Alexandersmap

    Category: Music

    • I Mourn for the Undiscovered

      Up early, reading some Robert Frost poetry I don’t remember reading before.  I’m mesmerized by a line and read on.  I get like this.

      Millions of songs on iTunes, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s out there despite a lifetime focus on music.  I’ve spent huge chunks of my time exploring new music, Shazam’ing songs in loud bars and quiet coffee café and back in the day hanging out in used record stores in Harvard Square trying to find that one gem, that magical song.  And I’ve found many over the years.  Eclectic collection perhaps, but dammit, interesting.

      A bucket list of places to see, and slowly I chip away at it.  My list grows shorter, not because I don’t want to go to all the other places, but because I want to focus on the specific few.  Linger in special places, like listening to a song over and over until you really know it.  Instead of trying to chase everything in a spin of futility.  No, not that.  Give me Thoreau at Walden or Hemingway in Key West.  Or Frost in Derry.  I’ve visited each of these places and understand the power of immersion it had on them.

      I mourn for the undiscovered songs, poems, books and places.  The conversation you never had with a grandparent.  The sunrise you slept through, the lonely beach you didn’t stroll on in winter, the ridge line you didn’t cross, the Northern Lights that danced unseen, the big city that woke up without you, the swims in bracingly cold water and salt on the tongue that you’ll never taste; the places you’ll never be.

      We can’t be everywhere of course.  But I’ll do my best to be present in this moment at least.  Tomorrow will come and I hope to see it.  But don’t mourn for losing today if I should get there.

    • Songs That Jolt Me Back to Vibrancy

      Life can be measured by the songs you pick up along the way.  The soundtrack of our lives, as the saying goes.  I’ll always remember moments in life when I hear a specific song, because to me the soundtrack of your life makes the moment itself.  DJ’s know this of course, and play specific songs to as a highlight real moment or to get the party kicking into another gear.  I play the DJ in my own life party.  I’m always listening for the song of the moment.  There’s magic in that moment, if you’ll only embrace it.

      Give It All You’ve Got will always remind me of the 1980 Winter Olympics, just as Oh Very Young will always remind me of a pinning ceremony for graduating nurses in 1986, and Change the World will always remind me of an old building that used to be a movie theater where I saw Phenomenon with my wife well before we had kids.  And these are largely tangental songs in the march through my time on this planet.  The highlight reel songs are more profound still, and offer insight into our lives at any given moment on the timeline.

      So it’s with great excitement and joy when a new gem of a song comes into my life.  If travel and reading history reminds you of what you don’t know yet, hearing an incredible song that is new to you reminds you of how many great songs are out there, waiting to be discovered.  A great song punctuates the moment, as whatever the designated “song of the summer” does for many.

      Complicating things for me is that I don’t rely on whatever the Top 40 cotton candy hit of the moment is.  In fact I actively avoid it, searching instead for the truly great songs that are just below the surface, or hidden in some dive bar juke box.  The songs aren’t always new, just new to me.  Appearing in random places in my travels, they grab hold of your ears and won’t let go.  The reaction is generally “wow, who is THAT?!” which leads to an immediate Shazam to lock it in.  These gems become a part of the growing soundtrack of my life from that point on.  Here an eclectic mix of five songs, old to relatively new, that smacked me in the forehead and demanded I listen:

      Madness, Muse – First time I heard this song two jobs ago on an early sunny morning in Las Vegas, just me and this song and a Venti dark roast, with the occasional slot machine bell ringing in the background.  But it was this song and me, locked in until the end before I moved on with my day, but not on from this song.  It stays with me still.

      Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home, Keely Smith and Louis Prima – Heard this in a big, open public space in Manhattan, maybe not for the first time, but hearing it for the first time.  I Shazam’ed and downloaded it on the spot and it has appeared on certain playlists ever since.

      still feel, half.alive – First saw this just last week on Tiny Desk and absolutely had to know more about this band.  Watch all three songs on Tiny Desk and you’ll be smiling.  Their music video is worth watching even if this isn’t your style of music. For another treat watch them perform still feel on Jimmy Kimmel.  Songs like this is like a double espresso for me, jolting me back to vibrancy and giving me hope for the future of music.

      Johnny Wants to Be a Matador, Rene Lopez – First heard this in a hotel lobby in Nashville, Tennessee, confirming for me that Nashville is indeed a great music town if I was hearing a song this good in some random Hilton hotel downtown.  A song like this makes me look at Top 40 as the scam it is.

      Lucky Man, Courtney John – From the soundtrack of Chef, this song is ten years old as I write this, but feels timeless.  I wish it had been in my life for that decade, but sometimes you need someone to bring it to your attention (Thanks Jon Favreau).

      There you go, five songs on the ever expanding playlist.  As long as it continues to grow life will be vibrant for me.  And vibrancy is what it’s all about.