Reasonably Good Music Volume I (Essay Version)

Music moves the soul.
Memories long forgotten can be stirred and brought back to the forefront after years of forgetfulness.

That being said...this collection of songs holds a special place in my heart because of so having developed many deep connections to most of these songs.

Plus I think it is a rather nice eclectic mix of songs that reflect my music collection, which in turn reflects the oddity of my self and person.

There will be a second volume coming soon at some point. Expect some Bowie, lesser known Queen, Showbread, Reese Roper, possibly a harder song or two and more video game music for sure.


01 Zak and Sara.wma
-The piano is one instrument I want to play very badly, please believe that I do just that, play very badly. However, Ben Folds is what I would consider a musical and lyrical genius. This rather upbeat song has a good bit of wordplay that I find chuckle worthy every time.

02 The Asent of Stan.wma
-Another Ben Folds song. More amazing piano (to me at least) and a lyric about a hippie who 'grows up' and becomes 'a big man'. Interesting thoughts about how in seeking to improve ourselves we can really loose who we are...regardless of cause or reason.

03 Something About Us.wma
-Mixing it up is a little Daft Punk. They are one of the few electronic based bands I am very familiar with. Being able to mix up some tight electronic beats with strong pop-centric hooks is a sure fire win in my book. The song itself is a simple love song about the need to get the feelings out in the open, the need to confess feelings even with the possibilities of rejection.

04 Face to Face.wma
-Another Daft Punk song about love. It is astounding how often in every day relationships we get so sidetracked by prideful presumptions about who people are. One of the hardest things to do is just to break down and reveal who we are and actually take the time to get to know someone on a real personal level.

05 Disarm.wma
-Regardless of whether or not Billy Corgan was the band Nazi he is reported to be (anyone who has been in a band with me knows how I can be about practice...that could explain how every time I bring up the subject of playing music with people they run like I just casually mentioned I am a carrier of the Bubonic Plague, but I digress)the Smashing Pumpkins created a WIDE range of incredibly diverse music. This particular song works so well because of the minimum amount of instrumentation on such a horrific subject.

06 Rakuen (Paradise).wma
-I have no practical knowledge of Japanese but I believe this song is called Rakuen and that translates either into 'Paradise' or 'Hallelujah' (can anyone help me out?). This rather minimalistic song carries with it some rather heavy memories.

It should not come as a surprise that I am a dork/geek/whatever and this song if from the anime Trigun. It is used in the death scene of a main character that has finally reached a realization that the faith he has been living his whole life has been a mere shadow of the truth. I tend to be an overemotional wreck anyways but just seeing him bleeding badly and (paraphrasing because I don't have the dvd on me) "God, not like this! I'm not ready to die yet!"...it just really hits like you a punch in the stomach...because life is that harsh. Not realizing the truth before us and waiting will only lead to further pain and the hollowness of a life wasted on blood and gunsmoke.

07 600 A.D. Theme.wma
-This next selection is a piano arrangement of a song from what I consider to be the single most amazing video game of all time (and a massive influence on me in every possible way), Chrono Trigger. It was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. It was a role playing game featuring a deep story, time travel, real character development, life, love and tragic death. Just hearing the music is enough to stir my soul and my memories. This particular track is taken from the era of 600AD which is set up as being a very medieval age with your normal fantasy elements of dark wizards and goblins.

08 To Far Away Times.wma
-This is the closing love theme from Chrono Trigger reworked with added vocals. I honestly can't help but almost shed tears every time I hear it. It very well could be just my sentimentality combined with a memories and a desire to relive that child like wonder of experiencing such an amazing story...but deep down I believe it is my soul that is speaking. It's longing, it's aching desire to be united with not just a true love in this world but to be united in eternity with my True Love in the next world, a world without end. A world where every tear will be wiped away, death will be destroyed and peace can finally be brought to humanity. A future, a desire and a beauty worth living for.

09 Still Fighting It.wma
-Another Ben Folds song. If I am correct in this information, he wrote this song to his son about the day Ben Folds told his son that him and his mother were getting divorced.

My earliest childhood memories are of my parents arguing. They got divorced when I was three. I remember him going to jail and being dropped off by the police officer at my grandmothers house next door. I remember watching the first gulf war on TV and having the child hood worry that the prisoners (my dad in particular) would be forced to fight and maybe die.

I got to see him a few times for birthday presents (That Super Nintendo I mentioned earlier) and such...and finally when I was nine and in third grade he got visitation privileges of getting to see me every other weekend. I saw him twice. The last time I saw him alive was in Calera, Alabama in the parking lot of Hardees. My mom had come to pick me up and I remember him giving me a hug and kissing me, because his beard was coarse and caused me to itch.

The following Sunday he was found dead on a couch. He had fallen asleep and he died of a heart attack at thirty-three.

I wonder who the man was. I have photographs, an annual, some back stage passes he had and a few cassette tapes he had. I know he loved music greatly, wanted to organize a benefit concert in Birmingham for the poor and homeless and that my mom had a wreck in 1984 (or so) where they were badly messed up. Apparently my dad shielded my sister and he broke his back. Eventually, because of the pain he became addicted to pain killers and became an alcoholic. He wasn't able to do his job very well and eventually he quit because of his coworkers. I also know he was arrested over a bad thing...that my step father was kind enough to inform me of while he was in the midst of an alcohol influenced binge that also involved him showing me porn in order to 'explain the birds and the bees'.

My life is shaped so much by a man I barely knew. There is a hole in my heart where I wish he could be. I wonder what he would actually think of me...of how I want to write, how I am a Christian, how I feel I am supposed to do ministry, how I feel compelled to play music, how I want to make him proud even though he is dead.

I honestly have no clue if he is in Heaven or Hell. At the funeral the pastor said he was a brother in Christ and of course was in heaven, but seriously, how many preachers do you know would tell the family of someone dead that their loved one had died without knowing Jesus Christ as their personal savior and because they had no one to take the punishment for their sins that loved one is now being punished infinitely for hurting and rejecting a God who has infinite love but yet infinite wrath for sin?

I could go on...but I am quite sure this was too much information. The most important line in that song to me is:

"everybody knows
it hurts to grow up
and everybody does
and so weird to be back here
let me tell you what
the years go on and we're still fighting it
and you're so much like me.
I'm sorry."

For some reason I feel like that is something my dad might have told me before I left for college, or maybe if he ever would have heard me preach, teach or me play on stage with a band. That he loved me, that he cares for me and that he was sorry for the flaws that I got from him.

10 Life is Like A Boat.wma
-This is a song by the Japanese artist Rie Fu. It was used as the credit music for the first season of the spectacular anime Bleach. Deep lyrics on love, the confusion of love and dedication.

11 Stay (Faraway, So Close!).wma
-I'm a U2 fan. I will take flack for this but I will die defending the importance of U2 music to my life. Me being introduced to them has helped shape me on a deeper level musically, writing wise, spiritually and in all ways artistic.

This particular song is named after the movie it was on the soundtrack for and is from the eclectic album Zooropa, which in turn was recorded in the midst of their massive Zoo TV Tour. Unlike most of the other songs on this album that featured an electronic influence this one is almost quite straight forward.

The lyric is about a severally broken woman (of which I have dated some) who uses and let's herself be used. It's a plea for her to come to sense and realize that she is going to self destruct with the way she is living...that brokenness cannot be fixed with breaking oneself further, one has to "Stay with the spirit I found, Stay and the night would be enough".

12 Digital Love.wma
-Finally a non depressing track.

This is another Daft Punk track on the subject of love and a 'discovery' of feelings.

13 Fool in the Rain.wma
-Led Zeppelin is quite a classic rock band but towards the end of their recording life they came up with this fun little ditty about a poor sap standing in the rain while waiting for his girl.

14 Fools Paradise.wma
-Another selection from the Trigun soundtrack. It's used sporadicly throughout the series as background music and is never heard in its full form until the very end of the series. A fool's paradise is a noun defined as being "a state of enjoyment based on false beliefs or hopes; a state of illusory happiness". Which is a rather fitting way that most people would view the protagonist of Trigun, Vash.

He is a happy go lucky gun fighter with a weakness for doughnuts and in strict competition with Bono about who is more Christ like. Vash 'The Stampede' is a character who despite the first impression he gives to people of him being a bumbling fool, he is in fact an ace gunman who fights in such a way that he never takes a life under any circumstances, even to the point of being mangled. He has a love for humanity on a desolate dessert planet that defies reason. Vash is an eternal optimist that doesn't just hope for the best but sees how the good can come out of every person and situation.

For sure he is a hero of mine.

15 Roads.wma
-Blindside is a Swedish Christian metal band. However this is a rather jazzy song from their album "About a Burning Fire". This is just another well written and developed song that manages to get its meaning across with ease.

16 Love Rescue Me.wma
-U2 at the height of the 80's with a collaboration with Bob Dylan. At times it feels like a very strong spiritual, a hymn even. I won't sully the beauty of it but just give an excerpt of my favorite part:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow
Yet I will fear no evil
I have cursed they rod and staff
They no longer comfort me
Love rescue me

I've conquered my past
The future is here at last
I stand at the entrance
To a new world I can see
The ruins to the right of me
Will soon have lost sight of me
Love rescue me"

17 All I Want is You.wma

-Yes, one last U2 song. For those of you who are familiar with the U2 song "With or Without You" this was originally written as a coda for that song.

I like to think of myself as a hopeful romantic...but at the end of the day relationships are hard, they hurt and because of my personality type...I have an incredible amount of empathy, which in a positive way helps me desire to love and serve others...but consequently it means I hurt deeper and in ways that words cannot describe. It may just be not having a hard enough shell but even the smallest of words can be taken the wrong way and cause a deep wound...conversely that is something that is overcome only by the love given to me from above.

Point being...this is my favorite love song of all time. If I ever get married I would like for this to somehow be involved in the wedding.

The way this song approaches things is that is expounds upon the absolute mysterious nature of women. I was reading an interview with Bono and at the time of writing this song he and his wife had been married about ten years but in many ways she was still a mystery to him. People tend to mask themselves and hide because of the fear of who they are, a fear that they are not good enough and that no one would love them if they were themselves.

This song, to me, feels like a plea to be able to understand his love deeper and beyond words, beyond physical tokens, beyond any of our stupid and shallow misconceptions of love...but actually having deep spiritual and emotional intimacy. Not just the fast food get whatever sex you can that all of us so easily want to dive into.

True love seems impossible in this world and to be honest it is. But one of the constant reminders to me that there is a loving God is that love does exist. Love is just as irrational as the concept of a loving creator...and both are deep pools of insanity I am more then desperate enough to not just dive into but to drink deeply from and to explore the rich depths until the end of eternity.