Music Makes My World Go Round

In honor of Farm Aid, I thought I'd participate in a meme I came across somewhere out in blogland. The idea is to list the 15 albums that define you in as many minutes.


1) Chuckie's in Love/ Rickie Lee Jones

I adore all of her recordings, but this one is special because it was my first love. I fell hard and fast for her when I was in high school. A couple I babysat for turned me onto her. She's had a lobe of my heart ever since because she's real and raw and gritty.

2) Every single Jack Johnson Album...I simply cannot choose.

Jack just makes me swoon and dream of surfing, or at least moving to Hawaii where life must be so much simpler. I end up falling and staying in love with each one of his songs at some point and time. It's a love affair I share with my hubby. He confessed no less to me the other night, and it makes me love my man all the more.

3) Hits/ Joni Mitchell

Joni speaks to the part of my soul that is a free spirit. I discovered her in college and I've found my way back to her when I've needed her over the years. Her lyrics read like poetry especially River and The Circle Game.

4) The Unforgettable Fire/ U2

It was hard to narrow down a single U2 album, but hands down...this is it. It's the bridge between my youth and my adulthood. Yet, I have never felt again the way I felt when I witnessed Bono belt out One one beautiful night many years ago. That's my #1 U2 song. I have a U2 album or 3 for each decade of my life.

5) Special Beat Service/ The English Beat

I experienced many firsts while this album (yes...album) was on the turn table, and I'll just leave it at that. There's just something about this ska band that I never tire of.

6) Songs in the Attic/ Billy Joel

My Dad used to play this album on Saturdays while we would clean the house. We would all be dusting and belting out Captain Jack. It's still on regular rotation at my house and it will aways remind me of happy times with my Dad.

7) Moondance/ Van Morrison

Moondance was mine and my man's wedding song. It just speaks to my soul...the song, the album, the band, my man. Everyone should own a copy and play it often when mellow or ready to go...happy or blue. Somehow it always fits.

8) Add It Up/ The Violent Femmes

I grew up with The Femmes...please don't judge. Add It Up reminds me of house parties and outdoor festivals and hot summers and cold beers and coming of age. I still own it, but I haven't listened to it in a while.

9) Led Zepplin I, II, III, IV, Houses of the Holy, In Through the Out Door...you get the picture.

In middle school, everyone listened to Zepplin whether you liked them or not. It was the rage. It was cool, and to be 'in' was ultra important at that grueling age. We used to try to manipulate the record to hear "I live for Satan" and I had my first eternal, sweaty slow dance in 7th grade during Stairway to Heaven with Pat. Fool in the Rain is still one of my favorite songs of all time...strange, yet true.

10) Early Indigo Girls

Know all the lyrics, felt so understood even in my angst-filled, ambling post college days, listened to them night and day...day and night.

11) Negotiations and Love Songs/ Paul Simon

This album reminds me of falling in love with my hubby. I first heard it in a little pub in Chicago where we were visiting friends. Trains in the Distance still gets me. Paul Simon will always get me. It's the classic chill album, and every song is decent.

12) Greatest Hits/ James Taylor

This album takes me back to my freshman year in college. I was in a strange place with strange people and a broken heart, but I was trying to be so strong. At night my roomie, a big sophomore, would put this tape (yes, tape) on and we would be lullabied to sleep. I was rightfully soothed into thinking that I would find friends and love again. I saw Paul Taylor many years later in concert and he was charming and captivating. It's still one of my favorite concerts.

13) All REM

Senior Day, 1987...Assembly, SHS auditorium...surrounded by 150 classmates and friends all anxious to graduate...watching a slideshow of our lives to date to the blasting tune of Superman. It was surreal. We were invincible. We had life by the ass and then some. We were going places. Bon Voyage!

14) Labour of Love/ UB40

I'm leaving it at Red Red Wine and Bartels and James and James and Jack and King parties and skinny dipping and clove cigarettes and nothing but nonsense.

15) Songs You Know by Heart/ Jimmy Buffet

Frisby Floor was a welcoming place especially when a little Jimmy was bellowing through the halls. This was a constant in the dorm that we all knew and loved...we all loved to know.

16) The Big Chill Soundtrack

I'm still known to grab a spoon and sing along to Joy to the World or A Natural Woman. Motown speaks to my soul and it reminds me mostly of my Motown loving Momma.

17) Grease Soundtrack

I so badly wanted to be Sandy whenever I heard it....Sandy singing Summer Nights. I was only 9 you know!

18) Many things Bo Deans

They remind me of my hubby and his friends...they were huge fans and groupies, and until it became a major obssession, I was a big fan myself especially of Naked, Beaujolais and Paradise. Funny..this is the only band/record that's made my hasty list that is actually performing at Farm Aid.

19) Various Grateful Dead albums.

I named my dog - one of my college graduation gifts - Cosmic Charlie...so say no more.

20) A Boy Named Charlie Brown/ Vince Guaraldi Trio

Sunday mornings, rainy days, fall nights, quiet times that take me back to being a kid and eagerly anticipating the seasonal showings of Charlie and his clan. Nothing but nostalgia here folks...pure and simple.

21) Colors of the Day/ Judy Collins

This was one of my Dad's favorites. I used to find it haunting as a kid, but once I went to college I was soon on State Street buying my own copy. It's an acquired taste that I find such a comfort. Her remake of The Beetles In My Life brings me to tears every time. That song reminds me of my Aunt who had a soloist play it during her wedding. It was touching.

22) Rapture/ Anita Baker

My Mom and I would belt out...could belt out some major ballads. We never realized that knowing all the words didn't mean you could sing. I still have all of Anita's albums, but I can't listen to them because they turn me into a puddle. I remember driving in the Pumkin with the top down on a beautiful summer's night to hear her play with my momma like it was just yesterday. That makes me happy. That reminds me of the best of my Mom.

23) Every Spyro Gyra album

My Dad introduced me to the band, but I've enjoyed them over the years with many others. They've always been a calmimg presence in my life.

24) House at Pooh Corner/ Kenny Loggins

I discovered this album when I was pregnant for the first time. It's such a beautiful complilation that I still listen to it now that my babies are growing up and older. When I listen to the title track, I can still smell the intoxicating aroma of my T. Bone's newborn head. It takes me back...it always will...and I will always love it.

25) Hysteria/ Def Leppard

Pour Some Sugar on Me takes this girl straight back to the smell of stale beer in soggy, squished dorm rooms. This was on late-night rotation in one of the party rooms most nights: Al's or Christians's or Mark's. At some point, we would rock to it whenever we were all together.

26) That's What Friends Are For/ Johnny Mathis & Denise Williams

I remember my Mom playing this album when I was a little girl after I was in bed for the night. I hated it because...well, just because. I gave her the cd one year for Christmas a few years ago as a peace offering, and then somehow it ended up in my possession eventhough I "hated" it. Then I lost it, and now I hate that it's lost, and I cannot believe I'm admitting that on the www.

27) A Barbara Streisand Christmas Album

Bab's Christmas album was a staple of my childhood and so it also reminds me of holidays spent with my Mom. I don't love it, but I play it often just for that reason.

28) Grover Washington Jr., in general, but the older the better

I find The Best is Yet to Come mesmerizing and Just the Two of Us is the most romantic song I've ever called my own.

29) Reprise: The Very Good Years/ Frank Sinatra

We all love Frank and nothing can beat Fly Me to the Moon no matter your age or time or place.

30) When I Look in Your Eyes/ Diana Krall

Her voice is so soothingly seductive and her lyrics are lulling. I used to sing Popsicle Toes to Miss Bit when she was a baby and all the while I nibbled on her chubby little piggies to the tune of her giggles.

I got a little carried away. You try and stop at 15. I probably could have easily come up with 50. The albums came to me in 15 minutes and then I went back to include the explanations.