15 Favorite Albums

Orla Fay tagged me for this challenge. Orla's blog is where I first came across Rumi. (I'm sure he's delighted wherever he is!) In fifteen minutes I'd to list 15 favorite albums. 15 minutes isn't very long, I ran out of time before I knew it. If anyone is stuck for writing inspirations this is a great way of stirring up memories. I tried to be chronological...and failed. First off is my very first tape...

The Beatles Blue AlbumOn cassette tape - lady madonna children at your feet, wonder how you manage to make ends meet - still have this, 32 years later, bring back cassettes!

Elvis - Greatest Hits

Get offa my blue suede shoes... I always switched the speed setting on the record player so Elvis sounded like a middle aged bosco running after a train. Myself and my sister jumped on and off the two-seater leatherette couch (boat) into the carpet (ocean) to this album, a type of dance not often seen nowadays, it had to be done with a pout. My fifteen minutes are already running out!

A Larry Gogan Top Thirty

One of the many tapes I recorded off the radio. It must have been 1980 as John Lennon had three songs in the charts - Woman, Starting over and Imagine, it was the year of his death. I painted his head on the wall at the end of my bed. A dash of gloss on each eye to make him seem alive. A visiting grandmother was unsettled and couldn't sleep; it was a very big head. He's still there. My one and only.

Infected

Loved the anger and lyrics - full of piss stinking shopping centres and rage against the state. The Ilac in Dublin was the only shopping centre in those days so they held a certain toxic exoticness in my imagination.

Violent Femmes

Great teenage angst and energy - "why can't i get just one ****" - Go Gordon. A great one to jump around to after mass and before Sunday dinner.

The Doors

Velvet dresses, shaggy perms...arms doing demented snake turns at the local disco... us, not Jim. This is when we got "sophisticated" (full of ourselves)

Tracey Chapman

Still a great album -I played this to death. Two weeks in a Virginia jail for my lover, for my lover...

Parade

Sometimes it snows in April - the year my gran aunt died. Prince does the best sad songs though he's known more for being tiny and a bit kinky.

Why do birds sing?

Nobody will go to the prom with me. We'd no proms but I loved "American Music."

Ancient Rain

"A leaf from a tree" - it's worth getting your heart broken just so you can cry along to this song. I mean it. It's beautiful. Time will take your love from me...

No Angel

A great "pacing- the- room- with- a- baby- crying- into- your- ear" album.

Golden Age of Radio

Also a great pacing the room with same baby album. Damn colic. (Early over zealous listening to Lady Madonna must've put a curse on me.) Listening to this always makes me grateful for a nights sleep and long for a porch to drink my bud on.

The Beekeeper

I made a really vibrant painting to the Hoochie Woman track on this CD - went to bed with sore knees from bopping in front of the canvas. This woman is a genius.

Billy Holiday

Been a fan off Billy since I my early twenties, it's the music I take out when nothing else suits a mood I call "fed up but enjoying it."

Abbey Road

You should see polythene Pam - she's so good lookin but she looks like a man -oh yes! This belongs in the middle of the list. I bought it on CD but it doesn't sound as satisfying as on the album.

It's amazing how the memory of certain songs brought me right back to the time I first heard them. Will flesh out this post later. What are your top 15?