5 Fandom Friday: Songs That Changed My Life

Music lovers: grab a cup of coffee, this is going to be a long read!

I haven't participated in 5 Fandom Friday in awhile.  I feel like since my last one where I said I wanted to post 5 days a week, life has been nuts and hasn't let me...  Between deaths of friends & family this month, being sick, and getting in the post holiday routine, I've been a mess.  Anyway, I'm posting a 5 Fandom Friday today && it's a great one!

Music.  Music is everything.  One of my favorite quotes is from the movie "Across the Universe".  JoJo says "Music's the only thing that makes sense anymore.  Play it loud enough and it keeps the demons at bay".  I think that sums up music pretty perfectly.

Now I can sit here and drive myself absolutely bonkers analyzing && stressing to come up with the perfect list of 5 songs that changed my life.  I can't do that.  I just can't.  There are SO MANY songs that have changed my life from Buddy Holly, to The Beatles, to Pink Floyd, to Tori Amos, to Incubus, to even MCR...

I used to joke that I'd rather go blind than deaf because I can't imagine a world without music.  Now that I have eye problems and I AM going blind, that's not so funny anymore, but you get the point.  Music has been there for me since I was a little girl obsessed with Buddy Holly.  Seriously.  All my friends were listening to New Kids On The Block, and I was jamming out to a 1950s rock rebel from Lubbock, Texas.  I watched "The Buddy Holly Story" starring Gary Busey every single day of my childhood.  Before I could even read.  One day I told my mom that I was going to see Buddy when I was old enough to go to concerts.  She was speechless.  See... what I didn't know is that at the end of the movie, Buddy died in an airplane crash.  They don't show that in the movie.  They only tell you in text on the screen.  I couldn't read, and I didn't know.  It never occurred to mom that I missed that.  So she sadly explained to me the ending of the movie.  The ending to his life.  I was devastated.  I bawled for my first music love.  I cried for his pregnant wife, who unfortunately miscarried not long after the crash.  Mind you... this all happened about 23 years before I was born.  This is just a little example of how deep my passion for music runs.

So as you can see, to analyze and pick only 5 songs that changed my life would be impossible.  I'd feel like I was cheating on anyone that didn't make the top 5.  I'd make myself crazy...

Instead I picked 5 Songs that I listened to obsessively during pivotal moments in my life.  Songs that not necessarily changed my life, but helped me through events that changed my life.

||1} Tori Amos, God: Tori Amos was a HUGE part of my teenage years.  This red head siren was literally the first woman I ever loved [in a non-family way lol].  Her haunting voice, and the intimacy she has with her piano captivated me.  I was a pianist myself and she was my Goddess.  When my mother died I was in a dark place.  I was 17 when she died from a sudden illness [it only took 6 days].  Naturally I turned to Tori and this song in particular was what I listened to.  With lyrics like, "God sometimes you just don't come through..." it pretty much summed up how I was feeling.

||2} APC, Judith: I am and always will be in love with Maynard James Keenan.  That voice of his... hypnotizes me.  The song Judith is about Maynard's mother.  He had a hard time accepting her death [as I did with my mother].  I won't go into his story here, but I relate.  It's been almost 15 years since my mom died, so I'm obviously in a healthier state of grief.  I miss her every single day, but it doesn't consume me like it did.  However, every April 22nd, the anniversary of her death, I tend to hole up by myself and blast some Judith.

||3} Evans Blue, Over: We've all had that one breakup in our life that seriously [excuse my language] fucked us up.  You know what I'm talking about.  The breakup that turns you into this shell of a person.  The breakup that when you look back on, you say "why?" when you reflect on how much it effected you.  Because NOW you know that it obviously wasn't worth it, and your life is SO much better without that person in it.  I almost laugh when I look back on that relationship & breakup.  It's funny how love can make you blind to someone who's truly a sociopath and incredibly unhealthy for you to be around.  Well going through THAT breakup was hard on me at the time.  I think honestly the main reason it was so hard for me, was it was the first time I had been dumped.  I was always the "dumper".  Anyway, the ENTIRE Evans Blue album "The Melody and the Energetic Nature of Volume" got me through that breakup.  I chose "Over" because it was one of my favorites.  I still love this album and I recommend it to ANYONE going through a breakup.  Both the studio original release and the later released acoustic version of the album.  I've included both versions of the song for you because I couldn't pick between the two.

||4} Jem, Falling For You: Ahhh onto a HAPPIER time.  With every breakup comes the excitement of the next relationship.  However, fear always peeks in at this time as well.  Right after the above mentioned breakup, came the greatest love I've ever known.  I listened to this song A LOT at the start of this relationship.  We were friends that didn't live in the same city && it gradually turned into something REAL.  This song captured all the emotion of being scared to give someone your heart again.

||5} Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: This song embodies what immediately came from the previous song && feelings.  That moment when you decide you can't deny yourself possible true love out of fear.  You have to risk it all.  You can't "fear love".  To me not only is that what this is about, it's also about not stifling ANY emotion.  The relationship I spoke of in the last song, I'm happy to say is still going strong 7 years later.  This person has all of me.  Mind, body, and soul.  Everything is on the table.  It's a true love with no fear or reservation.  We are 100% ourselves with each other, and we're the best of ourselves together.  Best friends & lovers.