Opposites playlist+

The party invitation

Part of the reason for starting this blog is that I've promised many people that I'd share the playlist from my recent birthday party, where the theme was (can you guess?) Opposites. This was the second opposites-themed party I've had. The first was nearly 25 years ago when I passed my preliminary examination for my doctorate--which was also opposite-themed. The compilation tapes from that party were lost sometime after I stopped owning a cassette player. The first time round, I was more of a purist: only songs with the opposites in the title were counted. This time, I was more interested in having more recognizable and (later in the evening) danceable songs, so I allowed songs by artists with opposite-containing names or songs in which opposites were a big part of the chorus (though not in the title). There are also some pairs that make an opposite if they're played one after the other.

So here, for what passes on the internet for posterity, is this year's playlist.  (Many thanks to many FB friends for suggestions and to Phil for downloading/uploading all the songs.)  I've copied this table from an MS-Word file and some formatting has gone wonky. But I am determined that this blog is not going to be TOO much of a timesuck, so we'll live with it.


What we actually played:

song [further explanation]	artist
Opposites Day	Lloyd Cole
Hello, Goodbye	The Beatles
Let's Call The Whole Thing Off [tomayto-tomahto, etc.]	Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong
The Lady Is a Tramp	Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga
Night And Day	U2
Black Night White Light	Frankie Goes To Hollywood
All Or Nothing	The Small Faces
Walk, Don't Run	Ventures
A Hard Day's Night	The Beatles
Sheep Go to Heaven (Goats Go to Hell)	Cake
Sound And Vision	David Bowie
Love And Anger [this was cheating a bit, but I like it]	Kate Bush
Knowing Me, Knowing You	ABBA
You're the First, the Last, My Everything	Barry White
Female of the Species [is more deadly than the male]	Space
Video Killed the Radio Star	The Buggles
Istanbul not Constantinople	They Might be Giants
Step It Up ['to the left, to the right...']	Stereo MC's
Save it For Later [‘Sooner or later...’]	The [English] Beat
Cruel To Be Kind	Nick Lowe
Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)	Otis Redding
Happy	Pharrell Williams
Head Over Heels	The Go-Go's
Heaven Is a Place On Earth	Belinda Carlisle
Opposites Attract	Paula Abdul
I Started Something I Couldn't Finish	The Smiths
Slap And Tickle	Squeeze
Right And Wrong	Joe Jackson
Should I Stay or Should I Go	The Clash
You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)	Dead or Alive
Hey Boy Hey Girl	The Chemical Brothers
Rise [‘I could be right I could be wrong…’]	Public Image Ltd.
Girls & Boys	Blur
Push It	Salt-n-Pepa
West End Girls [‘East End Boys and…’]	Pet Shop Boys
Praise You	Fatboy Slim
River Deep Mountain High	Ike & Tina Turner
Live and Let Die	Paul McCartney
Good Lovin'	The Rascals
Bad Romance	Lady Gaga
Lovesong	The Cure
This Is Not A Love Song	Public Image Ltd.
Master and Servant	Depeche Mode
Love to Hate You	Erasure
Upside Down	Diana Ross
Black Or White	Michael Jackson
Penthouse and Pavement	Heaven 17
Bitter Sweet Symphony	The Verve
Short Skirt/Long Jacket	Cake
Somebody Told Me [that you had a boyfriend, who looked like a girlfriend…]	The Killers
One Way or Another	Blondie
Tubthumping    [I get knocked down,      but I get up again]	Chumbawamba
As Above So Below	Tom Tom Club
September	Earth, Wind & Fire
Don't Stop the Music     [samples Michael Jackson’s Wanna     Be Startin’ Something’]	Rihanna
Hot 'n Cold	Basement Jaxx
Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)	The Icicle Works
Stand Or Fall	The Fixx
Hot N Cold	Katy Perry
Big When I Was Little	Eliza Doolittle
All Day And All Of The Night	The Kinks
The Sun and the Rain	Madness
With or Without You	U2
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye	Soft Cell

But there were lots more that came to mind or were suggested that we didn't like well enough to put on the playlist (often because we felt we had too many 'slow' songs).  And then there were a few that I had put on the list that I just discovered aren't here because apparently Phil vetoed them. I am shocked and hurt, I am. Ok, it's more than a few:

song	artist
Forever Live and Die	Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Move your feet	Junior Senior
Friend or Foe	Adam Ant
Take It or Leave It	The Strokes
Up for the Down Stroke	Parliament
Needles and Pins	Ventures (or Ramones)
Licht und Blindheit [Atmosphere]	Joy Division
Gotta get up to get down	Marmalade
The night we called it a day	Frank Sinatra
Up and Down	The Mr T Experience (orig. Sesame Street)
Girl from Ipanema goes to Greenland	The B52s
Now and Then	The Proclaimers
Boys & Girls	Pixie Lott
Man Smart, Woman Smarter	Harry Belafonte
Forever Now	Psychedelic Furs
Flesh & Blood	Roxy Music
Both Ends Burning	Roxy Music
Love & Hate	Marcus Collins
Stuck in the Middle with You ['clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right']	Stealers Wheel
Karma Chameleon ['you come & go']	Culture Club
Say you, Say me	Lionel Ritchie
Black and White Unite	Belle & Sebastian
Woman make man	M
Not a sinner nor a saint	Alcatraz
Hunting high and low	A-ha
Up and Down	Vengaboys
Now and Then	Suzanna Hoffs
Body and Soul	Tony Bennett & Amy Winehouse
Black and White	Three Dog Night
Sugar and Spice	The Searchers
Leather and Lace	Don Henley & Stevie Nicks
Ain't no mountain high enough [ain't no valley low enough]	Diana Ross
Yes or No	The Gogo's
Spirits in the Material World	The Police
First and Last and Always	Sisters of Mercy
Don't it make my brown eyes blue	Crystal Gayle
Alone together	The Strokes
Colourless Colour	La Roux
Bicycle Race ['you say black, I say white...]	Queen
Back and Forth	Aaliyah
Ebony and Ivory	Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder
Wanted Dead or Alive	Bon Jovi
Same old brand new you	A1
Pushing forward back	Temple of the Dog
Man I feel like a woman	Shania Twain
The winner loses	Bodycount
The Hokey Cokey (or Hokey Pokey)	[right/left]
Downside Up	Peter Gabriel
Geisha Boys and Temple Girls	Heaven 17
Back and Forth	Cameo
The Hunter gets captured by the Game	The Marvelettes
Good times, bad times	Led Zeppelin
Both sides now	Joni Mitchell
Hate this and I'll love you	Muse
White boy, black girl	INXS
You and me song	Wannadies
Let's stay together [good/bad, happy/sad]	Al Green
Rise and fall	Craig David
Head to Toe	Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
The Fire and the Flood	Vance Joy
Androgyny	Garbage
True/False Fake/Real	Hercules and Love Affair
YYY/NNN	Soulwax

I can't include links to all of them, but I do love this:


Which is a cover of this:



You might be able to guess what age I turned from this selection. If your fave opposite song(s) is/are missing, please add them in the comments--they might make the list for the next party!