If I think of songs that mean something special I'm always caught inside quite a few. If I look at my life there are 'soundtracks' if you like, that take me right back inside the feelings, often intensely so, of those special or poignant times and there are many of them. For example, all early Creedence Clearwater songs (!!) signify the breakdown of my first marriage, a devastating time, but also a time of self-awareness and survival so very special. Much later John Fogarty as a soloist filled in some solitary times when I was simply 'being still'. Leonard Çohen's 'Sisters of Mercy' and 'So Long Marianne' particularly were soundtracks to a time of great love, friendship and incredibly good times with some women who continue to be very dear to me. 'Wild Mountain Thyme' is an ongoing sound track in another circle of friends. I love the sound of that song and when my friends are very much somewhere else I can almost smell them around me when I hear this song. 'Down To The River To Pray', 'Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby', 'Angel Band', and 'I'll Fly Away' are all bitter sweet soundtracks of the lead up to my first-borns death. We both listened to these songs over and over and they meant so much to him and therefore to me. Not for the reasons of faith and/or hope, but because of the sounds of the songs, the structure. Now they remind me of both his life and his death. Abbess Hildegard of Bingen's 'Ave, Generosa' has become the soundtrack for me of both the fragility and the joys of life while the whole of Alan Stivell's 'Brian Boru' is the soundtrack for great times in Sydney driving around with a car full of friends. I've never yet met anyone who really liked the soundtrack of Bob Dylan's 'Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid' but that pile of songs are special as it always seems that I play them on my way home to my mother's country while 'Down From Dover' is very special as it always reminds me of my dearest younger sister whom I loved so much. Billie Holliday's 'Strange Fruit', such a revelation to myself as a child, will always signal my awareness of a world that is not perfect, in fact can be horrible, but that a song can make a difference reverberating as it does down the generations. Oh, I can go on and on but I must go and listen to some of these very special songs once again.