Favorite Thing Thursday: Rediscovering Good Songs

Don’t know why I’ve had the urge to start a whole bunch of series on my blog, or even if I’ll have the stamina to actually keep up with them. But who cares? It’s my blog and I can do what I want to! (Gotta love being a dictator sometimes).

So, I think this “series” is self-explanatory. I want to share my most favorite-ist things in the whole entire world: things that make me smile, things that make my heart expand, things that paint the day a brighter color, and things that are totally awesome, dude.

First topic for Favorite Thing Thursday: Rediscovering Good Songs

This is the best scenario: I’m driving in my car (my favorite place to listen to music) and on the off-chance that I’m listening to the radio, a familiar tune comes on--one I had heard a few times in middle school, and thought it had a nice melody, but didn’t really connect with.

And then it hits me--right there in the car--as I listen to the lyrics and let them register (to my now more mature brain), I get it. I finally get it. Not because I didn’t understand the subject matter when I was 13. No, it’s more the fact that I have finally lived the subject matter. And so I see the song in a new, stingingly-fresh way.

It’s almost a transcending moment for me. That might sound a bit dramatic, but music has that kind of power in my life.

Examples of songs that I rediscovered and their effect:

1. “Heart of the Matter,” by Don Henley--taught me how to forgive.
2. “Linger,” by The Cranberries--pinpointed the feeling of loss and sadness I was feeling at the time.
3. “Doo Wop (That Thing),” by Lauryn Hill--warned me against the price of selling ones’ soul for superficiality.
4. “Overjoyed,” by Stevie Wonder--portrays that overwhelming feeling of love so well.
5. “You Learn,” by Alanis Morrisette--this song becomes SO MUCH BETTER once you’ve made a mistake in life you wish you could take back!
6. “Tracks of My Tears,” by Smokey Robinson--because everyone wears a facade around an old lover.
7. “Almost Doesn’t Count,” by Brandy--the best song I have ever heard about almost-lovers. There should be more songs about this.
8. “Turn Turn Turn,” by the Byrds--the song I always play when I need encouragement in life...knowing that there is a cycle to everything. I only found out in the last 2 years that they are verses from the Bible.
9. “Landslide,” by Fleetwood Mac--I always loved the melody, but I adored the song after I could really relate with the humble lyrics.
10. “Can’t Make You Love Me,” by Bonnie Rait--heart-wrenching, but therapeutic for those who know the feeling.

All these songs I had heard before and liked; however, when I heard them again in relatable moments, they all became favorites. And beyond that, they became milestones--times in my life where I needed expert advice, and somehow, someway, a song came through to explain it best to me in a moment of divine inspiration.

These songs are life-savers! Especially number one--I cried after I heard that song again, right at the most perfect time I could have heard it. Yes, there is God.

I’ll leave you with a good song that I rediscovered recently. A song about love lost, but also about accepting that loss, and being at peace with it. Train has made a re-emergence recently with ‘soul sisters’ and all of that nonsense, haha. But do you remember this song?

It’s been on repeat for me recently:

It’s just another one of my favorite things...