Category Archives: Music

Music Monday: Relative Oldies

Posted on May 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

The photo above has nothing to do with anything in this post, but I found it going through my phone and thought I’d share – you should be used to the random by now.

I’ve been perusing my iTunes library, rediscovering some old favorites and thought I’d take a moment to share some with you…

Clocks | Coldplay – I’ve featured their music time and again on Music Monday so I guess I can freely admit that I rather love Coldplay. The best is still the song from Alias – as Sandy said, Vaughn = swoon. Yup.

The Wind | Cat Stevens – This one is an oldie but I first remember liking it after watching Almost Famous, way back before I found Kate Hudson insufferable – I wish she would do back to indie movies, she was brilliant in Almost Famous, or perhaps she just had a marvelous director.

Under the Bridge | Red Hot Chili Peppers – Yet another song with a great guitar intro. True story: Anthony Kiedis (the Chili Peppers’ lead singer) is from my current home town and in college I saw him at a local coffee shop; sadly I didn’t realize it was him but instead thought he was a guy from my college so I kept staring at him, waiting for him to recognize me and say hi – but since it was actually someone famous and not another college student, he just gave me a strange look. I’m sure he is used to people staring at him but after the fact, I wanted to chase after him and tell him that I wasn’t staring at him for the reason he thought I was… a brush with fame and I wasted it on thinking he was someone else. For the record, he looked pretty normal and darn handsome.

I Could Sing of Your Love Forever | Sonic Flood – The CD player in my Focus ate this CD, actually, it got stuck in the CD player when someone shoved another CD in the player on top of this one and I had to have the whole player removed and replaced. I was so sad about this CD.

Cruisin’ | Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis – Speaking of back when celebrities were less annoying – remember when Gwyneth was less toolish? Do you recall that she actually clued the world in that she could sing in a movie (Duets) and not on Glee… here’s a song she performed with Huey Lewis (who played her dad in the movie).

Thank You | Dido – And yet another song from a movie that starred Gwynnie (Sliding Doors – the movie where she has two freaking cute hairstyles)

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Music Monday: Brother-inspired

Posted on May 21, 2012 | 3 comments


I’m sure I was listening to music I loved, even back then, because my brother, Marty, was a huge music fan and I was one of his biggest fans (still am). But he lived in the basement and my little friends and I would sit outside his bedroom door and giggle while we listened to him sing something.
Here’s a collection of music he’s introduced me to over the years:

Smoke on the Water | Deep Purple [He taught me to play this on the guitar]

Swingin’ | John Anderson [I have no idea about this one but I clearly recall listening to it over and over thanks to Marty, I think I had it on a cassette]

Thriller | Michael Jackson [He let me watch it on MTV; I was petrified and had nightmares – but at least it was memorable]

Eye of the Tiger | Survivor [We watched all the Rocky and Rambo movies together, it was our tradition, apparently I was the little brother he never had.]

Stand By Me | Ben E. King [One time when we were visiting him in Texas, I found a compilation CD of Motown and R&B music that included this song I spent a year of middle school listening to all sorts of oldies.]

Yellow Ledbetter | Pearl Jam [the guitar intro to this is one of my most favorites EVER]

Clearly eclectic music tastes run in our blood – is that hereditary?

For the record, I also think my other brother, Mike, is pretty fantastic and I’m a big fan of his as well, we just don’t listen to music together, but he does (among other things) mix some fantastic drinks and someday I will share those recipes with you.

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Music Monday: Recent Downloads

Posted on May 14, 2012 | 2 comments

Happy belated Mother’s Day to all you mothers out there! Hope you had a great day! We went to Lansing to spend the day with my mom since I already got my present two weekends ago when Simon gave me a Keurig coffee maker as a joint anniversary/mother’s day gift (I’d argue that the gift is just as much for him as it is for me, but I love coffee too much to argue about that and he did get me flowers when he took the babysitter home Saturday night). We had a great evening on Saturday with our small group and I got to cuddle an adorable 5-day-old baby so all is well.

I’ve been on a music downloading kick lately because I realized I’d had a credit in my iTunes account for WAY too long and what’s the point of that if there is music I’d like to listen to on demand and Liam’s asking for a new mix CD? Here are some recent downloads:

Yesterday | Adam Levine & Tony Lucca (from The Voice – despite my high annoyance with Christina and my mild annoyance with Lucca/Levine making digs at her through their other song choices, I do like this singing competition and I love this cover)

The A Team | Ed Sheeran

Tongue Tied | Grouplove (from the Apple iPod Touch commercial)

Born to Die | Lana Del Rey

Feel to Close | Calvin Harris (Liam’s current favorite)

Medicine | Daughter (totally on the depressing song list, totally from The Vampire Diaries)

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Posted in Life in general, Music

Music Monday: God Songs

Posted on May 7, 2012 | 3 comments

Liam is apparently very touched by what he’s learning in Sunday school. After church yesterday, we were listening to the radio and Liam requested that I change it to a God song and when I didn’t immediately switch the song because it was one that I liked, Liam said to me, “Mom, you’re just not loving God right now!” Um, excuse me? Simon just raised his eyebrows and laughed at me but who am I to argue with that, so I switched the song.

Here are some “God songs” that I/we like:

Children of God | Third Day

I Will Follow | Chris Tomlin

Light Up the Sky | The Afters

Down | Mat Kearney [not a Christian artist per se, but an artist who is a Christian]

If We Are the Body | Casting Crowns

Something Beautiful | NeedToBreathe

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Posted in Faith, Music

Music Monday: Seven

Posted on April 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Happy anniversary to my hubby – seven years of wedded bliss (or something like it)! I already talked about our wedding CD here (check it out – I loved our wedding CD, maybe you will, too).

We celebrated this weekend with dinner out at the restaurant we went to for our first anniversary. Thanks to a Groupon and my parents being in town to watch the kids. Our standard gift to each other for our anniversary is a very nice dinner out (though this year we both got something for the other – apparently we need to revisit the rules of our gift-giving) because along with loving music, we also share a love of food.

Anywho… where was I… happy anniversary wishing to my hubby. Happy anniversary, my dear – love you mucho! So glad you are in my life. So thankful for our boys. So thankful we share a love of music. Here’s to many, many more years of good food, good people and good music.

Top Seven Songs from Our Seven Years Together

Better Be Home Soon | Crowded House
Simon’s favorite band who we got to see in concert in Ann Arbor and Chicago. One of my favorite songs by them, it just belongs here.

Once in a Lifetime | Keith Urban
We got the “Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing” CD as a Christmas gift in 2006 – my SIL, Janelle, adores Keith Urban and gifted us with the CD. Janelle wasn’t the only fan in the family, apparently so was a baby Liam – we listened to this CD night after night when Liam was between 4 and 8 months. He usually needed a little catnap each evening after daycare but wouldn’t go to sleep anywhere but in his swing and would fight it like crazy with lots of crying (which he did regardless of whether or not we were trying to get him to sleep because he was TIRED. One night I put this CD in and cranked up the volume and left the room; before the end of the first song (this song) he was out cold. This continued, nightly at 5:30, until he no longer needed that catnap to make it through the evening. The whole album was a sanity saver.

City of Blinding Lights | U2
Last year I got to fulfill my (nearly) lifelong dream of seeing U2 in concert. We heard this song from outside the stadium during sound check and I can still feel the chills, knowing I was finally going to see them live – they did not disappoint.

Jackdaw | David Gray
It’s only appropriate that we also got to see my favorite singer live (multiple times) but the first time we saw him together, this was one of my favorite songs from the evening.

Need You Now | Lady Antebellum
I cannot hear this song and not think of Simon, but not because it’s a booty call song (this is exactly how I found it on YouTube, by looking up “booty call song country” because I couldn’t remember the name of the song or band, no lie) but because we heard it more times than we could count on our roadtrip to Texas last year. This is what happens when a song is super popular and you are in a car for long stretches during a short time frame (this also happened with the song “You and Your Hand” by Pink and “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People – from our trips to Australia).

Just Another Day in Paradise | Phil Collins
Just because my sweet, AC/DC-loving husband also LOVES Phil Collins and won’t let me turn off the song when we come across one (or one by Genesis) on the radio but this is actually a Phil Collins song that I will listen to without complaint (and only a little mocking).

#41 | Dave Matthews Band
Last summer we also got to fulfill Simon’s slightly-shorter-than-lifelong dream of seeing Dave Matthews Band live (would have also been mine but I saw Dave Matthews with Tim Reynolds while I was in college so I wasn’t missing out as much as Simon was). This was the first song on the set list and the moment I’d been waiting for that whole long (and fun) day – seeing Simon hear DMB live and in person for the first time.

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