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The Cat Club Podcast

The Cat Club Podcast – Essential Memorial Day Weekend Playlist

The Cat Club Podcast Memorial Day 2018 Edition

This week on The Cat Club Podcast, Rick is joined in the studio by Jester Sixfingers to help commemorate Memorial Day (May 29, 2017). In this episode, we play our Essential Memorial Day Playlist, comprised of 13 poignant pieces of music.

Monsieur Sixfingers is better known as Jesse Jester to readers of our parent website, Music in Motion Columbus. He does some extraordinary writing on the site, and we’re happy to have him join us in the studio for this special show. He also managed to lay a new moniker on our host, labeling him “Ricki Ruckus.” We’re not too sure how we feel about that…

We handpicked 13 songs that embody what Memorial Day means to so many people for inclusion on our playlist. On this list, you will not find the usual suspects that make up such lists each year. We enjoy the “deep dive” and digging for the hidden gems that we want to expose you to.

But before we get to the list, here are a few thoughts on Memorial Day…

Men and women in uniform have put it all on the line for their country, setting aside their personal lives, often at great expense to their families and themselves. How often do you express your gratitude for their sacrifices?

The Cat Club Podcast Essential Memorial Day Playlist – 2017

  1. Crosby, Stills, Nash & YoungDaylight Again / Find the Cost of Freedom
    The song is about the bloodiness of the US Civil War.
  2. The TrewsHighway of Heroes
    It’s a song about a stretch of highway in Canada that soldiers’ bodies are brought down on their way to the military base in Trenton when they have died overseas in the service of their country.
  3. Dropkick MurphysLast Letter Home
    “We regret to inform you that on January 28th SGT Andrew Farrar died while serving his country in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq. Words cannot convey our sorrow” – The soldier (SGT Andrew Farrar) once told his wife that, should anything happen to him while on-duty, he would like the Dropkick Murphys’ “Fields of Athenry” performed at his funeral. To their credit, The Dropkick Murphys did play at the soldier’s funeral. And rightly so, no audio recording of that performance exists.
  4. Bruce SpringsteenThe Wall
    Springsteen wrote this song about The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and a friend and musician who Springsteen knew that had died during the Vietnam War.
  5. Joseph Kilna MacKenzieSgt. MacKenzie
    He wrote the haunting lament after the death of his wife, Christine, and in memory of his great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who along with hundreds of his brothers-in-arms from the Elgin-Rothes area in Moray, Scotland went to fight in World War I. Sgt. MacKenzie died at age 35 after being bayoneted during hand-to-hand trench warfare.
  6. Creedence Clearwater RevivalFortunate Son
    John Fogerty’s angry screed about how the rich never seem to die in war is still relevant today, even in an all-volunteer army. It’s rarely the kids from the right side of the tracks that are coming back from war in body bags.
  7. Avenged SevenfoldGunslinger
    It’s a song on how a soldier promised to come home, but it’s for his funeral…
  8. David BallRiding with Private Malone
    The song tells the story of a note found in the glove compartment saying that it had belonged to Private Andrew Malone, who was in the military and died for his country. The song goes on to tell how the man crashed the Corvette one night, and was pulled from the flames by what someone described as a soldier who did not stick around to be identified. He knows in his heart that it was Private Andrew Malone looking after him.
  9. Big & Rich8th of November
    Tells the true story of Niles Harris, a 19-year-old soldier in the 173rd Airborne Brigade from Deadwood, South Dakota. On November 8, 1965, he encountered an epic battle he would remember the rest of his life. Forty-eight fellow soldiers died in combat that day, and Niles was left with shrapnel in his leg as a reminder of their sacrifice. Decades later, he still honors their service on the 8th of November by putting on a suit and tie.
  10. Dire StraitsBrothers in Arms
    The understated title track is an elegy for all those who never made it back.
  11. Keith UrbanFor You
    Written for the film “Act of Valor” (US Navy SEALS), Urban said, “I was so astounded at what the Navy SEALs do. The dedication and sacrifices of the SEALs, their willingness to give their life for what they believe in. I was really taken by a scene in [the movie] where a SEAL is killed in action, saving his team. I thought, ‘If you could talk to that SEAL immediately after he died, would he redo it differently if he could? Would there be regret?’”
  1. Trace AdkinsArlington
    Incredibly powerful. “We can rest in peace, ’cause we are the chosen ones. We made it to Arlington, yea dust to dust. Don’t cry for us, we made it to Arlington,”  it allows us to think of things from the point-of-view of the fallen.
  2. United States Navy BandTaps
    (It only has 24 notes and is 155 years old) “Taps” is a bugle call played at dusk, during flag ceremonies, and at military funerals by the United States armed forces. It was arranged in its present form by the Union Army Brigadier General Daniel Butterfield, an American Civil War general and Medal of Honor recipient who commanded the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Division in the V Army Corps of the Army of the Potomac while at Harrison’s Landing, Virginia, in July 1862.

 

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