Let the Music Move You

Music has the ability to effect mood, to evoke clear pictures from memory, to induce tears or smiles.  It uses the ears to speak to the mind. 

This Summer, my kids and I watched the Fox television show, “So You Think You Can Dance.”  We enjoyed all of the performances, but the one that stood out the most to me was Chelsie and Mark’s dance to Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love (Lyrical Hip Hop).  I think it was a combination of the dancers’s physical story-telling along with Lewis’s beautifully sad song - I had tears in my eyes at the end.  My niece came to visit me about a week later and my sister had her show me her version of the dance.  I watched my 4-year-old niece with tears in my eyes once again.  That song, “Bleeding Love,” it will forever be tied to my memories of this Summer. 

My favorite singer is Dave Grohl and in the Foo Fighter’s song, “DOA,”  there’s a line that goes, “… made you come clean in a dirty dress…” that I find especially poetic.  I like happy songs, too, but when I’m feeling moody, it’s the sad stuff I go for.  Kate Bush gets to me, especially, “This Woman’s Work.”  Her voice is so clear and pure.  I mentioned before that I’m a fan of John Mayer and when I’m feeling blue, I listen to, “Dreaming With a Broken Heart,” or “Gravity.” For some reason, that sadness makes me somehow feel better.  When I sing along with songs like, Sugarland’s “Stay,” I feel like I empowered.  I love sad romantic songs.

Another great song is The Killer’s, “All These Things That I’ve Done,” that is featured in a Nike commercial that has run continuously this month while so many people’s attention has been on the Olympics.  I love, love the images that they present with the song along with the words, “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier.”  It’s a very effective use of the song at a time when people are focusing on athletics - makes me want to slip on my Nikes and hit the road.  Except, that I’m not a Nike girl – I have to have my Asics.   

How about you?  What are the songs that speak to you?  Do you have any favorite romantic songs?  And is anyone else disappointed that neither Mark nor Chelsie won “So You Think You Can Dance?”