Music flows softly through my ears, building slowly up to a crescendo. It calms me, encourages me, and builds me up as I trudge through this world of uncertainty. I hear Josh Groban’s song “You Are Loved (Don’t Give Up)” and I remember the dark, frustrating days of my life, those bad days that everybody has occasionally that drives them crazy. On those days, it really feels like the weight of the world on our shoulders. Josh Groban reminds me not to give up because everybody’s loved, and everybody’s heard. They can support you no matter what.
“Country Roads, Take Me Home,” by John Denver reminds me of the simple life, the country life. I drive down faded to blue roads with cornfields on either side of me, blue skies stretched out to infinity and I hear, no feel, this song well up in me. For a moment, I’m lost in my surroundings, the spotted cows my only companions. I could live like this forever in the middle of nowhere, admist the fields, trees, and hills. This is America’s heart and soul, the heartland of good honest work with sweat on the brown and dirt between the toes. I year for the South where life is slow and methodical, where everybody has a smile, a front porch, and a tall glass of lemonade. All too soon the houses crowd back around me as I jerk back into the reality of city and suburban life of Ohio, but still I year, even if it I’ll be back soon to where I feel I belong for another brief respite.
“Modern Love” by David Bowie makes me want to dance and pick up the pace. Probably not one of his better known songs, but easily relate-able to me. Modern love is something that changes like fashion. If you’re stuck on how it should be, then it’ll “walk on by.” And that’s why I don’t “believe in modern love,” even if the song’s supposed to be interpreted differently from mine.
“When You Say You Love Me” by Josh Groban brings out my inner romantic. I imagine a couple waltzing to this song, oblivious to everyone but themselves. They’re completely in love. They’re soaring through the clouds with it. If I ever decided to marry, this would be the song I’d dance with my husband to for the first time. Because “when you say you love me, do you know how I love you?”
There are many more songs with a special significance to me, but it’s hard to list them all and explain how special they really are to me. It’d be nearly impossibly, to be honest. But maybe if you’ll walk down that “Red Dirt Road” with me long enough, you’ll find out soon enough.
Ordinary Travels 