First Fortnight Co-Motion Playlist
by Una Begley
First Fortnight’s Co-Motion event (http://firstfortnight.ie/whats-on/co-motion/) is on Sunday January 4th and I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve struggled to whittle down my own four song playlist of the “songs that get me through”. I’ve perused others’ lists and been fascinated at the stories behind their selections. In particular, First Fortnight Director JP Swaine’s piece about his selection (http://firstfortnight.ie/co-motion-song-gets-futureheads/) highlighted to me just how central music is in the lives of so many of us.
The thing that kept striking me while choosing my four songs was my complex relationship with music, and how I interact with it during periods of difficulty. While most of the playlists I’ve seen have been filled with songs that helped people through hard times or that strongly remind them of periods of their lives, I have come to realise that I tend to turn to silence when things are tough; I switch off the music. Similarly, I find the songs that remind me strongly of certain periods of my life aren’t the songs I turn to - maybe they mean a bit too much if that even makes sense.
Instead, my songs that get me through are those songs that start to pull me back out of the dark, that manage to get me to raise a smile, or which just manage to get me out of bed on those days where that is the last thing I want to do! To be honest, I could have selected twenty songs that I can use in this way, but I’ve managed to get it down to the chosen four - my songs that get me through.
“Keep Your Head Up” by Ben Howard - never fails to make me feel better.
“One Day Like This” by Elbow - can raise a smile any day of the week.
“Heroes” by David Bowie - my go-to song.
“Ratchet” by Bloc Party - will get me up no matter how much I want to stay in the bed.
First Fortnight’s Co-Motion event (http://firstfortnight.ie/whats-on/co-motion/) is on Sunday January 4th and I’ve been amazed at how much I’ve struggled to whittle down my own four song playlist of the “songs that get me through”. I’ve perused others’ lists and been fascinated at the stories behind their selections. In particular, First Fortnight Director JP Swaine’s piece about his selection (http://firstfortnight.ie/co-motion-song-gets-futureheads/) highlighted to me just how central music is in the lives of so many of us.
The thing that kept striking me while choosing my four songs was my complex relationship with music, and how I interact with it during periods of difficulty. While most of the playlists I’ve seen have been filled with songs that helped people through hard times or that strongly remind them of periods of their lives, I have come to realise that I tend to turn to silence when things are tough; I switch off the music. Similarly, I find the songs that remind me strongly of certain periods of my life aren’t the songs I turn to - maybe they mean a bit too much if that even makes sense.
Instead, my songs that get me through are those songs that start to pull me back out of the dark, that manage to get me to raise a smile, or which just manage to get me out of bed on those days where that is the last thing I want to do! To be honest, I could have selected twenty songs that I can use in this way, but I’ve managed to get it down to the chosen four - my songs that get me through.
“Keep Your Head Up” by Ben Howard - never fails to make me feel better.
“One Day Like This” by Elbow - can raise a smile any day of the week.
“Heroes” by David Bowie - my go-to song.
“Ratchet” by Bloc Party - will get me up no matter how much I want to stay in the bed.
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