Late to the party (as usual), but I’ve only just found out about the 30-Day Song Challenge that seems to be doing the rounds on WordPress in December. For the life of me I can’t trace its originator, but it’s my sort of thing so I thought I’d play along.

This is the full programme for the challenge, so it’s not going to spring any surprises, but there’s plenty there to exercise the grey cells.

I’m not intending to post my responses on a daily basis (for this relief, much thanks) but will probably do a ‘catch-up’ every six days or so. Anyway, here’s my first instalment:

• 1. A song you like with a colour in the title: ‘Stella Blue’

”It seems like all this life was just a dream”

I was never going to get through a 30-Day music challenge without any contribution from the Grateful Dead – nor was I going to try – so I might as well start with this elegaic Jerry song. Not to be morbid, but this one’s on my funeral playlist.

• 2. A song you like with a number in the title: ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’

“Be gone with you – you shod and shady senators”

This was Queen’s first hit and I can still clearly remember hearing it for the first time, on Radio One as I got in from work one evening back in 1974. It blew me away. I thought then that those boys would go far.

• 3. A song that reminds you of summertime: ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’

”Trying to make some sense of it all”

Many years before this Stealers Wheel song featured in Tarantino’s ‘Reservoir Dogs’ – in June 1973 to be exact – a young student could have been found in his college room at the University of Kent slaving away (ahem) revising for his Finals. Gentle reader, it was me, and whenever I hear this it transports me straight back to that time.

• 4. A song that reminds you of someone you’d rather forget: ‘Ship Of Fools’

“But whoa it makes me wild / With thirty years upon my head to have you call me child”

Grateful Dead again, but spot on for this one. Being made redundant was – and for all I know still is – an occupational hazard in the wild, whacky world of investment banking. It happened to me twice. As things turned out, the second time proved to be something of a blessing, but of course it didn’t feel like that at the time. What really rankled, though, was that I was sacked at the instigation of a cabal of spotty, over-promoted ‘wunderkind’ who had no idea of what my job entailed, so were in no position to judge my performance. Twats.

• 5. A song that needs to be played loud: ‘The Immigrant Song’

”Hammer of the gods”

Led Zeppelin unplugged? I don’t think so.

• 6. A song that makes you want to dance: ‘Just My Imagination’

”To have a girl like her / Is truly a dream come true”

As a general rule, I don’t dance nor am I particularly inclined to. However, we went on a Caribbean cruise once, and the exquisite Madame and I went up on deck for a drink early one evening. There was nobody else around apart from a bored DJ waiting for things to liven up. I went up to him and asked if he had this song. He did, and I went back to the beloved and asked her out onto the floor. She danced – divinely, as always – and I shuffled. But it was wonderful.