2000:  Stranded
2001:  At the Mercy of the Elements
2002:  Pissy Moods
2003:  I Think I can't, I think I can't
2004:  Rejected Again
2005:  The Google Game
2006:  Re-Peanut

IN MY OPINION
"Annie Get Your Gun"

Books Read in 2007

Updated 4/9:
"Mutant Message from Forever"

FUNNY THE VLOG

"Beer"


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SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE A SAD SONG

3 May 2007

Mary starts a recent journal entry like this, "I picked a print copy of The Onion yesterday and read this article about songs the make the writer cry.  "Well, that's a blog just waiting to be written," I said to myself, so here is my list of 10 songs that always make me tear up...."

She invited her readers to list the songs that get them.  Well, that should be fairly easy for me, since I cry at the drop of a hat.  So let me give it a shot.

1.  In the Arms of the Angel by Sarah McLaughlin tops the list.  Marta and Audra sang this at Paul's memorial and it always makes me think of Paul.

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

2.  Save Me a Seat by Steve (Schalchlin).  The very first time I heard Steve perform this song from his award-winning musical The Last Session, it was not too long after Paul died, it was the first time I'd seen Steve in performance, the rest of the group had gone out to see Columbine (we were in Denver to see the show) and I'd sneaked into the matinee.  I sobbed and sobbed through the whole thing.  It doesn't affect me quite as strongly now, but I still get teary when I hear it.

3.  All This Joy by John Denver.  I make no secret of being a big John Denver fan and there are many of his songs which may make me misty-eyed for various reasons, but I chose this particular one because I suspect it's one that few people know.  I have always guessed that someone bet him he couldn't write a song using only 8 words: joy, sorrow, promise, pain, life, being, spirit, love.  It's a very simple song, but it's the arrangement that gets you.  It starts with Denver singing solo, and then gradually adding voices to build-up to a full choir that is just so gorgeous is brings tears to your eyes.  Well, it brings tears to my eyes.

4.  Funny by Lawsuit.  I always liked this song, which is the inspiration for the title of this journal, but after David died the only thing that kept running through my head was a line from it:  "...there's a broken soldier who's going home."  It always reminds me of David and I still get a lump in my throat when I hear it.  There is a long instrumental break in the middle of it and after Dave died, whenever I attended a Lawsuit show, Paul would come off stage during the break and hug me and we would both cry.

5.  Wishing You Were Here Again from Phantom of the Opera.  Anybody who has ever buried a loved one can't help but be moved by this song, which is sung by the Phantom in reference to the death of his father.  Especially the lines

Passing bells and sculpted angels,
cold and monumental,
seem, for you, the wrong companions -
you were warm and gentle . . .

Too many years fighting back tears . . .
Why can't the past just die? . . .

which I heard shortly after Gilbert died, and which always reminds me of him.

6.  Little Friend of Mine, the song Paul wrote after David died.  I don't suppose that needs any further explanation, does it?

And little baby brother I know you know
I'll never let your memory go
Still I feel like I should say
Christmas might be difficult
but I think that everyone will be okay

7.  The Flower that Shattered the Stone, another John Denver song which moves me to tears because it's such a beautiful song.  I first heard it while driving around Lake Tahoe and I always think of the beauty of that moment when I hear it, but then I heard a new recording, with Denver singing along with the man who is called "the Japanese John Denver."  The section of the song with them singing together in Japanese was painfully beautiful.  Still gets me today, many years later.

8.  Sometimes it's the recording, not the song.  There is an amazing recording of The Blue Danube by Mady Mesplé which Walt and I heard over the old SF classic station KKHI years and years ago.  It was the most gorgeous recording I'd heard and I was moved to tears by the sheer beauty of it.

9.  Actually, choral music frequently moves me emotionally.  I recently heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing Battle Hymn of the Republic and, like the first time I heard Mesplé's recording of The Blue Danube, it was so beautiful that I couldn't help but crying.

10.  Amazing Grace.  Doesn't that get everyone, at one time or another?  Listening to a lone cornet player in a military cemetery, or a bagpiper standing by a burial plot.  The recording that gets me is a clarinet version that Jeri recorded following my cousin Bill's funeral.  She played it at the funeral and there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

But -- hey! -- It's May!  In fact, that's the name of a fun, bouncy song from Camelot:  "It's May! It's May! the month of 'yes you may.'"  Everybody go out and listen to happy songs and watch the birds flutter by.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Today I posted my 50th self-portrait
to Flickr.

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