And 2 Gord songs on an Aussie's 60th birthday album
 

Back in Mar2018, self-indulgently using the General Discussion forum, I posted a thread titled "Two Gord songs on an Aussie's funeral album". It described the CD I had compiled with 4 tracks to be played at my far-distant funeral and 15 other lifetime favourites. I swore it would be the only time I compiled such an album (for a funeral or any other purpose). However, recently I thought back to the half-a-dozen songs that didn't have room to fit on the album and a few more that I've been obsessed with over the years. The result is a CD titled "Dave B's 60th Birthday Album (... two years early)", fronted by a photo taken on my recent 58th birthday holding up my uncomfortable-looking 40Kg golden retriever in the kitchen.

Its 15 songs (with comments I added on the album cover) are as follows:
Rickie Lee Jones "On Saturday Afternoons In 1963" 1979
Broderick Smith's Big Combo "Last Train From Mobiltown" 1981
_(Former railway station near Melbourne/My favourite pub gig song)
The Moody Blues "The Day We Meet Again"
_(Introduced to their music in 1981 via album 'Octave')
Bob Seger "Mainstreet" (from 1981 live album 'Nine Tonight')
Gordon Lightfoot "A Lesson In Love" 1986
_(Re circus pioneer PT Barnum and Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind)
Rickie Lee Jones "Flying Cowboys" 1989
Shane Howard "Heart Of My Country" 1990
_(He's from western Victoria with passion for outback & indigenous)
Van Morrison & Paul Durcan "In The Days Before Rock & Roll" 1990
_(Durcan is an Irish poet)
Jethro Tull "Stuck In The August Rain" 1995
Tony Rice "Go My Way"
_(Got into bluegrass via 1996 album 'Tony Rice Sings Gordon Lightfoot')
The Corrs "Borrowed Heaven" 2004
Jackson Browne "Where Were You?" 2008
_(Re Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and president George W Bush)
James Taylor "Angels Of Fenway" 2015
_(Melbourne Football Club last won in 1964/I wish they'd do a Boston Red Sox)
Sia "Never Give Up" 2016
_(From my favourite recent movie 'Lion', connecting India and Australia)
Chris Rea "Driving Home For Christmas" 1988
_(My favourite Christmas song/Written in London-Middlesbrough traffic jam)

If anybody wants to hear the tracks available on YouTube:
On Saturday Afternoons In 1963
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAvHwV_pDNo
Last Train From Mobiltown
(not on YouTube)
The Day We Meet Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4QcxhsnXpQ
Mainstreet (live version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoVCxQtQGls
A Lesson In Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUssC6AblTs
Flying Cowboys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Gs1mDFuEM
Heart Of My Country
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCvKGp894aQ
In The Days Before Rock & Roll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgCqTaPMJ7A
Stuck In The August Rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTStrr4Phu8
Go My Way (Tony Rice's cover version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKNTbL6zxT0
Borrowed Heaven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVyIOacWg2s
Where Were You?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63WCvb2_dU0
Angels Of Fenway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K1qZi6Z0e4
Never Give Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oTq-FfOsBk
Driving Home For Christmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgDgQbhHuZw

Re: And 2 Gord songs on an Aussie's 60th birthday album
 

It's May19 in Australia and today is my actual 60th birthday. I feel lucky when I think of a few friends and relatives who died in their 50s and younger. Looking back on the "60th birthday" album I compiled two years early, a few of its songs mean more to me than they did then. "Borrowed Heaven" because I dedicated it to Mum when she passed away in February this year. "Angels of Fenway" because my beloved Melbourne Football Club broke their 57-year championship drought in 2021 in Mum's 57th and final season of supporting them. (They're also undefeated half-way through the 2022 season and short odds to win the Grand Final again, this time in Melbourne in front of their home fans including me.) And Tony Rice's bluegrass cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Go My Way", because Rice died on Christmas Day 2020, aged 69.

I'll be spending my 60th birthday working from home, like nearly every weekday since the COVID pandemic arrived. I was looking forward to the evening at a restaurant with wife and both daughters and their boyfriends, but one daughter living away from home has COVID (I'm the only family member who's never had it) and it's been cancelled. Instead my wife and I are just going to the cinema.