100 and counting!

 Hello!

 Welcome to my 100th post on this blog! I'm incredibly proud and happy that my blog has reached 100 and is still thriving. It is also more or less three and a half years old - although it feels like I've had it much longer.

 So here is my joint 100th post/three and a half birthday celebration!

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 I celebrated my fiftieth post by looking back at how my blog had changed in the year and a half I'd had it at that point.

 I also looked back at my first post, which listed some of my favourite songs lyrics-wise, to see how I felt about them fifty posts later. Most of them I still loved at that point - and I still love now.

 So, I wondered what to do for my 100th post that would be different. I decided to do a list and a countdown and, in doing so, reflect on my relationship with music and writing over the past three and a half years and how it has evolved, and how it has shaped my life.

 I will link to various other posts on this blog, so this 100th post should also be a good navigational tool for finding music you like that I have written about.

 I hope you enjoy it!

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 Firstly, I present the top 10 most significant things I have achieved since starting this blog.

 Feb 2011 - I set up this blog.

 1) Mar-Apr 2011 - I visited the south of France with my sixth-form college. We were based in Montpellier and visited Carcassonne, Arles and Saintes Maries de la Mer. My love for the area has fuelled many choices I've made in life since, and also inspired my first novel - more about that later!

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 2) Sept - Dec 2011 - I applied for Oxford University and reached the interview stage, which meant I got to stay in Oxford for a few days and see it through a student's eyes.

 I ended up going to Manchester University and I like it very much, but it was nice to have that brief taste of being an Oxford student. I love the city.

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 3) Summer 2012 - I started my first paid job, in a small shop. I really enjoyed it and felt it helped me grow up a lot before going to university in the autumn.

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 4) Jul - Aug 2012 - I completed my Gold Duke of Edinburgh's Award expedition, four days camping and walking in the Lake District. I had a great team and came back with some lovely memories and a wonderful sense of achievement.

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 5) Sept 2012 - I started University. I had a great start, meeting the people who would become my good friends on my very first day.

 From there I had some ups and some downs, but overall I'm glad I came to Manchester. It has been a memorable experience and I have met some great people.

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 6) Dec 2012 - Jan 2013 - I went to Beijing with Uni. I applied for a free place on a three-week programme there and was amazed and thrilled to be accepted, especially as I was so young.

 Most people on the trip were older than me but I made some friends for life and it was three weeks I will never forget. Beijing in the snow is freezing cold but almost unbearably beautiful.

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 7) April 2013 - I interviewed folk-rock duo the Kennedys which was a wonderful experience and was the start of the great relationship I have with the Kennedys, who are lovely people. It also gave me the courage and confidence to interview Eddi Reader.

 I am currently interviewing another artist who I won't yet name but whose interview will hopefully feature on this blog soon!

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 8) May - Aug 2013 - I completed my first novel. I had been planning it since I was fourteen or fifteen but my trip to France aged seventeen added a whole new spin to the story. I knew it now had to be set in the south of France, and the location became a vital aspect of the book.

 I am immensely proud and hope to see it published some day.

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 9) Nov 2013 - I was made Fiction Editor at Miracle Magazine! I really love this job. I get on well with the rest of the Miracle team, and I am so proud when each issue of the magazine come out and I get to see the product of our hard work.

 In 2014 I was asked to also be the Blog Editor of the magazine, and I adore this position. I set up the Miracle Blog and maintain it, posting pieces I have written and commissioning them from other writers.

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 10) Oct 2014 onwards - I have accepted a job as English Language Assistant in a lycée (ages 14-18) in Perpignan, in the south of France. I am so happy to have been placed in Perpignan as it looks truly beautiful and my Catalan will come in useful!

 I am very grateful and am looking forward to what could be the best year of my life.

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 I will now list my top 20 songs that I have mentioned on this blog.

 1) Follow You, Follow Me - Genesis

 2) I Want You - The Silencers

 3) Your Swaying Arms - Deacon Blue

 4) Whole of the Moon - Waterboys

 5) Is This Love? - Alison Moyet

 6) On ira - Jean-Jacques Goldman

 7) Queen of the Slipstream - Van Morrison

 8) I've Been in Love Before - Cutting Crew

 9) These are the Days of Our Lives - Queen

 10) Almost Unreal - Roxette

 11) Pictures of You - The Cure

 12) Clouds Across the Moon - The Rah Band

 13) Why - Annie Lennox

 14) Linger - The Cranberries

 15) Coming Home - Firelight

 16) Listen - The Kennedys

 17) Bell, Book and Candle - Eddi Reader

 18) Jasmine - The Kennedys

 19) The Sun, Moon and Stars - Nanci Griffith

 20) Feels Like Home - Edwina Hayes

 21) You Make Loving Fun - Fleetwood Mac

 22) Don't Wanna Lose You - Gloria Estefan

 23) Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits

 24) Right Here Waiting - Richard Marx

 25) Days Are Numbers - Alan Parsons Project

 Each song links to the post, or one of the posts, where it is discussed.

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 Phew, that was hard! I had to say goodbye to some songs I really love to fit in those I prefer. I would much rather do a Top 100 but I think picking the Top 25 has been a useful exercise in working out what I really like in a song.

 Lyrics are important, as you can tell from the title of my blog. But for me, the number one important thing about a song is the sincerity with which it is sung. A song can have beautiful lyrics, but the singer has to really mean them for me to like it.

 One of my songs, On ira, is French and even before I understood all of the lyrics - which are very beautiful - I loved it because I could clearly hear the love and honesty in Jean-Jacques Goldman's voice as he sang.

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 It's been an amazing experience keeping this blog. I'm so glad I actually got around to setting it up - for weeks I had wanted to and then, in February 2011, I finally took the plunge.

 I must thank my friend Megan, who responded positively to the idea when I mentioned it to her - that really encouraged me to actually do it.

 Thank you to my Mam, who often spurred me on when I was worried a post wasn't "good enough" and made me see that it's not about producing a really polished post, it's about producing an honest and heartfelt one.

 And finally, thank you to everyone who has read and supported my blog and my writing generally over the years.

 Thank you so much,

 Here's to another 100 posts!

 Liz xxx

Feels Like Home

 Hello!

 There has been a fairly big development in my life, in that I have moved to a new University hall of residence.

 There were various reasons behind the move which I won't go into. What I will say is that I settled into my new hall really quickly - even on the first day I felt that I was home. This song kept playing in my head:

 That was last Wednesday - eight days ago. It feels like so much longer. I feel as though I've been living here for a long, long time. I already know a large number of the hall's residents, and I have made some wonderful friends. It's safe to say that I'm very happy here.

 Long live my new home, and may many happy times be ahead of me here.

 Thanks for reading.

 Liz x

Song: Feels Like Home - Edwina Hayes - 2008

We've come a long way...

 Hello my readers!

 Today is Thursday, and I wanted to continue my fiftieth blog post celebrations by reflecting on what I have learnt by keeping this blog.

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 I can't believe this is my fifty-second blog post. It's amazing. And I can't believe it's been nearly a year and a half since I started this blog. Some of the posts I did last summer seem like yesterday. Time really does fly.

 Looking at my posts, it's easy to see the evolution from quite basic, usually gushing about a song I loved, to more structured, more critical - still praising songs I love, but in a more constructive way, I feel.

 That's not to say that my first posts aren't worth reading - I think they still make good reads, especially if you're looking for something short and focussed on one particular song. But I feel that my blogging is more sophisticated now.

 My presentation has evolved - I would now very rarely, if at all, use multiple exclamation marks, nor do I use smilies like this :) Instead I use the proper alt code to get this☺Generally, though, I don't use smilies that much. I use hearts ♥ because I think they look nice and because I am the emotional kind of person who sees the need to use hearts a lot.

 I've also discovered quite recently how to get music notes from alt codes ♪♫ so you may be seeing some music notes on this blog in the future!

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 I've started putting links in posts; I learnt how to do this at Cornerhouse, for which I am very grateful. I also now put tags on all my posts; I didn't originally and have now gone back and made sure all my posts are tagged.

 I started putting the year the song came out at the bottom of each post along with the name of the song and the artist. I know it can be a nightmare finding the details on a song you really like via the Internet, so hopefully my song listings at the end of posts may make that a little easier. Plus I think it makes the blog look that bit more professional.

 I have my "recommended posts," at the end of blog entries; an idea I came up with to help people find entries on the music and artists that they personally like, and also to draw attention to some of my older posts that newer readers may not have seen.

 I now lay out all my entries in the "align left" format, whereas I used to use "align centre" on occasion, and I now think that can look a bit tacky. So, align left it is, and align centre for quoted lyrics. Altogether nicer, I feel.

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 I think my titles have evolved as well - it was always, "Gorgeous song!," "Lovely song! : ) ," etcetera - then they became more sensible because they started telling you what the post was actually about - "R.E.M. and Paul Young," for example.

 Then there was the Eurovision block, then after that I got into the habit of making titles a list of everything mentioned in the blog, for example, "Ireland, the Olympics, Snowdonia and Nanci Griffith." More recently on the title front I've been alternating between humorous and sentimental -and sometimes managed to achieve both.

 I think the first priority with titles must be to give some idea of what the post is about. I'll still use people's names alone for posts that are more biographical; whilst for posts that talk about my life as well as musicians, or which deal with a range of subjects, I try to be more imaginative.

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 I can't believe I've found so much to say about the evolution of my blog - it has changed more than I ever realised. I have changed too - I've become more mature, more sensible, I feel.

 I also write on here regularly, not just when I feel like it as was once the case. I feel like I have entries that need to be written; inspirational songs and amazing songwriters that deserve a place on this blog, and I 'll never be able to cover them all if I only write once in a blue moon.

 This blog isn't just a collection of songs I like, but a record of my life, and sometimes an important moment doesn't get recorded here because I don't get round to writing it up and then I feel that the moment has passed. And I think that's a terrible waste. So I will try not to let that happen any more.

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 Have my musical tastes changed since starting this blog? I don't think so. However, I feel I have discovered music that I never would have if I hadn't been keeping this blog; music that, it turned out, I really liked. So thank you, blog!

 And thank you, for reading my blog.

 Liz x