1001 Songs Challenge #998: Million Reasons (2016)

On 11 February 2019 I set myself the challenge of reading 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery (ed.) and following the book’s advice to the letter. I’ve previously read 1001 Films… and started 1001 Albums… but felt 1001 Songs… would be a sensible place to start for what I have in mind here.

My challenge is to read about one song per day and listen to it (YouTube and Spotify, I need you tonight!) before sharing my own thoughts. Some songs I will love, others I’ll hate, and I’m sure there will be those that leave me perplexed but listen to them I shall.

I’ll also try, and most likely fail, to pinpoint the best song from the 1001 on offer but I’m nothing if not foolhardy. Instead of one song, I’m predicting I’ll have about 100 favourites by the end and may have to resort to a Top 10 so far to maintain any semblance of sanity.

So long as I post every day (including Christmas) then this challenge should come to an end on Sunday 7 November 2021. Staying with the Barney Stinson theme I am hoping that the whole experience will prove to be… legendary!

 

Lady Gaga – Million Reasons (2016)

 

 

We’re bringing an end to 2016, dear reader, which was a horrible year for celebrity deaths from what I can recall. To close out this year we are leaving France and Europe and returning to the US and to New York. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known professionally as Lady Gaga, began her career in 2001 with both singing and acting. Her debut album, The Fame, was released in 2008 and shot the young singer to mega stardom. We join her eight years later though with the release of her fifth album, Joanne, and from there 1001 Songs have gone with the track, Million Reasons. 

Not content with playing safe, Lady Gaga dabbled in pop, rock, dance and country music on Joanne. Million Reasons is a tragic love song with Lady Gaga’s narrator at the end of their tether with a relationship they are in. The “million reasons” are the list of cons that has now manifest in this relationship. The narrator is standing at the door with their coat in one hand and suitcase in the other, there are so many reasons to leave but they hesitate. They want to go yet they don’t. They turn to their lover and beseech them to come up with one good reason, just one, for them to stay together and those million other reasons will not matter. This relationship sounds almost doomed yet there is still faint hope.  

Joanne was recorded with the intention to put a greater emphasis on Lady Gaga’s voice and that works very well in Million Reasons which contains a lovely vocal. It is piano driven and a contrast to other songs I have heard by the singer such as Poker Face and the splendid track, Bad Romance. Million Reasons works as a song about a potentially doomed love affair but it also showcases an artist who is not afraid to try something new.

 

Favourite songs so far:

The Animals – House of the Rising Sun (1964)

Simon & Garfunkel – The Sounds of Silence (1965)

The Beatles – A Day in the Life (1967)

The Doors – The End (1967)

Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975)

Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell (1977)

Tracy Chapman – Fast Car (1988)

U2 – One (1991)

Radiohead – Paranoid Android (1997)

Snow Patrol – Run