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The Very Best of Bach
Budapest Strings - Concerto in C minor for Violin and Oboe - Adagio
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A quiet room, a good book, a comfy chair. Faint strains of Bach, and the warm scent of a freshly brewed tisane.
This much-needed moment is for forgetting the busy-ness of life that was, and is, and is to be.
30 Day Song Challenge: Day 30. Your Favourite Song At This Time Last Year
You don't need to be told that I had (pretty much the same) 150 favourite songs last year too, including the three mentioned in the first post of this series. Here are two more:
Peter and the Wolf's "Ivori Palms" is one of those songs that fit in so naturally it's as if they've always existed somewhere in your head. Maybe it's because of life's natural tendency to get us into jams. Thank God for the friends and angels in our lives.
Jeff Buckley's cover of "We All Fall In Love Sometimes" is a more introspective piece than "Ivori Palms", but again, it's one that instantly strikes a chord. It is the exact incoherent voice of some of those thoughts already whispering in our minds.
Did we? Didn't we?
Should we? Couldn't we?
I'm not sure 'cause sometimes we're so blind,
struggling through the day

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 29. A Song From Your Childhood
What were we doing singing songs like "The Windmills of Your Mind" as kids? I don't have an answer for that one. But we sang this song. My friend and I. In class. Under our breaths. While working.
I don't remember many children's songs from my childhood. Or nursery rhymes.
I remember books: Paddington Bear, Peter and Jane, the Puddle Lane Books, lots of Enid Blyton books. If I try really hard, I can only just remember "The Hokey Pokey". And "Incy Wincy Spider". But that last song always tended to get mixed up with "ABC", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep". I am told I can blame that on Beethoven. Good.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 28. A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty
I have all these questions in my head too, and I'm not sure it's okay to have them. I worry lest I blurt them out and God gives me a lecture à la Job.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 27. A Song That You Wish Could Play
Aldo Ciccolini's interpretation of Debussy's "Arabesque No. 1" is breathtaking.
And Mstislav Rostropovich's rendition of the Prélude to Bach's 1^st Cello suite always moves me to tears.
One day. One day.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 26. A Song You Can Play On An Instrument
When I was little I wanted to learn to play the piano. The net result was about 10 years of organ lessons and the fact that to this day, I do not know how to swim. C'est la vie.
These days, when I have time, I try to spend a little time at the keyboard trying to learn to play the piano. This song was the first I ever managed to pick out.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 25. A Song That Makes You Laugh
Jeremy Messersmith's "Misunderstood Lyrics" medley is a work of art.
And chuckles.
Many chuckles.
I still believe in marigolds.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 24. A Song That You Want To Play At Your Funeral
First things first. If I'm dead, I am highly unlikely to get to play this song at my own funeral without creeping everybody out.
That aside, I first came across this Iron & Wine song on Red Hot's fundraising compilation album, "Dark Was The Night". The song speaks for itself.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 23. A Song That You Want To Play At Your Wedding
In both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, there is a song by Bilbo Baggins about roads that go ever on. Dave Koz's rendition of this Edyta Górniak song seems a natural extension of that, reminding us of the roads before us that lead to as yet uncharted territories.

30 Day Song Challenge: Day 22. A Song That You Listen To When You're Sad
"How can we be so different and feel so much alike?"
"How can we feel so different and be so much alike?"
- Janell Cannon (Stellaluna) -
What is the line between melancholy and depression? How can two things so similar be so different? Does the difference lie in their ultimate directions?
Is melancholy the sadness that looks back at its regrets, but then turns around to look forward and upward; temporary in duration, and tinged eternally with beauty?
These first two songs are of and for melancholy:
Tim Buckley's "Song To The Siren" haunts us with its tug of war between the heart and mind. There is a sense of the inevitable as we gaze with a mixture of dread and longing at the sweetest kind of doom. But inevitable what?
Every girl needs a friend who will be this Jeremy Warmsley song for her. "If He Breaks Your Heart" is a good song, in some ways a funny song. But you can't miss the hints of sadness, the tinges of hope that lie just beneath the earnestness of the lyrics.
Is depression the sadness that looks back at its regrets, and looks forward with no hope; a beast that looks to last forever and blackens the future with flat despair?
Karen Carpenter understood depression all too well. Her rendition of "Rainy Days And Mondays" remains a testament to that.