Top 10 voices I would marry

It is no secret that I have a soft spot for the female voice, especially while singing. There aren’t too many things in the world more beautiful than the female voice.  It is soothing, powerful, sorrowful, meek and thought-provoking all at once.  On more than one occasion I have been quoted saying something along the lines of, ‘I would marry her voice if I could.’

Now I will be the first to say that list blogs are incredibly over played.  But I love to make Top 5 or Top 10 lists when it comes to music.  Maybe I watched this movie one to many times.  I promise I will spare you from the ‘Top 17 things men wish women knew that men didn’t know about what women really know’ list blogs here.  But I just can’t help it when it comes to music.

I like a classically trained voice as much as the next guy. But they all tend to sound the same and you couldn’t pick them out of a line-up if you tried. What makes a voice beautiful (like what makes a person beautiful) is the differences – their personality. So here it is, the Top 10 voices that I would marry, if I could:

10. Leona Naess – I got suckered into a subscription to a music magazine my first year of college because I have issues saying no to salesmen.  I really didn’t get a whole lot out of that subscription–because I don’t really read–but it was worth it if only for the fact that it introduced me to the music of Leona. Her voice is about as innocent and sweet as it gets.  Her first album introduced me to this song and New York Baby.  It is still my favorite album of hers, but any of her albums are great to listen to in the background to add a bit of happy to an otherwise melancholy day.

 9. Katie Haverly – Katie graduated from the same college as I did; I think it was even the same year. I got to see her perform twice, once in a dorm and the other time at a Bookman’s. Her honesty was striking and her voice seemed to move effortlessly from low sullen tones to high ethereal tones.  I found out she moved to New York and produced a pretty decent musical career for herself that included a couple new albums.  And the best part of this blog, is I just found out that she is hanging out in my town for the time being and I might actually get to see her live again!

8. Sarah McLachlan – I don’t know if anyone puts as much heart into their songs as Sarah does.  Her voice is soothing and comforting and somehow manages to breathe a hint of sadness with it even in her happiest songs.  Fumbling Toward Ecstasy and Surfacing defined my first two years of college.  Possession is kind of like another band’stake on stalking; you know the concept is wrong, but when she sings about it somehow it becomes innocent and misinterpreted as a love song.  But as someone branching out for the first time and trying to define the person he was going to be, this song found itself on repeat quite often back then.

7. Dido – Long before a certain actress was flooding the industry with predictable romantic comedies she costarred in a short-lived television series about aliens living among us.  I really liked that show; it showed a lot of promise, as far as plots go, and had the makings to tell a really good story.  But the biggest reason I like that show was it introduced the world to Dido. I remember when I first heard the theme song – what a powerful song and powerful voice!  It is steady and determined; building slowly yet powerfully just in time to bring it back down and hook you . . . I listened to that song a lot on repeat back when it came out.

6. Jewel – There is a good argument that Jewel Kilcher was the start of my obsession with the female voice.  I was pretty positive that I would meet her one day and she would realize how awesome I was and we would get married and live happily ever after. That first song/video was so powerful, thought provoking . . . and basically beautiful! And then Foolish Games came out – my heart still breaks every time I hear that song.  Her effortless voice is the perfect compliment to the poetry that comes out of her pen.  I also really like her overlying theme of, ‘Yes, I am small and rather insignificant when it comesdown to it, but I can and will make a difference in this world and don’t you dare get in my way when I do it.’

5. A Fine Frenzy – There are very few people who have written a song that makes you feel the raw emotion of the protagonist of a song like Alison Sudol was able to do with her first single.  Her voice comes across so fragile and broken; you can’t help but feel for her and the inevitable loss.  One Cell in the Sea is filled with song after song that fills the listener with empathy for the good and bad times.  Her second album is much more upbeat, but the raw emotion in her voice is the same.

4. Fiona Apple – This is another instance where her first single just knocked me out of the water.  I read an article once (maybe from Spin) that said she set out to be a songwriter because she didn’t think that anyone would appreciate her lower octave voice.  But it is so deep and moody and sullen, how could anyone not appreciate the mood she sets with her songs?  Her voice is the perfect compliment to the lyrics and poetry that she creates.  Tidal creates a world of mood and emotion that grabs the hardest of hearts and shakes it to its core.

 3. KaseyChambers – I said before that there are few songs that evoke the raw emotion of the singer in the listener; Kasey takes the cake in this department.  I’ll never forget the first time I heard the title track from her first album.  I was fresh out of college working on a project in Bisbee, AZ. We were unwinding at the end of the day out in the field with an adult beverage or two at a local bar when I was suddenly aware of the song playing in the background.  Her voice was amazing; so sad and sincere.  Her heart was bleeding out of the speaker through her voice.  Armed with only the impression of her voice singing the few lines that I could remember, I got back to my home at the end of the week and searched for the song on the internet (this was well before smart phones).  Fortunately I found out who sang the song and bought the album the next day.  It has since made its way to the top 10 albums I have listen to the most (but that is another list).

 2. HeatherNova – It may be because the first album that introduced me to Heather was titled Siren, but her voice is what I imagine those mythical creatures would sound like if they existed. I found that album in college (circa 1998) at a local record store that I spent a lot of time at in those days.  In those days, I would buy an album just because of the name of the band/album or the cover of the album.  The cover of the album was striking, but it was her voice that hooked me.  It is otherworldly and so seductive; I’m pretty sure I would have wrecked my ship on the rocks if I heard her voice singing back in the olden days and loved every minute of it.

1. Kacy Crowley – I stumbled upon Kacy at about the same time I found Heather Nova at the same record store. Her debut album was very decent but it didn’t make as big an impression as Siren did.  Don’t get me wrong I loved her voice and songs like Rebellious, Scars, and Bottlecap all had hints of brilliance, but the rest of the album was hit and miss.  But the albums she has put out since are amazing.  She has a hint of raspiness that give her honest and heart-felt lyrics a since of reality.

Until next we meet.

You can't say that on the internet!

There has been a lot of buzz over the last week, especially today, about a couple of bills that were floating around our national legislature.  I say ‘were’ because it looks like they may not be there much longer, at least in their current versions. 

I really don’t like getting into a political discussion so I promise not to make blogs like this a regular occurrence.

While I am thoroughly impressed with everyone’s stance to keep Congress from passing a law that has the potential to take away some of the freedoms that we enjoy today, it also irritates me a little. One of our presidents was once quoted as saying, ‘A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.’

How many of you who oppose these bills couldn’t see this coming when we started to asked our government to take care of our health, or to take care of our citizens in need of help?!  It is a slippery slope when we ask our government to take care of one part of our lives.

I imagine I could get more than a few hate messages for my previous statement if more than two people actually read this, so let me qualify that last thought by saying I am not the most unkind or uncaring person on the planet. We most certainly should work toward a society where we all can afford to be healthy.  And we definitely should reach out and help the members of our society who have fallen on hard times.

All I am saying is a society that relies on its government for its altruism and compassion has lost its humanity.  Maybe instead of asking our government to take $5 or $50 or $500 or $5,000 out of our pockets to make sure everyone can be healthy, we give it willingly to an organization that will do the same thing more efficiently, or better yet, give it to the person in need directly?

I just worry about the next time the government tries to take away or limit one of our freedoms . . . maybe that time it won’t be in the best interest of major websites to formally oppose the bill.  Will you notice it then?

Until next we meet.

Be Kind to Your Knees

Yesterday morning marked my third class of bootcamp to get my lazy butt back in shape after a year of nursing broken bones and sprained ankles, because who didn’t have a new year’s resolution that included getting in shape?! 

I’m hiking again and exercising again and it feels great to be out and about again.  And my knee is handling it like a champ . . . the rest of my out-of-shape body is not enjoying the process, but my knee has been great.  That is until yesterday’s bootcamp.  There were two differences between the previous two bootcamps and yesterday’s foray to a better me.  Those differences were the time of day . . . and about 30 degrees.

It was just shy of freezing when I braved the elements with the intention of creating a smaller version of myself . . . it became clear within the first few steps of the warm up lap to the big tree and back that my knee no longer appreciated the cold weather as much as I do. I survived it, no worse for wear (Well, maybe a little – but no worse than the previous classes), but every lunge and squat after the warm-up lap was met with my knee asking the question, ‘is this really such a good idea?’

That is a shame.  The cold morning long runs, before most people were awake, were one of the best parts of the training I did for a few races a few years back.  I’m not going to pretend that the first part of the run didn’t suck.  Bundling up in a ridiculous amount of layers and psyching yourself up to leave your nice warm house wasn’t always the easiest thing to do.  But once you got your first couple miles done, shed a layer or two and warmed up, nothing beat the feeling of freezing air entering your overheated lungs.  Fresh . . . crisp . . . beautiful!

I miss this guy!

 

Now it looks like that feeling may be a thing of the past.

Shortly after I graduated high school a song became pretty popular. It took the speech a person gave at a graduation and put it to music.  While the main issue this person wanted to get across to his audience was another subject, one of the lines was, ‘be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they are gone.’

When that song came along, I liked to believe that I really heard what the person was saying; that I was wise beyond my years and somehow had it all figured out a little more than most of my peers.  Perhaps we all felt that way. All I know, is the older I get, the more I realize that this person’s words, for the most part, just bounced off of my head like most of the advice I was given when I was younger . . . I could have been a lot kinder to my knees.

I guess that no matter how much you try to learn from the mistakes of others, most of the lessons you learn won’t fully be understood until you make the mistake yourself.  All I know is I really do miss my knee and the possibility that I may never experience a 7-mile run in the freezing cold to watch the sun slowly poke over the horizon kind of makes me sad.

Be kind to your knees everyone!

Until next we meet.

What Resolution Should I 'Fake' for 2012

Most people who know me at all know that each year I create a list of goals that I wish to accomplish each year.  I don’t like to call them resolutions because no on keeps resolutions.  One of my favorite musicians has a song where her subject resolves not make a resolution they couldn’t fake.  I like that line a lot.  It is funny because what people typically resolve to do in the new year is unrealistic and broad. If more people chose specific and realistic goals that they could at least ‘fake’, it would be unbelievable how much people could change their lives over time.

When I was 25 I started to take a hard look at my life and I didn’t like the person who was looking back at me. He was complacent and lazy.  He had gotten into a routine and expected his life to continue to improve and grow without having to get out of that routine.  Something had to change. 

The problem with the actions and choices I was making at that time was they were passive.  I was only reacting to the circumstances that I could not control; I was not acting on the things that I could control.  One of the few lines in a movie that came out a few years later said it perfectly, ‘I don’t want to survive. I want to live.’  I was only surviving; I was not living – how sad.

I decided I needed to play a more active role in my life.  There were too many things that I had not done that I thought I would have done by then.  There were too many things that I was continually saying, ‘someday I will do that.’ Thus, I decided that starting in 2005, and continuing each year after that, I would make a list of goals I would accomplish that year.  And I have been relatively successful with these goals for three reasons.

First, I keep them simple and try not to limit myself with the goal.  The first goal I picked for 2005 was to grow a garden.  It is very simple; all I needed to do to be successful with this goal was have a garden in my yard by December 31^st. It didn’t matter how big it was or what kind of plants I grew in the garden.  All that matters, when it comes to doing something new, is that you start. You can improve upon it in the future.

That is not to say you can’t have bigger goals, it is just important to be realistic. Can it be achieved in a single year?  If not, break it up into smaller goals that build on each other. When I turned 30 I wanted to take a trip to Europe, so my goal for the year prior was to save a certain amount of money in my savings account.  Then I followed it up with the goal to plan and execute a trip to Europe.

Second, I don’t beat myself up when I don’t reach a goal. Let’s face it; it’s easy to dream too big even when you believe it is a realistic goal.  The important thing to remember is that it is not when something is done that is important, but rather that it was done.  Too often a person gets down on themselves for failing to achieve a goal in the allotted time and then they give up on that goal altogether.

One year my goal was to read the bible from beginning to end in a single year.  I’m not a very fast reader and I often find myself re-reading the same paragraph two or three times to understand it fully . . . I only made it to Jeremiah.  But rather than thinking I was stupid for thinking I could read the bible in a year and giving up, I made it my goal to read the rest of it the following year. So I read the bible from cover to cover in two years – still a success in my book.

Third, I don’t let my list of goals for the year limit what I do that year, nor do I let it force my hand.  That list was written by the person I am today and would always be the perfect list of goals if life were stationary. But the whole point of these goals is to make sure your life is not stationary (at least it is for me).  If six months from now you look at a goal on your list and decide that you just don’t want to do it; it’s okay to take it off the list.  Likewise, if an opportunity arises that you did not expect, it’s okay to take advantage of it. 

A few years ago the opportunity to purchase my house presented itself.  That was not on my list of goals for that year.  In fact, that opportunity directly prohibited me from achieving one of the goals that was on my list.  Needless to say I took advantage of that opportunity and let go of the original goal.

Finally, the most important thing I do is write them down on a piece of paper.  It is no longer a thought in my head, it is real and tangible.  I can hold it in my hand and it is always there to remind me of the actions I need to take to achieve those goals. Then at the end of the year, I check them off if I completed them or I adjust it into the following year if I didn’t quite get there.  It is a way to hold yourself accountable for your decisions. You can even take it a step further and share your goals with friends and then they will be there to hold you accountable too.

So in the spirit of this last thought, here are my goals for 2012:

• No energy drinks.
• One soda a week
• Lose the 20 pounds I’ve gained since I broke my knee last year
• Write a blog once a week
• Write a Novel in November

This blog is my first of 52 to accomplish the fourth goal.  I felt I have not been writing enough since the practical need to write songs has taken a hiatus. And since a blog is only a diary or a journal unless other people read it, I have decided that I will post a link to each blog on my social networks this year so that people will know that it exists.  I was thoroughly surprised at the interest in my Honest 30 on facebook, so who knows, someone may actually appreciate these musings.

I have written a few in the past so feel free to check them out and the first blog on here explains the reason for the title of my blog site.

So until next we meet.