My Life In 8 Songs

Jah Ma!

Today I read this post by @hopehuggs about @pennsif and his new radio show coming up on MSP Waves Radio My Life in 8 Songs (starting Saturday 3 March 2018).

In her post @hopehuggs challenges us to come up with up to eight songs (she chose five herself) that create our life story or part of it.
Since I have participated in some other challenges on steemit already, and derived pleasure and growth from it, because those challenges made me do things I normally wouldn´t do, like poetry, I have decided to participate in this challenge too. All my songs come from youtube. So bear with me. 😎

1. Volunteers by Jefferson Airplane

Representing all that is good about American culture, freedom, revolt,
sex&drugs&rock´n roll, one of the first albums I bought in the 70s, those happy days, driving my father mad with it, and slick Grace was probably my first wet dream.

2. Warten auf das Meer by Feine Sahne Fischfilet

Then, in 1980, the lovely seventies were over, I lost the love of my life, my mother, she died of a stroke, at the age of 46.
Since I´m German, there are also some German songs in my life and so I choose "Warten auf das Meer" (Waiting for the Sea) to represent that loss. Though created some 30 plus years later, the lyrics, the music, and the video capture that feeling of losing a loved one pretty well, plus the sea is the second greatest love of my life, and, as an added bonus, I get to cry every time I watch it.
And Feine Sahne is one of the greatest German newcomer bands, hardhitting hooligans, punks with attitude, ardent anti-fascists, but ah, so sensitive and ingenious.
English lyrics

3. Dvořák: Symphony №9, "From The New World" - IV - Allegro Con Fuoco

Though no song, but frankly, my dear, I don´t give a damn, it stands for the endless hours I spent with my best mate in his basement chemical lab, following our juvenile interests (explosives and moonshine), listening to the whole symphony, but the mighty 4th movement was always my favorite and even nowadays, whenever I need a motivational boost, it never fails me.

4. Oh Bondage! Up Yours! by X-Ray Spex

One of my alltime favorite punk songs, representing the spirit of the 80s. I have always loved hard and heavy music with female singers, and Poly Styrene was such a great spirit, a true non-conformist individual, albeit leaving us also far too early.
And this combination of punk and sax, nothing beats it!

5. Alerta Antifascista by ZSK

Another German pearl! 😎
Though created many years after my black block years, now I´m probably too old for this shit anyway, I like this song for its speed and anti-fascist message, plus a bit of riot porn, so I choose it to represent my wild, violent, "political" time.

6. Perfect Day by Lou Reed

This song stands for the teenage angst, teenage love&hate, the romantic confusion, sweet bitter romance, the triumphs/ the defeats of love, the raw intensity of it all we can only feel early on in life, before we got tainted and hardened by the dark hands of life.

7. Anak by Freddie Aguilar

When my father married again, a Filippina nurse in 1983, I suddenly had more Filippino than German relatives.
This song represents my time in the Philippines, my second home, and with Filippino friends and relatives in Germany.

8. Govindam Adi Purusam - George Harrison version

This song, played every morning in ISKCON temples all over the world, stands for my almost ten years in an Yoga Ashram in Germany, my journeys and adventures in India, my "spirituality".
Though my guru is Swami Sivananda and so I am a student of Advaita Vedanta in the tradition of Shankaracharya, I choose an "ISKCON song" because I just love this song for its Bhakti.

Wow, what a ride!
That was fun!
Bit of a wild mix, but I refuse to be simple, I like complex,
I want to be a shining crazy diamond with many facets. 😎