Friday, April 11, 2014

Jukebox Hero

A friend commented that my topic for this year's A-Z Blog Challenge is a little tricky to write about, and she's right. My brain is officially strained. Marriage is an institution, yet how that institution is lived out behind closed doors is deeply personal.

I don't want to sound preachy.
I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing.
I definitely don't want to sound cheesy.

A conundrum.

Pretty sure I'm not completely avoiding all the above, but no matter where my rambling thoughts take me, I always have my daughters in mind as I write those thoughts down.

Except today.
Today is more for the hubs.
He'll get this.

If I asked you for the soundtrack to your marriage what songs would you include? Mine would be too lengthy for a blog post (even I have my limits!), so I'm going to list just five here today.

Just five.
Can I list just five?
We'll see.

We listen to a lot of music in our house. We keep a running list of our all time top 100, periodically tweaking when we hear an oldie we'd forgotten, or run across a new song we love. Music has the power to change my mood, my focus, my day. I think its kind of amazing the way a particular song can carry you back to a place in time, or evoke a memory that's happy, sad, or most often a little bit of both.

Some of my song choices won't make a lot of sense to you reading here, but they make perfect sense to me and the hubs. These aren't necessarily songs whose lyrics apply to our life, but rather they're songs we associate with a particular season of life. They're songs that when we hear them play, we look for each other to share a smile. Or a sigh. Or hubs grabs my hand and we dance even if its in our own kitchen, because these songs mean something to us, and that something can't really be explained in words.

So much of married life is like that.

When I look back at a lifetime spent together I realize I almost always see the years in chunks of time. There were the college years. Dating. Falling in love. Marriage. Then came the little girl years. The Bay years. The England years. And now.

I tend to think of our music as belonging to those same chunks of time too. Somehow I've whittled my list down to just five, but wow that was hard. Just five songs out of so many I associate with more than three decades of him and me.

I could list five hundred, but ain't nobody got time for that!

J is for Just Five
1980-1987

I Just Wanna Stop by Gino Vannelli



1988-1997

Baby I Need Your Lovin' by The Four Tops



1998-2003

How Forever Feels by Kenny Chesney



2003-2009

White Flag by Dido



2009-2104

Everything by Michael Buble



I like that last song especially. After 30 years as man and wife it's good to still be someone's everything. Good to have someone be yours too.

If you're inclined to leave a comment today, I'd love to know a song or two that would be featured on your soundtrack. Have a great weekend everyone!

3 comments:

  1. What's neat about your post today is that this week, I was standing in the Coke aisle in the grocery store and a song that we had played at our wedding came on the overhead sound system. It was the theme song from Sleepless in Seattle by Celine Dion and somebody: "When I Fall In Love." Our anniversary is this month. The song made me smile. Until I got to the checkout line, at least.

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  2. A very good post... I love those songs you chose. I love music [period] but if I was to choose just one, it would be "When a Man Loves a Woman". The movie by the same title came out in 1994 and every time I see it, or hear the song, my eyes tear up. About that same time period Hubby and I were having some difficulties, not alcohol, just other things, and it made me realize that as long as we still loved each other, we can make it together.

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  3. I'm going back to catch up on posts that I missed, so I'm just now reading this one.
    As for our marriage soundtracks, two come to mind. Still the One (We're still having fun, and you're still the one!) by Orleans, and Remember When by Alan Jackson.

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