My blog frequency is faltering, I know. But for good reason. I’ve been extremely busy lately, and with a bunch of art commissions coming in, as well as some new excitement in my rather boring life, I’m even busier. I also need to post a new piano video, as I have two new songs I’ve been working on. But piano is rather hard for me. I live at home, sadly, and there’s always someone downstairs, some sort of noise and distraction and annoyance, so I rarely find an opportune time to play and record. Alas.
Anyway, since I’m already talking about music I might as well continue. You know those moments when you hear a song and it hits you incredibly hard? Well, maybe you don’t know. But it happens to me. There’s those songs that change your life, that you can play over and over again, and have played over and over again, and they never get old. They make you feel better—or worse—but no matter what they filled with emotion that makes you feel something—something you want to feel, need to feel.
If you’ve been following this blog you already know of The Trapeze Swinger by Iron and Wine; it’s my favorite song and has lifted me when I needed lifting. As a musician, as well as a composer and writer, music affects me very deeply, and while I mostly listen to various sorts of metal, it may come as a surprise that all of my favorite songs, all of the songs that have hit me the hardest and always stay deep within me, all of my favorite songs are outside the metal genre.
Just incase you’re wondering, here are the songs that have changed my life, and I do mean changed my life. I love when people share their favorite music with me, so I figured I’d do the same, even if you don’t care. You don’t have to look them up and listen, but if you do you might be pleased.
The Trapeze Swinger – Iron and Wine
The Sea and the Rhythm – Iron and Wine
To Build a Home- The Cinematic Orchestra
Crawling Back to You – Tom Petty
--the next two songs are ambient. Surprisingly, there’s no purely piano songs.
Brighter than a Star – Gandalf
Now Night Her Course Began – Sephiroth -- a line from Paradise Lost, so it’s even cooler
There are, of course, many other songs and bands and artists that I enjoy, but these are the songs I have listened to hundreds upon hundreds of times.
So where am I going with this seemingly pointless rant about music? Well, I may have found a new song to add to the list. It’s a very simple song, yet its elegance and amazing lyrics—poignant and non-cliché lyrics, at that—are what makes it so beautiful. It gave me that wow, numb feeling that’s so rare yet so beautiful. And like all the songs above, the first time I heard it I had tears in my eyes.
I’m strange like that. I don’t really cry for the deaths of loved ones—though maybe I should, yet so often I can’t—and I keep my emotions tightly reigned in most of the time. Now more than ever, which may be good or bad. Yet there comes those times in life when you hear something beautiful—these songs—or see something breathtaking—John Martin’s Apocalypse paintings or Henry Fuseli’s Nightmare—and you can’t help but cry. Because someone, someone like you and me, a person like every other person, created beauty out of nothing. And that, I think, is the definition of true beauty. It’s partly why I write, why I compose, why I paint, why I want to do so much yet seemingly do not have enough time to master any of it.
And, so, I suppose I should link the song I heard yesterday and absolutely fell in love with. Admittingly, it’s partly due to personal reasons, but those are the best songs—the ones we can relate to on an extremely personal level. I linked it yesterday via facebook, and so I’ll do it again, as it did inspire this blog.
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