Monday Music Mojo: G. Love Reconsidered

It's Monday morning, and back to reality for me.  The Gutsy Dad is back to work after two weeks off (the kids were on vacation during that first week), but I've been working these past two weeks as usual.  It's been awesome to be able to head off to my work obligations leaving the kids in his care.  This past week he did most of the ferrying around to preschool etc as well.  We made a great team.

Now we're back to the regular routine: he is up and gone before dawn.  On good days he is home in time for dinner, and we have more good days than bad.

So.

Did anyone else go through a G. Love & Special Sauce phase in the 90s? Anyone still in that phase?  I feel like G. Love was a good gateway into funky music for those of us who are (were) more staid.  Edgy enough for us to feel, well, edgy listening to it. But not so edgy as to be totally vulgar, offensive, or valorizing guns and the oppression of women. (Pardon me while I step back down from my soapbox.)

Anyway, I've recently rediscovered G. Love (without the sauce). Somehow I missed the 2006 release of his album "Lemonade," which I've been listening to a lot lately, along with his 2011 "Fixin' to Die." As it turns out, he hangs with a few other guys I like: Jack Johnson and Donavon Frankenreiter.  

I really appreciate an artist who can evolve with the years and who can continue to put out good records whatever the genre. Someone who isn't as obviously a creation of the industry.  I wouldn't have predicted it in the 90s, but G. Love seems to be versatile like that.  Here's a sampling of my recent discoveries. You'll notice a huge difference in style between the first two songs and the second two.

In my running mix I've been digging:

Thanks and Praise (featuring Jasper)

Ain't That Right

The kids and I are enjoying these in Jay Jay:

Rainbow (featuring Jack Johnson)

Home

This is a family favorite.  Madelyn requests it in the car when we drive home from preschool.  "Mommy, play my home song!" Then she sings along (in a twang): "I buh-lieve that it's time for me to come home!" This is also my favorite of the videos. (The kids crack up at the chicken at the beginning every time.)

Speaking of home and silly chickens, here's what I get to look forward to when I do come home. Three little chickens, mine all mine.

Monday Music Mojo: Crazy as Me, Standing in My Own Way

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Bronwen was up for hours upon hours last night with a deep, croupy cough.  It was loud and painful-sounding.  Once Bronwen settled, Jillson awoke and vomitted all over our bed, our floor, our bathroom, our toilet.

Today I am still in clothing that is unsuitable for public viewing.  I wore it to the bus stop. 

It is now nearing lunch time, still in said clothing, and I am preoccupied by embarrassing and small thoughts. Why am I not capable of accomplishing what others accomplish? When will I stop longing for more (of everything)? 

I have so many good days that when I have a tricky one I feel totally off-kilter.  Yes, I know I am exhausted.  I know this not only because of last night's escapades, but also because I do not have enough energy to ward off those insidious thoughts which come creeping in whenever I let down my guard.  I start doubting all of our choices. I start thinking the "what if it had been different" thoughts and I start comparing myself, my body, my thoughts, my skills, my kids, my very accomplishments, my husband, my "career," my house, my clothes, my everything to everyone else's.

Comparing is rarely helpful. It's like whining, masked by adult observations. (Amy Sorensen writes beautifully about this here.)  I think it is fair to compare if you need to state what you want, as a means to clarify your goals, as a way to help you get up off your duff. But after that it's just annoying and destructive.  I don't believe in whining or complaining unless you also take action to achieve what you want.

And I have no energy for the latter. Not today.

Don't worry.  I'm sure I'll be back to my happy-go-lucky, enthusiastic, just-go-with-it self by tomorrow, or maybe as soon as this afternoon.  No one needs to worry or talk me off a ledge.  I know that my life is full of many things that are perfect for me. And I know that focusing on what I do have will distract me from my selfish longing for things I do not have.

I'm just having a day of doubts and wanting it to pass.

Now. Because it's Monday, I'm including some songs I've been listening to a lot of late.  If you, too, are having a doubtful day, and need to cry it out, then this song is for you.  Just remember, you've been warned. This song is gorgeous but sad.

I love this part:

I still love what I know

I love to ride alone 

and sing a song 

and listen to the radio

That's some therapy right there.

Alison Krauss, "Crazy as Me."

But because, even on a bad day, I cannot walk away without leaving at least a little shred of optimism behind (you know me), I have another song for you.  This is an old standby which always helps me get up, get over myself, and carry on.  Many of you know this song thanks to Susan Werner, whose performance of it was my battle cry all through college and grad school.  (I'm almost certain I've posted this song to the blog before.) Below you can hear the original artist, Dana Cooper, perform his amazing song.

Dana Cooper, "Standing in My Own Way" 

I love this part: 

Here am I

Questioning where, how, why

Watching my life roll by

I don't want to blow it

EXACTLY.

And that's it. I need to get back to blogging more.  I feel so much better already.

One very good thing today: Bronwen's head smells like rosemary focaccia bread. I have no idea how or why this is happening, but the aroma verges on divine. It's all there: the rosemary, the sea salt, the olive oil.  (Did someone sneak into my house and rub her head with an Aveda product?)  The whole time I have been typing this (standing at the kitchen counter, pretending I am doing house chores), I have been wearing her on my front, leaning in every few sentences to inhale deeply. Aromatherapy; brought to me courtesy of my daughter's magic scalp.

Love,

the GM

Father & Daughter

"I'm gonna stand guard like a postcard of a golden retriever..."

Nothing more than this picture and this song needed to bliss out to today.

Monday Music Mojo: Sweet Pea

A happy little ditty for a Monday morning. Can't believe I haven't posted this one yet.  

For all the cute and tiny produce in your life!

Monday Music Mojo: Save Me, San Fransisco

I have been loving having this song on my running mix. (Yes, that's right, I said running mix. So, yes, that means I am running again! But that is a post for another day.)  

I first heard this song during the cooldown portion of a step class at the Y while hugely preggers with Bronwen. I remember wondering if the lyrics really were what I thought they were, if he was really saying "Won't you save me, San Francisco?" He was. I stood there stretching my limbs in my post-workout, sweaty bliss thinking about just how much San Francisco did "save me" once.

And I've been thinking about it on my runs ever since. Okay, I didn't really need to be saved, per se.  I was not in distress. I was not looking for Jesus. But San Fran did become a part of who I am. As a place it sort of saved, as in preserved, some essential parts of my personality.

For one whole summer during the college years I lived in San Francisco. I was there to take part in the Summer Training Congress, which is an intense acting school at the American Conservatory Theater. 

I learned a lot that summer, inside the classroom and out. 

That summer I became comfortable in my own skin. I could be academic and artsy. I could go to church (Glide!) and a matinee. I could be many things at once. I didn't have to pick. Or justify. 

I think in many ways, before that summer, I felt pressure (maybe self-imposed?) to be one thing or another. To be easily defined. But San Francisco saved me from this sort of thinking. Helped me just to be me. Helped me to really practice what I now seem to preach all the time: people are so much more complicated than our culture's labels try to make them out to be.

Most of all, that summer, I fell in love with San Francisco herself.

I loved my twice daily walks, sometimes with my roommate Stacy, sometimes solo, from our apartment up in North Beach down to the theatre and back. I developed some pretty sweet calf muscles that summer.

I loved my brief daily exchanges with Angelo on these walks. He stood outside his shop: tall, Italian, bald, with a beard and a hoop earring. He always wore a black t-shirt and his beefy, tattooed arms were always crossed over his belly, looking rather thuggish. Ciao, bella! he'd say. Come stai, Angelo? I'd reply. He'd laugh at my giant bag of books. I'd ask him for a restaurant recommendation. Somehow I knew if I ever ran into trouble in San Fran that Angelo would have my back.

I loved lining up on Saturday mornings outside Liguria Bakery, which was just around the corner from my apartment, to get my weekly focaccia fix.

I loved the scenes I did for my classes. I can still recite my Desdemona monologues. I recall crawling across a desk while playing the role of a therapist in a scene from Raised in Captivity.

I loved learning the concept of "yes, and..." in my improv class. I apply this lesson to my parenting style all the time, but that, too, is a post for another day.

I loved pining over the dreamy, cocky, and angst-ridden Clayton, a classmate at the Congress. I filled pages in my journal. I wrote slam poetry about him. I got drunk and flirted with him. I got nowhere.

I loved learning everything under the sun regarding vocal production, diction, and accents. I developed amazing control over my soft palate, my lung capacity, and my spoken voice.

I loved exploring the sights of SF with Stacy. We were excellent tourists together. I also love that Stacy and I have seen each other only twice since that summer, but when we do it is as though no time has elapsed. We are ourselves--our theatre selves--with each other, even though neither of us made it professionally in the acting world.

I loved that there was exactly enough room for everyone there to be whomever they truly were.

So here you go. Enjoy your listen. This is the official video, which is pretty corny. I love the nods to The Graduate, and I laughed out loud at the distinctly San Francisco-ish twist at the end.

Side note: If you watch "Up All Night," then you will know (as I do now) that it is apparently totally uncool to like Train, unless you are doing so in an "ironic way." We all know that I am far more sarcastic than I am ironic, so I guess that makes me, unsurprisingly, totally uncool. Hee! 

Monday Music Mojo: The Little Things & Something Beautiful

Don't worry, although this post starts out pretty heavy, I get my mojo back by the end of it. I wouldn't leave you in a pensive funk on a Monday, would I? If you ask me, Mondays are made for good music.

Last week in church we sang "O God Our Help in Ages Past." This is a classic hymn; it has been around since the early 1700s. It is often sung at weddings and other celebratory occasions, and I just learned from my dad that it is the official "school hymn" of the boarding school where I grew up. (I did not attend said boarding school--I picked a different one--so I wouldn't have known.) It is indeed a stately-sounding hymn. I can see why it is used at formal occasions.

Yet every time I sing it I get chills. And then I usually cry. I think this is because the hymn makes me feel so small, so corporal, so insignificant and powerless facing the grand passage of time.

After all:

A thousand ages in thy sight are like an evening gone;

Short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.

And, worse:

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all our years away;

They fly, forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.

I stood in church last week, choking out the words to that verse, clutching two of my daughters around their shoulders, begging time to stand still, praying that my time here on earth will not in fact be forgotten too quickly. I couldn't even look at the Gutsy Dad, standing there stoically cradling Bronwen in his arms. Why can't we just be timeless?

Most of you know that this anxiety is not new to me. Several months after Jillson was born I went through a spell where I stayed up crying night after night (the gasping "life is so unfair" kind of crying) because I wouldn't--couldn't--be around forever, that there would come a time when I would be gone and my child's life would go on without me. Is this really the way the universe must operate? I've written about it before. 

For now, though, I am mostly at peace with this notion.

Except for when that hymn comes around and I am humbled by my human-ness. What is it about words and music and being in church that is so much more powerful than just words or just music or just being in church? 

I am glad we don't sing all nine verses that Isaac Watts originally wrote. A little googling revealed to me that there are at least two of the older verses (that are no longer in the Episcopal hymnal) that are even more devastating than the ones we do sing. Thank God for editors.

I know. That's enough of the hymn drama.

If you've been reading The Gutsy Mom for a while then you know that my antidote to overwhelming emotions (to anything, really) is to focus on little, everyday things. Okay, truly, my first defense is to make lists, charts, and schedules. If I can plot the way out on a piece of paper, I'm good to go. But if the problem cannot be solved by a checklist, then I go to the little things. I get out the camera and take pictures. I look through a scrapbook. I count my blessings. I revel in teeny, tiny, good things. 

Small joys, added up, equal great happiness.

This little ditty, literally called "The Little Things," came my way via Pandora one night while I was making dinner. The artist is Carlos Bertonatti. Like the hymn above, this song references the way water flows, unstoppable, from one place to another. But he's so damn cheery about it I'm unable to wallow in my self-centered anxiety. Thank you, Carlos.

Then along came Alexi Murdoch and "Something Beautiful." This is just one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. It seemed "pretty nice" to me at first, but there must be something primal going on in this song, because by the end of my first listen I was in love with it. I think the artist sings the main refrain over and over as if to say "I will sing it until you get it, friend." And he certainly has a lovely accent. (Huge thanks to Lindsey for bringing this beautiful piece of music into my life.)

So there you have it. These tunes may not raise your heartrate as much as my usual Monday picks, but perhaps they will be the cure for whatever ails you anyway.

Monday Music Mojo: The Lovecats

Remember this one? Have you ever heard the acoustic version? I think they pull it off quite well.

You're so wonderfully, wonderfully, wonderfully, wonderfully pretty!

Get your iTunes trigger finger ready, though. Frustratingly, this video cuts off the last few seconds of the song, right when you're really feeling the groove. So, to get your true Monday mojo going, you'll want to purchase the song (acoustic or otherwise) from iTunes.

Put it on repeat and GET SOMETHING DONE. 

Have a marvelous Monday!

Love,

The GM

Monday Music Mojo: Fine By Me

Better late than never with today's post. Jillson asked me to teach her how to sing this refrain at dinner tonight. It's got a great pre-RLBT theme:

It's fine by me if you never leave,

and we can live like this forever.

It's fine by me.

Happy Monday, y'all!

Monday Music Mojo: K'Naan's "Wavin' Flag"

A few things: The Gutsy Dad went back to work today (paternity leave over), which means he left the house before 5:00am. My alarm went off at 6:00am, which afforded me just the right amount of time to do the New & Improved (Now With Breastfeeding!) Morning Routine all by myself.

Guess what? All four Gutsy Girls (ages ranging from 2 weeks to 35 years) made it to the bus stop in time to put Miss Jillson on the bus. 

I believe I went above and beyond the call of duty when I showed up wearing actual clothes (no pjs or sweats) and a supportive bra. Ever the optimist, I wore a cute Red Sox t-shirt.

I cannot believe Bronwen is already two weeks old. That was a really fast two weeks. More on this topic later, I'm sure.

Madelyn and I are hanging at home today with Bronnie, catching up on to-dos. Maddie is playing the piano. She hops down periodically, trots over to the sleeping baby, and coos: "wobby nobby lobby baby Bwon-winn..." I have no idea what "wobby nobby lobby" means, only that it is pure Madelyn--her version of "aw, what a cute little baby." She says it A LOT.

Kitchen clean-up this morning was greatly aided by the following song, which I am still listening to on repeat, getting myself stoked up for tonight's episode of The Sing-Off:

Yes, yes I do have a thing for South African music. Love the beat. Love the group singing, the choral-like harmonies, the power this music has to uplift. Apartheid, Coca-Cola, and World Cup soccer issues aside, I just really love a good shout out for freedom. (Makes this song perfect for a dorky, collegiate a cappella anthem, no?) I mean, when was the last time an American pop song helped the USA "come together?" Mm hmm. 

When I get older I will be stronger.

They'll call me freedom just like a wavin' flag. 

So wave your flag. Now wave your flag. And wave your flag.

Today the shameless Gutsies are letting their freak flags fly.

Monday Music Mojo: a song for Maddie

People, for the last three summers, two dear old friends of mine, the Stevenson brothers, have been serenading me and my daughter with a barbershop version of "Paddlin' Madelin' Home."

I was reminded of this by my dad who visited this weekend, and I thought "Why should the Stevenson brothers have all the fun?"  So just today I downloaded the Spike Jones version from iTunes to learn and sing around the house and car and whenever.  (The Bobby Darrin/Johnny Mercer duet also sounded awesome.)  

"Paddlin' Madelin' Home" is from the 1920's, but you can watch a video of a Welkian performance right here.  This is so goofy, I don't even know where to start.

(ps: The mojo must've worked.  Dogs have been bathed, as have I. So what if I forgot to put the garbage out.)

Monday Music Mojo

Staying home from the gym this morning so I can prepare the house for the packers, who come Wednesday.  (Not willing to sacrifice tomorrow's workout, so today's the day.)  So far I've swung by Sonic for the official drink of this pregnancy: diet cranberry limeade.  And now I'm sitting here blogging.  Hm.

So much to share, so little time.  As soon as I post this, I'm locking myself in the storage room until it is ready for the movers.  I have two laundry baskets full of papers and random things that must be dealt with.  Then it's on to the studio.  This may require a fair amount of Dora for the little one.

Anyway, on the ride from preschool to Sonic to home this morning I heard two pieces of music that always inspire, but in different ways.

If you need a little mojo to get your house in order try this one.  (Having trouble embedding videos today--you'll have to go to YouTube and then come back.)  You know I am always a sucker for a happy reggae beat. I love all the different happy people in this video, too.  Madelyn calls this "Papa's song" (we listen in the car a lot) because the lyrics say something like "hey papa, hey papa, close to you..." or something like that.

Or, if you need ramping down instead of ramping up, just sit down, close your eyes, and listen to this one.  I performed this yesterday with my amazing choir at church.  Perfect mother's day anthem, if you ask me.  (I'm also partial because the composer is a Harvard Grad and the piece premiered at Tanglewood, near my old neck of the woods.)

That's it.  Must MOTIVATE.

Love,
The GM