MY TEN BEST SONGS

Cats, birds, recipes? And now songs?, would ask more than one. Okay, this is a blog that talks especially about photography, but photography is not everything in this life. A reader wrote me: This blog, leaving apart its main role about good photography, I find that is very entertaining with its touches of birds, cats and recipes. And Joseba Zabalza said: I'm with you Paco, a blog is a kind of diary. While our passion is photography, I get bored about photographers only speaking of photos. We are photographers and much more, and we have dogs and cats and we cook (worst in my case) or better, but our life is not based solely on taking pictures.

Great, let’s also add a little music.

Music is an important part of our lives and even more in the case of photographers, at least in mine. It was my companion along the thousands and thousands of miles driving through Spain and Europe, between photo and photo, and also in the hours and hours spent inside the darkroom. So I decided to make a list, whith the intention of making there appear slowly on the blog, of my 10 favorite songs. It is not a closed list and I do not pretend, unlike photos or photographers, to defend then at all costs, knowing that my taste can be very personal and without great reasons with which to defend them. Some of them bring me some important memories and others, and here I use the argument of many students when they are aware that they do not have many chances to defend a questionable image: I just like then.

Here they are:

1) Here, there and everywhere by The Beatles.
2) Moon River by Audrey Hepburn
3) Memory by Elaine Page
4) Blade runner. Love Theme by Vangelis
5) The new kid in town by The Eagles
6) Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan
7) The Boxer by Simon&Garfunkuel
8) The way we were by Barbara Streissand
9) Sun comes up its Tuesday morning by The Junkies Cowboys
10) Pájaros de barro by Manolo García

HERE THERE AND EVERYWHERE. THE BEATLES / MY TOP TEN SONGS

In the list of my top 10 songs, the Beatles take the first place. I could almost fill the list with their songs. I spent my teens listening to them and I deeply influenced by them , as the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and his magnificent novel Norwegian wood, in where together with the action it is always present the Liverpool quartet’s music.
Maybe I could have chosen If I fell, Misery, Nowhere Man, Michelle, With a little help from my friends, The full on the hill or the beautiful While my guitar gently weeps or The long and winding road. Or perhaps go towards twist and rock and roll and chose Twist and shout or Roll over Beethoven, but my all time favourite has always been Here, there and everywhere: It's a beautiful ballad and sounds Beatles for all sides.

MOON RIVER, AUDREY HEPBURN. MY TOP TEN SONGS

It's like the Perfect Storm. All the conditions are together: a film based on a successful novel, Breakfast at Tiffany's, by a recognized writer, Truman Capote, starred by a legendary actress, Audrey Hepburn, with a wonderful soundtrack of Henry Mancini at which stresses the song Moon River, which many of the greatest performers have sung. Audrey Hepburn is not a singer and perhaps I could have chosen the versions of Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra or Sarah Brigthman but, how can anyone resist the Hepburn’s charm?

THE WAY WE WERE. BARBRA STREISAND. MY TOP TEN SONGS

A
A beautiful song from a wonderful film

Scattered pictures
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
For the way we we

Memories

May be beautiful and yet

What's to painful to remember

We simply choose to forget

So its the laughter

We will remember

Whenever we remember

The way we were

Gosh! What a week! Fairwell to Cover. Bye, bye Kodachrome. Memories. The way we were...

I think I'm getting old.

MY TOP TEN SONGS.MR. TAMBOURINE MAN. BOB DYLAN

It is one of the greatest and his style is unmistakable. There are many songs that I like: Like a Rolling Stone, The Times They Are a Changing, A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall, It ain’t me babe, I want you , the beautiful Just Like a Woman or the much more recent Hurricane , but the first that called my attention strongly and the one I learned all the lyrics was Mr. Tambourine Man : A

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind
Down the foggy ruins of time,
Far past the frozen leaves
The haunted, frightened trees
Out to the windy beach
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free
Silhouetted by the sea,
Circled by the circus sands
With all memory and fate
Driven deep beneath the waves
Let me forget about today until tomorrow. A

Wow! Would anyone be surprised that the lyrics of Dylan are being studied in universities alongside those of the greatest poets?

MY TOP TEN SONGS. THE NEW KID IN TOWN

I carry on with My top ten songs. The Eagles’s long play Hotel California has been one of the bestsellers in the history of pop music, and as a single repeated ad nauseam. But my favorite , like this girl that at first you don't notice because there are others more spectacular but ends up stealing your heart, became the New kid in town.