This songs matters to me, because: (your explanation here)

I don't know why this particular song has come to mind. Actually, I do, but the reasons it has are a little too personal for me to post on here right now. Another reason it's come up, though, was hearing a gorgeous live acoustic rendition by the Hollies during a reunion tour several years back.

I've always loved the Crosby, Stills and Nash song Wasted On The Way. For years, I didn't know what the deeper meaning behind the song was; I just liked the melody and the gorgeous harmonies among Graham Nash, Stephen Stills and David Crosby. It took watching VH-1's Legends episode related to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young before I realized what Nash was trying to say.

Some time after watching that Legends episode, I started hanging out on a message board devoted to Chris Beckman from MTV's The Real World: Chicago. I first read about him in Out magazine and was captivated by his looks and his story. He was a recovering alcoholic who chose to battle his problem head on: He talked about it on the show and he even worked at a bar in Chicago. For some reason, Wasted On The Way reminded me of him. Now that years have passed since the show ended, I now realize why: The song seemingly is about someone who has accomplished great things, but wasted a lot of time and opportunities along the way to success. In my mind, that song spoke to the journey.

I originally wanted to dedicate the song to Chris at karaoke (I actually met and hung out with him a few times), but we never ended up going to karaoke while we were in Virginia Beach or Brockton, Mass. Nevertheless, I occasionally sing this song at karaoke. The first night I ever did was in 2002, around the time I first met Chris. It was at my usual karaoke haunts and it was among the last songs of the night.

Earlier in the night, a guy named Brian put in Pearl Jam's Alive, which I loved. Enough to cheer when I saw the song's name appear on the screen, then get up and play air guitar along to Brian's singing. Well, when it came time for me to sing Wasted On The Way, Brian cheered, then joined me on stage, playing air guitar while I was singing. During one of the choruses in Alive, he had me share the mic and sing along with him. When it came time to sing the final line of Wasted On The Way, where CSN sing a more emphatic "carry us," leading to a lengthened "away," Brian joined me at the mic as we sang that closing line.

It remains one of the most meaningful songs in my life...

 

for the love of god, dude, let this thing die.

 

Stop draggin' my heart around, Petty.

 

I bumped this thread because, in about two hours, my mom goes to a cancer center in our hometown for the first of at least six chemotherapy treatments. Cancer was suspected when she had a hysterectomy in late July, but we thought she was in the clear when they told us they got it all out. Alas, we were also told that some very small lesions appeared on her lungs when she had a pre-op CAT scan, and those lesions had grown when she went back six weeks after the surgery.

Turns out her cancer is a very rare form of cancer--a sarcoma--that moved thru the bloodstream to her lungs. The good news, I guess, is that the tumors are still very small...barely large enough to biopsy. She also feels fine and has shown no other signs of illness.

But the cancer is so rare--most doctors never see a case--that nobody knows how she'll fare. Maybe it all goes away and never comes back. Maybe it doesn't.

The thought of my mom, the rock of our family, being laid out flat by chemo--or worse--makes me ache. She's the strongest and best person I'll ever know and I've always thought she was invincible and infallible, even though I knew that was impossible.

I'm almost as worried about my dad, who loves my mom with the power of a million suns and relies on her for everything. He's told us that if she dies, he's going with her. Not what you want to hear, you know? Even if we've all assumed that forever.

My fondness for Night Ranger earns me some well-earned mocking here, but the song "There Is Life" from their newest album "Hole In The Sun" reminds me of my parents as they encounter their biggest challenge in 38 years of marriage. It also reminds me what a wonderful example of true love and faith they have set for my sister and I...one I hope that my wife and I, and my sister and brother-in-law, can one day hope to approximate in our marriages.

And it has also provided me some solace, hope and inspiration. So I'd like to post it here, along with the Gerry Rafferty song "Right Down The Line," which I think perfectly sum up my dad's feelings for my mom.

Everything happens for a reason
Sometimes it's hard and we ask why
But it's never all for nothing
If we have hope then we gotta try

You and me we are forever
Takes a lot to keep love alive
I can't do it all alone
I need you by my side

There is life
This I know
As long as there is love there is life
There is life
This I know
As long as there is love
As long as there is love there is life

Tell me all your secrets
Everything you want to be
We can find our way to somewhere
Where we can be free

Is the world too hard to live in?
Sometimes it can be
But if we find ourselves together
It was all meant to be

There is life
This I know
As long as there's love
There is life
There is life
This I know
As long as there's love
As long as there's love there is life

We don't always know
will this ever end
But you oughta to know
There is life
There is love
Ever after
Ever and after again

There is life
This I know
As long as there's love there is ilfe
There is life
this i know
as long as there's love there is life

There is life
this i know
As long as there's love there is life
This I know
As long as there's love there is life

 

You know I need your love, you got that hold over me
Long as I got your love, you know that I'll never leave
When I wanted you to share my life, I had no doubt in my mind
And it's been you, woman, right down the line

I know how much I lean on you, only you can see
Changes that I've been through, have left their mark on me
You've been as constant as the northern star
The brightest light that shines
It's been you, woman, right down the line

I just wanna say this is my way
Of telling you everything, I could never say before
Yeah this is my way of telling you that everyday, I'm loving you so much more

Cause you believed in me through my darkest night
Put something better inside of me
You brought me into the light
Threw away all those crazy dreams, I put them all behind
And it was you, woman, right down the line

I just wanna say this is my way
Of telling you everything, I could never say before
Yeah this is my way of telling you that everyday, I'm loving you so much more

If I should doubt myself, if I'm losing ground
I won't turn to someone else, they'd only let me down
When I wanted you to share my life, I had no doubt in my mind
And it's been you, woman, right down the line

 

As much as we get on you for your taste in music, I have enormous respect for your personal connection to the songs you've listed.

Cancer is a heartless bitch. I pray for your mother to beat the odds and for the best for your family as you deal with the uncertainty.

 

bookmark

 

So I'm a year late to this thread. Oh well.

The first song that has had a profound effect on me is the song "All-American Girl" by Carrie Underwood. Let me say this: when I came along, my parents weren't even sure if they were going to be able to have kids. They had been married for six years and...nothing. Neither one of my cousins got married on my dad's side, so there is literally no one to carry on my family name.

My dad was way into sports - especially basketball. He played every sport in high school, was on the football and track team at his small college in Kansas. My mom was also extremely skilled in sports. Both of them wanted a boy for the obvious reasons.

Then me came along. I am uncoordinated. I actually made a list of the reasons of why I'm obviously adopted (I like to read more than anyone in my family, my sport of choice in high school was the show choir and musicals, I am literally the only person in my family to not be on a sporting team throughout my entire high school existence, etc.)

I know it couldn't have been a thrill for my dad to have me to parade around. When you're in a family that puts so much value on sports and excelling on the field/court/diamond/whatever, and you know you can't even begin to compete, it's a major letdown. I always felt like I let my dad down because A-I was a girl and B-I couldn't bring the family the kind of honor they wanted to.

I felt like this song, which was on her last album, really exemplified probably what my dad feels about me. I know he's proud of me and that I'm his pride and joy (I am their only kid, after all) but I just feel like he may have been just a little bit more proud of me if I could have been a boy.

I am a decently accomplished piano player. I have played five funerals for various family members for this reason. Every time I play a song for a funeral, that song is retired. I don't play it anymore. That's why I can no longer play "Candle On the Water" by Pete's Dragon (maternal grandmother's funeral....the second funeral that month that I had attended, but I had been too sick at the first one to play), a jazz version of Amazing Grace and What a Wonderful World (great-aunt) and "Think of Me" by Phantom of the Opera (another relative). Easily the worst one for me was the song "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan, that I played at my grandfather's funeral the summer after my senior year of high school. He died on Father's Day (I have such great memories of all of these sentimental holidays) and I learned the song in four days to sing and play at his funeral. To this day, whenever I hear those ASPCA commercials or whatever with the song in the background, I have to mute the TV. I can't deal because it takes me back to the funeral, where some brilliant person put the piano right next to the pew with my entire family in it, and getting up after I finished (barely holding it together) and seeing everyone, including my father (which, once your dad starts crying, it's all over) just bawling.

One of the most trying times for me though was right after my only serious boyfriend I've ever had broke up with me. I was seriously, for a while, seeing wedding bells with him. He was exactly the kind of guy I always saw myself marrying: he was nice, he came from a nice family, our dads did the exact same thing (and even knew each other before we got together....it was weird when we figured THAT one out), I was only six months older than him, he was attractive, he knew how to be a good boyfriend, etc. When he broke up with me, it shattered my world.

And by shattered...I mean, I didn't eat for a week because food made me so nauseated it wouldn't go down. I lost 20 pounds that summer. I stopped sleeping. When I did sleep, I had incredibly disturbing dreams. I eventually actually went into therapy, where they had to put me on an anti-depressant that would help me regulate my sleeping and eating patterns.

I ended up making a playlist full of music that helped me cope with everything. It also helped that I had GREAT friends, who didn't care when I called them, bawling, at 4 in the morning (I rotated it so I wasn't calling the same people every night so they could actually get some sleep). I firmly believe that I would not be here without them because they made me realize what life was worth living for.

Anyway...the songs that I listened to:

"More than a Memory" by Garth Brooks

"Top of the World" by the Dixie Chicks

"Vienna" by Billy Joel

It took me about six months of that before I turned to the angry side of musical betrayal - "Mistaken" by Save Ferris, "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morrisette, "Over You" by Chris Daughtry, "Through With You" by Maroon 5.

 

I can't say I've ever given O.A.R. much of a listen. I could only tell you about "Love and Memories" because I only recently did a search for it on iTunes.

However, the song that's now their biggest hit is a song that now seems to symbolize not only my 2008, but also my life's story.

Needless to say, I'm talking about Shattered (Turn The Car Around). I don't remember where I was when I first heard this song, but I remember being struck by how melodic it sounded and what I caught of the lyrics besides the chorus.

That song grabbed me and took hold of me, and I'd turn it up whenever I heard it. I bought it on iTunes. I made the official video a YouTube favorite until it was removed. I found it was available at the karaoke bar I frequent. Then I started singing it regularly at karaoke. That led me to gain a better appreciation for the song and apply it to my life.

"In a way I need a change from this burnout scene," may imply drug use to some folks. It may mean a great many things. For me, it means the way my life has gone in the weeks before and since I got the ax at work. "Another time, another town, another everything/But it's always back to you." For me, that line talks about trying to make your way and trying to get out of a bad relationship, but finding yourself crawling back because it's safe there. It's comfortable there.

Skipping ahead to the pre-chorus, "but I'm good without ya/Yeah I'm good without you," to me is a statement of defiance. It's my way of telling my former employers "you may have won this round, but this is not over."

More to the point, however, the chorus really hits home: "How many times can I break 'till I shatter/Over the line can't define what I'm after/I always turn the car around/Give me a break let me make my own pattern/All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered/I always turn the car around."

"How many times can I break 'till I shatter" to me obviously speaks to my own sense that I've faced a lot of rough breaks over the years. I keep coming back from adversity, but I have to wonder how many times I can keep doing it. "Over the line can't define what I'm after" gives me a powerful sense of wondering what I'm doing with my life now and how I'm going to get out of this predicament I'm in. "I always turn the car around," to me is about turning my life back to a direction of safety rather than spreading my wings or being able to go somewhere on my own.

"Give me a break, let me make my own pattern" to me is my trying to tell someone in authority to let me set my own path without being lorded over when it's not needed. "All that it takes is some time, but I'm shattered." -- I know I'll heal eventually, but right now, I've got a long road to go.

Skipping ahead to the third chorus, the line "All that I feel is the realness I'm faking," speaks to my trying to put up a brave front for people who don't know me well and knowing that things aren't nearly as good as I've let on. "Taking my time but it's time that I'm wasting," to me is about my efforts in trying to find a better situation, but seeming to hit nothing."

For the last line, "I gotta turn this thing around," sometimes, I'm tempted to sing it as, "I gotta turn this life around."

Needless to say, this was one of the must-sing songs for the last day of 2008 for me. It's one of the most meaningful songs not written by Stevie Nicks that's come into my life in recent memory.

 

Music has always been a very important part of my life. I grew up in a musical household - my mother was a singer who performed on local TV with a band, and two of my sisters followed in her footsteps. Many years later I also became a singer, and I also taught myself how to play the guitar and a couple of other instruments.

But mainly I've just been a fan, and the music was always on when I was growing up, whether it was from my parents' great big huge floor-model stereo that came with a record player, radio AND 8-track player, or from one of the smaller record players that us kids owned. I can remember listening to all the pop hits of the early and mid '70s when they were first hot and fresh. When I was six years old, I was given some money so I could go to the store and do what my sisters had already done - buy a 45 of "Saturday Night" by the Bay City Rollers. It had been just another purchase for them, but it was the first record I ever bought. I played it over and over again....and I still own it.

When I was 17, my parents moved from my hometown to a tiny little village about 10 miles away. I had only ever lived in one house, and now we lived out in the sticks, just far enough away that I felt incredibly isolated from everything and everyone I knew. Our family only had one car and one phone line - no cell phones, no internet - so my access to my old life was pretty seriously limited.

I found a lot of solace in music - my guitar, my records, my tapes and especially the radio.....I spent a lot of time tuning in stations from across southern Ontario and the northeastern United States, and I became even more immersed in pop music than I had been. "American Top 40" with Casey Kasem was a particular favourite. I looked forward to Sunday nights and four hours of counting down the hits. I even started writing down the songs and artists, and pulling for certain songs over others. It was cool when a song I liked would vault up the chart. Conversely, it sucked when a song I disliked would move up, invariably passing something I liked better. I couldn't believe, for instance, that "Causing A Commotion" had to settle for peaking at No. 2 behind "Bad." Bad? Try pathetic. :-X

On Sunday, November 15, 1987, I was taken to the local hospital with what turned out to be a brain aneurysm. I was rushed from there to another hospital in a larger city, where I was ensconsed in the neurological unit. I was woken up regularly throughout the night to be asked questions like if I knew my name and where I was. It was frightening, to say the least; although, being 17, I was trying very hard not to show it.

The doctors decided to not operate right away. After determining I was in no immediate serious danger, they embarked upon a series of tests to see exactly what was happening upstairs. No knife? Awesome. But here's the bad news, Double J - no unnecessary visual or aural stimulation. Meaning no TV.....and no music.

That was tougher on me than anything. There are few things that are more lonely than a spartan hospital room, and, after a year during which I had looked to music for reassurance and comfort, the lack of it was devastating. Visits from my family were nice, but they didn't fill the void. Not even close. I cried myself to sleep every night for a week.

Finally, they told me I could listen to music and watch TV for short periods of time. At last! They couldn't hook up the TV and the radio fast enough. First was the TV, and the music video station. I tuned in during a commercial break, and even that was a welcome sight. The commercials ended, the program came on and the first video started. I hadn't seen it before, but I knew the song. It was a new one from the beautiful Belinda Carlisle - she truly was a sight for sore eyes. The song started....

Ooh baby, do you know what that's worth?
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth
They say in heaven, love comes first
We'll make heaven a place on earth
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth

I'll tell you, it was like water for a man who had been dying of thirst.

Over the next while, as the amount of music and TV I had been allotted continued to increase, so did the popularity of this song, and I heard and saw it often. I was happy to take note as it went right to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, where it belonged.

Eventually I was able to go home (without having to have surgery) and resume a normal life with no lasting effects of the aneurysm. I continued to be an avid listener of pop music, and I started to make friends in my new community while continuing to see my old friends as often as possible. Things got a lot less lonely.

I can't say that "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" was the best song of 1987. I can't say it was my favourite song from that year. But when I hear it come on the radio, every once in a blue moon, I smile and I recall the comfort that it gave me when I was 17 years old, alone in a hospital bed in a strange city, and feeling more alone and scared than usual in a year that had brought more than its share of lonely moments.

 

This entire thread is like a This American Life episode, and I could not be more pleased with the way it turned out.

 

Thanks, Ira.