My Three Songs

I listen to a lot of music. I love the melody but more importantly to me are the words of a song. The words of a song will make it or break it for me. A song can have a beautiful tune but if the words speak negatively to me, forget it. There was a song from about 10 years ago that had a beautiful melody but the words said "I don't care who you are, Where you're from, What you did, As long as you love me." Excuse me? I might not care who someone is, where they are from but yeah, I do care what they did! What if they behaved like John Dillinger or worse? See what I mean about the words? Words matter. Words are powerful.

Sometimes I will hear a song in which part of the song will speak directly to me. I will think "Sounds like he/she knew me when he/she wrote that." At those times, I know I am not odd. Someone else on the planet felt just like me. Most of us have much more in common with others than we could ever hope to fully appreciate.

One such song like what I just described is called "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon. The part that speaks to me says "He's everything you want, He's everything you need, He's everything inside of you that you wish you could be, He says all the right things, At exactly the right time, But he means nothing to you, And you don't know why."  Yep, that is me. There are somethings that I feel oh, so passionately about but then, there are others that should be important, that others deem important but that I simply do not. I just have a 'whatever, dude' attitude. This is me and I have always been this way and I always knew I would be this way and it is okay.

I know this next song not only speaks to me but to many people as we get older. It is called "Viva la Vida" by Cold Play. I love this song so much because the words are so beautiful. "I used to rule the world, Seas would rise when I gave the word, Now in the morning I sleep alone, Sweep the streets I used to own, I used to roll the dice, Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes, Listen as the crowd would sing, "Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!" Isn't that how it is when you are young? Once I felt invincible as if life would last forever but sadly it does not at least in this form. Suddenly there is one day when you turn around to see yourself in the mirror and find you have grown old. My glory days are behind me now. There are fewer days ahead than there are behind.

If those two songs are like the details of a canvas making up a painting of myself, then the broad strokes of the canvas are described in the song by One Republic called "Good Life" because it all seems good to me even if there is less ahead than behind. Maybe that just makes it all sweeter. The older I get, the more I appreciate this planet and all of those that have gone before me. Life is beautiful. All life is beautiful. "When you are happy like a fool, let it take you over."

Good Life