Preface To Magda's Birthday Show 2022: Digging

(wish I knew where I found this!)

Since almost the beginning of this show, I've played birthday songs on my wife's birthday.  Except when she was my girlfriend.  & I think I missed a year or two.

One of the things I wish I could do is play the same songs every year.  I just can't.  According to my web site, I've done 18 of these shows - in twenty years!  (I missed 2003 & 2005 for some reason.)

The first birthday show, she chose all the music.  If ot had continued that way, I would have been playing the same songs over & over.  Again, it's not something I could bring myself to do.  So on the second show (in 2004), I started playing birthday songs.

My rule (I always have a dumb rule) was that I would never play the same recording twice.  I would play covers of songs - like the Beatles' "Birthday," which has many covers - or perhaps live versions of some songs - but you wouldn't hear the same recording again.  I only broke that rule once, when I did my first Portland birthday show in 2019.  I made it a "best of."  I was feeling lazy.

Here's a count, then, probably not accurate, of the birthday songs I've play since 2004: 425.

That number doesn't include the instrumentals I talked over.  & like I said, I have played different versions of some songs.

It's getting harder each year, no lie.  There aren't enough birthday songs that I like released every year.  & yeah, that's the thing - it has to be a song I like.  I know there are more birthday songs out there that can fill a birthday show.  But I have to like them.  The nice thing about making a radio show on a community radio station is that you get to pick what you play.  & why would I play anything I didn't like?

So today I've spent the day digging around for birthday songs I've never played & that I like.  What I've found will be on the air tomorrow night.