Top 2006 listmania!

I’m a sucker for lists, especially at the end of the year. This is subject to change, but here are a few of my top lists. Feel free to send me suggestions, it’s not an easy thing keeping track of all the movies and music that come out each year! Read more »

Something amazingly beautiful.

Do you remember that scene in Shawshank Redemption when Tim Robbins’s character locks a guard in the bathroom so he could play a record of some lady singing opera over the prison loudspeakers? I remember thinking it was weird that everyone stopped and listened to it like it was something amazingly beautiful. I mean, it was opera in a foreign language, right?

But the right music at the right time, no matter what, is something amazingly beautiful.

I think that’s what happened the other day. I had the best five-hour drive I can remember Sunday afternoon. At the end of the drive, I said, “I think that is the fewest words I’ve ever said to anyone on a road trip that long.” I almost sounded like I was complaining. But my friend’s reply caught me off guard. Maybe because what she said was true and I just hadn’t realized it yet. To sum it up in her words, it was just “chill.” To elaborate, it was the shortest five-hour drive that consisted of two best friends and some amazingly beautiful music. Jimmy Eat World, mind you. We listened to and sang those songs like they were our songs, each and every word meaningful. She was right. We didn’t need to chit chat. Music was enough for us.

As a songwriter, this phenomenon is even more mind-blowing when you take this all in. I haven’t collaborated with many other writers, but as far as my personal process goes, it always starts from where it counts. A song without heart seems like a waste of perfectly good melodies and chords. I’d like to think a good majority of songwriters do write from the heart. This process takes time. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes a year. But the crazy mind-blowing part is knowing that each and every lyric will keep doing its work far after it’s left its origin. That’s an amazing aspect of music. And to me, it’s almost a responsibility that what I may write today will land in someone’s ear five months from now. But I guess I’ve never written for myself. I don’t write to hear myself sing and I don’t expect to make any money out of it. In fact, I think many songwriters blow more money to make music than make money sometimes. But after hearing a few random comments about my music lately, it just reminds me that music is an amazingly beautiful thing and it’s worth it all. Songs that I wrote years ago are now falling upon ears that are greeting my lyrics and my melodies with open arms today. Crazy.

I’m glad to always be a part of this amazingly beautiful thing called music whether I’m screaming the chorus to Jimmy Eat World’s 23 aloud in my car with my best friend or staying up past midnight to find the right chords to finish off that perfect chorus. The best part about it is that everyone is a part of it too.