This is the last day of the #30DaySong Challenge, and I’m very glad I decided to revive it again. I had forgotten how therapeutic regular blogging could be, especially when writing about music. I want to thank all of you, readers, who came to the blog for the first time (or returned after a long…
Read MoreIn previous iterations of the #30DaySongChallenge, I’ve answered this prompt about “a song you want played at your funeral” before– see here for my 2015 answer, and here for my 2011 answer– but, to be honest, that was before I really started thinking seriously about my own funeral. For the last few years, I’ve been teaching…
Read MoreI had intended to write a really uplifting post today about the power of hope. Something about not giving in to the siren call of despondency or, worse, quietism. Something about the curious capacity of the human spirit to not only endure the darkness before the dawn, but to manufacture assurance that the sun will,…
Read MoreIt’s a little bit hard to complain about the break-up of Outkast, since André 3000 (André Benjamin) and Big Boi (Antwan Patton) have both gone on to be stellar solo artists, but still… they were soooooo gooooood together. Back in 1996, a friend gave me Outkast’s ATLiens album as a birthday present. The “Dirty South”…
Read MoreToday’s #30DaySongChallenge pick is a two-fer! And I can’t think of any artist who deserves this kind of double-dipping more than The King of Soul, Otis Redding, an absolutely inimitable performer who always makes you want to go back for seconds. Last year, the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts published a study hypothesizing that there…
Read MoreThe lyrics to my #30DaySongChallenge pick today are not “utterly mysterious” in a strict sense. As a whole, I know what the song is about. It’s stated right there in the title. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson don’t want you, mamas, to let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Also, don’t let your babies…
Read MoreSelf-motivation is definitely NOT one my virtues. I don’t have a hard time being productive and getting excited about the things I already want to do, but (alas!) those are cases where motivation isn’t really necessary. It’s all the other droll, boring, and tedious things that require an extra push. I’ve heard of people with…
Read MoreToday’s pick was a hard one for some reason. At dinner last night with my girlfriend and her step-mom, I told them what today’s prompt would be and asked for suggestions. They were much quicker on the draw than I was, thankfully, because I had pretty much stalled at “Billie Jean.” (We’re exactly one week…
Read MoreFor a long time now, I have kept a running list of “Songs That I Would Cut Off A Limb To Have Written.” It’s not a super-long list because my standards are high, but I certainly do not have enough limbs to cover it. Most of the time, I find that it’s the lyrics of…
Read MoreI’m not sure if this counts as cheating in the unwritten #30DaySongChallenge Rule Book, but I’m picking one of my own songs for today. Like a lot of amateur songwriters, my songs have always tended toward the autobiographical, though I’d like to think that the stories and sentiments are universalizable. But even the songs that…
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