On the first day of January 2014 I posted the above photo on Instagram. It was taken while lying on the beach at Byron Bay, in Australia.  It was the first day of a new year and I had decided to post one photo and one song a day for the entire year. It was to be a distraction while I experienced what grief really felt like for the first time in my life. I had no idea what lay ahead, but I wanted to be able to look back on the year and know when it came to the 1st January 2015 that I had made it through a difficult period of my life and could reflect on what had happened.  An easy task I thought, surely it can’t be that hard to post just one photo and one song each day?

But it was a lot harder than I ever anticipated, especially when half way through the year I was faced with a second round of grief, my fathers mortality.  I watched him disappear in front of my very eyes as cancer aggressively ate away at his body. I would never have anticipated this was going to happen at the start of the year.  I thought I should stop posting. How could I portray what was happening in my day publicly in a private way?  Though I had come so far, this little goal I had set for myself at the start of the year.  So I continued to post, one song and one photo each day, I didn’t want to give up now.

When the year came to an end I stopped for a few weeks, enjoying the freedom of not having to post anything, but my friends asked me to keep it going.  They looked forward to my posts each day with the anticipation of what will it be?  So I’m continuing the journey each day. The songs don’t always relate to the photo and I don’t necessarily always like the song. I may have heard the song while I was out and about during the day or it may have popped into my head.

Here are the first 50 songs from my year 2014.  You’ll need to stroll through my posts if you’d like to know all 365!  Or you can start following me on Instagram. You can find most of these songs on iTunes or You Tube and if you have any great tunes you’d like to recommend please send them my way as I’m keen to expand my musical reportoire.  In the meantime I hope some of these songs will expand yours. Enjoy.

Soul Defining 2014

1 Strong London Grammar

2 Blackbird Fat Freddy’s Drop

3 Beautiful Girl INXS

4 This Must Be The Place Talking Heads

5 Ordinary World Duran Duran

6 London In The Rain Variety Lab

7 Cafe de Flore Doctor Rockit

8 Fade Jakwob Feat. Maiday

9 My Head Is A Jungle (Gui Boratto Dub Mix) Wankelmut & Emma Louise

10 J.A.W.S Lxury

11 Rearviewmirror Pearl Jam

12 Alive Empire of the Sun

13 Let Go RAC & Kel & MNDR

14 Help Me Lose My Mind (Paul Woolford Remix) Disclosure

15  Paper Planes M.I.A

16 Reflektor Arcade Fire

17 Who Am I (What’s My Name?) Snoop Dogg

18 Heart’s A Mess Goyte

19 Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin

20 Barbara Streisand Duck Sauce

21 Scientist Coldplay

22 Daughter Pearl Jam

23 Always Panama

24 Karma Police Radiohead

25 Wicked Game Chris Isaak

26 Harvest Moon Poolside

27 Royals Lorde

28 Say Something A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

29 One More Time Daft Punk

30 Slightest Shift In The Weather Phoenix Foundation

31 Stool Pigeon Kid Creole & The Coconuts

32 Hope Fat Freddy’s Drop

33 Lets Get Blown Snoop Dogg

34 On Melancholy Hill Gorillaz

35 Sun Hits The Sky Supergrass

36 Mr Brightside Killers

37 Electric Relaxation A Tribe Called Quest

38 Waiting All Night Rudimental Feat. Ella Eyre

39 Afterlife Arcade Fire

40 Controversey Prince

41 Broken Jake Bugg

42 I Can’t Go For That Hall & Oates

43 First I Giveth Queens Of The Stone Age

44 Get Free Major Lazer

45 Dream Machine Mark Farina

46 The Real Slim Shady Eminem

47 Big Love (Eat Me Edit) Pete Heller’s Big Love

48 Lullaby The Cure

49 My Number Foals

50 La Ritournelle Sebastien Teller