Six Songs of Me

I don't know if you have seen this or not, but Oxford professor Eric Clarke has started a project called Six Songs of Me.  One of my Facebook friends posted a link to an NPR article about it, and it immediately piqued my interest.  The project asks people to submit their song choices in response to six questions, with the goal of analyzing why people like the music they like.  Here is a link to the website where you can enter your own six songs.

Since I love anything music related and, more importantly, anything that seeks my opinions, of course I entered my "Six Songs of Me."  Here are the six questions and my songs:

1.  What was the first song you ever bought? 
Culture Club's Colour By Numbers was the first album I bought, so I guess the first song would be "Karma Chameleon."  Looking back, I find it odd that my parents had no qualms with me spending my birthday money or allowance (or however else a 6-year-old obtains money) on an album by a band whose lead singer was a cross-dressing gay man.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

2.  What song always gets you dancing? 
"Steal My Sunshine" by Len, as anyone who attended a wedding with me between 2000 and 2006 is painfully aware.  I once dove between a woman's legs on the dance floor when this song was played at a wedding in 2003.  I have impregnated that woman twice in the years since then.

3.  What song takes you back to your childhood? 
This is a tough one, since a ton of '80s songs fit this category, but "Panama" by Van Halen and "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper immediately take me back to when I was 6 or 7. For some reason, "Panama," more than any other song on the 1984 album, reminds me of listening to that tape in my friend Sean's room in the Houston suburbs right after he got it.  It was one of those songs that made you feel like you could do anything.  And I don't know what it is about "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" that instantly reminds me of being a kid -- maybe it's that I have never owned it and I don't hear it that often, so it's time and place is firmly 1983 and 1984 for me.

4.  What is your perfect love song? 
"In My Life" by The Beatles.  It still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Tied for a close second are "The Fuck Shop" by 2 Live Crew and "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)" by W.A.S.P.  Take THAT, Tipper Gore.  FYI, the only problem I found with the Six Songs of Me website is that the song options are powered by Spotify, so The Beatles are not on there.  Thus, I had to choose a version of "In My Life" performed by some Beatles tribute band.  Also, Grooveshark doesn't have it either, so it's not on the playlist below.  Here is a link to it on YouTube with some slow motion images of The Beatles.

5.  What song would you want at your funeral?  
Trick question, since I'm a vampire, but just in case I meet the true death, I'd have to go with "Since You Been Gone" by Rainbow. I also expect there to be more than one song played at my funeral, so I'll also throw in "The Black Angel's Death Song" by The Velvet Underground, "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)" by Cinderella, "In My Life" by The Beatles (yes, it can be both a love song and a death song), and "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" by The Rolling Stones.  I hope to keep things relatively light.

6.  One last song that makes you, you. 
"Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leppard.  Frankly, it has it all:  a killer riff, hooks galore, a stadium-worthy chorus, sexual undertones (and overtones), and sometimes indecipherable lyrics.  It has been my favorite song since the first time I heard it on Z95 in 1988.  Once I heard it, it shifted my musical focus from pop and oldies to hard rock and metal.  I've expanded since then, but, as you know, I have never lost my love for hair metal.

Feel free to post your own.  Or don't.  I don't care either way.  Here's a playlist of the songs I just listed (including the bonus tracks).