Well, It Was Bound To Happen Eventually
Please join me in appreciating the following informational broadcast:
It’s Tuesday! Which is one day latter than this email was supposed to arrive in your inbox. But someone lost track of time last night and did not realize it hadn’t been sent until it was already (technically) Tuesday. HOWEVER! I lost track of time doing something from which you, our beloved subscribers, can benefit: collating the responses I received on Instagram to the following prompt:
If you could have inspired any song, which one would you want it to be?
The answers were varied and delightful, I discovered many news songs I had never heard, and I have gathered them into a Spotify playlist— all seven hours and fifty-five minutes worth. Some fun facts about the songs included:
The artists with the most replies: Bob Dylan, Josh Ritter, and Otis Redding
The songs more that multiple people picked:
“Kathleen” by Josh Ritter
“Slow Show” by The National
“Your Song” by Elton John
“Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
“Harvest Moon” by Neil Young
“You Are The Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne
“Bless the Telephone” by Labi Siffre
“Love to Me” from Light in the Piazza— which two separate correspondents suggested right in a row!— and…
“The Right Kind of Phrase” by Jason Mraz which, for some reason, is not available on Spotify— the only song to elude us!
Multiple people thought they had to apologize? For saying their picks were One Direction songs? Like they don’t even know who my co-editor is?? In this house, we respect our charming boy band kings. Find someone else to apologize to, pals!
And the two songs I didn’t know that I was most delighted to discover through this experiment:
The aforementioned “Bless the Telephone”
and “45 Years” by Stan Rogers
If you participated in this survey already: thank you! I had so much fun that I am going to do another such survey next week, but with a different prompt, so come join me on Instagram if you want to play along. And! If you did not contribute on Instagram, please feel free to share your answers in the comments here!
XOXO, your tardiest Dame — Margaret