When I was a teenager (many, many, many years ago) I did a lot of things that teenagers do – get grumpy, get spotty, grow my hair long and make mix-tapes for distribution to friends and stalkees.
Recorded directly from the radio I would be furious if the half-witted DJ spoke over the last few seconds of the song, thus ruining the tape. However, the march of technology has allowed us to improve on this terrible situation massively by being able to download music via the Intermaweb and transfer it across to our MP3-player of choice. In my case a Zen Creative Nano – for reasons that bore even me I boycott iPods.
But, disregarding technological prejudices for the moment, this means we now have free reign to allow our mix-tape creativity to blossom and come to bounteous fruition. So I spent a few minutes knocking up the ultimate soundtrack to the diabetic lifestyle for my pleasure and yours.
The Playlist
As with all good mixes, we start slowly with “Sugar” by Tori Amos – a song I saw her play live and unaccompanied in Glasgow a few years back. Pure dead magic. The mood then becomes a little more cheerful with the light-hearted Lighthouse Family (do they really live in a lighthouse?) with their rendition of “High”. Very nice.
We then dive into a bit of reggae with “Hypo” by Junior Delgado and to pick up the pace a little with “Hyper-Ballad” by Bjork, including cracking lyrics such as “Every morning I walk towards the edge / And throw little things off / Like car-parts, bottles and cutlery” Nice one Bjork, you litterbug you.
Her Hyper-Ballad is probably caused by “Sucrose” by The Delgados and their pleasing brand of rock. While we’re in a rock mood, we up the ante with “Phantom of the Opera” by Iron Maiden. A song made famous as the soundtrack on the advert for every diabetic’s favourite tipple – Lucozade. You remember it – it was on in the early eighties and had Daley Thompson in it. Great song! But then I’m a fully paid-up member of the Iron Maiden fan club (no, really) so I’m possibly biased.
We then keep the tempo going with the industrial-rock song “Insulin” by Soak but then bring ourselves back down with the drowsy blues of Memphis Slim and his track “Feeling Low”.
Finally, to end up with on a positive note we finish with “The Happy Pancreas” by Sam Crain & Friends. A truly horrible monstrosity of a jazz track which includes far too much electric organ, it’s not a good finale but it’s got a great title and is, after all, something we’re all aiming for.
That mix tape in full
• Sugar – Tori Amos
• High – Lighthouse Family
• Hypo – Junior Delgado
• Hyper-Ballad – Björk
• Sucrose – The Delgados
• Phantom of the Opera – Iron Maiden
• Insulin – Soak
• Feeling Low – Memphis Slim
• The Happy Pancreas – Sam Crain & Friends
I think there were some comments here when I first posted this, but we lost them all in the Big Blog Meltdown of May 2009(TM) *sob*
How about blood sugar by Pendulum for the days when it is making us very angry and frustrated.
Oh – and happy first birthday too. Is there going to be cake?
@rachel – ahha, good choice on the music front, I must put together a Spotify playlist.
And, yes, there is going to be cake. It’ll be huge, with lashings of icing, sweet sprinkles, sugar coating, and other goodies. 300u of humalog per slice!
Nice choice of songs.
How about ‘High’ by The Cure, better than the Lighthouse Family (some might say.)
And here’s a song called ‘Low’ which is trying to imagine what it feels to have low blood sugar: http://loversturntomonsters.bandcamp.com/track/low
I think anything’s better than the Lighthouse Family. Even The Cure…