The Soundtrack of a life, part one.

This is an archived post from my old blog.

Liner notes to The Soundtrack of a Life, Part One

The following is part one of something I'd written (or at least, started to write) some four-plus years ago. I'd compiled a CD (all tracks I own legally, or at least, did at the time) of songs that had some importance to me, and decided to create a liner for the disc with my reasons for including them.

For whatever reason (boredom, ADD, surfing for smut, etc.) I never finished the project.

While going through the hard drive the other day, I found the file, like someone finding a time capsule they'd buried in the backyard as a kid. It was an interesting read (for me, anyway), and I'm just posting it here, not only for posterity, but just in case someone wants to try and understand me better.

So read on, and enjoy. Here's part one. Part two will be posted...sometime.

I’ve always found, whenever I’ve had to write just about anything in my life, the very first sentence is the most difficult to write. The basic concept, the idea more than anything, of what I want to write about, I know in my head and my heart. It’s just those first few words, that opening paragraph, that are impossible to produce.

I suppose it’s something akin to labor, but since I have no cervix for a child to pass through, I can’t honestly make the comparison.

So, now that I’ve composed the opening line and made the first corny joke, I can start with these liner notes. This album is simply entitled “33: The Soundtrack of a Life”. The songs on this album hold some significance to me, whether it be a line, melody or whatever.

I suppose, if you wanted to read deeply into this album, it starts out with quieter, more somber tones and songs, and breaks into a more joyous, upbeat ending, showing the potential for the future and the possibility of a better tomorrow. Personally, I think that’s bullshit, and I should know: If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s spouting bullshit.

The songs on this album are put in this order because they sound like they belong together, and that’s whats important. Music, more than anything I believe, has been very important in my life, perhaps the most important part. Music defines us, shapes us, and shows who we are to the rest of the world.

Of course, if this were true, I feel sorry for the next generation coming into their own now. While I like some of the artists recording today, some of the concepts are far darker than anything we’ve encountered before. Artists like Marilyn Manson and Eminem are showing us the darker side of our world, and while that might not be a bad thing, I kinda worry about those who are listening to it.

It reminds me of an old Non Sequitor cartoon I have. A couple in the fifties are listening to a radio, when she calls out to him and says “Slash, listen! They’re playing our rap!”

But I digress.

Since these are liner notes, I figure you might like to know what’s gone into the decision as to what gets played, why I put song A before song B.

It starts out with John Denver’s Whispering Jesse. When I first created Onestar: 30 Years (a tape I did on my 30th birthday that was the predecessor to this CD), I opened the CD with Queen’s These Are the Days of Our Lives. I changed it to this song because I’ve found this to me introspective. The opening verse, “I often have wondered/In deep contemplation/It seems that the mind runs wild/when you’re all alone/The Way that it could be/The way that it should be…”, sums up so well what I’ve thought about over the past 33 years. I like being introspective, sometimes. I need to search inside me for answers to questions I never thought of.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my mind, thinking about what could…and what should…have been. Given everything, tho, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Well, maybe I’d make sure I had the winning lottery numbers to a 65 Million dollar jackpot, but that’s a trifling little thing.

Annie Lennox’s No More I Love You's, well, there was a point in my life when I got tired of trying to find someone. I’d been dumped more times that I care to admit, and I didn’t want to have to play the game anymore. The title seemed to fit so well.

If there was ever one song that summed up my life perfectly, it’s Jackson Browne’s The Pretender. This is my life, put to music. Pure and Simple. Nothing more need be said.

Willie Nelson sings perhaps the defining version of Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain. Now, I do have a soft spot for Country Music (Please don’t tell anyone). This song has meant many things to me, but more recently, I think it’s reflected the hearts I’ve broken. Yah, me, the heartbreaker. I never meant to do it, but it’s happened, and it’s something I’ve regretted, and it’s also a pain I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. I can only hope that she’ll forgive me someday…I never meant to hurt her so.

Holding Back the Years. Now, Simply Red summed up some interesting points in this song. “I’ve wasted all my tears/wasted all those years”. There is a part of me that can relate to this, although I’ve never felt my life has been wasted, but rather, they do say that they’ll keep “holding on”, something I can understand quite well. I’ll keep holding on to many things, one of them being hope. Remember, Faith Prevails.

End of Part One