6 Songs

Rob from High Fidelity has nothing on my brother and me, who spend many a hike or car journey or drinking session compiling lists of music or books, based on arbitrary categories of our own devising.  So when I saw that The Guardian music blog is currently running a project called Six Songs Of Me, an interactive site that allows you to share the six songs which define your life, I got very excited.

The categories on the site are:
1. First song you bought
2. Song that gets you dancing
3. The song that takes you back to childhood
4. Perfect love song
5. Song you would want at your funeral
6. One last song that makes you, you

I tried to answer each one with the minimum of thought, going instead for the first song that came to mind, and what I came up with was:

1. To my utter shame, it was a 7" single called It's 'Orrible Being In Love (When You're Eight & a Half) by Claire & Friends which, if I remember rightly, was affiliated in some way with a Saturday morning childrens TV show.  Unfortunately, this groundbreaking piece of music fails to show up on the 6 Songs site, so I was forced to choose Eternal Flame by The Bangles, which more accurately was the lead track on the first album I bought.
2. Circle, Square, Triangle by Test Icicles never fails to get me onto the dancefloor when I'm down at my local indie disco.
3. Bob Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind.  My middle school assemblies must have been planned by a former hippy on the teaching staff, as in amongst the usual assembly standards like All Things Bright & Beautiful, we'd also belt out Beatles and Dylan classics.   This song in particular takes me back to those years; one listen and I'm immediately back on the hard parquet floor of the school hall.
4. With lines like, "I save your messages just to hear your voice," and, "I count your eyelashes secretly," At My Most Beautiful by REM sums up falling in love perfectly.  I've always imagined it being played at my wedding, should I have one.
5. I'm actually really rubbish at thinking of good funeral songs (I prefer thinking of wildly inappropriate wedding songs, anything by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy always being a good bet), so the only one I could think of was Asleep by The Smiths.  Wildly depressing, and only really appropriate if I kill myself (which I have no plans to do, don't worry mum) but if a funeral song can't be depressing, what can?
6. Rocket by The Smashing Pumpkins.  Because I've loved it and found it meaningful for the last twenty years. 

Take a look at the 6 Songs website and do let me know what your six songs are (my list is at http://sixsongsof.me/Playlist/SixSongs/Janet.Brown,16328,16252).