IN this twelfth edition of Monday’s Musical Musings, Mrs Halls talks to us about some of the songs she loves most.
When I was asked to take part in the Music Department’s ‘Monday’s Musical Musings’, I initially thought that it would be really easy to choose a song that “means something to me”. It turns out that I was mistaken. Once I started to think about the music I enjoy listening to, I realised that picking just one song is seemingly impossible for me. To help me make a decision, I hijacked our family Bluetooth speaker and spent an evening on a musical journey listening to my favourite tunes– I’m not normally allowed to connect to the Bluetooth speaker at home…
I played “Is this love?” by Whitesnake, because it happened to be playing in the hospital theatre when my son was born. If you don’t know it, it is worth a listen and is a great example of a cheesy 80’s rock ballad and I love it! But to be honest I have been listening to David Coverdale, (Whitesnake’s lead singer), since I was about 15 and admit that he could sing a shopping list and I would listen.
Then I listened to Cole Porter’s “Every time we say goodbye” sung by Ella Fitzgerald, which was played at a loved one’s funeral, it evokes feelings of sadness but also reminds me of joyous times spent in their company.
The next one I played may surprise you. Some people have a special song that they danced to for the first time as a married couple, their ‘first dance’ but we had a jazz band at our wedding and the venue didn’t permit dancing on Sundays, so our ‘first dance’ was on our honeymoon, to the rather upbeat “Macarena” by Los Del Rio. Hardly romantic and not our choice but it did make us laugh and we have continued to laugh through most of the last 25 years together, so maybe it is our unlikely special song after all.
So, a birth, a death and a marriage, and songs I associate with those life-events. I have completely failed to fulfil the brief; I couldn’t choose just one. Whilst these songs do have meaning for me, there are others I would rather listen to. I finished my musical wandering by listening to my favourite song. It celebrates no great life event and has no special meaning other than allowing me, in my head at least, to feel totally swept away and free by all 9 minutes and 8 seconds of it, (if you are listening to the studio version), “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd – go on, play that air guitar!