Month: November 2017

SongLyricSunday 11-26-17 Obsession

One of my all time favorite songs is an only slightly lesser known Indigo Girls masterpiece called “Ghost”. I have been hoping for the perfect Sunday theme and this one is dang close.

I love this song for its message, its beautiful poetry, and the way it highlights the Indigo Girls talents (harmonies, effective musical touches, etc.)

I use this song often in my practice when someone is trying to “get over” someone else. 

And I have used it myself.

I tell you what, if you are that person who can use the act of singing along (loudly and probably in private) to help move through an “ending”, this may be your new song.

Play it at full volume until you know the lyrics! Their use of crescendo alone is enough to energize yourself!!

Enjoy!

Lyrics for Ghost
And the Mississippi’s mighty
But it starts in Minnesota
At a place that you could walk across
With five steps down
And I guess that’s how you started
Like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me
And I start to drown
And there’s not enough room
In this world for my pain
Signals cross and love gets lost
And time passed makes it plain
Of all my demon spirits
I need you the most
I’m in love with your ghost
I’m in love with your ghost
Dark and dangerous like a secret (don’t tell a soul)
That gets whispered in a hush
When I wake the things I dreamed about you (don’t tell a soul)
Last night make me blush
And you kiss me like a lover
Then you sting me like a viper
I go follow to the river
Play your memory like a piper
And I feel it like a sickness
How this love is killing me
I’d walk into the fingers
Of your fire willingly
And dance the edge of sanity
I’ve never been this close
In love with your ghost, ooh
Ooh
Unknowing captor
You never know how much you
Pierce my spirit
But I can’t touch you
Can you hear it
A cry to be free
Oh I’m forever under lock and key
As you pass through me
Now I see your face before me
I would launch a thousand ships
To bring your heart back to my island
As the sand beneath me slips
As I burn up in your presence
And I know now how it feels
To be weakened like Achilles
With you always at my heels
This bitter pill I swallow
Is the silence that I keep
It poisons me I can’t swim free
The river is too deep
Though I’m baptized by your touch
I am no worse than most
In love with your ghost (in love with your ghost)
You are shadowing my dreams
(In love with your ghost)
(In love with your ghost)
 
Artist: Indigo Girls
Album: Rites of Passage
Released: 1992
Genre: Folk-rock

https://helenswordsoflife.com/2017/11/25/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-11-26-17/

IMG_1345

no idea why this is all underlined and highlighted!!

 

HELP!!!?

Thank You

What, by some, would be called the “R” rated version but so powerful.

There is nothing “R” about it unless you count REAL.

This one is “G” in case you prefer.

But it’s the lyrics that are the point anyway….

 

Thank You by Alanis Morissette

Lyrics

How ’bout getting off these antibiotics
How ’bout stopping eating when I’m full up
How ’bout them transparent dangling carrots
How ’bout that ever elusive kudo

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

How ’bout me not blaming you for everything
How ’bout me enjoying the moment for once
How ’bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
How ’bout grieving it all one at a time

Thank you India
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was the moment
I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it
Was the moment I touched down

How ’bout no longer being masochistic
How ’bout remembering your divinity
How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How ’bout not equating death with stopping

Thank you India
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarity
Thank you thank you silence

Written by Alanis Morissette, Glen Ballard • Copyright © The Bicycle Music Company, Universal Music Publishing Group

 

Gratitude 11/21/17

This song was posted on my friend Karuna’s amazing blog. I loved it before and am so glad to be reminded of it.

The song AND video are delightful, all the way to the end.

For some people, I won’t say who (but they are around my age), it may take a whole run through to get hooked on it.

Enjoy!

 

https://livinglearningandlettinggo.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/grateful-a-love-song-to-the-world/comment-page-1/#comment-12602

 

SongLyricSunday 11/19/17 Growing Older

Oh Helen, what a sensitive subject for me these days, as I am really feeling my age.

I asked James what song he thought of when I said “getting old”. Immediately he said  “When I’m 64” by the Beatles. A few years back that would have been my choice also but since that number is behind me, I think I’ll take the opposite approach now.

Personal history of the song I chose. Along with many other therapists, for many years we did a 5-day long immersion-type therapeutic retreat called Experiencing Enough. Originally designed based on the belief that almost every single issue in people’s lives, as well as in the world, can be traced back to the mistaken belief that there just isn’t enough to go around for everyone. Siblings fight over scarcity. Marriages end. Companies fold. Religions compete. And wars are fought over this erroneous idea. (This was back in the 1980’s and 90’s when there still might have been enough. Now I’m not so sure…)

Anyway, one of the main songs we played and sang was Forever Young…to address the idea that there was not enough “time”.

So that is my song choice for this week’s theme. “Forever Young”, written by Bob Dylan.

Now comes the hard choice, whose version of this song?? So many amazing musicians have covered this classic. You can read about it on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Young_(Bob_Dylan_song)

But I have to say, my favorite is still by Joan Baez. Here is an older version (with lyrics)

 

I encourage you to also check out the 2016 YouTube video of a Joan Baez concert called

All Star 75th Birthday Celebration

Joan and many other famous musicians who join her, put on a show that can change the way you look at aging. I found it so inspirational. The video is set up so you can click at the beginnings of each song (and each new performer that joins her), and skip ahead if you wish. Forever Young is the final song. Not the best quality but so worth watching. (Some night when there is nothing on TV if you must.) She is amazing and many of her guests are similar ages, so they are all models for aging with passion and beauty.

Enjoy!

 

IMG_1345

 

https://helenswordsoflife.com/2017/11/18/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-11-19-17/

Veteran’s Day 11/11/17

I guess every generation has its war. For mine, it was Vietnam.

I was so angry about that war and I could not have told you why………other than my well-intentioned, but naive Flower Child commitment to nonviolence.

Even though I could not have justified it with any political understanding, I marched and protested and wrote passionate letters and participated in every way I could think of…believing with my whole being that we could actually stop the war.

Though I lost my innocence back then, as well as many friends, I never lost my belief in pacifism.

It took going to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC some time in the early 1980’s for me to finally be able to make room in my black and white thinking about the Vietnam war. I had never even considered how many of those names on the Wall represented men and women who chose, out of honor and deep-held passions of their own, to fight for our country.

I was still biased, and so angry on that trip. I made pencil etchings of 17 names, “brothers” from my childhood, that had served in Vietnam…but did not make it back home. Each one of them had been drafted.

Now, this print of Lee Teter’s Vietnam Reflections War Memorial Poster sits in the most prominent position in my office/Group Room. Everyone who comes to me for therapy is greeted by this powerful image. Such a small homage to all those we lost, in that war, as well as because of that war.

Vietnam Wall Painting

We didn’t know back then what we know now. So many of us would do it all differently…

especially the welcoming home part….

This is one of my favorite videos ever.

 

I ask for forgiveness for not knowing this back then.

And I dedicate this post, with deep gratitude for their service, to the following people I am blessed to have had in my life. Most, but not all, served during the Vietnam War.

Colonel Louis Ford (Tad)-United States Air Force

Thomas Alvin Bessey-National Guard Mounted Cavalry

Jean McMaster Bessey- US Navy WAVES

Captain Brian Lee Ford-US Air Force

James Fletcher-US Army

Jimmy Schack

Mary Paananen

David Taylor

Joe LaFayette

Eddie Leachman

Ari Cowan

Bret Burkholder

Vince Horan

Saralee Blum

Jim Sorensen

Ron Holst

Michael Adams

Dale Beuning

Colonel James Kowalski

Kirk Boettcher

Mriana Williams

Richard Hartman

James Malone

Shawn Dennis

Colonel James Sampson

Steve Dryden

Don Ulmer

Lou Chirillo

Dave Bartholomew

Jason Bogar

Colonel Bill Head

Captain Roy Gurd

Jerry and Jennifer Niehaus

Carol’s first husband

Lenore’s first husband

(I know I am leaving out some names…so sorry)

PS Sorry I could not get WordPress to work yesterday so this post is a day late…

 

 

 

SongLyricSunday 11-5-17 Theme “FIRE”

https://helenswordsoflife.com/2017/11/04/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-11517-2/

Each week Helen asks us to find a song for the theme she has chosen. It has been so much fun to hear new music and share some older tunes! The theme this week is FIRE!

Right after I thought of Fire and Rain by James Taylor, this song peeked through a psychedelic memory haze….

Just watch the beginning of this video (or the whole thing if you want to see the lyrics) to see how long ago rock musicians started dramatically expressing “darkness” in their music…not unlike so many groups today, but with way less developed sound, sight, stage and special effects!! Back in the 1960’s, this guy was something else!! He could take you on “A Trip” without needing any mind altering substances!

Now watch THIS one. Bless his heart, Arthur Brown is pretty spry for a 75 year old Rocker!!

I found this quote on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Brown_(musician)

“Though Brown has had limited commercial success, he has been a significant influence on a wide range of musicians and artists and due to his operatic vocal style, wild stage persona and concepts, he is considered a pioneer of shock rock and progressive rock and influential on heavy metal music.”

Great theme!