanted to be). So you see where I'm coming from - attraction is fairly entwined with a shared love of music for me. I don't think I could get it on with someone who didn't love music. So it follows that music, being linked to attraction for me, is also going to be linked with sex.

I can totally see the attraction groupies (of either sex) have for musicians - I know some of them are in it to get bragging rights and further their own careers, but in the sense of the word "groupie" meaning "person who loves the music of an artist and wishes to encounter them sexually", I totally see why. Just as well I a) wasn't born in the sixties, when groupies really got serious and were more often than not actively encouraged by bands because I'd have probably been a total slut and b) happen to be musical myself, so I don't need to hang around with bands as a groupie to get close to musicians. And of course most importantly c) already have a musician of my own to encounter sexually, ta very much. ;)

So, back to the plot. I could pick most anything from my mp3 collection and say it would likely make me want to have sex should the opportunity be presented and my man be around (and sometimes even if those two criteria are not met ---- I can always wait until they are. ;) ). I think as far as genres go, ballady country music, oompah bands and happy hardcore are big turn off for me, but I don't own any tracks featuring the last two genres (but I do have a bit o' country hanging about). So - what to pick ? I could pick a hundred blues standards. They certainly seem to do it for me. But that would be boring because anyone reading any of these entries will know I like the blues. Or pretty much anything by Jeff Healey or Gary Moore (thought a fair bit of that would be blues standards). So I am going to pick something in a different style from a band who I'm not a big fan of otherwise and I wouldn't even know in the street if they slapped me - but it is mostly the guitar that does it for me on this track (the feedback squeal at the end of the first verse in particular - dirty !) so maybe I've not made such a different choice at all.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Nine ... a song that reminds you of an ex

Ah well, what a cornucopia of tracks I would have to choose from here. Fortunately, bad exes (I've had a few) don't necessarily means bad songs associated with them. And I can hardly refer to "good" exes, for two reasons - one, I don't actually have more than one or two (those that I would count as good exes - i.e. people I wouldn't want to hit with a brick - hark from many years ago when I was in my early teens) and two, the smart woman does not speak too highly of her past beaus in front of her new man if she knows what's good for her .... and I certainly know that my man these days is about the best thing ever for me.

Most of my exes don't feature in my thoughts on a daily basis - except for the most annoying and tiresome one, my soon-to-be-ex husband, who I unfortunately have to consider now and again due to still being embroiled legally with the ratbag. I have been trying to divorce him for two and a half years (third time of trying), after he walked out on me over eight years ago. Somehow I must be more important to him still than he is to me however as he insists on making the divorce about as hard as it can be and generally has the morals of a bout of amoebic dysentery. However amoebic dysentery it easier to get shot of and would likely have disappeared by now !

So here it is, a song that could have been written about my feelings for him, such as they are. I'm sure there is a song out there somewhere called "Sign The Papers And Just Fuck Off" or "Ode to a Scumbag", but I don't know such tunes so this will have to do. Ugly Kid Joe's "Everything About You."

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Eight ... A band the popularity of which you will never understand.

This has got to be the easiest one for me so far, and I imagine my choice will get me chased up a tree and shot down in some circles, but there it is. I have never understood the appeal of the Rolling Stones. Granted, they have some good tunes but that's not hard. Granted, they have been going for years, but that's not hard when people will keep paying to see the same old same old. But personally I find that they often were absolute shite live in the early days (IMHO) and Mick Jagger is someone who minces about in such a way that I want to punch him not shag him. I just don't get the appeal.
Rolling Stones songs are, in my opinion, best done by bands and artists other than the Rolling Stones.
I'm not going to bother with any YouTube links (I'm tired) but if you really want to you could go and find some of your own, anything by them will do. I could pretty much say that I don't like it very much.
I'll get me coat ....

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Seven ... One band or singer you are ashamed to admit you like.

Well, I'm not ashamed of any of my musical likes. I was a dj for many years and this gives me a free pass with regards to being allowed to have crap in my collection. When you've done children's parties, weddings and village hall Christmas discos as well as club work it is acceptable to have stuff by Black Lace and Jive Bunny. :) Whether it is publicly acceptable to like (or at least be able to tolerate) that shite is another thing, but I don't care anyway.

So you can imagine - there's lots of stuff in my mp3 folder that many people would look at me oddly for. I'm not ashamed of any of them so I'll have to settle for the thing I think people would most give me ribbing for. I did hover on a little known album release from Bruce Willis (yes, the actor) called "The Return of Bruno" which has gotten me some raised eyebrows in the past, but although I really like it most people don't even know it exists. So public shame isn't really a possibility there.

In the end I've gone for a track that anyone dj'ing the chicken in a basket circuit at the time seems to universally hate, but I still like. It was at number one in the singles charts for sixteen weeks. I must have had it requested a similar amount of times every gig I did. It was guaranteed to get the Erection Section off to a drunken stumbling start and is unquestionably the artist's biggest hit (and he's had some bigguns). From the film "Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves", I give you "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" by Bryan Adams. You'll have to take your own sick bucket over to youtube because the artist has declined to allow embedding of this video. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGoWtY_h4xo

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Six ... Your favourite band

I am well behind now on this. But hey, no problem. I'll just do what I always do and plough on regardless. ;)

I'm not sure if my choice counts as a favourite band. "Band" implies "all parts equal" or at least "all parts necessary" to me. But quite honestly, the other musicians in the band with the man from which this band takes its name could have been replaced by any other competent musicians (sorry, guys) and it would not have matter one iota to me. I would have to settle for favourite artist instead.

I first heard of this artist when I was in my late teens. I saw him in a film that had been out a few years by then, had a bit of a "Hello NURSE !" moment, and at the time had no idea that he pretty much played himself in the movie - this was a time when the internet was not available to the likes of me so the only way of gaining information on artists or celebs was through tv or the newspapers, or writing away to a person's fan club. However a troll of the local HMV's cd section turned up his first album, and off we went down the road of fandom.

Apart from the fact that I have to admit to a large measure of lust at first sight (I like 'em blond and I like 'em blind, it seems, which wouldn't surprise anyone who knows my fiance ;) ) I was pretty blown away by the talent of the man. I have been accused of only liking this artist because he is blind and being visually impaired myself, it seems some sighted peeps assume we will all cling together (us blindos) in some sort of incestuous mass where we only appreciate other visually impaired people. Which is plainly bullshit. And I wasn't visually impaired when I first became a fan - that was a housebrick that the bicycle of my life would hit somewhat further down the road.

Anyway - big fandom here. I never did get to see him live (Darryl did, the lucky git). I'm mostly a fan of his blues rock stuff (though I have heard his jazz material, and like it), and when he died in March 2008 I was genuinely bereft. To be honest I am still. I recognise that unless you meet a person, you can never really know them (and even if you have met them and feel you know them, some people you can never really know at all.) But the musician - the good musician - bears their soul every time they play. Why do we make music in the first place ? To show the world what we are thinking and how we feel. Perhaps this is why I like the blues the most. If one genre can be said to be primarily about the state of your soul, it's the blues. These days blues is a broader genre than it was in years gone by, and often this artist sat on the edge of the genre with his feet sticking more into rock than blues (IMHO). He often said that he did not look kindly upon his earlier work (despite that being the more commercially successful) and that he preferred to be an interpreter of other people's songs than writing his own. I get that entirely. But whatever he did, it still speaks to me. And I am extremely sad that the man is no longer among us and that we will never hear anything new from him. All that talent, all that life, all that joy - all gone. From the tear inducing song ("Rachel's Song") about his daughter (even more heart wrenching now that he is no longer around) and the brave choice of Diane Warren's "I Tried" (string-y ballad which one might expect to find covered on The X Factor), to the utterly brilliant "See The Light" and the total ye-haw joy of his version of "Jambalaya", whatever the man did was fine by me. There is nothing I have heard from him that I didn't like. Not one thing. I never got to see him live but the footage of his concerts and interviews show not only his guitar genius, but his easy stage presence and his wry sense of humour too.

I could go on all day (really) but I should get around to picking my favourite tracks. I'll be here all week if I start to really think about it so I am going to pluck two off the top of my head and be done with it. The first is a live for tv version of the title track from the "See The Light" album. This shows the man at his best I think - utterly unencumbered as a stage performer by his blindness as people often blind from birth often are. Watching him play the guitar .... swoon. Had I ever got the chance in years gone by, I would have climbed all over him like a vine. Ahem...

The second is "Rachel's Song", from the album "Get Me Some". Ignore the addition of someone else's visuals - it's the only online version I could find of the song. Just turn your screen off and listen.

For the uninitiated, may I present to you the late and extremed lamented Jeff Healey.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Five ... Your favourite female singer

I forgot I was doing the challenge yesterday. Oops. So I will do two today as penance.

As I don't tend to listen to female singers as much as I do male singers, there isn't really going to be much in the way of deliberation for me. And the female singers I do listen to are from an era much more glamorous than this one, where a cool female role model was elegant and bodacious, not dressed up in clothes made of meat and wearing a satellite dish in her hair. So there really is only one choice for me - Ella Fitzgerald.

Greater writers than I have waxed lyrical about her career, her amazing vocal range, her purity of tone, and her life. She had a hard time in her early years, seemed to be attracted to dubious men, and suffered from diabetes, which rendered her visually impaired in her later life. Although she was cool (not in a frosty sense) she never seems to me to be affected or false, and she was known for being extremely shy off stage. And any singer who can forgot the lyrics (my personal bete noire) yet improvise with such style and then win a grammy for the recording (her version of "Mack the knife" from "Ella in Berlin") has my automatic respect.

Oddly, I wouldn't say I am a great fan of jazz as a genre (although I do have quite a bit of similar stuff from similar artists), but Ella seemed to transcend genres even as she had her feet (or at least one of them) rooted in jazz. Of all her work, currently this track is my favourite. I say currently, as I really couldn't narrow it down to a favourite, I'll have to settle for the track I like best right now.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Four... Your favourite male singer

How do you define a "favourite singer" ? Ability, range, studio work, live work, charisma ? Or is it merely a numbers game that defines "favourite", meaning the person you listen to the most who sings and is male ? (In that case, it would tie between Jeff Healey and Gary Moore for me, but they are better known as guitarists obviously.)

I don't tend to listen to female singers much, looking at my most played items in iTunes, and I think there are two main reasons for this.

One is, I like the sound of a gee-tar, and I like the blues, and there are not many women around playing guitar and singing the blues (Joanne Shaw Taylor being one exception I can think of however).

The other reason is, I tend to listen a lot to the tracks I am singing in bands (either because I'm learning them or I like them and have suggested we do them), and usually they are rock / blues tracks, which don't have female singers, or at least, the well known hit versions don't have female singers. In fact, looking at the set list for our recent gig , only one of those songs is known for having a version with a female singer (Tina Turner's version of Proud Mary) that was a hit.

So I've got a lot of male singers to choose a favourite from. Being a singer myself I'm going to have to plump for vocal ability and performance being the main criteria for my choice, although as some of my female friends have pointed out "I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating biscuits" is also valid reasoning, though not applicable (IMO) with regards to any of the people I whittled my choice down to, incidentally.

Choices were-

Nat King Cole. I like that genre, those songs which have now became standards, much to the surprise of my dad, who thinks I only like "that nasty rave music" ;). When he heard I had bought an Ink Spots cd, he almost fell off his chair in surprise.

If I want to stop right in my tracks and be immediately transported to a more civilised and glamorous time, Nat King Cole's recording of "Stardust" is guaranteed to do it every time.

Paul Rodgers. One of the few people who could even look at Freddie Mercury's shoes, let alone attempt to wear them (notice I didn't say "fill".)

Will Young. The boy's got pipes, imho, alright ?

And finally, the person I chose as my favourite male singer - Freddie Mercury. He had it all - style, ability, charisma, and was someone who never let go of life even at the end of it. When I heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the first time as a very young child, probably aged about four or five (in the car, very likely on tape, probably travelling to the supermarket on a friday night I imagine), it made me cry. Even at that young age. So I asked for it to be played again. And again. And again. And once more, with feeling ... And so began my fandom.

Watching Queen at Live Aid on tv - blown away. Utterly blown away. By the time I was old enough to be going to big gigs in far flung places (anything outside of Norwich was far flung according to my mum), Freddie was dead and I had missed out on going to a live gig by one of the greatest performers of my lifetime. I wish I had gotten the chance.

So - what track to pick to link this day's post to ? As we're talking about a favourite singer, rather than one single track, I'm having two choices (so, sue me !) that I personally believe to give an inkling of the sheer scope of the great man's talent.

The first is "Take My Breath Away". From their album "A Day at the Races" and recorded in the days when Antares Autotune and Melodyne didn't exist, and what a better world that was too. This performance always gives me goosebumps.

The second is "Somebody To Love", also from that album. If you're talking about sheer vocal range, this really shows Freddie's talent. I love this song and would like one day to record it, but I fear it is a pair of shoes far, far FAR too big for me to ever put on ! I respect the singer and song far too much to do a cover and make a total arse of it, that would be shameful. This version is from their 1982 concert at the Milton Keynes Bowl. In my opinion, this illustrates a perfect example of how to take something that was extremely complicated in the studio with masses of production, and do it live.