When I was younger, I used to play this game. It was a sick game, a twisted version of fun, that I used to put myself through, where I would attempt to make mix-tape after mix-tape, of soundtracks that went perfectly with my life. It was a painful process that I somehow found joy in, and today we’re gonna have another crack, just a bit more than eight years since last doing it.
Have a go yourself, join in the torturous process of trying to narrow your life down to a list of ten songs. When you think about it, it’s hard as heck. Considering I’ve been alive for 20 years now, that’s a song for less than half the years in my life, and that’s also considering who I generally am as a person. Someone who listens to music nearly every hour of the day, someone who makes copious amounts of playlists, and someone who has even more set to ‘private’ on Spotify so people don’t think I have an issue.
So naturally, the task is a difficult one for me. And I’m gonna attempt to do it regardless.
The Way You Make Me Feel – Michael Jackson: I can’t count on my fingers the amount of weekends spent playing our Michael Jackson DVD full of all his most beloved music videos and interviews. It was kind of a family tradition, one that I remember vividly. One of my favourite music videos, and favourite songs to date, is The Way You Make Me Feel. I feel like quite a lot of people love the song. It’s shaped the way I listen to my favourite music and even learn music. The first drum fill I learnt was the introduction to the song, and the guitar riff is one of the most notable to exist in my mind. I’ve covered this song extensively, whether it’s in a group of girls singing in harmony, or doing a gig with my guitarist and singing it solo. It’s always a crowd pleaser.
Karma – Alicia Keys: This song shaped a huge part of my childhood. My dad was the one who introduced me to Alicia Keys, at a ridiculously young age, and by the time I was eight or nine I was singing her songs around the house, at singing concerts and in front of family. Karma was one that I sung over and over again, Dad and I both love this song so much, and Alicia Keys is constantly a go to when it comes to singing covers.
Lifestyles Of The Rich And The Famous – Good Charlotte: It’s hard for me not to listen to this song and instantly be thrown back to my childhood. For someone who was raised on RnB, soul, jazz, disco and funk, Good Charlotte played an integral role in getting me to listen to heavier kinds of music, if Good Charlotte could be considered ‘heavier’.
Bring Me Back To Life – Evanescence: Evanescence is definitely along the same lines as Good Charlotte, in that it was incredibly different to what I was listening to otherwise. My dad and I had a huge love for Evanescence, and this song was undoubtedly our favourite, purely because of how often it came on the radio, how much the music video was played on rage and how sing-able the lyrics are.
Guillotine – Jon Bellion: So there’s songs on this list that my Mum and Dad introduced to me. This is where the tables turn, and I introduce them to my favourite artists, Jon Bellion being the most prominent. I recently came across my Mum’s Spotify account, only to find an entire playing entitled ‘Pri’s Picks’, filled with songs I love, largely made up of Jon Bellion. Guillotine is up in my top five favourite songs to ever exist, and it’s played a huge role in my life since I first heard it a couple years ago.
I’m Yours – Jason Mraz: I feel like I’ve mentioned the reasoning behind this song meaning as much as it does before, but for the sake of this playlist being legit I’ll do it again. A couple of years ago I was able to go to a tiny little cluster of islands about four hours out of Fiji called Kiribati, for a school trip with nine other girls from my school. It was a beautiful place, incredibly picturesque and the people were some of the nicest I’ve ever met. We spent about a week living at a boarding school, helping out with teaching classes, hanging out with the students and helping out with projects around the community. At the start of our stay we were asked to perform a song at a welcoming ceremony, or more-so our teachers volunteered us up, and because I was the only musical one, I had to play the song on the guitar while we all sang, in front of this entire school. We thought it was absolute shambles but the school genuinely really enjoyed it, and for the first few days of our stay, I was being called into all the classrooms to write up the chords and lyrics on the chalk boards and teach the students the song. Finally on the last day we had another ceremony, a farewell ceremony, and we were all already pretty emotional, but none of us were able to contain ourselves when the entire school starting singing this Jason Mraz song back to us, after secretly practicing without us that entire week. It was insane, and this song will always remind me of it.
At Last – Etta James: I kind of just always remember this song being that song that my parents drilled into my head as a classic. I grew up watching everyone around me ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ each time it came on, and as I grew up it became second nature, and it was only a couple of years ago that I properly listened to the song and got shivers and the Etta’s vocals and her lyrics and how musically beautiful the song is.
Don’t Know Why (I Didn’t Come) – Norah Jones: While my Dad influenced my love for artists like Michael Jackson and Alicia Keys, my Mum introduced me to singers like Norah Jones, who to this day, still give me shivers. This song is so beautiful, I’ve added it to numerous playlists and I can never find it in myself to skip it. This song especially means heaps to me, just because of the memory’s it hold between my Mum and I.
King Kunta – Kendrick Lamar: I can’t not include this song. I don’t know what it is about this song but I go from 0-100 real quick when it comes on, regardless if I’m by myself or out with my friends. It’s a pretty popular song amongst all my friends, we hype the heck up whenever it comes on and my mum has learnt to accept that I’ll forever an always screech the lyrics from the top of my lungs.
I hope you enjoyed this post, I’ve had it sitting in my drafts for a while because I could never get started with listing the songs, but I’m glad I finally tackled it. That said, my heart breaks for the songs that didn’t make the cut, because if I didn’t give you the condensed version, we’d be here all day. I’d love to hear some of your life soundtrack songs! Let me know in the comments!!
x
Priya
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