So: the plan was to perform a song written by an artist born on the day of the gig; the chosen gigs were my monthly Troubadour residencies. How did I do? Well…

January – gigs don’t really start at the Troubadour till February.

February 3rd – I performed ‘Look What They Done To My Song Ma’ by Melanie Safka

March 3rd – I performed ‘Autumn is Your Last Chance’ by Robyn Hitchcock, and a mashup of my song ‘Lila’ and Metallica’s ‘Sanitarium’ (it being the 25th anniversary of the album release. Yes, not a proper birthday.)

April 7th – I performed ‘Don’t Explain’ by Billie Holiday as part of my song ‘Free Likewise’.

May 23rd – was my album launch night. We played Morphine’s ‘The Night’, but I fear it was nobody’s birthday.

June 16th – a death instead of a birth – James Honeyman-Scott from the Pretenders, and I played ‘Kid’

July and August – didn’t play

September 1st – planned and rehearsed The Bee Gees’ ‘I Started A Joke’, but the gig ended up being an exact run-through of the Bestival Set, and so featured instead ‘Lovecats’ by the Cure.

October 6th – I totally failed to play a Birthday Song. As far as I remember.

November – missed due to illness.

December 1st – Hurrah! Played Bette Midler’s ‘The Rose’. Thankfully didn’t end on a note of abject failure.

So, an honest roundup of 2011:

Number of Troubadour gigs: 8

Number of Birthday Songs played: 6

Number of Birthday Songs that didn’t break any of the rules played: 4

I’m considering trying again this year, but would be interested to hear other ideas