Sometimes I've believed six impossible things before breakfast...
But what happens when it really becomes impossible and you're confronted by the stone slam of it? When you realize that that some one thing you thought possible all this time, was in fact, not.
And suddenly all around you is lack, absence, grey. Poison.
While travelling in frosty weather this week, the passing white scenery seemed to sound exactly like this song: fragile and beautiful, astounding and surprising.
Sometimes we need to just stop; breathe; take stock; count our blessings. Go slow and take care of ourselves. Whatever that means doing. Take a time-out.
December is cold and warm, blue chilly skies and raging fires. December is dark and light - dark nights, early darkness, but lights everywhere, the sun's light returning. December is ice and fire. December is love and lonely.
"Music helps us understand where we have come from but, more importantly, what has happened to us...inside each note is the love we are unable to express with words...Music and love are the same." ~ Simon Van Booy 'Love Begins in Winter'
Northern sky...northern lights...northern
magic - this song sounds like snow, stars and surprise, what watching the Northern Lights would sound like (I think!) but mostly, like revelation. And most magical.
I never felt magic crazy as this I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea I never held emotion in the palm of my hand Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree But now you're here Brighten my northern sky...
Why is it so hard to say what you really want to say in the moment? Why do we all falter?
And then why, oh why, do we spend countless moments dwelling on our lost chances, the ones we let slip through our fingers? Going over and over them in our head to try to ease the heartburn of regret.
Here's a great singer-songwriter - Matthew Perryman Jones. All his songs are charged with an emotional energy.
Especially this one. It describes exactly that feeling you have when you're in love with someone. Some one. Only them. How they're impossible to forget. How can you? 'When you love someone, you either always will, or you never have.' There's an inevitability about it - you just keep coming back to that person. But a sweet inevitability all the same. You just wouldn't want it any other way.
Well, this song captures that steely warmth exactly. It's full of reassurance, realisation and revelation. Every chord a rising confirmation. Love, when revealed, is one of the most beautiful things in the world.
Ahh, some rock 'n' roll grunge. Just what you need to shake you out of a numbing grey whats-the-point stupor. Blows the cobwebs away. And puts passion and fiery defiance back into place again.
What is the point of a life if you don't live it? Indeed. Show Me How to Live...
Sometimes, in the midst of dark and doubt and nothingness, things turn around, suddenly, as if of their own making.
Or is it of our own making? Do we have the capacity to change what is dead, to bring it back to life? Sometimes I think - yes. And that yes, even one yes, is worth a lot more than hundreds of nos.
Sometimes, even though you have faith, it's hard to believe. Sometimes it's just hard to believe that hope and light and goodness will overcome all the doubt and dark and bad.
And when you start to lose your faith, when you're on a precipice, teetering at the edge, but still desperately want to crawl back to that beacon of belief, this is what it sounds like:
What started this blog? For a start, my too many posting of songs on Facebook!
Music is one of the great absolutes in my life. I can't live without it. It makes sense of my emotions, moods, thoughts and defines the unexplainable, the impossible, the meaning and the magic in things.
It is the language of emotions. It is the universal language. And writer and reader as I am, sometimes I find music is the only medium that can really express what I feel. Certain songs can just sum up feelings and states that are lost to words; these are the songs I want to share here, to see if they resonate with you too, like they do with me.
Sometimes one song will get stuck in my head (and heart) to the point of cerebral (and cardiac) combustion if I don't share it (what compelled me to start this blog). My whole mood is coloured by it, my viewpoint, my here-and-now, and over time, who I am. Our music soundtracks our lives. Tell me what music you like and I'll tell you who you are; tell me what you're listening to right now, and I'll make a good guess at your mood, at what feelings are playing topsy-turvy with your soul.
I'm a female I should mention, but what does it matter? Girl music, boy music - what's the diff? I'm just interested in good music. And what's good music? Music that resonates with us, music that moves us. That filters into our souls. That touches us, cracks us open, heals us, lifts us, and most importantly - makes us more aware of being alive.
So please, if you feel the same, feel free to share some of your nearest and dearest songs, favourite artists, or what you're listening to at the moment. I'd love to share sentiments.
I'll start with the song currently stuck in my head by Gemma Hayes, Irish singer-songwriter. For some reason her acoustic melodies always come into my head this time of year.
Here's one that touches on the strings of heartbreak, with a graceful acknowledgement of inevitability, of letting go, of unselfishness, facing fear, realisation, recognition - 'Chasing Dragons.'
And what does that mean? 'You go chase your dragons, I'll chase mine.' Again, something that only the song can tell you. And if you're in the mood that fits it, you'll know. :)
