“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” --Bob Marley
I can't think of many writing prompts that would prove as difficult as this one! I'm a music lover from way back. At one time I was even preparing for a life on the opera stage! Therefore it shouldn't come as a surprise that whether I'm singing it or listening to it, music is second only to writing as one of my key forms of expression. So, choose just one song? Surely you jest! But I'll give it my best shot.
As I write this I have my YouTube playlist blaring from the laptop speaker. At the moment it's Cher singing “Just Like Jesse James.” No matter how much I practiced and studied for a career in opera, deep down inside I wanted to sing like Cher. Heck, I wanted to be Cher! I was pretty naive at that age. But, damn! What a great song to lip sync to since I can no longer sing, thanks to a nasty virus that attacked only my vocal chords at the start of the pandemic.
Another high energy, and I mean high energy, song that I love to listen to is “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. I dare anyone to remain in a foul or depressed mood while it's playing. And the video is great, too. I've often thought that had I married, that would have been the song playing as my groom and I exited the church. Instead, I'm middle-aged, single, and chubby, but I can sure move when the mood hits me. And this song definitely sets the mood!
But when it comes right down to it, the songs that touch me the deepest are ballads. It doesn't matter if they're country, rock, or, of course, soft rock in genre, I just love them! There are so many that I've loved over the years that I pulled up my playlist to listen to them all again, some for the first time in years. I listened to Richard Marx sing “Right Here Waiting” and for a brief time, I was in my 20's again. Full of unabashed romance in my heart, but having no one to share it with. So that song brings both pleasure and a little bit of hurt as I listen to it. Another that I enjoyed from the 80's was “I Can't Stop This Feeling Anymore” by REO Speedwagon. Oh, man! That is a writing prompt for a romance if there ever was one! From my teenage years in the 70's, I could listen to “I'd Really Love to See You Tonight” by England Dan and John Ford Coley again and again. And sing it, too, of course. Years later I was fortunate enough to see Dan Seals in concert at Maryville College here in Blount County. I'm not sure which delighted me more: his performing that song or meeting him afterward. Such a wonderfully gentle and talented man. I mourned when he passed.
I could go on ad nauseum, as you no doubt have guessed, but the prompt was to choose “a” song. Going back to my playlist I thought about which of all those songs touched me the deepest. That wrapped itself so tightly around my heart and soul that the real world disappeared behind the images and emotions it elicited. In the end, the choice was remarkably simple.
The first time I heard Toby Keith sing, it was “Should've Been a Cowboy” on the CMT cable channel. I was sitting there in my chair, watching the video with only half my attention while the rest of it was somewhere else I don't remember. This was before he grew his facial scruff so when he grinned those dimples were in full, beautiful view and I forgot all about whatever else it was I'd been thinking about. No man should have dimples like that! But they, and the song, introduced me to a singer that I have loved ever since. I can't think of a single Toby song that I don't like to one degree or another. But there's one, “You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This,” that fills my romantic heart with all manner of warmth and longing. The song is so incredibly beautiful and the images it creates in my mind are both clear and soft. I can not only feel the music filling me but I can see myself on a dance floor with someone I had known first as a good friend then later as a lover. It's almost a totally sensory experience. All I need is the feel of that special someone in my arms to make it real. Strangely, despite it all, it makes me believe it can still become a reality someday.
The words I write are my gift, if you will, to the world. But it's the music that artists produce that are a gift to me. I can close my eyes when I listen to certain classical creations and become like a leaf on a breeze as my mind follows the notes wherever they take me. When I'm depressed or worried, I reach for music guaranteed to bring my dark mood back to the light. And when I'm feeling the need to dream, it's the ballads that provide the soundtrack. For a romantic who also writes romance, the dream becomes real as I give life to the characters that, if I'm being honest, I live vicariously through. Maybe one day, they'll be living vicariously through me.
c.2023
♥Written for a writing group on Stitch of which I am a happy member.♥
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Nonetheless, you've done a good job on this assignment. What I learned from this piece that I could have written, is that each generation, when they are young, are most affected by the music of their time. That is why most of your songs are not on my radar, but you intrigued me and I may wish to check them out on my YouTube viewing every night now… Only started about a year ago. And have become addicted, staying up too late.
Before that, about 5 years ago, my partner asked me to sing a song and I started singing the old songs going back to my youth when I sang them quite often in groups and still remembered the words, kind of. Unlike you I find some of the songs from the 50s quite enduring, like Moon River, Unchained Melody and the unmistakable sound of Roy Orbison. But it was the 1960s, where I had a clock radio and no TV to listen to the classics that came out during that era and hit the peak at Woodstock.
Like you, I love ballads like Danny Boy, The Green Green Grass of Home and Poncho and Lefty. But to pick out the best song would be difficult for me. But I would say the best songwriter/poet would be Bob Dylan. So glad he's still alive.
Ron