Edit 07/25/14:  I added two more songs, so this is now a Top Five list (in no particular order; the songs aren’t actually ranked…except maybe the last one.  Anyhoo, Graduation!  I’m sure this is still relevant to some people…end of the first half of summer semester?  Done with summer camp, or the first half thereof?  Graduating to no-arm-floaties status at the swimming pool? )

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Let’s do something different today.  I do occasionally like to talk about non-book-related things here, so…

As a tribute to the Class of 2014 — whether you’re graduating from high school, middle school, undergrad, grad school, or whatever — I present the following five songs that I associate with graduation (four from high school and one from 8th grade).

*cue wavy-dissolve transition w/ harp strings*

Senior year, I was part of the yearbook committee, which met every morning in the computer lab.  In the month or so before graduation, some of my classmates, who were also on the Senior powerpoint-presentation committee — a slideshow with photos of the graduating class from freshman-senior year — were allowed to work on that as well.  So while I arranged photos from the spring musical or junior prom or whatnot, I’d hear them going through various candidates for background music.

“Drive,” by Incubus, was one of them:

Amazon mp3

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“Glory Days,” by Bruce Springsteen, was another:

Amazon mp3

I love that guy with the bandana 😀  Anyone else think he kind of looks like Andrew Scott (i.e. Moriarty), from Sherlock?

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As well as “You Get What You Give,” by New Radicals (which I used to think was called “Dreamer’s Disease” because that was the line I remembered most clearly).

Amazon mp3

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And what’s a tribute to the passage of time without Enya’s then-new hit, “Only Time”?

Amazon mp3

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Aaaand finally, perhaps the most obvious graduation-ey song besides “Pachelbel’s Canon” is…

Amazon mp3

I could also include that last one in my Nostalgic School Bus Playlist 1999-2003; some of the drivers used to turn the radio to one of the local pop stations for us.  Other (not graduation-related) titles in that list would include Eiffel 65’s “Blue (if I were green I would die)”…which I may or may not still sing along to in the car ^_^;; …and “Say My Name,” by Destiny’s Child.

Anyhoo — Congratulations, graduates!

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P.S.  For those whose graduation is still upcoming, or if you just feel like reliving that day, here’s a summary-in-gifs from Gurl.com (er…not a kid-friendly site, and probably NSFW.  I see some NC-17 topics linked in the sidebar).