"To Be Human" by Marina and the Diamonds
Favourite lyric: "All the people living in the world today / Reunited by our love, reunited by our pain / All the things that I've done and I've seen / Still I don't know, don't know what it means / To be human"
Reason: This song describes the human experience and reminds me of one of my favourite genealogy quotes by Linda Hogan: "You are the result of the love of thousands" when it talks about how people today are all connected. I love all the different locations around the world that she mentions, especially the shout-out to specifically genealogical related travel in: "Fly to Athens, pass the Parthenon / See the village where my father's from"
"I'll Be Seeing You" by Tommy Dorsey ft. Frank Sinatra
Favourite lyric: "I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places"
Reason: There are lots of versions of this song out there, but I love the version with Frank Sinatra that has such an old-y feel... as if I was listening to an ancestor's kitchen radio in the 1940s. When I am researching ancestors who had deep ties to a particular place, it sometimes does feel like I am learning about all of their old familiar places and seeing them and their family there until it becomes familiar to me as well. I describe it as being homesick for somewhere I have never lived but my ancestors walked.
"100 years" by Five for Fighting
Favourite lyric: "There's never a wish better than this / When you only got a hundred years to live"
Reason: Tracing a life from 15 to 99, this song is another about the human experience and how quickly life can pass by if you don't stop to appreciate and ground yourself in the moment. It reminds me of all of the ordinary lives of my ancestors who were teenagers dreaming about their future and then were old in the blink of an eye and whose lives are just a blip in the grand scheme of history but meant everything to their family.
"Passing Afternoon" by Iron and Wine
Favourite lyric: "There are things that drift away like our endless, numbered days / Autumn blew the quilt right off the perfect bed she made / And she's chosen to believe in the hymns her mother sings"
Reason: One of my favourite songs on the playlist, it has such a sentimental and nostalgic vibe that reminds me of my pioneering ancestors with the mentions of quilts, gardening, and faith. I have a few other favourite lyrics including: "There are names across the sea, only now I do believe / Sometimes, with the window closed, she'll sit and think of me" which always makes me think of my immigrant ancestors who came to North America and had only the names and memories of the family they left behind knowing they would never meet again except in their thoughts. I also love the shout-out to bougainvillea which is the national flower of my husband's country and I have so many fond memories of evening walks with him and our dog admiring the copious bougainvillea blooms that seem to spill over every wall fence. "And she's chosen where to be, though she's lost her wedding ring / Somewhere near her misplaced jar of Bougainvillea seeds"
"Gold and Silver Days" by Celtic Thunder
Favourite lyric: "As I sit here by the fireside / I'm turning back the years. / I can hear my mother singing in the morning"
Reason: Another nostalgic song, this time looking back on childhood memories as the best part of the singer's life. The mentions of the family singing together bring back memories of all of our family's hymn and carol singsongs at the end of every family gathering. So many of the family histories/memoirs that I have on my maternal lines mention the importance of music and singing back through my branches so I can totally picture the scenes described in this song taking place among my ancestors.
"Christmas Memories" by John McDermott
Favourite lyric: "I sing a song to days long gone / And those who've passed away / I have four children proud and strong / And they have children too / And on christmas morn they sing along / Just like we use to do"
Reason: A John McDermott classic from a CD that my grandmother always always played at Christmas time, this is another song that mentions family singing together. I love the switch from fond reminiscing about the singer's childhood to the present day where they are a grandparent watching their grandchildren make similar childhood memories.
"Heartlines" by Florence and the Machine
Favourite lyric: "Just keep following / The heartlines on your hand"
Reason: This song always makes me think of DNA-based research and how the genetics I inherited from my ancestors inform every part of my unique make-up right down to my fingerprints. When I'm trying to track down brick wall ancestors using DNA matches it really does feel like I'm trying to follow the heartlines on my hand back to them.
"The Dutchman" by Celtic Thunder
Favourite lyric: "He sees her for a moment, calls her name, / She makes the bed up singing some old love song, / She learned it when the tune was very new. / He hums a line or two, they hum together in the dark."
Reason: Another of my all time favourites, this song obviously makes me think of my Dutch ancestry! The various Dutch elements mentioned (Amsterdam, canals, wooden shoes, tulips, dikes, the Zuider Zee) all fit so perfectly into my family story. The lyric I chose up above always gets me because they have been together so long that the songs that were new when they first fell in love are now just "some old love song" but they are still singing together. The two runners up for my favourite lyrics are: "Margaret only sees that sometimes, / Sometimes she sees her unborn children in his eyes." "Long ago, I used to be a young man / But dear Margaret remembers that for me." Just such a sweet song about growing old together and cherished memories of youth.
"When You and I Were Young Maggie" by John McDermott
Favourite lyric: "But to me, you're as fair as you were Maggie / When you and I were young"
Reason: I've written a whole blog post about this song and it's connection to my family tree. This song was a special favourite of my 2x great grandparents Innes Rae Melvin and Margaret Florence McRae. It always hits me right in the feels to think of them singing this song together, and it is especially poignant since they died at a relatively young age from the Spanish Flu and never got to really enjoy old age together.
"Muddy Hymnal" by Iron and Wine
Favourite lyric: "We found your name across the chapel door, carved in cursive with a table fork"
Reason: I feel like this song is a little bit cryptic and I'm not entirely sure the facts of the story being described, but listening to it always brings me viscerally back to Rodel Church on the Isle of Harris. The description of the graveyard where "We found you sleeping by your lover's stone" is just so poignant.
"Saturn" by Sleeping at Last
Favourite lyric: "With shortness of breath / You explained the infinite / And how rare and beautiful it is to even exist"
Reason: This is another song that reminds me of the Linda Hogan quote and the incredible circumstances through history that have occurred to lead to the existence of each person. Doing family history research and uncovering my ancestor's stories really brings into perspective all little coincidences and events that had to occur for each of my thousands of ancestors to meet and continue the family tree. It brings to mind a Taylor Swift quote:"without your past, you could never have arrived- so wondrously and brutally, By design or some violent, exquisite happenstance ...here." The young widows marrying again, the immigrants setting out on their own for a new land, the refugees fleeing conflict with only the belongings they could carry, the small town sweethearts, the marauding vikings... each of their decisions had impacts down the branches of their family tree. Another of my favourite lyrics is "I couldn't help but ask for you to say it all again / I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen. / I'd give anything to hear you say it one more time / That the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes" which incapsulates the longing for a few more moments with a loved one.
"Marjorie" by Taylor Swift
Favourite lyric: "I should've asked you questions / I should've asked you how to be / Asked you to write it down for me"
Reason: I challenge anyone who has had a close relationship with a grandparent to listen to this song without crying! An absolutely beautiful song about feeling an ongoing connection to a grandparent who has passed away ("If I didn't know better / I'd think you were still around / I know better / But I still feel you all around") while still regretting not having more time together to make memories and have important conversations. As someone whose grandmother passed away when I was only 10 years old, far too soon, I connect so deeply with this song.
"Will the Circle be Unbroken"
Favourite lyric: "Will the circle be unbroken / By and by, Lord, by and by."
Reason: This was originally a hymn written at the turn of the 20th century and describes fond memories of family members who have passed away (There are loved ones in the glory, / Whose dear forms you often miss . . . You can picture happy gath'rings / 'Round the fireside long ago, / And you think of tearful partings, / When they left you here below.") while asking whether the listener will join their family in heaven one day. This song came into my mind as soon as I stepped into the stone circle at the Ring of Brodgar. I have so many ancestors who had a strong faith guiding them, and this song makes me think of them all.
"To Where You Are" by Josh Groban
Favourite Lyric: "Who can say for certain / Maybe you're still here / I feel you all around me / Your memory's so clear"
Reason: This was the first song I added onto this playlist when I created it a few years ago. Similar to "Marjorie" this song speaks about still feeling a connection to someone who has passed away. The line: "I wish upon tonight / To see you smile / If only for a while to know you're there / A breath aways not far to where you are" always makes me think of the ancestors that I never got a chance to meet earth-side, but feel like I have gotten to know through the research I have done to uncover their life story. There is a quote by Lawrence Dillard that says: "The best part about genealogy is searching for ancestors and finding friends" which I think is supposed to be about finding and connecting to living cousins, but I really do feel that I have some ancestors who I have gotten to know like friends even though they lived 100 or 300 years ago.
Reason: Basically a Find-A-Grave anthem, I think of this song every time I am visiting a cemetery. Is there a more beautiful sentiment than flowers growing out of a grave when someone thinks of their family?
Favourite lyric: "And the memories were lost long ago / So I'll dance with these beautiful ghosts"
Reason: This song was written for the Cats musical which I haven't seen so I don't connect the song with the plot of the play, rather I think it has a message that resonates with genealogists. The whole first part ("Follow me home / If you dare to / I wouldn't know / Where to lead you / Should I take chances / When no one took chances on me? / So I watch from the dark, wait for my life to start / With no beauty in my memory / All that I wanted / Was to be wanted / Too young to wander London streets / Alone and haunted / Born into nothing") brings to mind the branch of my family tree with UK roots who were living lives straight out of a Dickens novel in the Victorian era. But primarily the chorus which describes dancing with beautiful ghosts even though their memory is long gone, makes me think of all the ancestors I have discovered who were no longer remembered and have no living people sharing their memories. And beyond that, all of the ancestors who are still unknown and waiting for me to uncover their story!
