30 Day Song Challenge 2015

If you’ve ever lived close to a train track, which I have for many of the years of my adult life, you know exactly what it means to love and to believe in the sound of a train in the distance.  There’s something seductive and promissory about that sound, something that assures you that there…

There are any number of songs by the late, great Michael Jackson that make me want to dance. Most of them, in fact.  In addition to being a phenomenal and innovative dancer himself, MJ also had a preternatural talent for producing songs with just the right mix of rhythm and groove to force listeners’ bodies to…

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of musical theater.  This may be due in part to the fact that I seem to lack whatever aesthetic gene or neuron inclines us against corniness, but I like to think that it’s rather because I have a deep appreciation for storytelling in song.   My favorite musical…

I had some major blog snafus this past week, so I’m waaay behind on the 30 Day Song Challenge!  What that means for you, readers, is that the entries are going to be considerably briefer for the next several days while I catch up. Today’s prompt was easy for me.  I’m choosing Sam Cooke‘s “A…

I have a certifiably unhealthy obsession with sad songs.  I think they’re the most beautiful things that human beings create, and I think you can learn far more truth about the complex, convoluted tragicomedy that is human life and community from sad songs than from all the rest of our creations combined.  Among the reasons…

Since I started doing this Challenge regularly each summer, I’ve learned to loosen my grip a bit on categories like “favorite” and “least favorite” when it comes to songs, if only to avoid simply reproducing the same picks every year.  That’s been a good lesson to learn, really.  Kind of like when you learn that…