March Music Challenge - Day 14

As Billy Ocean told us in 1986, There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry), which leads us to the challenge song for Day 14 to name a song that makes you cry.

We all have songs that make us cry - there are youtube and Spotify playlists for just that reason. The song that makes me cry isn't about a boy but it is about a lost love -- my mom. Shortly after she died, a friend introduced me to this song by Jann Arden and told me that it reminded her of my mom and I -- All the Days. And to this day it is truly hard for me to hear that song without tearing up a little. It's the lyrics that get me every time especially the line about how "all of me, is inside of you / Though I’m gone, I’m like a song that sings and sighs and coos". 

There's only one youtube video with the song -- I've actually thought about making my own video of my mom set to the music. 

All the Days

When I am old, I’ll think of all the hearts I broke to be here, with you

When I am grey and somewhat vague and too confused, I know I’ll still remember you the very most

And all the days will wrap around our fingers

They’ll hang around our hearts like bits of stars

And all the tears we counted all the memories that we thought would linger disappear, they disappear

When I lay down, and close my eyes to see if Jesus died for me

And that there is a God

I’ll wait for you beyond the lights where darkness fights to keep the sun from coming up

And all the days will wrap around our fingers

They’ll hang around our hearts like bits of stars

And all the tears we counted all the memories that we thought would linger disappear, oh they disappear

Can’t you see, that all of me, is inside of you

Though I’m gone, I’m like a song that sings and sighs and coos

When I’m old, I’ll sift through all the words I spoke, and picture all our happy times

I’ll kiss your face and think about the life we made with all our might, with all that love

And all the days will wrap around our fingers

They’ll hang around our hearts like bits of stars

And all the tears we counted all the memories that we thought would linger disappear

Oh, they disappear

March Music Challenge - Day 13

The challenge for Day 13 is the best road trip song, which is very apt as I am preparing for a road trip with 5 young women. I asked them all to forward me at least 10 songs to add to a playlist that would be the soundtrack of our weekend. Some of their suggestions were:

• Shut Up and Dance with Me by Walk the Moon
• Sugar by Maroon 5
• Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Wannabe by the Spice Girls
• Don't by Ed sheeran 
• Fix You by Coldplay 
• Bohemian Rhapsodyby Queen
• Kiss by Prince
• Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts 
• Love Yourself by Justin Bieber 
• Albatroaz by Aaron Shupa
• Shake it Off by Taylor Swift
• Everybody Talks by Neon Trees
• Fight Song by Rachel Platten
• Bad Blood by Taylor Swift
• Happy by Pharrell Williams

Some pretty good tunes there but I would have to say my favourite road trip song would be Jack and Diane by John Cougar Mellencamp

March Music Challenge - Day 17 - Irish Tribute

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone! 

Thinking of this beautiful isle, its welcoming people, and dreaming of the day I will return.

Day 17 March Music Challenge: 

What is your favourite Irish song?

For me, it would have to be Bing Crosby's "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" written and popular long before my time but it reminds me of my grandparents ... "when Irish eyes are smiling sure they steal your heart away."

Here are a few of my photographs from the Emerald Isle from 2011.

Ring of Kerry

Cliffs of Moher - County Claire

Us at Kylemore Abbey

Kylemore Abbey

Moon over Sligo

Celtic Cross - Kilkenny

March Music Challenge - Day 12

I have fallen so far behind in this challenge so now my challenge is to catch up.

The challenge for today, Day 12, is a guilty pleasure.

Wikipedia (oh, no, not Wikipedia!), defines a guilty pleasure as something, such a movie, a television program, or a piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard. In other words, low brow rather than high brow.

BUT that's the whole point of this challenge! The whole point of this blog! This whole music challenge is one guilty pleasure after another -- but you know what if you love a song -- just love it! Loving my perfect imperfect life means that I have finally learned to just be myself and that includes owning the fact that I love music from the Disco days to the pop hits of the 80's to Top 40 hits of today, I love jazz, an alternative, and country music. Oldies, newbies, boy bands, duos.

When I googled guilty pleasure songs I found this article by Complex Magazine, "50 Awesome Guilty Pleasure Songs We're Ashamed to Like (But Not Really)" and a number of the songs that they list are some of my favourites such as "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies, "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, "I Melt with You" by Modern English, and "You Get What You Give" by New Radicals.

So here is "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies and to make it even more guilty I chose the video from the Bathroom Sessions.

So what's your guilty pleasure?

March Music Challenge - Day 11

For Day 11, the challenge asks you to choose your favourite holiday song -- this one is particularly easy  for me and you'll see why in a moment. 

When you think of a holiday song, often it's Christmas songs that come to mind and there are some great ones from traditional like Bing Crosby singing Faith of our Fathers to pop hits like Baby It's Cold Outside and It's a Marshmallow World. It seems like Christmas sets the whole world to singing but for me, my favourite holiday song is tied to Halloween and my birthday. 

There are actually quite a few Halloween songs like Thriller by Michael Jackson and Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr. But it isn't Halloween or my birthday, the day begins with Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers released in 1962. 

So next October 31st play this and I promise you won't be able to resist dancing.

March Music Challenge Day 8

The Day 8 Challenge is to choose a song from a concert that you have been to. I've been to some amazing concerts with big names -- Elton John, Carrie Underwood, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Sheryl Crow, David Bowie in Edinburgh with the Thompson Twins, Chicago in Caesar's Palace -- and some equally fantastic concerts with lesser known names but first class music -- Harry Manx, Martyn Joseph, Dala, Delhi to Dublin, King Crow and the Ladies from Hell.

I would say the two best concert experiences are when Dave took me to see Maroon 5 with Owl City and Neon Trees in GM Stadium in Vancouver and the outdoor concerts held nightly during the Canada Winter Games especially Black Spruce Bog (a local group). So the songs that I would choose are Everyone Talks by Neon Trees

and Tete Juane Road by Black Spruce Bog

Both of these nights, both of these concerts were magical -- the crowds were charged with electricity, I was caught up in the excitement of the crowd, the love for the man I was with, and carried away by the music. The power of music is that hearing those songs, I simply close my eyes and can feel all those same emotions. 

March Music Challenge - Day 7

The Day 7  March Music Challenge is to choose a song that reminds you of your childhood. My childhood was filled with music. My mom played the organ, sang at church, and filled our house with hits from Jesus Christ Superstar to Petula Clark's Downtown that she played on a then state-of-the-art record player and sang along to -- it's difficult to pick just one song. For some unknown reason, I have been thinking a lot about the novella and music of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I recently re-read the novella written by Richard Bach and published in 1970, which tells the story of a seagull who becomes disenchanted with the conflict and materialism of his flock. Jonathan follows his passion for flying practicing and perfecting his flying abilities until he finally leaves the flock and is taken to a higher plane where he is mentored by a generous and skilled teacher. Jonathan realizes that his journey is not complete until he can find the forgiveness he needs to return to his original flock and continues his journey towards flight by taking his own students and spreading his wings so to speak. It's a beautiful story of the search for our true passion, self-fulfillment, and teaching and learning. In a truly enlightened situation, the positions of teacher and student constantly shift as the teacher often learns from the student and vice versa.

The soundtrack sung by Neil Diamond is equally moving winning the 1974 Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special.

Not the typical childhood song but then I didn't have a typical childhood mom.

March Music Challenge - Day 5 and 6

So I forgot to do the music challenge again yesterday - this challenge is proving to be more of a challenge that I thought.

Day 5 is to pick a song with several renditions and to choose my favourite rendition. For this song, I chose Crazy Love released in 1970 by singer-songwriter Van Morrison. The song has been featured in numerous movies and several artists have done covers of it including Helen Reddy, Ray Charles, and Michael Buble. Lyrically, it's quite a simple song but those few words express the depth and breadth of true love. My favourite version of this song is by Harry Manx. Although originally from the Isle of Man, Manx spent years in India studying music and now calls Canada home. His rendition of Crazy Love contains subtle Indian tones that I feel deepen the song and pair nicely with the lyrics. I was fortunate enough to hear Manx play this song live. Even though this is far from the most famous rendition, Manx's soulful picking makes his version my favourite -- as he says in the video the "right notes sing sympathetically ... anxious to play".

Day 6 is easy for me as there is only one song I know how to play in its entirety and most of it I still know off by heart -- When the Saints Going Marching In. My mom tried so hard to teach me to play the organ and her method was that you memorize the first bar, then add the second and continue to play from the first bar through adding another bar once you had the last one down, which is why when I see a piano or organ, I can still play the beginning of this song. Also, I feel it's not a particularly difficult song to play. I don't come close to the beautiful version I have added her by Louis Armstrong.

I would love to hear about your music choices ... 

March Music Challenge - Day 3 and 4

Sorry I missed yesterday so you get a 2 for 1 day.

So the Day 3 challenge is to list the last song on your music library and Day 4 is a song from the soundtrack of your favourite movie.

The last song on my iPod is 1973 by James Blunt. I haven't actually listened to this song for a long time so it was a treat to play it again today. While the song isn't particularly nostalgic for me, it's about nostalgia -- the idea of the glory days, lost loves, and aging. The song that Blunt references, Here We Go Again, is also somewhat nostalgic taking back a lost love. That's one of the beautiful things about music is its ability to take us back in time.

The Day 4 challenge is trickier for me because I have so many favourites that I'm fickle with favourites. One of my favourite songs of the moment is from movie (not my favourite movie as it's about a subject painfully close to my heart -- dysfunctional families), Last Mile Home by the Kings of Leon. I actually thought this was an old song but it was written for the movie, August, Osage County. It's a brilliant song and I love the guitar music so much that I often play it in the car with the windows shut and music so loud that the guitar dictates the beat of my heart. The song conjures up for me that last couple of miles into Nelson, BC. (the place my heart has always called home).

But I guess I would have to say that my favourite movie is Love Actually. It has that Dickensian story line that appeals to me so much. Taking multiple lives and connecting and intertwining them together but knits them all up into a nice tidy ending. And I would have to say that despite the great soundtrack my favourite song is Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell.

March Music Challenge - Day 2

Today's challenge, Day 2, is to post the first song that appears alphabetically in your music library -- for me, I'm proud to say that my music library is my original Classic 5th generation iPod 5th with the rotary wheel and 120 GB of memory. That thing has been my travelling companion across continents. It's been dropped, scratched, mistreated, and well loved. Even though sometimes like this week, it threatens to quit on me, it hasn't so far.

The first song listed is The A Team by Ed Sheeran. Sheeran's debut single came out to critical acclaim and he's quoted as saying that the lyrics came from a visit he made to a homeless shelter when he was 18 but he purposely chose to set the lyrics to an upbeat rhythm which I believe is part of its appeal as well as its irony. The melody was what originally drew me to the song until I really listened to the lyrics. I love how he plays with the ideas of cold (weather and society), snowflakes, and cocaine -- this song eloquently paints a very real picture for the listener. As a motherhood scholar, the idea of flying "to the Motherland" is interesting as motherland can be such a loaded term -- one's home or native land, where we come from, the land of one's ancestors -- and makes me wonder about the pre-story. How did this girl get to this place, obviously if she flies to the Motherland, she didn't always live in this place.

For me this song carries the message that we -- parents, people, society -- need to be so careful with our youth. They are so precious.

Often it's too cold for angels to fly.

March Music Challenge - Day 1

Day 1: Song that always makes you feel like dancing. 

There are so many that it is hard to choose. My best dancing years were in the 80's. I was young, single, and went to the local club dancing almost every night. To this day, 80's music makes me start to wiggle in my seat - in fact, one day at work, a colleague caught me chair dancing to 80's pop hits, likely one hit wonders, with my headphones on. I was more than slightly embarrassed but the song in my heart and in my head was alive. I still feel like that twenty-something girl, bangs clinging to my sweaty forehead, feeling on top of the world. 

In 1983, the Kinks song called to all of us to Come Dancing ... 

So I invite you to come dancing with me for the month of March. As much as I love the Kinks' song, the current song that has me dancing at my desk is You Get What You Give by the New Radicals (another oldie that recently popped into my thoughts - not sure how - maybe it was Desert Island Discs but more on that later). For the other thing I've never lost is that teenage girl play it over and over tendency. 

And remember ...

You've got the music in you, don't let go.

You've got the music in you, one dance left,

This world is gonna pull through, don't give up,

You've got a reason to live, can't forget

We only get what we give.

March Music Challenge

So I've been thinking of ways to motivate myself to keep writing and I came upon these writing and music challenges on Pinterest - and I thought "that's what March needs, some music". (I had to resurrect my Simpson's avatar since I hate having my picture taken).

March can linger here, it's not full blown winter, well usually, but it's not quite spring, it's mucky, and muddy, and windy, and sometimes just nasty so how do you make any nasty thing better - MUSIC.

So I took the best from the lists I found on Pinterest and created this list for me (and hopefully you) to post and write a few thoughts on why you choose the song you did.

I hope you won't be shy or judgy. I don't pretend to be a music connoisseur and a word of caution, I am the product of a weird musical combination of growing up listening to my mom's Ray Conniff and Neil Diamond records, my own ABBA, Leif Garrett, Shawn Cassidy beginnings which grew into Saturday Night Fever and disco and then into 80's pop. I love all music especially music that makes me wanna dance even though when I do, my kids pat me on the head and tell me disco is dead.

Hope you enjoy the next month of music.