Theme Songs:

seventh grade: Tubthumping, though it would take too long to explain why. Also, How Lovely to be a Woman from Bye, Bye, Birdie- but that, too, would take a great deal of time to explain.

Closing Time, by Semisonic, as well as Alcohol and Insomnia by BNL for eighth grade.

The whole soundtrack from Les Mis (especially Stars, Do You Hear, and Turning) and all of Mirrorball (Sarah McLachlan, especially Fear, Possession, and Good Enough) for ninth grade. And Everything's Gonna Be Alright (Shawn Mullins), but that's true for every day, every year, for ever and ever- though it started freshman year.

10th- Let it Be (The Beatles), Angel and Do What You Have to Do (Sarah) for the beginning of the year. No Angel and My Lover's Gone (Dido) for the middle, and Nowhere Road (Fastball) for the whole fucking thing. Beautiful Day, U2 (oddly enough), and, of course, American Pie (Don McLean).

Last year; Song of Tears (Adiemus); Long December (Counting Crows); the fifth track of Hampsterdance (yes, the p does belong there); Want it All Back (Yoko Kanno, Cowboy Bebop); Barely Breathing, Duncan Sheik. And several other things- Paved Over Paradise, Bloody Sunday (U2), Heart of America (Counting Crows)- but those are minor themes, ones that acompany Long December and Song of Tears...

This year- Memento and Serena, Duncan Sheik; Ordinary World, Duran Duran; anything and everything by Nickel Creek but especially Reasons Why and Out of the Woods; All Hallowed Eve's Dance, Mummer's Dance, The Highwayman, The Old Ways, and a bunch of others, Loreena McKennit; In This World, Moby.

Most of them are associations, not mood or emotion themes. A few are simple mood themes- Nowhere Road, for instance, and Ordinary World. Others are quite misleading; Serena and Alcohol and American Pie- there are some very long explanations that go with those, and they aren't at all what you'd think. Some (Closing Time) are just things that I've heard over and over again; (cold water cold wind sandy rocks and beaches and Maine and birthdays) things that evoke key moments of certain years...

So, yes, the past five years encompass a rather lengthy soundtrack for me...we'll see what music plays in the background over the next few years, eh?

Happy New Year, by the way. I'm not done with this yet, but it's a start.

(And the song, the Nickel Creek version of the song is part of a movie soundtrack! *dies* Mineminemineminemine!)