Tag Archives: song of the moment

Song of the Moment: Me and the Sky

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Last year, I saw and loved Come from Away on Broadway. It’s based on a real event- when the terrorist attacks on September 11th happened, the US airspace was closed for a few days, so all of the planes that were already in the air were diverted to Gander, a small town in Newfoundland. The population of the town basically doubled overnight, with all of these people from all over the world unexpectedly landing there. But because Canadians are awesome, they stepped up and welcomed everyone, so while the world was reeling from the horror of 9/11, there were friendships and at least one romance being formed up in Gander.

My favorite song from Come from Away is sung by a character based on a real person- Beverley Bass, who was the first female captain on American Airlines. (The real Beverley, who is now retired, is a Come from Away superfan- she’s seen the show something like 80 times and has become friends with the actress who plays her, Jenn Collela.) In this song, Beverley tells the story of her career and everything that led her to the moment she ended up in Gander. In four minutes, it covers so many emotions- hope, frustration, excitement, triumph, sadness, fear- and Jenn Collela knocks it out of the park.

 

Song of the Moment: “She Used to Be Mine”

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This is my favorite song from Waitress. It comes at a low point for the main character, and the lyrics hit me right in the feels. At times it feels like it could be my life anthem:

She’s imperfect, but she tries
She is good, but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won’t ask for help
She is messy, but she’s kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone, but she used to be mine

I love how Jessie Mueller, the original Jenna, sings “She is lo-o-onely most of the time” so delicately.

Right now, happiness feels absolutely impossible. But I do love this song.

Song of the Moment: Trolley Wood

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I recently rediscovered this song: “Trolley Wood” by Eisley. It’s insanely catchy, and I’ve recently found myself humming it to myself.

I’ve also puzzled over the lyrics. Is it a metaphor for an experience that’s impossible to replicate? Is there some kind of significance to the surreal concept of a wood with trolleys rolling around the hills, or is it just a cute but nonsensical term that rhymes with Hollywood? In any case, have a listen.

Song of the Moment: Everybody Knows

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I don’t want to write too much about the election just yet. I’m still too angry and upset. Maybe at a later date.

The first Saturday Night Live after the election had this opening that made me cry: the amazing Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton singing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, who had just passed away.

 

(One of the minor tragedies of this election is that we won’t get to see Kate’s Hillary Clinton as much. She’s brilliant.)

 

“Hallelujah” is one of my favorite songs ever. It’s my go-to shower-singing song. But the Leonard Cohen song I’ve thought sums up the situation in our country the best right now is actually “Everybody Knows.”

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

 

Sounds about right to me. This song has been covered a lot, and I remember this cover by Elizabeth and the Catapult was on Damages.

 

 

Song of the Moment: Back to Before

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There are some musicals I’ve never seen but would love to, having listened to the music from them. The Secret Garden is one. Ragtime is another. And this is my favorite song from Ragtime: “Back to Before.” It’s so beautiful and has lyrics that apply to so many things besides the specific situation in the show. Back in college, it made my AIM away message quite frequently. Those days are over, but I sing it in the shower quite a bit.

 

 

Song of the Moment: Another Suitcase in Another Hall

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A few weeks ago, I was looking at the list of movies expiring from Netflix in March and saw that one of them was Evita. I first saw this movie in middle school and used to listen to the soundtrack (on cassette tape!) all the time. So I decided to watch it while I still could.

 

It was pretty much exactly how I remembered it, although I’d forgotten how much I love Antonio Banderas’s voice.  Dude can SING! But the song that really jumped out to me upon this rewatch was “Another Suitcase in Another Hall.” As I’ve mentioned before, I think most good musicals have one really underrated song, and this is Evita‘s.

 

I’ve never seen it on stage, but as written for it, this song is sung by Peron’s mistress after Peron leaves her for Eva. In the movie, this was changed so that it’s Eva singing it earlier, after the end of her affair with a singer, and there’s a very short reprise where the mistress sings just a few lines of it. (The mistress only has about two minutes of screen time in the movie.) But the fact that it can be used for two different scenarios is one reason why I like the song so much. The best show tunes are the ones that can stand on their own, ones you can understand without knowing the context into which it was written. It’s a breakup song that could really be sung by anyone feeling hurt by the end of a relationship.

 

Here it  is in the movie, but I also found a YouTube clip of a version by the wonderful Samantha Barks, so I’ve included that, too.

Song of the Moment: Nobody’s Crying

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Sometimes when I do these “Song of the Moment” posts, it’s a song that’s timely. Maybe it has to do with the time of year, or something going on in my life, or something in the news, or it reminds me of someone’s birthday.

This one is none of the above. It’s just a song I love and think you should know if you don’t know it already: Patty Griffin’s lovely “Nobody’s Crying.” Despite the title, the gentle but emotional way she sings it, like her heart is breaking, often makes me want to cry. It’s been covered a few times, but Patty’s original version is my favorite.

May you dream you are dreaming in a warm, soft bed
And may the voices inside you that fill you with dread
Make the sound of thousands of angels instead
Tonight where you might be laying your head
Darling, I wish you well
On your way to the wishing well
Swinging off of those gates of hell
But I can tell how hard you’re trying
I still have this secret hope
Sometimes all I do is cope 
But somewhere on the steepest slope
There’s an endless rope
And nobody’s crying


[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeismlcQdv0]

Song of the Moment: Chicago

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I’ll get to my post about Europe in a second. I haven’t posted yet due to a busy week after I got back and then this past week, which I spent in Chicago for a business trip.

It was the second time I’d been to Chicago. The first time was also for work, back in 2009. I was thinking about how much has changed since then. I remember distinctly that when I went to Chicago four years ago, my anxiety was at its peak. I was getting panicky and teary over stupid little things, and I remember crying a lot in my hotel room over the things I was worried about.

That all seems so far away now. I’m really happy to say that I no longer have that kind of anxiety—like, at all. It’s kind of crazy how much it’s improved. In the last year, too, I feel like I’ve let go of caring about a lot of the things that used to cause me a lot of worry, and it’s incredibly freeing.

When I visit a city for the first time, I like to listen to a song about that city—like a song from this playlist. Four years ago when I was in Chicago, I was listening to the Sufjan Stevens song “Chicago,” and it couldn’t have been more appropriate. I was worried about mistakes I’d made, or thought I’d made, and there’s a repeated line in that song: “I made a lot of mistakes.” That line in Sufjan Stevens’ soft voice in the state of mind I was in became really comforting to me.

This time in Chicago, when I had some free time, I had some deep-dish pizza and went to the top of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) and down to Navy Pier to ride the Ferris Wheel and some other rides. I got pictures like this:

Oh, yeah, and I also listened to the same song. I still love it, even when I’m in a calmer place.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_-cUdmdWgU]

Song of the Moment: “Set the Fire to the Third Bar”

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I first heard this song by Snow Patrol and Martha Wainwright a couple of months ago at a party, and it’s been haunting me since I started listening to it on Spotify this weekend. There’s something kind of hypnotic about it.

Certain lyrics from this song have taken up residence in my brain and won’t leave. But they’re interesting houseguests:

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I’ve found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

And after I have traveled so far
We’d set the fire to the third bar
We’d share each other like an island
Until, exhausted, close our eyelids

If Wikipedia is to be believed, “setting the fire to the third bar” means turning the heat up, I assume metaphorically in this case. The lyrics are full of imagery about fire and warmth as opposed to cold, and although it’s now March and spring is supposedly on its way, it’s flurrying as I write this. So this seems like an appropriate song for this time of year.

Have a listen. I’m actually not crazy about this music video, though- it’s not how I picture the song in my head. Damn you for not reading my mind, music video director!

  [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfa9yxCpWoA]