The Music of My Life

Every once in a while, I hear a song that just captures my soul.  Sometimes it is a section of the lyrics.  Sometimes it is a string of notes.  Sometimes it is just the tone or the rhythm.  A pounding beat.  I like rock and classical.  Blues and gospel.  Jazz and country.  I love Sousa marches and the crooners of the 40's and the 50's.  Sound tracks from movies.  Love songs old and new.  No matter where I am or what I am doing, there is usually something playing in my world.



So when I hear something new that really grabs me, it's like a love affair.  I will buy it, download it, turn up the radio - and I will play it and play it until I know every note and have memorized all the words.  One such song for me right now is called "All of Me" by a vocal artist and musician named John Legend.  His voice just knocks me out.  At least in this song, there is a clear almost bell-like quality to it.

It seems that some songs also speak to something that is happening to me right now at this moment in my life.  "All of Me" is not a brand new song - just new to me.  The words convey an unconditional love, and he wrote it for his wife.

                                      "Cause all of me
                                       Loves all of you
                        Love your curves and all your edges
                            All your perfect imperfections"

The words remind me of the way I love Sam and the way he loves me.  Certainly we are not beautiful or perfect in any way.  But I think we do appreciate the "perfect imperfections" that make us so happy to be in love with each other.  For me, Sam is my perfect HOH.  If you would like to listen to this beautiful song, I have provided a link  HERE.
 


Sam and I have been talking a lot about songs lately.  We are coming up on a milestone anniversary, and Sam has organized a party (to my surprise!)  One night we came up with the idea of a compilation of our favorite songs to play at the party.  We've done that before for long car trips, and it's lots of fun.  However, those old CDs are kind of a split between Sam's favorites and mine.  This time the challenge is that we both have to love them.  Much tougher!  We only can agree on about 8 so far, but we are trying to cooperate and laughing a whole lot as we work toward this goal.
  
Several of our mutual choices are:  

• Sweet Virginia - The Rolling Stones
• Hit the Road, Jack - Ray Charles
• Jackson - Johnny Cash

This list probably ages us, but never mind.  What has been so funny is turning up our noses when one says, "Well, how's this song?"


And the other answers, "No, no. A thousand times no."


If you think back and reflect on songs you have liked or loved over the years, you start to see you could almost tell the story of your life in songs.  Decade by decade, there were songs or music that

became a part of who you are.  I remember my dad's crazy lullabies and him playing Rachmaninoff on the piano.  Learning patriotic songs and Christmas carols at school.  Songs sung around a campfire.  Tunes we sang over and over on car trips.  Jump rope songs.



                                 "Do your ears hang low?
                               Do they wobble to and fro?"


Singers my parents loved - Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole.  Songs I listened to scores of times or sang with my dad while we drove to work.  I still listen to all of those.

                     "Two sleepy people by dawn's early light
                       And too much in love to say goodnight."



On we go to rock and folk music.  The Beatles and the Stones and Simon and Garfunkel.  My first "stereo" and my first "portable radio" and all that vinyl.  The top 10 countdown at 10:00 pm each night.  Falling in love with Sam and crying because a song was just so beautiful.  Having him hold me out on the dance floor, even though neither of us could dance.

                           "Moon River, off to see the world
                           There's such a lot of world to see."

Thinking of songs chosen for our wedding.  Songs we played for parties and holidays and birthdays.  Silly songs I sang with our boys or my kids at school.  A song, both happy and ever so sad, sung at my father's funeral.


Sound tracks from movies and TV shows.  So many!  Sam and the

boys always knew when I was in the grip of a cleaning frenzy.  I would jack up the volume of the music from the movie, Patton, so loud, and I would clean that house to within an inch of its life.  Just me and General George "advancing constantly" on Berlin. Marching right through the enemy          
                             "...like crap through a goose."

Epic westerns with music as big as the sky above.  Rawhide on the TV every Friday night.  

                     "Head 'em up, Move 'em out, Rawhide" 

Even as an adult I loved westerns.  Had an old set of Mattel pearl-handled toy cowboy pistols that I put on one day while I was ironing and watching Silverado for the hundredth time.  When the boys got home from school that day, I heard older son tell a friend that his mom always wore guns when she watched westerns.  The music during the gunfight scenes was so cool!  Ask Sunny.  I still have a thing for cowboys.

And love songs.  A lifetime of Sam and a lifetime of love songs.  That would not just be a post; that would be a thesis.  Music and love go hand in hand.  Lately I have been listening to an old album of songs by Jimmy Durante.

                                     "That's the Story of
                                  That's the Glory of Love."

           So, "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are."

                    Tell us about a love song that speaks to you.