The Best Song for Every Occasion in Your Life
Music has a way of colouring and shaping our lives. All of us use music to document and define the huge moments and little episodes that collectively make up our story. Music’s inherent power makes it an undeniably significant part of that, whether we are even huge music fans or not. We need it to frame and contextualise the events of our lives, and whilst the right tune can turn a good moment into a perfect one, the wrong music at the wrong time can lead to a lifetime of regret and social shunning by our peers and loved ones.
The struggle is real.
So with that in mind, I have put together a definitive blog for you. Here are many of the biggest moments in your life, and the best songs ever to use in those moments. Apply these at the opportune time and your life will instantly level up: you’ll feel more, sense more, remember more and enjoy more. Everything will get better.
Good moments, bad moments, lost moments and remembered moments: they are all here, paired with pitch-perfect pieces of music. For all of life’s great moments, just apply the song from below. Don’t think too much, just go for it. You can thank me later…
The Best Song for Every Occasion in Your Life
The Best Song For Walking Down the Aisle - Can’t Help Falling in Love - Elvis Presley
For this huge moment in your life, you need to be unashamedly romantic and sentimental. This timelessly gorgeous ballad from The King will reduce everyone at your wedding to blubbering sobs of joy. “Take my hand, take my whole life too, because I can’t help falling in love with you” How could you ever hope to beat that? You can’t, so use it!
The Best Song For Your First Dance - Crazy in Love - Beyonce
You’ve already slayed it with Elvis for the main wedding bit, so why not add some punchy fun to your first dance by evoking Queen Bey herself? It’s guaranteed to fill the dancefloor with drunk aunties and show-off kinsfolk, so make sure you invite everyone up after an awkward minute or so.
The Best Song For Hanging with the Boys - The Boys are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy
Whether your friends are into Thin Lizzy or not, this is a tune for cutting loose with the boys and acting up. It was between this and Rollin’ by Limp Bizkit for this one, so adjust according to taste if you’re not tough enough to play both tunes. What’s wrong with you?
The Best Song For Hanging with the Girls - Shake it Off - Taylor Swift
Take Tay-tay’s advice here and shake it all off, let your hair down, make a noise and have fun! You’re with your best friends and nothing gets in the way of that. Whilst Swiftie does tend to lay out the breakup tunes more than anything else, this song is an empowering ode to just having some dang fun!
The Best Song For Going on Holiday - Every Day Should Be a Holiday - Dandy Warhols
This effervescent song perfectly captures that immense feeling of leaping out of your front door during a sunny day off, and just blasting off in your convertible for an amazing day out. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a convertible, that’s a technicality.
Go with the feeling and check out these lyrics for instant vibes: “Summertime, if I was getting paid, for getting drunk and getting laid, I'd grab a phone, call you up and say ‘Quit your job, 'cause I got it made. Anytime, baby let's go, every day should be a holiday.’”
Immense. Put on Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys straight after, obviously.
The Best Song For Daytime Driving - Live and Let Die - Guns N Roses
No, not the soft Macca/Wings version, the tough bad boy Guns n Roses cover! Come on! Do you drive like an old lady? Put this song on as you are preparing to reverse out of your parking spot, and time the revs so that you are comfortably cruising fast and mean when the big riff section lands. That’s livin’.
If it’s all happening for you, then there’s no reason at all why you can’t follow this up with Boston’s More Than A Feeling. Everyone already knows how cool you are. So what?
The Best Song For Driving at Night - In the Air Tonight - Phil Collins
You might have to take your sunglasses off now (you did have them on, didn’t you?) because it’s dark and we want to go for a moody sunset drive. Nobody cruises at night better than Don ‘Crockett’ Johnson in Miami Vice, so follow his lead: stick on Phil Collins’ moody masterpiece as you crawl along the beachfront, your hair blowing in the breeze and your mind away with the waves. Keep your eyes on the road!
The Best Song For Working Out - Eye of the Tiger - Survivor
There’s actually one - and only one - song choice available to you if you are serious about reaching your goals. Even the name of the band - Survivor - gives you everything you should require for motivation. From that awesome muted guitar intro to the most solid drum performance ever, this tune is going to give it to you straight. You’d better be able to handle it. Can you rise up to the challenge of your rival?
The Best Song For Winning At Sport - Eric’s Theme - Vangelis
Everybody knows the Chariots of Fire theme, but this track from the same movie is less well known. This means that you can borrow it to become your own personal triumph music. You’ve been training hard and can almost taste victory as it approaches. Let this Oscar-winning piece of music soar alongside you as you fly like an eagle to glory.
The Best Song For Visiting Home - My Hometown - Bruce Springsteen
Have you been back home recently? Not where you live, but where you originally came from? Things change when you’re away: there’s no avoiding it, but that doesn’t make it easy to accept. One musician who knows this feeling well is Bruce ‘The Boss’ Springsteen. This song will resonate with you in its own way, whether the lyrics relate or not.
The Best Song For Recalling Your Adolescence - Nightswimming - R.E.M.
Is there ever a more potent time in your life than your teenage years? And has there ever been a more elegiac, evocative song than Nightswimming? It doesn’t matter if you’ve never swam in a lake at night with your pals: the feelings that this song is able to bring to the surface are ones that we all feel strongly, for a part of life that remains ever-present in our minds.
The Best Song For Navigating a Nasty Breakup - Give You Hell - All-American Rejects
“If you find a man that's worth a damn and treats you well,Then he's a fool, you're just as well, hope it gives you hell, When you hear this song, I hope that it will give you hell, You can sing along, I hope that it puts you through hell.”
Now, that is quite an unmatched level of venom right there! Goodness me! Breakups can be horrible, and depending on the circumstances, you will no doubt feel the need for some considerable venting. This song understands you, and gives you plenty of ammo.
The Best Song For Ambivalent Breakups - Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac
Sometimes, breakups are less about rage and more about sullen acceptance. It’s never pretty, but that’s life, and real-life exes Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham are here to help you through this with their unique spat-as-song. Can you imagine breaking up with someone, and then they write a song about it, and then they get you to sing on it?
The Best Song For Coming Back From the Pub - Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver
I know, you’re not even from West Virginia, but after a few jars, we are all on those mythical country roads as we glide home! We need a little singalong ditty to help us on our way from the tavern to our front doors, and this classic by John Denver is known the world over for its late night amicability.
The Best Song For Sleep - Flower Duet - Leo Delibes
Time for beddie-byes? I have just the piece to get you drifting blissfully into your own personal dreamland. I recommend this quite lovely duet from the opera Lakme, in which the title character and her servant gather flowers by the side of a river. Picture the beautiful, peaceful scene. Listen to the gently undulating voices. Serenity envelopes you. Your eyelids feel heavy…
The Best Song For Sleepless Nights - Holes - Mercury Rev
Still having trouble sleeping? Are you still wide-awake in the dark, going over old arguments and money worries? As it turns out, there are some occasions when loud metal isn’t actually appropriate for blocking out life. If the Flower Duet didn’t manage to send you off successfully, why not try this cosmic odyssey instead? It’s ultra relaxing, beautiful, graceful and practically beamed in from some blissful netherland, which is your desired destination. Let the song work its magic!
The Best Song For Righteous Anger at an Ex - You Oughta Know - Alanis Morrissette
Has somebody ‘wrong done’ you? Do you feel blunt swathes of anger running through your body every time you replay old exchanges with your ex? Have you been unreasonably treated and left fuming? Well, Alanis has your back:
“And every time you speak her name, Does she know how you told me, You'd hold me until you died, Till you died, but you're still alive! And I'm here, to remind you, Of the mess you left when you went away, It's not fair, to deny me, Of the cross I bear that you gave to me, You, you, you oughta know”
Now those are some volcanic lyrics! The entire Jagged Little Pill record is a molten response to a litany of relationship failures, because Alanis has had quite enough of it, thanks.
Vicarious venting is important, and if you yell along with this tune at the top of your lungs, you’ll gain untold benefits.
The Best Song For Channelling Righteous Anger at the World - Bleed - Meshuggah
Sometimes, this cruel world requires a response to its madness that is nothing short of fire-breathing in its rage. This epic from Swedish mentalists Meshuggah does not let up for a second of its seven and a half punishing minutes (go for the album version, not the YouTube edit).
Forget how near-imposible it is to physically sustain playing the guitar and drum patterns, and instead focus on the sheer catharsis of a band raging as hard as a band can possibly rage. There are also rumours that listening to this song grants you special superpowers, so look out for them as you grind your teeth and hop around like a goblin.
The Best Song For 90s Nostalgia - I Don’t Want to Wait - Paula Cole
The 90s are currently a very wistful, ideal time for a great many people. Whether you lived through them or not, that decade seemed to be more lively, full of art, music, passion and colour than today. No internet (mostly), pre 9/11, pre social media, but full of great music, great movies and great shows.
The 90s were pretty great, and for some reason, a lot of those feelings seem to be encapsulated in the Dawson’s Creek theme tune. I know! It’s not like everybody even watched it, far less liked it, but this song somehow encapsulates that breezy sense of wide-skied possibility, with a hint of delicious drama and heartache that make up the stories of all of our lives. If where you are today is somehow lacking, you can always head to Dawson and Joey.
The Best Song For Hard Times - Stand By Me - Ben E King
Life can get impossibly dark sometimes, with some problems appearing simply too much to surmount. In times like this, we need a hand to reach out into the darkness for us. Not to solve anything, but to simply be there, standing strong and being supportive. We need to understand that the morning will come, the light will break on the horizon, and things will seem more hopeful.
This luminescent ode to faith and hope in humanity is enormously powerful. Play it now, there’s no other song like it in the world.
The Best Song For Supporting Your Friends - Lean on Me - Bill Withers
Avoiding suffering in our lives is just impossible, but how we rise to those tough times is a measure of us as people. Nobody can get through it all alone, and those who are there for us in our darkest moments are worth more than gold. This simple, lovely song spells it out in such a plain, earnest way that its message is clear and eternal. Like Stand By Me, it’s a light in the dark: ‘I am here with you’. Sometimes, that’s all anybody needs.
Maybe you need somebody like that, or maybe you are that person for another. Whichever way, this ode to simply being there for someone who needs you was written and recorded especially for you.
The Best Song For Funerals - Wind Beneath My Wings - Bette Midler
Funerals are difficult to navigate, whether you knew the person well or not. It’s important to act with respect for the departed, and a way you can make this happen is to listen to Wind Beneath My Wings before you head off.
Why? Instant tears.
This 80s classic is an undoubted button-pusher, blending the sound of triumph with lyrics of loss and defeat. A song about how excellent someone was from the point of view of their friend who feels that they could never much up to the greatness of their beloved. It’ll get you!
The Best Song for World Peace - Horizon - Jon & Vangelis
Let’s close this extravaganza with a song of hope. Yes, I know we’ve had Vangelis already, but he’s a useful musician for these big emotional moments in life. Rather him than Robbie Williams or Coldplay, right?
So this spectacular 20 minute electro-symphony sees our Greek maestro collaborating with Yes vocalist Jon Anderson on a piece of music that is not only ineffably beautiful but impossibly uplifting. Anderson’s vocals sing deliberately that ‘peace will come’ over and over like a chant, whilst Vangelis’ synths are set like laser beams from heaven. It’s pretty incredible stuff, and makes you feel like the world truly can be saved after all.
What Other Songs Do You Need?
Life has lots of trials, tribulations, curveballs and unexpected glories awaiting us. Lots of them are here today in this blog, but there are many more that you can help me out with. What special moments can you think of that need a perfect song? I mean, it’s probably true to say that absolutely every life event can be successfully soundtracked with Gimme All Your Lovin’ by ZZ Top, but I do think we deserve a little bit of variety, don’t we?
Let me know, and in the meantime, you’re welcome, ok?
