Today is my sister Amy’s birthday, so I figured I should honor the occasion by picking an appropriate song.
iTunes makes it very easy to do a word search of your entire collection. First I tried “birthday.” The results were ‘Unhappy Birthday’ by The Smiths, which is both an inappropriate sentiment and a repeat artist (which I’ve vowed not to do until absolutely necessary); and ‘Birthday’ by The Beatles, which is an OK song, but do I really want to blow my Beatles selection on that? I don’t think so.
Next I tried “sister.” Plenty more to choose from here, including tracks by 10,000 Maniacs, Elvis Costello, Sting, Elton John, Spoon, The Smiths (again) and Bob Dylan. But again, the songs were either a poor fit or a waste of a good artist.
So then I went with her name, “Amy.” Got three returns. Counting Crows — already did ’em. Ryan Adams — already did him.
Dana Gallup. Aha!
Dana Gallup might not be the best-known artist in my collection, but he’s definitely a personal favorite. He’s a piano bard in the Billy Joel vein who had a minor hit in the 80s (‘Keep Your Money’). And he has a great song called ‘Amy’ that feels like it was written with my sister in mind.
Happy Birthday, Amy!
Ha. Thanks for the sentiment and for featuring such a talented unsigned artist 🙂 You actually made me smile after a bunch of unruly 10th grade “adivsees” made that seem less than likely this morning.
By the way, I happen to love another song called “Amy” by Pure Prairie League (I had no idea who the artist was until I just looked it up, and I’ve never heard of them). Might be another good entry in your “one-wow songs” collection, though it’s likely a one-hit wonder as well.
Seems like you really were scraping the bottom of the barrel here! This Billy Joel wannabe needs to stick to his day job!:)
Actually, a very sweet pick on your part. Probably a better pick than “Better off Without You,” though the latter has better production qaulity and guitar! But I guess the blogosphere will have to wait about 7000 more days before that song makes it to the Song of the Day.:)
Are you planning to divorce me in 7000 days? Just curious 🙂
I think he means it will take that long before I start doing repeat artists, but if you want to go with divorce…
Yes, of course I meant as Clay suggested. Geez!
Yes, I understood that part. Still, why, in 7000 days, wouldn’t Clay feature “Keep Your Money” or “In Your Arms” or some other song? Hmmm. Not that “Better Off without You” isn’t a favorite of mine 🙂