The Coffee and Monsters Department: Playlist of the Month

So, a lot of us may be familiar with the concept of The Song.

You first heard The Song on the radio, or on a film soundtrack, or overheard it in a shop, or your friend put it on, or it was on album by an artist you were just getting into. Regardless of where you heard it, The Song immediately becomes your favourite song in the world. You realise that your life, your identity, your very being was incomplete in some indefinable way before you finally encountered The Song. The Song is a part of you. The Song represents something fundamental about your personality. You and The Song understand each other. You will never need to listen to another song again, as long as you live. You must immediately rush out and tell all your friends and family about how much you love The Song, so that they may gain a fuller and more profound understanding of exactly who you are as a person.

You play The Song over and over again, gleefully hitting the replay button every single time. You never tire of it. It sounds as fresh and novel and wonderful every single time you play it. You look forward to getting home at the end of the day, because it means you'll be able to listen to The Song again.

Eventually you begin to feel a little concerned. Is this healthy? Will you listen to The Song too much? Will it eventually become tarnished? Is it technically possible to overdose on a song? You decide to take a break from The Song. You dutifully switch to another song. You listlessly play a few old songs for a while, barely hearing them, thinking about when you can get back to listening to The Song. The other songs feel mediocre, bland and mushy, the musical equivalent of unseasoned mashed potato, simply by virtue of not being The Song. Eventually, you cave, and it's back to repeats of The Song ad infinitum.

And then in a couple of days The Song, whilst still a perfectly good song, loses its gleaming novelty and turns into just another regular old song that you happen to like. A few days, weeks, months later, you find yourself another Song to get excited over.

(Or is that just me?)

In any case, I came up with the idea that, as a cheap somewhat lazy post opportunity, once a month I would post five of the most recent songs that have been The Song for me. (I say most recent, but that may become lax in the event that I get bored, am low on songs, or feel like doing some sort of special nostalgia edition.) I wanted to get the November one in quickly so I could do a Christmas edition this month, so here it is in all its somewhat-hurried glory.

The Cure - Six Different Ways