Musical A-Z - C

Catatonia

At one point, my little brother was going to be called 'Hereward'. This was discarded when my Dad realised no one would be able to pronounce it correctly: 'Herrheywarrhd' is about as well as I can render. My little sister in particular was unable to roll her r's. She can now, and it's thanks to this song. She was pretty obsessed with it for a while, singing the chorus over and over again until one day we all realised her r's were rolling beautifully.

I still love this song. I love Cerys Matthews' voice and I love that it always make me think of my little sister.

Christina Aguilera

I settled into a preference for rock/punk/metal fairly in my mid-teens. In this, I was strongly influenced by a group of friends who were a few years older. Miriam, in particular, I looked up to with a respect bordering on reverence, so I was very surprised when she told me she liked Christina Aguilera. At this point, the onyl song of hers I knew was Dirrty and I couldn't stand it. Miriam agreed, but said I should listen to the album; I'd be surprised. I was.

Fighter was released soon after and I really like both the song and the video, but I think this song is hauntingly, horribly beautiful.

The Clash

The Clash are a favourite band of my Dad's, and his love of them rubbed off on me. I couldn't decide which song to use - I could very easily have shared nearly their entire discography in this post. But this one is about a daddy, so it seemed a suitable choice.

The Correspondents

I really like these guys - saw them live once and Mr Bruce has an insane amount of energy on stage. Husbit discovered them a few years ago and enjoyed their style. He's always said if we do get married (or at least have a party) our first dance should be charlston in style: he worked as a wedding DJ for a few years and got bored of the 'move slowly around in a circle' dance most couples do, but thinks the charlston looks fun and exciting. It also looks pretty exhausting, but we thought we might be able to abridge Washington Square for the dance. So I was torn between that and this, but this one won because I can't think of any other song that has 'reprobate' in the chorus. 

Cream

Dad had a vinyl record player when I was little. It lived in our lounge, on a cabinet filled with LP's and EP's. I recall Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, the only Beatles' album he thought was any good, Velvet Underground, Simon and Garfunkel, the smell, the texture. Most of all, I remember his Cream album. It was cream coloured, a large box and signed by the three members.

I don't remember the other songs on it, but Dad used to play this one to us over and over again, in the way only a small child can demand.