mid-week music.

As you may have gathered from a few of my recent posts, my decisions have left me a little floundering of late. I know I've made the right choice and things will work out but right now I'm feeling a bit lost and anxious. Where do I turn for direction? For all the really big things it's truly my religion and beliefs that keep me going. It's the essence of who I am and what I do. But sometimes faith needs a little nudge and an emotional pick-me-up and so I turn to the arts. Books, music, paintings, and such just fill a necessary space in my soul. My current reading will be a near-future post but today you get some music.

In the middle of all my moving chaos I failed to report back on the Frank Turner concert.  Let's just say it was everything I needed. Aside from his potty mouth, which I can always do without, he's a fantastic performer with great audience rapport and an absolutely charming British accent!  I thought I'd share my favorite of his songs, the one that first introduced me to him and one that sort of sums up my wandering feelings of late.

Isn't he darling? I kind of want to eat him up.

And then another ode to the wanderer with a refrain I've caught myself singing over and over again like a melodic mantra.

It's obviously got a very political bend to it but I think the idea that we don't really know where our lives will take us is an important one.  I've spent a lot of time thinking I could plan what would happen and where I will go next and how things will turn out but other than knowing the direction I'm moving at this exact moment in time I really don't have any idea what life has in store for me. I can only fall back on the aforementioned faith and hope that everything will turn out the way it's supposed to (and as long as I'm moving and trying my best I completely believe that it will!)

some mid-week music.

In an effort to stave off the soggy emotions I alluded to yesterday I have been filling the rare empty silences with what I like to call 'angry' music.  Melodies with thumping basses and screamed lyrics that keep me pumped up and ready to tackle everything.  Frank Turner's been on constant rotation (that's also to get me prepped for his concert in a couple of weeks) and these guys have gotten a lot of airtime as well.  But I think the winners of the week are the Dropkick Murphys.  They've been around for years and this is one of their signature songs. Hope it gives you the gumption to power through the rest of your Wednesday!

new music.

Lest you think only 2 friends bellied up in the latest swap I wanted to share my favorite (for now) tunes from the additional 3 mixes I've received the last few weeks.

Two are a bit bluesy though in completely different ways. First up:

This isn't the best quality and it doesn't sound quite as earthy as the version I got but you get the idea.

Next:

Have I mentioned that banjos make me swoon? And his voice doesn't really help that condition. I pretty much have to sit down when I listen to this.

And finally, this guy. He's shown up before and my dear friend K has sung his praises profusely. I've loved this song since the moment I first heard it but as is my pathetic habit these days I didn't bother to see what else he's done. (My ADD tendencies don't cooperate with this new musical technology of having so many choices in so many places. I tend to flit from song to song rather than absorbing an album or artist like I used to.)  Lesson learned. I love him. The end.

Can't wait to see what our June swap brings!