5.27.2010

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...

11 comments:

  1. Oh I LOVE this feeling. (And I love posts on music!!) I remember listening to that Alanis song when it first came out, what was it, in the late 90s? I knew every word to every song on that album but only 10 years later do I fully appreciate the lyrics :)

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  2. Always love Linger...I've only been "listening" to lyrics recently...and I find it funny when my friend told me that Rihanna's Russian Roulette is "sexy" :D well if tat's the kinda thing that blows his skirt up... ;)

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  3. such a great post! LOVE rediscovering good songs - my list is probably infinite at this point

    http://www.dailymixla.com

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  4. I love this list! Seriously - it's great. Linger is one of those songs for me, too...and I think I need to listen to most of these again!

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  5. Its good to see you're still blogging! :)

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  6. oh i love doing this. of course i do. i've goy 20000+ songs in my library. so recently i created an smartlist of songs with under 10 plays. founds some lost gems. also realized i need to do some library cleaning.

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  7. gangster!!! haha. Where have YOU been?

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  8. Prison. Not really, but that his what I'm telling everyone. :)

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  9. I've been finding the opposite - that old songs I like have almost no meaning for me anymore. I used to love Blink 182 in middle school and high school, but now that I'm not in my teens anymore, the lyrics cease to have any meaning. That's why I didn't really get the excitement when they got back together. It'd be like trying to bring back Full House or something like that. Sure, it's cool for, like, nostalgia purposes, but do you REALLY want to be transported back to that point in your life?

    Maybe it's just me.

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  10. I see what you mean...but I'm talkin' bout songs that flew over my head when I was younger, and now are relatable through gained experience.

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