Soundtrack

If a film was made about your life, what would be on the soundtrack?

Most of the post titles on this blog come from songs. I started my first entry using a song title and it just seemed to keep happening from there – there was no other reason for it. But once I got into the habit I found it both helpful and enjoyable.

I didn’t always choose songs that I like. It was more about finding titles that seemed to fit what I was writing about. But I only rarely cheated by Googling for songs. Often, I could just pluck relevant songs out of the air.

Whether that’s simply because I like music and remember song titles, I’m not sure. It’s perhaps just as likely that so many songs have either become phrases that are common in the language or were lifted from phrases that were already in everyday use.

Either way, I like the idea that the music listed in the table below could be thought of as the soundtrack to my first 6 months as a stay-at-home dad. [Although it's slightly worrying that so much of it seems to come from the 1980s!|

[Text in italics indicates either that I actually had to hunt down a relevant song title or that I got it wrong in some major or minor detail when using it as a title.]

Track	Artist, label	Year
Papa’s got a brand new bag	James Brown, King	1965
Don’t worry. Be happy	Bobby McFerrin	1988
You must remember this	Title should be ‘As time goes by’. Herman Hupfield (wr) for the musical Everybody’s Welcome	1931
Relax, don’t do it	Frankie Goes to Hollywood, ZTT	1983
No limit	2 unlimited, PWL	1993
Lessons in love	Level 42, Polydor	1986
Who are you?	The Who, Polydor	1978
The joker	Steve Miller, Capitol Records	1973
Sweet child in time	(actually Child in Time) Deep Purple, Harvest Records	1970
The look of love	Bacharach/David (wrs)	1967
I’ve got you under my skin	Porter (wr), Capitol Records	1956
Losing my religion	REM, Warner Bros	1991
Help	Beatles, Parlophone	1965
Last Christmas	Wham, Columbia	1984
Word up	Cameo, Atlantic Artists Records	1986
We are family	Sister Sledge, Cotillion Records	1979
Book of love	The Monotones, Mascot	1958
Crazy for you	Madonna, Geffen Records	1985
So macho	Sinitta, Fanfare	1986
You’ve got a friend	James Taylor, Warner Bros	1971
Memories are made of this	Everley Bros, ???	1960
Shout	The Isley Bros, RCA Victor	1959
For tomorrow	Blur, EMI/Food Records	1993
Reasons to be cheerful	Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Stiff Records	1979
Freebird	Lynyrd Skynyrd, MCA	1974
My favourite things	John Coltrane, Atlantic	1961
Blue moon	Cowboy Junkies, Latent Records/RCA Records	1988
Mirror man	Human League, Virgin Records/A&M Records	1982
Crossroads blues	Robert Johnson,	1936/37
Stormy weather	Arlen, Koehler (wrs)	1933
Alone again or	Love, Elektra	1968
It’s my life	Talk Talk, EMI	1984
From me to you	Beatles, Parlophone	1963
9 to 5	Sheena Easton, EMI	1980
What’s going on?	Marvin Gaye, Tamla	1971
Jealous guy	John Lennon, Parlaphone	1971
Message in a bottle	The Police, A&M	1979
Old friends	Simon & Garfunkel, Columbia	?1968
Wind of change	Scorpions, Mercury Records	1990
The times they are a’changing	Bob Dylan, Columbia	1964
Bridge over troubled waters	Simon & Garfunkel, Columbia	1970
You can get it if you really want	Desmond Dekker, Trojan	1970
Untitled	Smashing Pumpkins, Virgin	2000
Saving all my love for you	Whitney Houston, Arista	1985
Sunshine of your love	Cream, Reaction	1968