Top 5 Songs

As someone who has been indoctrinated into a sort of classical mindset about music (thank you, dear) I find the word "song" very difficult to negotiate these days.

"Songs" are not "pieces", and some of Saturday's Top 5 are definitely "pieces". I've had to set myself one rule in making this list (a rule that makes things much easier, I will add) in that sections of musicals or operas, no matter how distinct as "songs", do not count. They are part of a greater work and therefore do not belong in the category of stand-alone musical "pieces". It also means that when I come to do my Top 5 Musicals, I wont have already mentioned them all now.

I think music triggers emotion and certainly emotional memory in a way nothing else really does, and that's why I think every song or piece someone puts in a list like this has to be meaningful, has to have a story. I know mine all do.

5. Danse Macabre - Camille Saint-Saens

Danse Macabre is pure classical pop, I know, but it was one of the first pieces I listened to after deciding to make an effort with the "classical" genre, and it stuck with me. I remember hearing it and being so taken in by the furious rhythms and strange tonality... until I played it in orchestra. Let me tell you right now there is nothing interesting about the double bass part, kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

Still, the fantastic waltz-beat of it and the amazingly eerie and supernatural sound-world it creates pulled me in and reawakened my passion for music, so for that it most definitely deserves a place on this list.

4. Hounds of Love - Kate Bush

From classical pop to actual pop... I love this song. This one's "story" is pretty crap, but the song is an absolute masterpiece of chipmunkery and for that I laud it's name. Kate Bush is, of course, a complete maniac, but I love love love her music, and especially this song. Nothing in the world motivates me to get up and throw myself out into the world like Hounds of Love does, a statement proven by the fact that I listened to it every morning on my way to school in the last month before I graduated. Before exams, before studying, whilst procrastinating studying - Kate Bush's greatest hits kept playing, and Hounds of Love kept on getting put on repeat.

3. Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1 - J.S. Bach

This story has to be picked around, for there is something of a risk of over-share in relation to this piece. Of course, this is the first section of one of Bach's most beautiful works for solo cello, the sound of which is instantly recognisable because of how widely it is used in film and television, but for me it just speaks volumes of earnest, straining, youthful love.

The first time I heard Roman play this piece, we weren't together. I think I was thinking about it, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't... that's kind of how it happened - I suggested it to him and he said "you know, I'd never really thought about it like that" - like all great romances, hey?

So anyway, I downloaded this piece and played it over and over, lying on my bed, worrying about whether my Great Love would ever love me back. And it's just the music for it.

A summer later, the Prelude's story came full circle for me. On some awful hot day, I lay on my back in my Great Love's music room, listening to him play it - just for me.

2. Call Me Al - Paul Simon

This is the Family Song. There are so many stupid, funny memories associated with this song that I can't think of any specifically, it's all melted into some silly pot of full family air-instrument bands whilst Paul Simon blares out unacceptably loudly over long car trips. Paul Simon, especially the Graceland album, makes me think of my dad, and my family, and all the wonderful, wacky love that exists there.

(I bags the air-trumpet).

1. With or Without You - U2

This song is not number one because I love the song. In fact, I've quite gone off it in the last couple of years, something about Bono being a rather large tool or something, but the moment in my memory that explodes into my mind every time I hear it is so pure and so clear that I can't ignore it.

When I was in year 12, I arranged a girls' vocal version of With or Without You for a concert, and the absolute most perfect moment in the entire song was decidedly the moment when the bassline comes in. It's low, even, and throbbing, it helps the music build in such an intense, emotional way that it's just perfect.

On the actual night of the concert, the music started, and as that beautiful bassline came in, I looked across the stage and saw Roman with my old electric bass slung over his shoulders, tapping away at it, and I couldn't help but beam.

That was such a moment for me, a completely still crystallised moment in time, in which I realised, so instantly that my inner-voice actually spoke the words, that I was in love.

I don't think it matters whether it's a song or a piece, whether it's interesting and artistic or a three-chord band job, the music that stays with you is always the music that was playing at that moment in time. We all have them, musically-triggered recollections. I think that's what is important to me about this project, that I can take all these moments where art has touched me and record them, leaving a perfect record of what matters to me at this moment.