An addendum to a very old blog post

One of my favorite blog posts ever, back on the old Irish Trojan’s Blog in August 2006, was on the topic of my favorite songs of all-time. The post got 48 comments, and ’twas fascinating to hear my readers’ takes on my favorites, as well as their own favorites.

Anyway, the post itself had four postscripts, and it occurred to me the other day that I should really add another one — a P.P.P.P.P.S. — albeit almost 4 years later.

In the 3 years and 9 months since August 2006, I’ve been exposed to plenty of new (or new-to-me) music, including a number of songs that would have made it onto my ephemeral “favorite songs of the moment” list at one point or another. For instance, “What’s Left of the Flag” and “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” and “Rebels of the Sacred Heart” by Flogging Molly; “City of New Orleans” as sung by Seldom Scene; “Summer of ’69” as sung by Jimbo Whaley; “67 Chevy Malibu” by Larry Cordle; “Wicked Twisted Road” by Reckless Kelly; “The Train’s Ready” and “Burning Georgia Down” by Balsam Range (major Knoxville/bluegrass/WDVX influence in a lot of those); and “England” by Great Big Sea. But none of those would make the all-time list.

Nor, quite, would my favorites from my Notre-Dame-nostaglia “Backer & 80s rock” playlist, notably “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey and “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash, courtesy of an all-time hits CD that I got in 2007, are very, very close, and might in fact make the cut, if I really stopped and thought about it.

But there’s only one song that’s definitely a newcomer to the all-time list — and it’s a song that I’ve known and liked for many years, since long before August 2006. But changed circumstances in my life have converted it into a no-brainer all-time favorite.

Billy Joel’s “Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)” has become a very special song for me, as it’s the one I sing to Loyette at bedtime most nights. Actually it was virtually every night, back when she was a year old, but then we switched away to other songs for a while, most recently “Sweet Baby James” by James Taylor… however, in the last few weeks, Loyette has specifically started requesting the “angel song,” which, of course, just makes my heart melt. So it’s been re-established as a nightly thing, at her insistence.

And while the line Someday your child may cry / And if you sing this lullabye / Then in your heart, there will always be a part of me no longer literally gives me goosebumps Every. Single. Time. that I sing it, like it used to, I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of the song, because of the deep father-daughter associations that it now has for me. Indeed, I often daydream — torturing myself with wildly premature pre-nostalgia, heh — about doing a father-daughter dance with Loyette to that song at her wedding someday. Whether that will actually happen, who knows, but I’m confident in saying it’s a song that will always have a special place in my heart. That, along with the fact that it’s just a great song, secures its place on my all-time list.

(I’d say “my song” with Loyacita, at least so far, is the Clancy Brothers’ “Leaving of Liverpool” — a frequent musical tonic during her many fits of colic/reflux/fussiness in the early months. But we’ll see how that evolves once she’s weaned, and thus I’m doing her bedtime rituals more often.)

On a less personal, more broadly applicable note: Is it even possible in today’s music industry, as opposed to the music industry of several decades ago, for someone as talented yet profoundly ugly as Billy Joel to succeed? I sort of suspect not. He may be the last great ugly musical superstar of our time. 🙂