Celebrate Life
celebrate the joys and pains of existence with tommi tikka
featuring artists like
Elvis Presley, The Impersonators, Robb Murphy, HOAX, Elton John, Neil Diamond, DD Allen, The Modern World
The great Oscar Wilde once remarked:
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that’s all.
This famous quote pretty much sums up what Music To Celebrate Life is about: living. More precisely, it celebrates the life lived, all of it – not just the good bits. Hence, the music featured here is about the joys and pains of existence. The songs selected for this playlist will have strong vocals and compelling melodic structures. However, given the nature and the theme of this playlist, special emphasis is placed on the lyrical content.
Waiting – Tyler Boone
6 May 2018
Growing up, relationships in general made very little sense to me. They were something that adults engaged themselves in, while I was busy getting in trouble at school or teasing my little brother. In my early adulthood, when I knew slightly more about the art of coexisting in close quarters with another person, I looked at relationships from a different point of view. I felt they were very complex and I had a hard time understanding the logic behind most of them…
All It’s Done – Elastic Band
29 April 2018
Do you remember a time when music was interesting, psychedelic and yet, at the same time fun? It’s hard, isn’t it? Perhaps because this marriage of psychedelia and fun is not that common – at least not anymore. You’d have to go back to the music made in the late sixties or early seventies to find a larger pool of it relatively easily. By the way, if you do, check out tracks such as Procol Harum’s “Good Captain Clack” or “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” by the Beatles, as they are fantastic songs and productions. And if you don’t much like the music made in the sixties, don’t worry, there is another way to find out what I am talking about. Just google the Spanish Elastic Band’s fantastic single “All It’s Done” and give it a spin.
Elastic Band’s press release characterizes the group like this:
Their songs are sonic collages that use daring tricks as a means to intertwine decades, genres, trends and frequencies. This is done to reach unexpected musical destinations. With songs that could style-wise be described as leftovers from the 20th century, this duo is attempting to create 21st century pop. Their new album celebrates love, friendship and positive attitude, as reflected by the cover by Camille Perkins.
When The Levee Breaks – Led Zeppelin
9 April 2018
The following is a statement issued by Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones on December 4, 1980 – two months after drummer John Bonham’s death.
We wish it to be known, that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the deep sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were…
Philosopher – Observer Effect
3 April 2018
Truth is…indie bands like us aren’t in it for the money, we just want to know there’s a few people out there nodding their head to our stuff.
The above is a direct quote from the web pages of Observer Effect, a folk-rock group from Brisbane, Australia, who sent me a link to their new single “Philosopher” through Twitter. I clicked on it, had a listen and loved what I was hearing:…
Gold Dust – Ted Russet
26 March 2018
A little more than a decade ago, a self-proclaimed Japanese scientist called Masaru Emoto conducted a series of tests on water. One part of his experiment consisted of placing tap water in a glass and exposing it to different words. To put this in a more simple way: He spoke to a glass of water. After this, Emoto froze the water he’d been conversing with and studied how the water crystals looked…
Coles Corner – Richard Hawley
20 March 2018
Since Frank Sinatra is well-known for mistakenly introducing ”Something” as his favorite Lennon–McCartney composition during his live shows (it’s written by another Beatle, George Harrison), it is therefore only fair that I introduce ”Coles Corner” as my favorite Frank Sinatra tune…
Kids On The Corner – The People The Poet
13 March 2018
When I was about ten or eleven, our family was between houses for a few months. During this time, we lived in an apartment building close to the new neighborhood. I remember that time rather well due to the couple living next door to us. The reason for my vivid recollection of them is that they fought all the time – day in, day out. However, it wasn’t just the screaming and fighting that made them so memorable. It was that they both threw things out the window in the heat of the fight. As a matter of fact, my friends and I used to joke about them. We called the guy “Terminator” and the woman Sarah (as in the movie Terminator)…
Better Man – Robbie Williams
6 March 2018
New Year’s Eve 2000 is burned on my mind for two reasons. Firstly, my brother came to Chicago to celebrate it with me. This resulted in a New Year’s party that neither one of us has any recollection of. It wasn’t exactly like the movie “Hangover” but close enough. Secondly, and more importantly, New Year’s Day 2001 was the first time ever I heard Robbie Williams’ ”Better Man.”
The Modern World – The Modern World
27 February 2018
It’s very hard to explain the eighties to someone who either wasn’t alive then or isn’t old enough to remember it. After all, this was the decade when the computer was named the man of the year by Time Magazine, John Lennon was shot, Pac-Man was released, MTV was launched, Prince Charles married Diana, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded, the Berlin Wall was torn down, the Cold War was slowly coming to an end and most of the music world went crazy with synthesizers and electric drums…
What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? – Echo And The Bunnymen
20 February 2018
“What am I going to do with my life” is a question I’ve asked myself multiple times over the years. The reason for this might be the fact that my life, up until now, has been a bunch of restarts: moving from one country to another, changing jobs, changing careers, getting divorced, getting remarried, having kids, etc. It looks easy enough when you put it in writing but in reality, of course, it’s been anything but. There have been times when I’ve felt that my life is spinning out of control so fast that it would be useless to even try to grab it. Yet, so far, I’ve always managed to bring it all into focus, although sometimes in the nick of time.
Fall In Love – Carmen Gray
13 February 2018
Depending on your time zone, Valentine’s Day is either today or tomorrow. And on days such as Valentine’s Day, you tend to do something special for the people you love. In fact, I am jumping on that bandwagon with this week’s post and will write about a tune that has a special place in my heart, ”Fall In Love” by Carmen Gray, a song that is important to me for two reasons.
Down The Line – True Adventures
7 February 2018
Once a female MP attacked Winston Churchill with a comment, “Sir, if I was your wife, I’d poison your tea.” Winston smiled and immediately shot back, “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”…