Finally, there are plenty of rousing drinking songs to choose from in the opera repertory, but not all of them have been made into hip music videos, like "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from the modern-dress version of Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, as staged at the 2005 Salzburg Festival. The opening lines of the text are apropos as well:
Let us drink from the goblets of joy
Adorned with beauty,
And the fleeting hour
Shall be intoxicated with pleasure.
Le Rest:
Here's my brief and very picky list of favorite songs to dance to that relate to the occasion. Sure, you can also put on any number of general party-time tunes – Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" is a popular choice – but you don't need me to tell you that! So I'll just give you my faves.
- For my money, you just can't beat Ella Fitzgerald's version of "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" though many others have recorded it. But then, I'm old school!
- Prince's "1999" never goes out of style, in my opinion… what can I say? It was a good decade for me…
- REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" – any pop song that prominently mentions Leonard Bernstein is okay by me… besides, I've never heard the end of the world sound so upbeat before or since!
- Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" – I know, it's set on Christmas Eve, but come on, when that sax starts in with "Auld Lang Syne" at the end? Nostalgic perfection! Also, we should pay our respects to Fogelberg, who left us just two weeks ago after a battle with prostate cancer.
- Donna Summer's "Last Dance" brings to mind a wallflower's frantic rush to find someone to kiss as the minutes remaining til midnight tick away… is that autobiographical on my part? I'll never tell!
- And one last one, to listen to in the morning while you
nurse your hangoverget started on keeping your resolutions: "New Year's Day" by U2. All is quiet? All-night revelers can only hope…
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