When I was a kid, I had somewhat questionable taste in music. I listen back and a lot of what I used to like is virtually unlistenable to me now. Some of it I can listen to, but only because there are certain memories attached. Most of it I wouldn’t care for if I heard it for the first time today.

At some point I derived a list of my then-eight favorite songs. When I created the list, I did not know who sang all of them. I knew one was by Paul Simon and another by Bonnie Raitt. I eventually found out all of them except two, arguably two of my three favorites. Interestingly enough, I did not know that they were sung by the same man: Dan Fogelberg.

Most of you are probably aware that Fogelberg died today of prostate cancer.

The two songs were two of his three best known works: Leader of the Band and Same Auld Lang Syne. Leader of the Band is a tribute to his father’s life on the road and the difficulty of coming to grips with aging and retirement. Same Auld Lang Syne is the ultimate bittersweet regret song. I don’t know that a better one has been made.

One of the first two CDs I’ve ever owned was Dan Fogelberg’s Greatest Hits. Not having anything else to listen to, I listened to it over and over again. My best friend Clint and I even came up with dances/routines (it was the sort of thing we did and indicative of why popularity at school was never ours).