#30DaySongChallenge

30 Day Song Challenge 2018

For five straight years, from 2011-2016, I dedicated the entire month of June on this blog to the #30DaySongChallenge. Each day, I would select a song in response to a daily prompt, and then post it here along with some (long or short) account of why I chose that song for that day’s prompt. Music…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 23: Your Favorite Song This Time Last Year

It’s funny how quickly pop songs start to sound “old.” In order to figure out what I was listening to this time last summer, I’ll admit that I had to consult iTunes and a couple of music blogs to see what the top tracks were for June 2015.  In almost every case, my first thought…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 22: A Song You Wish You Had Written

Ok, at this point– I’m writing this on June 37– I’m already six days behind on the 30 Day Song Challenge.  I was just about to give up and call it quits, but then I remembered that I’ve been doing this for a long time and, even if this year’s iteration ends up being the…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 12: A Song From A Band You Hate

I don’t actually “hate” a lot of bands, mostly because I don’t really listen to bands that I don’t like long enough to log the emotional time it takes to generate real hatred. For today’s 30 Day Song Challenge selection, I was going to pick a song by Creed… but then I figured everyone with any kind of musical taste at all…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 10: A Song That Helps You Fall Asleep

I don’t usually listen to music when I’m trying to sleep, mostly because I find it difficult to not actively listen. At the same time, I absolutely cannot abide total silence. When I’m in my office, I always have earbuds in. When I’m at home or in my car, there is always something playing. And so, against…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 14: A Song No One Would Expect You To Love

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become far less confident in my ability to correctly predict what other people think. That seems counterintuitive to me, since one would expect that more years of experience– more interpersonal “data points”– would make it easier to recognize patterns and improve one’s predictive capabilities.  Not so in my experience.  Rather,…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 13: A Song That Is A Guilty Pleasure

Oh man, seriously, I love ABBA soooooo much. I once said that if I were ever to get a tattoo, I would have “Super Trouper” tattooed on my shoulder. For the record, no tats here. My skin remains as clean as the driven snow. I kind of wish I did feel guilty about my ridiculously unrestrained ABBA fandom, but…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 15: The Theme Song To Your Life

It seems like bad juju to pick the theme song to your life before you’ve finished living it, but oh well. [*throws salt over shoulder*] I miss the days when television gave us real theme songs, by which I mean songs with words, not the sonic mood-setters typical of so many popular programs now. (Listen:…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 18: A Song That Every Bar Band Should Know

I’d give roughly 10 to 1 odds that you don’t know who that guy is in the picture to the left. That’s Rupert Holmes (born David Goldstein), British composer, singer-songwriter, musician, playwright, and novelist. He won two Tony Awards for his musical Drood and has released no fewer than 16 albums over the course of…

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30 Day Song Challenge, Day 17: A Song You Hear Often On The Radio

A little more than a year ago, Memphis got a second classic hip-hop radio station when Cumulus switched the format of WKIM from talk radio to “100% Throwback.” For the first week or so that WKIM (“The Vibe”) was on air, I listened to it nonstop and, since then, it remains one of the pre-set…

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