Q417 Songs

I haven’t kept up well on my blog. It is my final semester of grad school. I’m also taking a screenwriting class on campus.

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I’m occupying my time in other ways, but sometimes, when I’m sitting at my computer any way, I think, I’ll blog again. Blogging is my first draft, my unedited writing. It is my journal that I share.

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Music was such a part of 2017 for me: so therapeutic, such an escape. I have never worn headphones like I did in 2017, which is to say all the time.

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This girl at the high school I teach poetry at has been revising a poem for years: a poem about why she wears headphones. The four second pause between songs is when her mind screams at her, “Listen, listen!” and the negative self-speak revs back up, deafens her. It is only while her music is on that her mind quiets itself.

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“That’s really cool,” I said, then I found myself saying it again, “that’s really cool.” I just repeated it again and again. She had found words for something I hadn’t and that is what is so beautiful about art: there is room for all of us to contribute, to inspire one another, to discover ourselves through each other.

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So for the final quarter of 2017, here are some of the songs I geeked out to. Some of the songs that drowned out my negative self-speak. My new tunes, if you will.

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The Long Day is Over – Norah Jones
Cannonball – ZZ Ward
Her Life – Two Feet
Broken – Lund
Gooey – Glass Animals
I Can’t Go On Without You – Kaleo
Monsters – Ruelle
Beggin For Thread – Banks
Like That – Bea Miller
Down – Marian Hill
The Blues Man – Hank Williams Jr.
Here We Go Again – Ray Charles ft. Norah Jones
Havana – Camila Cabello
A Pirate Looks at Forty – Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds, and Jack Johnson

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