Today is about What is a song or poem that speaks to you and why?
Well, that seems like it would be easy but it’s a really hard task for someone like me who has been into music and poetry all my life. I started asking for albums in second grade. If I can find it , I’ll show you a photo of me blissfully dancing around the living room to the Monkees, the album cover is visible and yes, I was in second grade. I was crazy for music but music was popping everywhere while I was growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s. All these years later and I still remember thousands of song lyrics from those years.
I found meaning in so many Grateful Dead songs that I started looking at setlists as a tarot reading . A song’s meaning interpreted like a tarot card would and altogether I would see a message from the show. Too many Grateful Dead songs mean something to me that I can’t choose. I feel this way about the Beatles, CSNY, Sting, Linda Ronstadt and Joni Mitchell and on and that’s how I am about favorites.
So, I am not going to choose a close favorite artist song. I’m going to ponder songs by two musicians that I have never owned a cassette or cd or album of. One is Stevie Nicks and the other is Madonna. I hear both are coming to San Francisco and suddenly, I really want to see them LIVE. I had trouble warming up to each of their “personas” when they first came around . “I’m a beautiful mystical being” and “I’m the last word on sexy” was annoying to me though I didn’t mind as much when male musicians did the same schtick.
In the last few years, I started adding Madonna songs to my treadmill playlist for the beat and ended up singing “Like a Prayer” to myself the few times I’ve driven and it was uplifting. I love it and listen to it nearly everyday on YouTube. https://youtu.be/b_rIk8yKDGI https://youtu.be/b_rIk8yKDGI
As for Stevie Nicks, I liked the music but the lyrics were too vague for me to see the story in it.I read or saw an interview with her and she spoke that her hit “Landslide” was for her father and it was how she felt when he was ill. At some point, in the middle of my dad’s summer 2022 crises, “Landslide” came up on YouTube, and remembering what it was written for, the lyrics made sense and now, I can’t help but tear up as the feels hit too close to home.
She begins “This is for you, Daddy “https://youtu.be/WM7-PYtXtJM
I don’t know if I completed the assignment but this is where I must get on with my day. Maybe the ticket gods will smile on me and I can experience both musicians sing these rather old but newly appreciated songs . Happy Wednesday and thanks for reading 🌹