Do you need something lovely and charming today? Me too. Meet Nataly Dawn of Pamplemousse. (Ahhh..I feel better already!)

I’ve just invited Nataly to do a One Q Interview or Artist’s Guest Post with us. So if you like her tunes, please let her know in the comments (just in case she stops by to scope us out.)

Cheers!
-R

for more info about *8Things click here.

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to take the girls to hear THE band that shaped our youth. U2 was playing in Cardiff, so we hopped on a plane and worshipped with Bono, “the boys play rock and roll,” and 70,000 Welshmen. At one point, my budding musician Eden dropped the binoculars, leaned over to me and shouted, “Mommy! The Edge is running and he’s still playing the guitar! He is amazing!” Then I looked down at Catie in her U2 cap shouting at the top of her lungs, “Hello, Hello! Hola!” and thought, this might be heaven. 

Singing “Where the Streets Have no Name” with all those lovely Britts, or shouting with Bono “women of the future hold the big revelations”  — well — I just can’t get enough of it really. I’m a junkie. Being in the presence of all that Big Music was Good Medicine. And it made me think, what are the *8 Songs that Shaped Your Life? I know, it’s a big list. So here are some suggestions for narrowing it down, along with my answers:

1. First Song on the *8Track: “Take me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver. This was one of our driving tunes for the many MANY Summers we spent on the open road.

2. Song that Most Reminds me Of my Childhood Home: “Dock of the Bay” by Ottis Redding. My dad still loves this song. He gave it to me on cassette when I went to college, and I’m learning to play it on the guitar for him now.

3. First Dance: “Shake it Up” by the Cars. I was 13 years old and I dance with Jessie at my cousin’s birthday party in “The Lodge” at their Summer house.

4. Our Song: “Have I Told You” by Van Morrsion. Paul’s not a big dancer. But if they play this at a wedding he’ll waltz me around a little.

5. Define Your Decade: “American Pie” by Don McClean. I was born in ‘69, tho I’ve always thought I would have been better served if I’d come of age in that decade. This song is so iconic (it came out in 1971).

6. Class of _____. We didn’t have prom at my religious school so no theme song there. I guess that’s why “Footloose” holds a special place in my heart.

7. First Album You Owned: No rock music was allowed in my house, so I that would make the “Indigo Girl’s” self-titled freshmen effort my first ever album. Listening to it was like  “I just got a letter to my soul.”

8. First Live Performance: When I was about 10, I donned my long Gunnysack dress and my Dad took me to see  “Annie” in San Francisco. I taught Eden to sing “Together at Last” when she was 4!

Other ideas to shape your *8Things list: campfire songs, lullabies, wedding songs, first kareoke tune…. What’s your *8Things: Musical History list? Put the short version in the comments or grab a button and play along. Thanks for being here.

New Option: Do you *8Things as a Living Social list on Facebook. Click here.

You might also like:

Ask Magpie: Musical Influences (podcast)
*8Things: Songs for the Soul
*8Things: Songs for Spring
*8Things: Songs I Need to Breathe

Hello Loves,

As you may know I am single parenting and leaving today(!) on a six-week Friends-and-Family tour of the U.S. — our first time “home” in a year and a half! Thus, the slow blogging. I’m hoping to get the next DO LESS installment up on Choosing the Essentials. But the essentials may mean that’s a 3-hour writing session might be non-essential for one more week. We’ll see. Stay Tuned.

Hopefully this week’s *8Things will tide you over, because its a good one in that it requires both a little creativity AND  ya’ll will be a great resource to each other if you complete it. (Filling up the Giant Pool of Wisdom one bucket full of goodness at a time!)

In the comments on a recent Ask Magpie, Bethany of Coffee-Stained Clarity asked:

Church music used to be a very important part of my relationship with God, and not just music we sang at church but worship CDs and music I would play on my instruments. However, I’ve been a little shocked to find over the past year that this music has lost all relevance for me. Only one or two of the songs in our church’s entire repertoire mean anything to me, and the rest are just a matter for endurance. My question: Is music still a part of your spirituality, and if so, how does it apply? Have you found a way to bring it with you into the uncharted regions of the map?

I have written a little bit about how things stopped working over here, and I’d like to write more about that shift someday. … I figure this is a challenge not only for those of us in various stages of Leaving (or re-forming) Church, but also for folks who aren’t in an organized religion but who find a spiritual connection through music. (approx. one kazillion souls)

So, what *8 Songs connect you to the Divine? Songs that aren’t classically “religious” or “church music” but create a harmonic bridge to all things holy. Songs that soothe the soul. Songs that encourage and shore you up. Songs that connect you to something bigger and beyond, or more deeply and truly to the here/now. What songs are just Good Medicine? Do tell…and if you have time link us to online versions and youtube videos, just for fun. Here’s my list of *8 Songs for the Soul.

1. I Don’t Want to Waste Your Time, Over the Rhine from The Trumpet Child: this song is good medicine when I need some strengthening tonic in order to step out of the fray of various kinds of arguments, or to move through religious power struggles.

2. We Crawl, Polyphone Spree  from The Fragile Army: Small is beautiful, and “we’re better together.” D’accord?

3. Gravity,  John Mayer from Continuum. I know, I know. I’m a manic fan.  But he’s a brilliant songwriter, he’s really open about his artistic journey, and he’s a top notch guitarist. This song keeps me anchored when times are hard. I listened to it on repeat every night when we first moved here and every day in February. “Just keep me where the light is.”

4.  Ubi Caritas, Taize Chant: “Where there is love, there is God.” These are very much religious songs, but I find them to be accessible and touching, even though I trends toward the heretical. Many Taize songs are in Latin, a ‘dead’ language in that no one uses it as their common tongue — and thus is belongs to no one people group, and therefore can be commonly owned by all. Taize songs are sung on repeat by the congregants, with a solo line in voice or instrument carrying over the top. This symbolizes the reality that somewhere in the world, there are always people praying — so the prayer of the many (the congregant chants) supports the prayer of the one (the solo), and the prayer of the one enhances the prayer of the many. Last week when I was boo-hooing in church, I sang it out loud, even though it was only meant to be background for the offeratory. Thankfully the professional opera singer in front of me smiled benevolently and joined in.  Taize chants  convey universal truths that are helpful on many spiritual adventures.

5. Yahweh, U2 from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. It’s hard to feel jaded around Bono and the Boys. When the girls were toddlers we had a rule, no one gets out of the car until Yahweh is done playing. Many a minute was spent in the  driveway listening to baby lisps sing “Take dis soul stwanded in some skin and bones, take dis soul and make it sing.” And as I transitioned out of organized religion, so full of anger and loss, I held on to these words with both hands:  ” Take these hands teach them what to carry, take these hands, don’t make a fist. Take this mouth, so quick to criticize, take this mouth give it a kiss.”  There’s always pain before the child is born, but there’s also an ocean of love. Hold on.

8. Breathe In, Breathe Out, Matt Kearney. My housemate Sharon has a t-shirt that says “Breathe In, Breathe Out. Repeat.” It’s ridiculous how many times I need to be reminded to do that. This dreamy little song hooks me back up to that reality when things get panicky.

7. Bold as Love, Jimmy Hendrix via John Mayer, Where the Light Is (Live). Poetic lyrics, passionate instrumentation, and the best sermon I’ve ever heard smack dab in the middle. “I’vedone everything in my life that I want to do except just give and receive love for my living.  And I don’t mean Hollywood, roman candle, hot pink love…I mean like I’ve GOT YOUR BACK love! So I’m gonna experiment with this love thing…giving love, receiving love. I know it sounds really corny but it’s the last thing I’ve got to check out, before I check out. Take me to the chorus, cuz I’m Bold as Love.” Can I get a witness?

6. Coming Up Easy, Paolo Nutini from Sunny Side Up. Most of the lyrics on this song are on Paolo’s main and most annoying theme – which is something like:  ”wow you smell good and I love you like a rock, but also…um…also there are a LOT of women out there.” This is the downside of being a little bit brilliant and a little bit 22-and-male. None the less, the closing refrain of this new song rocks me to my socks. “It was in love I was created and in love is how I hope I die.” Amen to that, my randy little brutha.

What are your *8Songs for the Soul? Grab a button and play along, or put your list in the comments below.

(The singing on this fast and dirty podcast is much louder than the speaking. Be prepared to turn down the volume! Consider your self warned.)

Listen to the podcast here:

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I am young. Young enough to hold my father’s hand. The church is a little dim, the wood of the pews being so dark, the carpet such a deep red. Our pastor—part-grandfather, part-judge— is on the dais, his robes resplendently white, the gold of his stole glinting. He moves like an alchemist at the altar using, words, and rites, and gestures to turn ordinary things into talismans.

There is an electric organ, badly played, and an upright piano. We sing choruses before the liturgy, simple songs newly written by hippies with guitars picks. My father loves these simple songs, just a few phrase on repeat until they sink into your soul. He raises his hands to the sky, a stand out amongst the stiffness.

“Jesus, I just want to Thank You.
Jesus, I just want to Thay-ank You.
Jesus, I just want to Thank You.
Thank you for being so good.”

We unhinge our jaws. We loose our tongues. We the ordinary people of the everyday – we take on the task of angels. We sing. 

Now comes the hymns, both awkward and resplendent with age. An elderly woman with a thin, high voice warbles enthusiastically behind me. We are staid people, we Lutherans, and no inclined to showmanship. But some hymns are robust: 

“Holy, holy, holy!  All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.”

My mother’s hands rest on the hymnal.  Her lacquered nails are bright against the brown nougahyde cover. They are long and cool and smooth. I love to stroke them when there is no singing and the service lingers on. I do not care for the spoken words: long scripture passage read aloud, the drone of the sermon. But the songs, the psalms, the hymnody-these charm me. I am utterly in their thrall. Spellbound. The Latin is like an incantation. We make our confession in a magic tongue:

 ”Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison, Eleison…”

Finally, it is time to chant my favorite part of the liturgy, and we turn to the Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s Song.

“Lord lettest now Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy Word.
For mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation, which Thou hast prepared before
the face of all people.
A Light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.
We praise Thee. We bless Thee. We worship Thee.
We glorify Thee. We give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory.
Amen.”

Years later, when decades of rock and roll have filled my ears and the chants of my childhood have long been set aside, a tragedy comes to our door. Our first child is still born, a little boy a not much longer than my husband’s hand, which holds him on my chest. The diagnosis came before the birth. No abdominal wall. No chest wall. A spine bent and misshapen. We have had time to prepare, and my heart rushes back to those long Sundays in the dim red womb of the chapel. My tongue finds the old songs. We baptize our son in the way of my childhood, the long-established liturgy our guide in this unknown and frightening terrain. Simeon, we name him. Once more we sing the song… 

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My thanks to Jamie Ridler of Starshyne Productions for submitting “How has music influenced you?” as an Ask Magpie question.

Now it’s your turn! How has music influenced you over your lifetime? Tell us in the comments, or add the link to your post.

Ask Magpie is featured (some) Wednesdays and depends on your inquiring mind. “Ask me a question, I’ll tell you no lies!” Thanks for being here.

The Danes are being nice on the street; as I walk around the lake all the puppies are extra frisky;and I actually feel like writing again! Oh, the sun is out!

This playlist got me through Winter (juuuuuust barely), and now it’s time for a new one. Here’s *8 Songs for Spring.

1. The second track from my buddy Iz Button’s (sadly unavailable) second album.
“As long as I keep everything where it can be see, the colorless lull of death won’t bother me.” How awesome is that advice…?

2. He Will Come (lyrics only), Waterdeep.
“Soon it will be hammered into what she calls her silly head, that she really isn’t silly but she’s beautiful instead.” I need to hear that almost every day. You?

3. Child of the Wind, Bruce Cockburn
“There’s roads, and there’s roads and they call, can’t you hear it? Roads of the earth and roads of the spirit. The best roads of all, are the one’s that aren’t certain. One of those is where you find me tell they drop the big curtain.” Such muscianship! Such a treat.

4. Magnicifent, U2 (of course)
“I was born, I was born to be with you in this space and time…only love can leave such a mark, pnly love can heal such a scar…I was born, I was born to sing for you…”

5. Alphabeat: Fascination
You may know this band from the Diet Coke Commericals, but don’t let that stop you. These Danes are just darling — and 3 out of 5 are named “Anders” — what’s not to love? Long Live Power Pop!

6. Röyksopp: Happy Up Here
Trippy and happy rarely go hand in hand, but Röyksopp has got it DOWN.

7. Vampire Weekend: A Punk
Just once, I would like to be this Brittish and this cool.

8. Susan Boyle, I Dreamed A Dream.
If this doesn’t move you, you might want to check to see if you run on batteries.

What are your *8 Songs for Spring? Drop some suggestions in the comments below, or grab a button and play along.

For more about *8Things, click here.

Today at BlogHer I’m writing about two amazing women who listened to their hearts and experienced what seem like miracles.

It’s lead me to realize that the songs my own heart sings to me are not as broad of scope, nor as dramatic in impact. But they have certainly changed my life, and the lives of others. Often my heart’s messages have been as compelling as a siren’s song – I could no sooner have ignored them as I could have stopped breathing. But right now, in this era, my heart seems to be humming lightly under her breath, and I cannot quite catch the tune.

When the song of my heart is faint, I need to remember the big Broadway choruses she has already belted out. So here, in no particular order, are *8 Songs My Heart Sings.

1. Take this child into your heart.
2. Cultivate this community.
3. Leave behind what no longer functions.
4. Make space for this sensitive soul, she will help you heal your own.
5. Be well. Be well. Be Well.
6. Make a big change.
7. Write, and write, and write some more.
8. Commit to cut, color, andpaste.

What song is your heart singing to you? It’s okay if you don’t have all the lyrics. Whatever line is ear-worming through your head is fine, just fine…

A dreamboard with milagros from Artchix Studios and lyrics from The Decemberists The fortune cookie paper at the top says, “Your curiosity may mean your success.’

Update 5/08: After making this dreamboard I started guitar lessons and sang this in front of a live audience (sans guitar.) Yeah me!

Over at Suzie’s Sacred Space, Miss Suze has once again invited people to make a Dreamboard. Using the Full Moon as a reason to focus, and images and colors as a means to communicate, people join Suzie every month to make their dreams a little more concrete and to offer them up to — well– to God/ess, The Universe, their own internal strength and Divinity…(It’s flexible…you get the idea.)

This is my first dreamboard, made on the only painfree afternoon I’ve had in a fortnight. Realistically, I should have made something envisioning health. But instead I followed The Muse deep into my six month obsession with the lyrics of a song–determined that, somehow, I Was Meant for the Stage.

I don’t know precisely what this means, but I am very curious. Is it as simple as my newfound longing to sing and play at some small open mic for my 40th birthday? Or is it more subtle — maybe something about teaching and preaching again someday? I’m not sure.

All I know is that when I watch Alanis impart wisdom to the crowds, I weep at the wonder of it. And when I speak into my microrecorder for some tiny podcast, my heart soars. And that in addition to my longing to write, and write, and write some more; another lover stands patiently in the shadows. He looks like a mic-stand and a stool, and the dimmed lights of a room full of listeners. And in my better moments, when the pain and strain of day to day life makes way for dreaming and vision, I know in that strange clear stillness, that “I was born to raise these hands with quite all around me.”

So here it is, for what it’s worth, for God and the Universe. Amen, may it be so.

What are you dreaming into reality? Write it in the comments below, or make a dreamboard and link us up to it. Watch for an interview with Suzie this Monday or next in my weekly column at BlogHer.com.

It’s been a long week folks: migraine, insomnia, a lack of writing time, homesickness. On weeks like this, hell, on just one day like this, I need a fistful of these tunes to keep me where the light is. You can watch them all in a row here (except for Hothouse Flowers, which I couldn’t find.) I hope one or two of them give you sustenance and joy this weekend.

Do you have a song that gets you through the tough spots? Got a list of *8 over at your place? Link ‘em in the comments, pretty please!

1) Gravity, John Mayer

2) These Streets, Paolo Nutini
(brought to me by Dreamer Girl)

3) Yahweh, U2

4) Strange and Beautiful, Aqualung

5) It Will Be Easier in the Morning, Hothouse Flowers

6) Light and Day, Polyphonic Spree

7) I Was Meant for the Stage, The Decemberists

8) We Crawl, Polyphonic Spree

Other *8: about, I Believe

After a certain age, you just aren’t musically hip anymore, you know? I’m still trucking out my Indigo Girl’s CD’s and Paul has an embarrassing penchant for all things George Michael. When the clothing of your New Wave youth show up in 80’s vintage shops and as Target knock off’s (leggings anyone?) you know you’ve crested over the hill.

Still, I need new tunes. So I did something my teenaged self would never sink to — I Googled all the TV shows I like that have good music. And what do you know? I found some good stuff. Here’s my recs for this week:

Ingrid Michaelson (Grey’s Anatomy and theOld Navy.)
Her solemnly perky little tune (The Way I Am) about giving her love her sweater is just so …catchy. You can’t download it on the subscription service from Zune, but maybe you can download it from ITunes or pick it up here.

Iron and Wine (Grey’s Anatomy)
Okay, I am SO in love. This is a songwriter dream – beautiful lyric and moody tunes for the grey season. My favorite line from “Love and Some Verses” is “Love is a skirt you made long to cover your knees. ” I’m not sure I know what that means, but I’m pretty sure I need to carry it around on a little scrap of paper in my wallet. Find your favorite lyric Our Endless Numbered Days“>here.

Will Dailey (CSI: New York) Why is Gary Sinise suddenly playing the bass in a NYC club? Who knows, and as long as he’s on stage with Will Dailey’s gritty, folksy voice, who cares? The single Rise (which also appears on Back Flipping Forward) is well worth the purchase.

Feist (Ipod commercial) 1,2,3,4…how many times have you seen the new IPOD ad? Not enough to find out who the quirky little gal is dancing on the new screen. Welcome to Feist and the 1234 single off “The Reminder”. Maybe she and Ingrid could do a little duet together? Buy “The Reminder” here.

What tunes are catching your ear lately?

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Loudon Wainwright III
Strange Weirdos: Music from and Inspired by the Film Knocked Up

Paul and I are one of those couples who stay in the movie theatre until all the credits have run. We got into this habit because the kids always think there is going to be some funny little extra at the end of the latest feature length cartoon if you just wait long enough. (Remember when Ferris Bueller would tell you all to go home if you hung around long enough after the movie?) But even when the kids aren’t with us we hang around so we can find out who performed what songs in the movie. It’s a great way to find new music to love.

This madness of this method lead us to discover a beautiful song at the end of Knocked Up (a sleeper hit of a movie– but that’s for another review). The tune that plays over the credit is Daughter from Loudon Wainwright’sStrange Wierdos. I instantly fell in love with this sweet tune, which seemed to be written just for my daughter Eden. I snagged the whole album and was presently surprised to find that I liked most of the songs on the rest of the album CD well. Grey is LA captures the zietgiest of the area perfectly; X or Y is a funny take on the random nature of babymaking; the honkytonk vibe of Feel so Good will get your toes tapping, and Valley Morning is just…nice. All the tunes have that nice storytelling aspect that can only come from a practiced singer-songwriter — are rare gift in this radio pop world. Check ‘em out and let me know what you think.

Today’s Flavor: Folk pop meets the honkytonk blues