I’m realizing as I go on and try to put songs to the prompts from this list that it’s likely I’m well outside the typical “target market” for this extended meme.

Not just because of my “advanced” age (in Internet Years), but because of where I grew up and the access (or lack thereof) I had to music. And, of course, my general lack of ambition in hunting down and consuming newer tunes.

What that all means is that more than half the time here it just feels like I’m grabbing something randomly or because I can spin a good story about it (or its place in my life).

This would be another one of those cases.

A song that’s a classic favorite

So “classic favorite” as opposed to “from the 70s” or anything else? Okay. Fine.

I’m going to be a bit wide on the definition of “classic” here. In this case, I’m going to choose to go with the idea of an older tune that everyone seems to know. One that everyone goes and sings along with when it come over the speakers. (And, yes, it’s from the early 70s… but at least it’s more “classic” than I am, in the “years passed” sense.)

Billy Joel’s Piano Man got a lot of radio play well into the 80s on my home town radio station. There’s just something inherently inoffensive about it, I guess. (That kind of describes half of Billy Joel’s catalog, though, doesn’t it? “Inoffensive” and “pseudo-edgy” are pretty much his two speeds… granted, if your from as vanilla a background as I am, you can drop the “pseudo”… at least until you know better.)

This really is a classic bar song. Not just because it’s set in a bar, but because the picture is paints is one that can be found in so many bars (whether or not they have pianos in them).

Especially in small towns that seem to be a decade behind the rest of the world.

Where, from the time you’re a teenager, you know pretty well whether you’re going to be there the rest of your life or if you’re going to try to make a break for it.

Where, even if you do know you’re going to be there the rest of your life, you’ll still tell a good story every now and then about how you’re going to get out and make it big somewhere else.

Where some of the people who have been there for life did actually try to make it out, unsuccessfully.

Yeah. A lot of us can relate to some part of that song.

It sums up a lot of hopes and fears and puts them all to a tune that’s really easy to sing along with. Often while holding a beer. Shoulder to shoulder with friends.

There are plenty of reasons I dig this song in all its bittersweet glory.

Runners Up

• Don McLean, American Pie – You want something more classic? Sure, here you go. Another one that gets everyone singing along. (Also another one that was in heavy rotation on the local radio station when I was growing up.)
• Frank Sinatra, New York, New York – Another one that everyone knows and will sing along to when it comes on. (The trick, of course, is knowing which version is being played… Sinatra did it a little different every time…) Having grown up in New York state, just over an hour outside of New York City, this one has always been a kind of big deal for me.

Some songs get covered by a whole lot of people.

Very often, they don’t hold a candle to the original.

Sometimes, the people who praise them aren’t aware there was an original.

Sometimes I wonder if the bands doing the covers ever heard the original of what they’re covering.

And sometimes, because of my sporadic music habits, I hear a cover first and then end up disappointed when I hear the original.

A song you like that’s a cover by another artist

I discover most of my music by people telling me to listen to something. Either directly or by posting it on Facebook. Every once in a while, though, I end up being one of the first people in my considerable circle of friends to pick something out of one of my other feeds and introduce it to bunches more people.

That was the case with this song.

When I first stumbled across it, the video only had a few thousand views. Before I got around to sharing it, that number doubled. Then doubled again. A day after I had shared the video, it had broken six figures and showed no signs of stopping.

It made all the Internet news.

Then it made the all the morning shows.

Within a week, it was everywhere.

As of right now, it’s got over 178 million views.

Not bad for a little band from Canada.

If you missed out on the first wave that launched these guys into international stardom, now you have another chance to check out Walk Off The Earth’s cover of Somebody That I Used To Know.

(And you can check out the original, too, which, apparently is mega-super-popular… just not in any way that I’d heard of it before the cover version. I still prefer the WOTE cover.)

This cover got so popular, in part because of their talent, in part because of the big guitar gimmick, that they made a bunch of other gimmicky videos. They all rock and should be checked out. I generally dig their covers, and found their original stuff was pretty solid, too.

Runners Up

• Postmodern Jukebox, Bye, Bye, Bye – I remember when the original N’SYNC version was a hot thing. This version is much hotter (as far as I’m concerned). I really dig most of the PMJ stuff I’ve heard. They’re super creative with their re-orchestrations and pull in some great singing talent.
• Soft Cell, Tainted Love – I know what you’re thinking: This isn’t a cover! Oh! But it is. It was originally a soul song by Gloria Jones back in 2964. (I didn’t know that either until very recently.)
• Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus – I absolutely love the Depech Mode original. It’s a staple at the goth club I hang at (when I hang out and about). But this cover is at least as good. Because: Johnny Cash.

Most music for me is distinct soundtrack fodder.

I tend to take a narrative view of life, and that lends itself well to movie-like metaphors. Things happen in scenes and sequences. There’s a thread that connects things (whether there actually is or not… y’know, it’s in all in how you watch some movies).

And, of course, there are musical numbers.

Not a lot. Usually the soundtrack is in its proper place in the background, setting the feel and accentuating the action of the scene.

Sometimes, though… sometimes things need to go just a little surreal to really be honest and true.

This is one of those cases.

A song you’d love to be played at your wedding

Let me start right off by saying that the odds of this happening are somewhere between “slim” and “none.”

And before you get all “Awwwww… I’m sure you’ll find someone…” let me also say that it’s kind of presumptuous that you think you know my life better than I do. It’s a simple case of what is being what is. It’s up to me to either do something about it (already done) or accept the reality of thing also already done). So, save your breath and we’ll all be better off.

Now, back to the music…

Unlike most guys I know, I actually spent a fair amount of time thinking about my wedding. Over the years, I came up with a handful of hypothetical scenarios that would mesh with one aspect or another of what my bride to be and I had in common interest-wise.

Some of them were a bit… elaborate.

This is why I never assumed anyone other than me would end up paying for any wedding of mine. If there’s going to be a big production, I’m going to be a producer on it… not just a player.

This is where the music comes in.

There is one movie that pretty much hits every single one of the “hopeless romantic” notes that my heart sings. And its soundtrack is, in a word, amazing. (It’s also mostly covers and re-orchestrations of songs I’d want played at a wedding anyway… mine or anyone else’s.) One song in particular, one of the covers, just utterly nails it.

That’s how we get Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman’s version of Come What May from Moulin Rouge. (The first time it comes up, not the version from the finale… because, holy crap, you don’t want the wedding to go like that…)

Of course, if possible, I just wouldn’t want it played. I’d want it performed. My the bride and me.

Also high on the list would be the version of Your Song and the whole Elephant Love Medley/Silly Love Song bit.

Because, really, that’s exactly how it should feel.

This I know.

Runners Up

The non-Moulin Rouge ones…

• The Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin – The way this swells and flows is, again, accurate. And I absolutely love the ochestration. Yeah, it may skew a little bittersweet at times in the lyrics, but that chorus is the important part. I love it.  (And everything else the Moody Blues do, too.)
• Bobby Darin, Somewhere Beyond the Sea – Mostly because of Ewan MacGregor and Cameron Diaz doing this surprise and surreal musical number in the movie A Life Less Ordinary. That would be how it would play out at the wedding. (The dance number, not the whole movie… because that would be… awkward.)