Among my many interests is music, I am an amateur musician, I play bass guitar and guitar. It has been my ultimate pleasure to have played in several bands over the years in several towns starting with "The Shitty Blues" and through a three piece called "Those guys". None of these were paying propositions unless you consider playing for beer and dinner as pay. I still have most of my guitars though I don't play nearly as much as I used to.
There are many genres of music I enjoy but most prominent among them is the blues. None of which is relevant to my diary today. Follow along as I get to my point.
I imagine that in a group as large and varied as that found here on DKos, there must be a fair number of musicians and every musician I have ever met had several songs that reached them, songs they couldnt play because they touched them so deeply, in places sometimes they can't identify, and I'm wondering, what are those songs.
For me there are several.
Cats in the Cradle - Harry Chapin
This song touches me such that I'm incapable of singing it, my voice cracks, I get all misty, it touches me deeply for reasons I completely understand. You see my parents separated when I was very young, 9 years old, and the divorce was official by the time I was 13. The lyrics of this song always remind me that we always seem to learn life's lessons too late, the song manages to encapsulate regret. This song hit the charts in 1974 and this timing makes it no surprise that it reaches me the way it does.
Someday Never Comes - Creedence Clearwater Revival
This song too touches me deeply though not in the same way Cats in the Cradle does, in that song I always see myself as the son looking for that father that was never there, in this song I find myself occupying both what I imagine might have been my fathers position. "And I still see him standing, tryin' to be a man I said, "Someday you'll understand"" alternatively with my own...."You better learn it fast, you better learn it young 'Cause 'Someday' never comes"
Ok so there is common thread there but there are other songs maybe not quite so easily translated.
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
I don't know why this song touches me so deeply, its haunting melody has a sadness that's hard to express. "Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" is where it begins to be hard for me...but when it reaches "and all the remains is the faces and the names of the wives and sons and the daughters" is where it touches me deepest. The feeling of loss is a strong one, and I think Gordon Lightfoot captures it beautifully. I've loved this song since I first heard it in 1976.
So lets try this one.
Rocky Mountain High - John Denver
I am not a huge fan of country music I'll say that right now and John Denver, though I have always appreciated his talent was never a major influence on me...nor have I ever been an active outdoors person. In 1973 when this song came out my family moved from my home town of San Diego to the much more bucolic Manhattan Kansas, I enjoyed a brief popularity in junior high when everyone wondered if I was a surfer. The song was really introduced when I spent a summer at a girl scout camp which is only interesting in that I'm a heterosexual male, the camp was run by my aunt. There I met, Annie...Annabelle? I honestly forget her name, but she played guitar and she loved this song, many an hour was spent sitting on the edge of the elevated tent platform singing this and other songs...I'm sure much of how this song effects me has to do with that summer.
Oddly though the line that touches me the most is "I know he'd be a poor man if he never saw an eagle fly," I don't know why, the imagery just so works for me.
Another John Denver song that touches me is Calypso:
Anyone who grew up in the 70's should be familiar with The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, a documentary style television show that ran through the mid 60's to the mid 70's. Calypso was the name of the ship they travelled on, it was one of my favorite shows on TV, and probably explains my attachment to the song.
Its the chorus of this song that touches me the most
Aye Calypso the places you've been to,
The things that you've shown us,
The stories you tell
Aye Calypso, I sing to your spirit,
The men who have served you so long and so well
One thing you have to say about him was his voice could reach heights that if you have any soul at all couldn't fail to move you - see Eagle and Hawk
I could probably go on and on about the music that touches me on a deep emotional level, but I'm curious what touches everyone else here on DKOS, which songs never fail to put a catch in your voice, which songs when they come on the radio can you simply not sing along to, with gusto. What reaches you on a level that most music cant reach.
Thanks for reading, and reach for the heavens and hope for the future
and all that we can be, and not what we are.