Fenster writes:
Here is the site Six Songs of Me.
According to an NPR article on the site:
(Musicologist Eric Clarke and others have) set up a special site (fueled by Spotify) where you can pick your most meaningful songs in six categories. They’re hoping to gather enough data, Clarke says, to “help us think more fruitfully about the ‘big questions’ that lie behind the sounds of our lives.”
The categories, in the form of questions, are:
- What was the first song you ever bought?
- What song always gets you dancing?
- What song takes you back to your childhood?
- What is your perfect love song?
- What song would you want at your funeral?
- Time for an encore. One last song that makes you, you.
Mine:
Bought: can’t really remember though it may have been the 45 of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Dancing: Devil With a Blue Dress–Mitch Ryder (guilty pleasure from the 1970s: Instant Replay by Dan Hartman).
Childhood: The Click Song by Miriam Makeba. Mostly because while a lot of what I like goes back to childhood (Rhapsody in Blue, Sorcerer’s Apprentice) I have heard them many times since whereas I don’t think I have heard Makeba but once or twice in the last x decades and so it brings me back in a way that others do not.
Perfect Love Song: Rainbow Sleeves by Rickie Lee Jones–Tom Waits songwriting at its emotional, even mawkish, best.
Funeral: Im Abendrot, from Strauss Four Last Songs. (Runners up: The Power of Love–John McLaughlin and Michael Tilson Thomas or Peaches en Regalia–Frank Zappa.)
Makes you you. Too hard to answer at the moment. Will mull over and return in comments, prob’ly.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
Fun survey, Fenster! Here are my answers:
What was the first song you ever bought?
Never really bought singles. I think there’s a craft to putting together a whole album, so if I like a singer/group, I’ll usually go whole hog and just get the album. The first piece of music I ever bought was, I believe, a cassette of The Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl. I think the first single I ever bought was actually just a couple of years ago, when I bought the single of Fatboy Slim’s “That Old Pair of Jeans” after seeing this infectiously joyous music video and being unable to get the song out of my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWyfxWD-hlc
What song always gets you dancing?
I cannot sit still when listening to Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys. Most of their songs get me moving, but when that one’s on I cannot be contained. I was actually listening to it on the way home from work tonight, and was definitely doing some very quiet bopping and shuffling on the subway. Yes, I’m THAT guy.
What song takes you back to your childhood?
Again, the Beach Boys, particularly Sloop John B. I think that’s the first song I ever thought, “Holy moley. This song is AMAZING.” Close second, “Hey Hey, We’re the Monkees,” by the Monkees.
What is your perfect love song?
Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms.” Close second, Tom Waits’ “Take it with Me When I Go.”
What song would you want at your funeral?
Hell, “Take it with Me When I Go” would actually be a kind of amazing funeral song, especially if you don’t want a dry eye in the whole damn place.
Time for an encore. One last song that makes you, you.
This is hard, as I’m not entirely sure what this one even means. I suppose this means some kind of influential song that’s played a part in our development as a person in some way? I think my wife first took me serious as a dating prospect when I sent her Feist’s video for “1 2 3 4” as an example of something that always made me happy, so maybe that’s a contender? Or maybe “Tradition,” from Fiddler on the Roof. I love that musical/movie, and it brings up both religion and theater in my mind, two things that are very close to me. That soundtrack was one of the first CDs I ever owned.
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