Songs That Changed My Life: The Overview

I want to start a new blog series.
As I’ve been writing my next CD for the past few months, I keep being drawn to great songs and great albums as inspiration.

I remember a conversation I had with a guy a few years ago.

Somehow we were talking about music, and somehow I mentioned that August and Everything After by Counting Crows was one of the Albums That Changed My Life. He asked me what I meant by that, so I said, “you know, a CD that you listen to over and over and it impacts you on an emotional level and at some point you realize that you will never look at the world the same way after that.” An Artwork that changes you. It could be a play, a film, a painting, a CD—any Artwork of any genre. But it changes you.
You are not the same.

I never was able to make the guy understand what I meant, so it made me wonder if there is yet another way to delineate people: those who have been changed by Art, and those who haven’t. I’m still thinking about that one.

Art that impacts us is often indescribable. It escapes words and description because it touches our souls and our emotions in a deeper place than language can reach. It really does shake us to the core and challenge our ways of thinking. Art uses symbolic means of communication to impart meaning on an incredibly deep level. The artist becomes someone who tells us something about ourselves and the world that we almost knew but couldn’t quite remember.

Several different forms of art have done this very thing for me.
Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon strikes me in this way, as does Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais.
Though I haven’t seen it in years, Dances With Wolves did this to me the first eight or so times I saw it. So did Hotel Rwanda.
And the book version of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
Most definitely Thomas Hardy’s poem The Darkling Thrush.
Even the musical Les Misérables can impact me like this.

Even so, for me music is probably the most powerful.
The electric guitar at the beginning of the Aimee Mann song Make a Killing is so full of emotion that it just instantly sounds right to me. Glósóli by Sigur Rós is so beautiful that sometimes when I listen to it, I feel like I could die. I feel the same way about several Radiohead songs and about Loreena McKennitt’s The Lady of Shallot.

So, what I thought might be cool is to start a series of blogs on some of the songs that have really impacted the way I think, write, and feel. I cannot see the world the same way after experiencing these songs.

So to launch this series on Songs That Changed My Life (STCML), I thought it would be appropriate to start with a song from August and Everything After.

Read the next blog to find out which one…

A New Song and More

OK, so I have yet to deliver what I told you all I would: a new song for you all to read.
So I'm going to do that in this post.

In just a minute.

But first, here's a quote that's been haunting me the last couple of days.
"Self-consciousness hinders the experience of the present. It is the one instrument that unplugs all the rest."
Annie Dillard.
Great quote. I think she's right. There are so few moments that I experience where I am totally unaware of myself. Totally lost in Beauty. Totally awash in feeling. It makes me sad that this is true, and I think it says something awful about me. How do we take our eyes, our ears, our thoughts, our impressions off of ourselves? How can we get lost in something? Is it by seeing overwhelming value in the object? Is it by being taken by surprise, held hostage by a moment of unexpected meaning? Is it by encountering our Smallness? Lots to think about here...

And now for the new song.
Let me start by saying this song is not all that representative of the songs that will be on the new CD.
Maybe that's why I'm sharing THIS one instead of some others! But there is still a common thread between this song and the others. There's still a Sadness to this song, but not quite the same as the other new ones. The other new songs are REALLY sad. Just warning you. The new CD is probably going to turn out being very, very sad. I mean really sad. But I like it, so there you go. And so do the early responders who've heard some things, so there you go again.
OK, now the song...

***************

America

It's another perfect evening
out here in paradise
the streets of gold are scuffed and old
and the sun has grown too bright

The winds are getting stronger
and droughts are more severe
but there's oil down there in the ground
so we're told to have no fear

America, America
your amber waves of grain
are killing us with pesticides
like a slow arriving train

So crank out the commercials
and we will just buy more
tear up another forest here
and plant a big-box store

We spread into the suburbs
for the things we think we need
we build all our McMansions
to avoid community

America, America
you're crowned with brotherhood
but it's funny how we all still live
in separate neighborhoods

Our government is lying
they've defaulted on their loans
and now they're even spying
listening on our telephones

And our officials up in Washington
don't care for you and me
they've taken all the Greatness
out of our Great Society

America, America
you're in the worst of hands
most of us aren't voting
'cause the choices seem so bland

And everyone in power here
says Jesus is on their side
when maybe he's just sick of all
our filthy stinking lies

creativity again...

I would say that the past seven months have been some of the most productive months I've ever had, creatively speaking.

In many ways, the dam has broken.

My father passed away in September 2002, and that combined with a couple of other major events really put a wet blanket on my creativity and writing.

But in May 2005, a curious thing happened.
My old high school was celebrating its 75th Anniversary, and they asked me to perform at the event. I wracked my brain, but I couldn't think of any song that would be appropriate. So, I took it on as a challenge to write a song for a public high school that had meant so much to me. What was it in the stone and the mortar that had somehow helped shape me? What historical events had occured in the life of the school? What had the students lived through? And were the students from 1940 all that different from my graduating class?

Writing this song, titled "Not that Long Ago," helped create some cracks in the dam for me. It felt so GOOD to be writing again. It made me think about myself, about the fears I had, and about the ways I felt I had not measured up over the past few years.

So, that began a fertile time of writing.
It has been marvelous just to scratch the pencil across the paper again.
To somehow dig deep into what I REALLY think about myself, about the world, about consumerism, about Iraq, about plastic toys, about red wine, and about real friendship.

For those few who have had real patience with me over the past few years, while I was trying to figure out what I was doing, what I really believed in, and how I could live an authentic life while working in an industry that celebrates silicone smiles, I thank you. I really believe my next CD will be my best so far. Not because it sounds "hot," though I think it does. But because it may actually be the first group of songs I've written that actually tell you all what I think about myself and about the world. I think I've touched on that before, most notably with "what luther said," but now it's time to get down to the details. I hope you like it. I think it'll be out this Fall.

I'll be posting periodic journals about how the writing and recording process is going. Some journals will be longer, some will be shorter. But I hope to keep you somewhat up to date with what I'm doing and what I'm working on. I may even post some lyrics along the way for your perusal.

Thanks again for sticking with me.

mark