#atozchallenge: T is For...

It’s like I got to the end of the alphabet and suddenly found a whole bunch of songs that I loved. Picking which ones to write about for these last few posts is proving to be a bit challenging because there are some that I’m including which I just love for no particular reason, and others I feel like I’m cutting but could actually say something about, they’re just not as favourite as some others. I could probably do a list like this every month and still not list all my favourite songs!

Tell Him – Celine Dion & Barbra Streisand

I have to include this one purely because it makes me smile at the memory of a very bad karaoke rendition I once did with a friend at another friend’s birthday party. Thank goodness mobile phones at the time didn’t have video recorders, that’s all I can say, because otherwise that would be haunting me to the grave! I believe at one point we were pretending a glass was a microphone… there wasn’t even alcohol involved!

Travelin’ Soldier – Dixie Chicks

I have so much love for this song. I’ve got it on the Top of the World album which is all songs recorded live and I fell in love with it the first time I heard it. Within about two weeks of having it on my mp3 player I created the Songs With Stories playlist and this was one of the first ones on it. It’s a story about a girl meeting a boy in a small town in America, he’s going off to join the army and they agree to write to one another. The letters pass back and forth and eventually he tells her he’s going to Vietnam, then one night she hears his name read on the list of local Vietnam deaths.

I’ve actually planned a whole story surrounding this song. The only thing stopping me from writing it is the sheer amount of research I have to do into life in America in the Sixties, into the Vietnam War and a whole host of other little bits and pieces that get me hung up on it every time I try to put pen to paper. It inspired me to research The Wall in Washington, I spent hours just scrolling through the lists of names, as well as looking into other significant events leading up to and during the Vietnam War. In my head the girl is called Christine and the boy Russell and maybe someday I’ll actually turn my thoughts into something coherent.

Top of the World – Dixie Chicks

This is yet another song from the Dixie Chicks album that we listened to pretty much constantly during our time spent in Appin. It’s also another one from my Songs With Stories playlist. On the live album version they explain that it’s a song from the perspective of a man who has died and is looking back on his time with his wife, wishing things had been different. It’s a song about regret and missed opportunities.

To Sir, With Love – Lulu

My dad was a massive Sidney Poitier fan and we had To Sir, With Love on VHS tape (until the VCR ate it), later we got a copy on DVD (along with the sequel). The film is set in the Sixties and Sidney Poitier plays an engineer who gets a job teaching in an inner city secondary school, where the children are disruptive and disrespectful. After things reach a head he decides to change his approach with them and gradually they come to respect one another.

The film also features a young Lulu, who sings the title song at an end of year dance. The version of the song in the film actually has an extra verse to all the versions you get on CDs these days. I’ve heard a couple of different versions, including one on an Ally McBeal soundtrack that I picked up in Oban (mainly because of this song, I’ve never actually watch Ally McBeal) and a version Lulu did with Samantha Mumba on her Together album. But it’s the original that I like the best and I love the way it captures the essence of growing up.

Also, random fact, Lulu used to come to the island where I live on holiday as a youngster. In her autobiography there's a photo of her standing across the road from the shop where I used to work. Virtually everyone in my family looked at it and couldn't pinpoint exactly where in the town it is, but the minute I showed it to my Nan she knew where it was straight away.