Category Archives: Music

I was trying to think about what music to feature today and Simon did my work for me by giving me an awesome mother’s day gift – tickets to see Sara Bareilles for me and two of my friends. A night out under the stars (the concert is here), away from the kids with two of my best friends – a total treat! He even managed to plan it out with my friend so in case I mentioned getting tickets, she would tell me she had other plans that night. Here’s a small sampling of her music… Continue reading →

In honor of our anniversary this past weekend, I thought I’d share the music we put on our wedding CD (we gave this out to our wedding guests as one of the favors, we also alternated coffee and chocolate at the tables – all our favorite things). We’re going to ignore the fact that our handing out the CD probably violated some sort of copyright or distribution laws… bygones.

We had a slide show that was played at our wedding because we came into the sanctuary that featured What a Wonderful World for the parts when we were children and before we met each other and Sarah MacLachlan’s marvelous Ice Cream for the photos of our life together that far. [Super coincidentally, Ice Cream was from the movie Bed of Roses and in that movie, the main character’s favorite roses are Sterling roses – they are a purple-gray color with no thorns – and guess what flowers my hubby got me for our anniversary? Sterling roses – aw, how sweet! If only he had been aware of the connection, instead it was serendipity.]

Our friend, Andy, who is the music director at our church and was our small group leader at the time, did the music for our wedding and for the unity candle, he played Open Skies, which was a song we sang often in small group – it was very special and personal to us and I still feel blessed by how it came together perfectly in our wedding.

The rest of the songs were, and still are, special to us separately or as a couple. If you had asked me before meeting Simon if I knew any Crowded House songs I probably would have said, “Who?” But come to find out, I did know their music, just didn’t know the same of the band. Since we’ve met, we’ve seen them in concert twice (ironically, Simon went to their *farewell to the world* concert in front of the Opera House in Sydney back in 1996). 

My only regret on the CD was Born in the USA – obviously the sentiment of the title worked for our Australian-American theme, but the rest of the lyrics were a little inappropriate for a wedding CD.

Highlights of the rest

All I Want Is You | U2

The Luckiest | Ben Folds

Time of My Life | Green Day

And so you can revel in the fact that I was pretty cheesy, below are the labels I made for the coffee (perfect blend) and M&Ms (sweet nothings). Say it with me: awww. [barf]

Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me…

One of my favorite things is when musicians do a cover of a song that I love. The result is often completely different and completely awesome. Here are some of my faves:

Crazy | Gnarls Barkley (original) & Ray Lamontagne (cover)

Hallelujah | Jeff Buckley (original) & Justin Timberlake, Hope for Haiti (cover)

Fields of Gold | Eva Cassidy (original) & Sting (cover)

Think It’s Going To Rain Today | Randy Newman (original, though this performance was more recent) & David Gray (cover)

And It Stoned Me | Van Morrison (original) & David Gray (cover)

Sorry for the visual and sound quality of some of these, you take what you can get with YouTube.

According to my iTunes account, these are my most played songs – apparently I really like them…

You Are the Best Thing | Ray Lamontagne

All I Can Say | David Crowder Band

Apologize | OneRepublic (I’ve already linked to this one here, so instead I’ll share their current song, which is making its way up the ranks in my iTunes.)
Good Life

Fugitive | David Gray (linked to this one here)
Here’s another favorite, a live version of Babylon

A Long December | Counting Crows

The Good Kind | The Wreckers

Big Girls Don’t Cry | Fergie (I’m a bit embarrassed by the singer, but I love this song, I can’t help it)