I’ve come across some great blogging contributions and I am really looking forward to seeing – then hearing – the final playlist.  (If you haven’t added yours yet it’s not too late to play).  I’ve been reminded by readers of one of my own all time favourite pieces of music: the soundtrack to Last of the Mohicans.

And every so often I hear other people talking about the songs that make their heart sing.  Stumbled across another one this morning, listening to the ‘Inheritance Tracks’ feature on BBC Radio 4′s ‘Saturday Live’ programme (the only way to start the weekend!).  The idea of the slot is to identify the one track that you’ve inherited from your family or someone important in your past, and the one track that you’d like to pass on.

Today’s guest was Simon Weston, Falklands War veteran well known in the UK for the horrific burns that he suffered to his face – and his courage in rebuilding his life after the war.  The track he chose to pass on was Free Bird by Lynard Skynard.

With remarkable honesty he talks about the times when he’s been in dark places, when this song has helped lift his spirits.  The time when he was finally released from hospital, after 11 months chained up and wrapped in bandages, wondering if he would ever get out, ever go out with his friends again.  Then finding himself free, once again, "able to go out, able to spread your wings, to fly off and do things with your life again".

And dark times when it was hard to see the way forward, when the challenges he faced took him downwards into despondency and depression.  Times when even in that heart of darkness a song like this could lift his spirit, lighten his heart, lift his energy "stopping you sink so deep into yourself".

He describes the song as a reminder: to feel that freedom, to get up and go, to let your spirit fly.

Not just existing, but living out loud.