30–day Song Challenge – Day 1: Your Favourite Song

So this meme has been doing the rounds on Facebook, and while I don’t normally do this sort of thing, I figure I should as a) I’ve been slacking off on writing far too much of late, and b) I still need to better at writing about music.

Still, it’s taken about a month to finally get started, am slightly confused at who thought having “your favourite song” as the first one would be an easy one to start with. It’s like asking you to pick your favourite child. Or most hot woman. It varies based on mood, and I’d always feel guilty picking one song over all the rest.

So I cheated and looked at the most played song on my iPod, and it’s this:

Frank Turner – Love Ire & Song

It’s actually sort of appropriate as that one song, while I wouldn’t say it’s my ‘favourite’ per se, sums up a lot of what I love about music. Musically, it starts with a solo singer-songwriter on guitar playing a nice little folky melody, before bringing in the piano, then the drums, and the bass, and the electric guitar, until it’s a full on sing-along rock track. My musical tastes do generally swing between those two extremes: solo singer-songwriters to full on guitar-based rock. To get them both in one song is handy.

I also love the sheer usefulness of that when the song is performed live. When Frank Turner plays with a band, he’ll always do a solo section in the middle, where the band leave, and then you have the awkward pause as they come back on for the rest of the set. Not with this song! Now they slowly sneak back on throughout the track and it all flows together seamlessly. For some reason, I really like that.

Finally, the lyrics. It’s an angry song, but one about hope. It’s about trying to make a difference in the face of adversity, as what’s the worst that can happen if you try? It mixes a certain cynicism that I can certainly relate to with an optimism that I aspire to. It says that you can still be a cantankerous old bastard and try and make a difference without being a hypocrite. It appeals to two different sides of my personality, and offers a way to unify them. Which is handy.

: 27 Mar 2011 19:41 |  Tags: Comedy Video |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem