Pond Hopper

Song from the Mastercard 'Road Trip' ads

I've updated my music section with the song from the Mastercard ad (in the UK anyway - not sure about anywhere else) that shows a couple on a road trip while playing a a beautiful song.  The minute I heard it - I had to find it.  Wayne spent quite a while searching the internet for it one day and finally found the artist's MySpace page.  The song is by Fink and it's called This is the thing.  I spent a good amount of time looking to buy it and was finally able to buy it on iTunes (click here to buy your own copy).  It's a really great song and since I had such trouble finding it, I thought I share it - Click here to listen...

New Music Added

I've updated my music area with a new song.  This week's choice is Hide & Seek by Imogen Heap.  I heard it during the pilot of the TV Show 'Smith' which they just started playing in the UK. I was instantly struck by it.  It's the kind of song that just evokes emotion (what ever the emotion may be).  It's a unique and beautiful sound that just takes hold of you and stop what your doing to listen.  Feel free to let me know what you think...
Click here to listen  Note: If the music breaks up when you start the player, pause it the song, give it 30 seconds to load and click play again.  Requires Flash.

Run

I just heard a live version of 'Run' by Snow Patrol. It's a song that means a lot to Wayne and I. I guess it would be 'Our Song' (that and 'Your body is a wonderland' but that's another kind of entry). He sent it to me while we were still going through our long distance relationship. I won't soon forget the first time I listened to it with tears streaming down my face (both because I was so happy he felt that way and because I couldn't believe how well the song described what we were going through). Today, as I listened to it - I cried once again thinking about what it was like all those times that we had to say goodbye -not wanting to let him go in fear that I might not see him again. Long distance relationships are so hard and I can't help but feel blessed that we made it through (I've been trough one that was painfully unsuccessful). But three years on and we're together and happy. Three years on and my favorite part of the day is still going to sleep with him each night -I can't describe the feeling of contentment, security and happiness it gives me curling up to sleep with him. We are so lucky.
Since we made the decision to move back to the States, I've been caught up in the stress and worry of what's involved in such a move and trying to figure out if it's something we should really do -forgetting how far we've come. Listening to that song has really put it in perspective for me. As scary as it is to take the risk of starting over again -I know we'll be okay.
I've updated my song section with Run. Click here to listen...

First Day of my life

I've been horribly uninspired lately. I haven't blogged regularly in forever. I go through these phases like this sometimes. They’re usually associated with some level of homesickness. I was going to write last week on my two year anniversary of moving here, but never bothered to try to sit down and try to find my voice. The thing is that when I don’t blog, I feel more detached and I end up wondering why I’ve stopped in the first place.
I heard a song recently that I liked so much, I stopped what I was doing, bought it and downloaded it. Today, I played it again for the first time since then. I’m playing it now over and over because I don’t know how else to hold on to the effect it's had on me sitting here listening to it. It’s called ‘The first day of my life’ by Bright Eyes and every time I hear it, it takes me someplace and I just love how music can do that.
This song invokes so much emotion when I hear it. Every time it’s something new and different times and people flash through my head – whether it’s two kids on a park bench laughing, talking and enjoying the simplicity of the moment or a couple of newly weds running into the sea in the middle of a late night rain storm – it reminds me of being happy and in love. It’s beautiful, hopeful and honest about when you fall in love, you sometimes forget who you were before that moment and life seems to start again.
Playing it again, I can’t help but think about how it was when Wayne and I met. Before that - I felt so disenchanted, tired and broken and I was really losing hope that things would ever change - then there he was and everything changed and as the song says, I felt like I just woke up.
Click here to listen to The First Day of My Life

The soundtrack of our lives...

I'm listening to my radio station from back home (as I do in the morning before either starting my work for the day or going to the gym). Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield just came on and I instantly blasted it (I know that makes me a geek, but I never claimed to be cool). Now that's a song I KNOW I wouldn't hear on BBC Radio One and that's why I keep coming back to this station. I hear this song and it makes me think of any number of things - dancing and singing into my hairbrush as a child, laughing with my first love as we admitted to each other we both loved it and singing along with my friends as it played at my favorite bar when I got older... It's a song that is just a part of my life's history and has to be played loud :-)
Music can invoke feelings that nothing else can. It can actually transport you back in time to a place that was long forgotten before you heard that song. It can give you happy memories that can actually make you laugh out loud or bring you to tears remembering something that was painful. What ever the case, music really is the soundtrack of our lives and that's why I listen to this station - it gives me the comfort of familiarity I don't get living in a foreign country.
Right now they are playing a song called 'One Thing' by Finger Eleven and again, I'm taken back in time to the months before making this move. I don't know what the song is really about, but to me it was about the risk I was taking moving here to England to be with Wayne. Some lyrics are 'If I traded it all, if I gave it all away for one thing - just for one thing - wouldn't that be something...' I'd hear the song, turn it all the way up and instantly tear up, overwhelmed with emotion - feeling scared, excited, happy and sad all at once. Listening to it now has made me tear up again just remembering how it felt.
I'm choosing this song as my song of the week because it has touched me in such a way and in the end, helped me stay strong and focused. If you've ever had to sacrifice anything to find happiness - this song will touch you too...
Listen to this week's song

Don't have much to say...

I don't have a lot to say lately. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because the weather lately is making me feel like crap. It's been cooler this week with heavy down-pours at least once a day for about a week now and it's reeking havoc on my arthritis. I sound like I'm 80 don't I?
Anyway, since I don't have a lot to say and this week seems to be flying by - I thought I'd update my songs section with this week's song.
I don't think this week's song has made it to the US yet, so it just may be new to those of you that visit from America...
Listen to this week's song

Song of the week - Week 14 (song 2)

Today, I've decided to add a second song to my song of the week. On the 24th of August in 1992, I lost a dear friend. A few days before he died, we were out at a bar/restaurant when a song came on that reminded me of someone I didn't want to think about. I said, I hate this song; it reminds me of... My friend saw the pain on my face when I said it and made it his mission to protect me from the song ever hurting me again (he made it his mission to protect me from most things when ever possible). He said, 'Not anymore' and began singing it at the top of his lungs right there in the middle of the crowed restaurant. He wasn't a very good singer and he knew it, but it didn't stop him - he just stood there and sang (at times laughing through the lyrics). It was one of the sweetest things anyone ever did for me and now when I hear it - I smile (sometimes through my tears, but I still smile all the same).
Each year on this day, I play that song as a tribute to him. So today, I thought it was fitting I added a second song to my song of the week.
Listen to this weeks song(s)...

Song of the week - Week 14 (song 1)

I got a really wonderful email yesterday that inspired this week's song. When I hear it, it always makes me smile and now more than ever - for me, it tells a beautiful story...
Listen to this week's song

Chasing Cars

While in Ireland, my husband and I were relaxing in our room listening to the new Snow Patrol CD when the song 'Chasing Cars' came on. He told me that a friend said it was the best song ever written. I thought, that's quite a statement - 'The best song ever written'. There are a lot of great songs. I don't think I could ever pick just one, so it made me want to listen to the song more closely. I listened to it and it's an absolutely beautiful song and I can find parts of it that I can relate to on so many levels not only now with my husband, but with other times of my life as well. It's a touching powerful song about being in love, but the person who said it was the best song ever written, to my knowledge, has never been really been in love or in any meaningful relationship. When I listen to this song, I can't help to wonder what it makes him think of to warrant being the best song ever written. I wonder if there is a part of him that we don't know - a part of him he keeps hidden because a song like that would have to remind him of something beautiful to mean that much to him. Or could it be that the song reminds him of what he wants, but has never had?
Just the thought of that being the case, makes me sad when I hear it knowing that he has never known love, but it also reminds me of how lucky I am to know the meaning of such lyrics. Some people wait their whole lives for something that can bring meaning to Chasing Cars. How did I get so lucky to not only have it now, but to have had it once before? Maybe that's why I can't look back on past love of as a bad thing just because it ended. I have to look back on it as a fortuitous and precious thing because there are so many people out there waiting for it to happen to them.
It's because of all this that I've chosen to update my song of the week section (more like song of the month these days) click the link above to listen to Chasing Cars...

Song of the week - Week 13

I have finally updated my song of the week section. I have purposely waited until this song was released to update because I loved the song from the minute I heard it! If you're visiting this site from the US, it's well worth listening to because I doubt (although I could be wrong) has made it over there. The singer/song writer is only 19 and he's quite the talent! I'm already a fan and I'm really hoping he does well!