Day 45 - A song that describes you

Wow. Just one song? That's really hard.

If the post asked me to make a playlist that describes me, that would be no problem: I'd make a playlist of the songs that describe what I believe to be major points of my life: Home, Sweet Home Alabama, According to You, Amazing Grace, This is Goodbye, as well as others.

I suppose someone could just look at my iTunes library and see all of the songs that describe me. But probably the one that I want to fit me the most is:

So we're going to just not pay attention to who sings this. I'm not a big fan of her. But someone sent me the lyrics a while back and I thought they were cute. I'd like to think that this song embodies parts of me: snowflakes sing my name, and I try to have my soul find a home in every place that I go. Right now I'm working on figuring out how much I can do, and what heights I can go to in those things.

My ultimate goal is to "climb to the heights of all I can be" and "soar on the hope of marvelous things." I hope I can accomplish it.

Wish me luck!

Day 44 - A song no one would expect you to love

I've gotten a couple of these comments for a couple of different songs. The "Woah! Claire!! You listen to this?" or "Claire - do you actually know who sings this!?" (I notoriously live under a rock when it comes to all things music and pop culture related ...). But here's the most recent one - and one of the songs that I've heard the most surprise over.

I have to admit - I haven't watched the music video. But supposedly this is the clean version, so it can't be too bad, right? Maybe I'm just lying to myself.

In all honesty, I don't really know what drew me to this song. It might be the beat, it might be the repetition. It might be solely because it's something different, something that people wouldn't expect me to like. Who knows? But in any case, I have had a slight obsession with this song for about a month now.

But I'd just like to note, I haven't heard any of her other songs. Nor am I sure that I want to ... if I'm getting this much grief over one of them ....

Day 43 - A song that is a guilty pleasure

I'm sorry. I'm two minutes late. But I have a good excuse: I have done nothing productive all day, then went to the UM hockey game (we won ..) but then had to go out to dinner with my family. So I JUST got back to my dorm room ....

Okay ... well ... as much as I hate to admit this:

I mean, the artist is amazing. Honest and truly. And I think he makes the song speak with loads more meaning than Miley Cyrus does. But the fact that it was originally a Miley Cyrus song makes it a guilty pleasure. That, compounded with the fact that for a while I had a crush on Joe (he looks cute in his older pictures, and he has a British accent) make this song fit the theme for today.

So there it is. My guilty pleasure song. I hope it becomes yours too.

Day 42 - A song from a band you hate

Part of me doesn't even want to taint my blog with a song from this artist. But I guess I have to in the spirit of the blog ... so ... as much as I hate to do this:

I'm not even going to play it to see if the video works. I can't. I can't subject the other people in my room to this. And I enjoy the feeling of NOT having my ears bleed.

I do have to admit - as horrible as she is, and as much of a bad role model as she is, I do think that it is somewhat cool that she filmed part of her newest movie in my old high school. But that's about all that I can give her as far as positivity goes. Here are some of my issues:

• Even when she was filming the movie at our school, she was apparently a major jerk if people wanted an autograph or something. I mean, I'm sorry, but if you plunk yourself down in the middle of Small-Town America, what do you expect??
• I have a problem with her asking Nicholas Sparks to write a book for her. That's just a taboo. She's not THAT cool to have someone write her a book just because she wants it.
• She doesn't act like a role model for the smaller kids who look to her. I mean, she KNOWS that they look to her, but still acts in disrespectful and ... interesting .... ways.
• In my opinion, she really just isn't all that talented. Sure, she's Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter, which gives her a leg up on all of the other people auditioning for parts, but it just doesn't seem fair. There are SO many people that have more talent, but who aren't discovered because they don't have famous people connections.

There are more issues that I have with her, but quite frankly, I just want to end the post. I'm sorry I had to put you through this ...

Day 41 - A song from your favorite band

Quite honestly, I don't have a favorite band. Well, not a "traditional" favorite band. I don't have one specific person or group that I go back to over and over, so instead I can give you my favorite band right now. Or, rather, my favorite artist.

I absolutely love Yo-Yo Ma, and this song has been played so many times since I got it from a friend. And by "so many times," I mean around 50 times, just this week. At least.

The part that starts to get me is around 0:35. The melody coming in is just so beautiful, and organic. I can't help but lose my heart to the story when this part comes. 0:53, though, is my absolute favorite part. It comes up a couple of times during the song, but I always anticipate the first time it is played - the moment just before the note is silent - it is almost as if the cello is hovering over the note- hovering over the last moment that it played, and doesn't want to ruin the silence. But the beautiful silence is filled with even more beautiful music.

Oh my goodness. I think I'm falling in love with classical music.

Day 40 - A song that makes you fall asleep

Let me just put it out there: I heard this song before it because popular because of Twilight. I swear.

For a while, this was the song I would listen to in the car if I wanted to go to sleep, or if I just couldn't get my mind to slow down when I was going to bed. The lullaby really is a lullaby - the soft piano notes can fade into the background of your dreams, and the melody suggests an ending - the gradual tempo reduction lulls the listener into sleep.

I'll be honest - I'm not particularly one for listening to music before bed. Especially songs with lyrics. I find that

1. I always want to sing along to the lyrics, which isn't really conducive to falling asleep
2. One song leads to another (I'm very much like the mouse in If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)
3. Before I know it, it's an hour after I meant to go to bed, and I'm tired the next morning
4. When I DO finally wake up the next morning, I inevitably have the songs that I listened to the night before stuck in my head ....

Most of these aren't really big issues ... except for #4. Some of my friends know that I can NEVER get songs out of my head once they are stuck there. They'll stay there for days. And I'll go crazy, quite literally, trying to get the song out of my head.

But, for some reason, that doesn't happen with River Flows in You. I'm not quite sure why, but I'd rather just leave it at that. I'm afraid that if I try to figure out why it doesn't get stuck in my brain, that it will get stuck in there, and then I don't know what I'd do.

Well, other than go crazy.

Day 39 - A song that you can dance to

Well, the prompt never qualified that I had to be able to dance to it. Just that someone could. And she can.

I want to be able to so badly. I absolutely love ballet, and the Nutcracker is my all-time favourite. I remember when I was younger, I had a DVD of the Nutcracker ballet and would watch it often. I have the entire CD on my iPod, and it's a classic Christmas time viewing.

If only I could be a sugar plum fairy. All I really want is the dress ..... and the ability to dance like they do.