Top 5 Lists

Near the close of Sue's workshop, someone (Diane? Dunie?) mentioned that it would be useful to have students scour a text like that excerpt from Walker's Winter Wheat and locate what they consider to be the best verbs in the piece, and then to have them justify their choices. That sounds like a great exercise -- another way of "defamiliarizing" a grammar and style session. It also made my mind free-associate to Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, in which his character is constantly composing "Top 5 lists" related to music and girlfriends. To that end, and especially since I've been lapsing into academic-speak in recent posts, how about a little frivolity again?! Thinking of Charlie's musical memories morning meeting (ah, Eric is alliterative on this holiday weekend!), what songs would you include in your Top 5 Most Melancholy/Sad songs of all time? You can interpret sad in either a musical or a lyrical sense. I mentioned Neil Diamond's "Coldwater Morning" in response to Charlie's prompt, but I might also include Sinatra's "It Was a Very Good Year," the Beatles' "Yesterday," Michael Murphy's "Wildfire," and, oh, how about something like the Greensleeves melody, which always moves me in deeply melancholy (but also consoling) ways. "Puff the Magic Dragon"?!