girl, put your records on...

i love old school music. i love new music as well, but this blog is my love ballot to the classics...

ps: when re-reading i found this to not be as free flowing as i hoped. so, sorry if it's a rigid read.

i was hanging with friends one night and i ended up being the DJ. now i knew right off this would be oh so painful. i listen to everything and very sporadically. like, i can put on some al green and then play metallica and top it all off with a bit of antonio carlos jobim followed by some postal service. that's the way my mind works. but not everyone is like this. so me being DJ can be brutal.

i tried oh so hard all night to find that song that would link everyone but i never did. i thought it might be bebel gilberto. then i tried bob marley, and he was the closest, but not quit. i remember thinking, i have so much more respect for DJ's right now. it was painful for me. seeing some people love it and some people waiting for it to be over. i know that you can't always be on the same page, but it's what i strive for. to create harmony around me.

i never found that song.

but i did figure out that the beauty of music is that it speaks to us all in different ways. i'm beginning to love how a song/music can change your life and mean absolutely nothing to someone else.

for me music free's my mind. not words because i have a hard time getting into someone else's words that aren't mine. but the actual music. tones, notes, arpeggios, harmonies, bass, sound waves, ect. words are restrictive, only allowing you to express and feel so much. music picks up where words leave off leading you into the outer most realms and sometimes beyond.

have you ever heard a song that so good you wanted to be inside of it. weird i know but that's the affect that it can have on me. wanting to literally be a part of it. now that's a good song...

i was thinking about the greats in my life. bob marley, nina simone, van morrison, tupac, ect. there are more be these are the ones that have been with me for a while. now already some of you are like, "eh, he/she's ok". but i love that. see, to me these artists were able to truly change me. and every artist is different and comes from a different place. it's so much more than me "liking" your song. it's making me connect with it.

take bob marley. although i don't connect completely with his lyrics, i feel them. he literally brings me into his world and i am changed everytime. i am a slave on the pirate ship (redemption song), i am leading my people to freedom (exodus), everything WILL be alright (three little birds), i am a buffalo soldier, dreadlocked rasta (buffalo soldier).

with someone like a nina simone, she goes straight for the soul. past the heart and skip the spirit and right to the enter of your being. i don't know how but that voice of hers carries every emotion she's ever felt. yet she so in control of it.

so different from a beyonce or a christina who have phenomenal voices, but are just that. voices. i once thought mariah carey would be able to graze that level of feeling. old school mariah with songs like can't let go and vanishing and i don't want to cry. she had that potential to me at one time. not capture it, but a good modern day translator of sorts. not anymore. now shes just another voice to me. a good one no doubt. but her music has become background noise. and i dont mean that negatively. she has become who she was meant to be.

and why is this. why is it so hard to find modern artists who know how to make you feel? there are definitely great artist out there, but they are becoming more hard to find amongst the chatter. and i love the chatter too. i am a not-so-secret pop junkie at times and an acoustic slut always. it has its place in my life as well. you need the balance. but theres really no comparison.

generations of music lost to remembrance.

in a lot of ways, it seems to me that artists have in some ways replaced feeling with words. all these song with complicated, deep, verbally beautiful lyrics but thats it. the beauty of these old school artists is that a sam cooke can make you feel like youre on that dock in the bay and thats all he said. sitting in on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away simple. etta james said i would rather go blind, than to see you walk away from me and im there feelin the same way with my heart on the verge of broken. again, simple yet powerful.

tupac had that ability more in his early years for me. the 2pacalypse album just spoke to me. and not because he was my brother. but because of the very raw and unconditioned way put his heart into those songs. he was an a great storyteller. telling the stories of his life. and in a way that was humbling. he was very unfashioned and all over the place but thats why it worked. he wasnt tainted yet. It was more free in a lot of ways. when he was rapping he was telling you all the secret things he might tell his therapist. reliving it of sorts. but unlike bob where i felt i was there, pac wanted you to listen. he wanted you to see.

so yeah. wow. that was a long blog about music. i am listening to the song on my homepage repeatedly today. i love it! nothing life changing; its just one of those feel goods that takes me to an island where im drinking milk from a coconut on the beach and doing mischievous things.

ahhh back to work. sorry that was such an abrupt ending. it bes that way sometimes.

what about you? any songs that mean more than most?

would love for you to suggest some songs i should listen too. always down to hear new music.

song you MUST hear:
(I had to limit myself to 5 artists)
rather go blind (etta james)
sunday kinda love (etta james)
feelin' good (nina simone)
sinnerman (nina simone)
i'll be seeing you (billie holiday)
can't take that away from me (billie holiday)
babylon system (bob marley)
no woman no cry (bob marley)
ill be your lover too (van morrison)
sweet thing (van morrison)