My Top Songs 2018 Part Two

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In my previous post, I looked at the Top 15 of my Spotify Top Songs of 2018. In this post rather than going numerically through the remaining 85 I have picked out a selection.

I thought I would top and tail this post with extremes.

In my Top 20 is, what my daughter refers to as my ode to Eurotrash – Loreen’s Euphoria, winner of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Only to be listened to at the gym with the volume at the max!

David Bowie is also in my Top 20 with Life on Mars. I can’t say Bowie is a go-to in my music listening, but there are some of his albums that I adore and Hunky Dory of which Life on Mars is the fourth track on side one is definitely one. I can’t remember when I bought the album, it’s an import so it must have been around 1975 when a school friend of mine and I took advantage of the huge difference in exchange rates between the UK and Australia and started importing records.  Whether its Life on Mars, Changes, Kooks, Andy Warhol, this is a classic album and seeing it in My Top Songs gave me an excuse to fire up the turntable and give it a spin.

America’s Ventura Highway. The simplicity and harmonies make America’s music and Ventura Highway, in particular, a regular on my Spotify Playlists. Continue reading →

My Top Songs 2018 Part One

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As Christmas and the end of the year approaches the reflections on the year begin.

One I look forward to is Spotify’s, “Your Top Songs”, and it arrived in the Spotify App in the last few days.  Over the next couple of posts, I will run through the list.

First up is what I regard as my all time favourite song – Born to Run.  It is the title track of the album I have no hesitation in saying is my favourite album of all time.  The album version was the one featured in my most listened too, although it could just as easily have been one of the many other versions I have from Springsteen’s concerts which now are thankfully able to be downloaded. From the opening wall of sound to the end this song has it all. My most vivid memory of the song isn’t seeing it performed live but a morning recess in Year 12, when the teacher who introduced me to Bruce put the song on in the Music Centre. He had it absolutely pumping out through the school HiFi. Forty plus years on having it pumping out is the only way to listen to Born to Run.

Second and a complete change of pace are The Carpenters, We’ve Only Just Begun. Certainly a contrast from the first song on my list but still a song I don’t tire of.

Next is by Australian, music icon Brian Cadd, Ginger Man.  I’ve loved Brian Cadd from his days in Axiom and Arkansas Grass. Ginger Man is a song of its era, about times past, when we posted letters and travelling from Australia to the other side of the world, in this case, the USA was an epic journey.  The references to his  Dad and brother mythical or otherwise, are so real, I feel I am eavesdropping on a very personal letter back home. Brian Cadd a songwriter of extraordinary talent and a characteristic voice released Ginger Man in 1972, a golden period of Australian music. I have seen Brian Cadd live many, many times from the very first concert I ever went to in 1972 through to a couple of years ago when he toured with a fellow Axiom member and former lead singer of Little River Band, Glenn Shorrock.  He is a storyteller and Ginger Man is one of his best. Continue reading →

Time to update my “About” page – I’m 60!

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Sitting on a burial chamber – Sanday, Orkney Islands

There is a major update to my blog – I’m 60!

No longer are these the musings of a fifty-something but a sixty-something. Ten whole years ahead of me before I need to refresh on this topic – lucky you the reader!

How ironic that my desire to update my About page coincided with an urgent desire to listen to Bruce Springsteen.

He is like an old friend – wish he was!!

Springsteen has been with me for even longer than my favourite person, albeit only by a few years. Through my teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and yes my 50s! It was however only in my 50s that I finally saw him live, twice in fact.

Still, this is post is about my About page, Continue reading →

Well into my fourth year of “What’s Next”

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A recent conversation with my daughter-in-law and the birth of our first grandchild provided a point of reflection on where I am at in “What’s Next”. Perhaps my impending 60th birthday was an added impetus?

It’s been over three and a half years since my last day in the office. While I didn’t formally retire until 30 June 2015, I effectively retired from my firm at the end of March in that year.

So here’s my report card.

I haven’t missed the office for even one day! Continue reading →

A weekend in the data!

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A brilliant Spring Adelaide day

I am in the middle of my second annual review for my PhD program. The upshot is I’m going well but I have a lot to do!

So knuckling down across a long weekend I was faced with a pile of data to analyse and a dilemma of what to listen too while I got into it. Through a few hours of Ireland’s RTE – Gold ( I discovered RTE Gold last year when we were in Dublin) I moved onto Spotify and quickly onto my own playlists and within a couple of hours to my 60s and 70s playlist.

My 60s and 70s has hundreds of songs and provide good background as well as an opportunity to pause from my analysis, listen and reflect. These are all songs that I found in the 70s my high school and Uni days (that’s the first time around Uni!).

I thought I’d jot down a few thoughts about some of the songs I paused on Continue reading →